Ratlines

One week and one day until Thanksgiving break!  We plan on going to Athens early on Saturday morning for mini-Thanksgiving and birthday party for Bambudder.

We had a pretty good weekend. Saturday we kind of puttered around the house. Mom worked on the closet in the master bedroom, while I did some straightening downstairs. I also did some work on "the ship".

We went to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch. We were not impressed. The service was pretty good, and the food was okay. (We were not all that impressed with the teriyaki chicken sauce - too much ginger.) But what turned us off was the noise. This is definitely a sports grill, and they had twelve large screen TVs in the room all with a different sports events running. Just think Papa Joe not having to flip through the channels while watching a ballgame because all the channels are already up on their own separate TV!  The was loud music playing in the background, and there appeared to be nothing in the room to absorb the sound of the fairly large crowd they had in there. Talk about sensory overload. I won't say we would never go back, but it is pretty far down the list on restaurants we go to. (We can get pretty good wings at Applebees and be able to talk to each other over the table.) Just not our cup of Pepsi.

+Joanne Turek went to see Thor: The Dark World with one of her teacher friends. She really enjoyed it. I went home and worked on "the ship" and put away the few groceries we bought at Target (aka Nani's store.) Turns out that I should have gone to the movie. Everything I did on the ship looked bad, so I ended up cutting it out and doing it over again.

Sunday we had the sister missionaries over for lunch, and then went with them on an appointment to teach Pablo and Juan. As you can guess, they are hispanic, and the good news was that we had Sister Monterosso from Guatemala with us. The bad news was that most (but not all) of the discussion was in Spanish. They do have a return appointment, so I hope it will work out. Maybe they can get Bro Arce to go with them.

Constitution build log - ratlines 

Grandma Lola, Grandpa Ed
Matthew and Kira
Little Rock, ca 1983

Before I get started, I found a picture with the old model I built back in the late 70's. If you look at the upper righthand corner you will see the USS Constitution almost in the picture. (The ship in the upper left is the Cutty Sark.) Grandpa Ed and Grandma Lola are holding +Kira Turek   and Matt.

 So last update I had the shrouds installed. The shrouds are the mostly-vertical lines that keep the masts from falling over the side, or falling forward. Here is the foremast with the shrouds installed before the ratlines have been added.

Ratlines, pronounced "rattlin's", are lengths of thin line tied between the shrouds of a sailing ship to form a ladder. Here is a picture of the real thing, and you can see the shrouds and ratlines in the background.

Preformed ratlines and shrouds

Here are the shrouds and ratlines that came with the model. Everything is perfectly spaced, but the shrouds are the same size as the ratlines. On the real deal, the shrouds are 9" in diameter and ratlines are about 1". That is why I decided to make them myself.






To get them on the model evenly, you must create a template to go by. The real things are 13-15" apart, which comes out to about 0.014 inches on the model. Now you can get out a ruler and carfully measure out about 50 lines 0.014 inches apart on a piece of paper, OR go into MS Word, create a table with one column wide by 50 rows, with a custom row height of 0.014 inches, and print it out. Voila! instant template :-)

I tried to tie the individual ratlines to each stay, but ol' shaky hands did not cooperate, so I ended up just gluing each line on with Elmers glue. The other part of the project is to add the futtock shrouds. They can be seen on the real ship to the left. I had to create the rings at the bottom of the shrouds out of 26 gauge brass wire by wrapping it around a kabob skewer. They are a little larger than scale, but that is the way it goes. This is the piece I tried to do while Mom was at the movies and had to rip it back out. The second attempt came out better, but still isn't as clean as I would like it to be. I am going to try a slight variation on the install when I do the foremast.




So here is the mainmast with ratlines and futtock shrouds installed. Now I get to do the whole thing over again on the fore- and mizzenmast.

Jury Duty

Tuesday, I had the opportunity to answer a summons for jury duty in the court of common pleas (civil court). I reported as instructed a 9am at the Moss Justice Center in York. I had to go through an airport style security check, except they do not allow any electronic devices. Oh my! I will have to read something that is actually printed on paper!.

A representative from the county clerks office came in and told us all the rules about who we can talk to, how we find out if we are needed the next day, where we could eat, and what was going to happen. The judge was a circuit court judge from Spartanburg rather than a local judge so they weren't quite sure how he liked to do things. After a short break at 10, they came in and said roll call would take place in the jury waiting area, rather than the court room, but we would have to wait until the attorneys in the case came down. So we waited. And waited. Then around 1130 they gathered everyone together and told us we were released, thank you for your service. That was it. I was a little disappointed. I am not sure I really wanted to be on a jury, but I would have at least liked to have seen the selection process. So I went home.

USS Constitution build log

I have all the shroud lines tied down, the fore-, main-, mizzen stays installed. I also added the spritsail yard lifts and braces to stabilize the yard arm on the bowsprit, even though that is supposed to wait until last to rig. I added the netting to the railings on the tops and installed them. I may have to adjust the tension on some of the shrouds and stays, but that is yet to be seen. The next challenge is installing the ratlines. those are the "rungs" of the rope ladders installed on the shrouds that the sailors use to climb the masts.With my shaky hands this might be a problem.

Nov 8:  Shrouds installed but not tied down

Nov 12:. Shrouds tied down and stays installed.
Rails installed on tops.

Nov 12: Another picture with better light.
The spritsail yard braces and lifts rigged in light
colored thread can be seen.

USS Constitution after recent refit in approximately the same
configuration as the model.

Foremast shrouds installed. Starting on Main mast

Lower fore-, main-, and mizzenmasts are in place. Bowsprit with spritsail yard and martingale booms (aka dolphin strikers) have also been installed. Shrouds have been installed on the bowsprit and foremast and started on the mainmast. Other than the shrouds on the bowsprit, I have left them untied and untrimmed until all the standing rigging is installed so they can be adjusted if necessary. The masts have not been glued into the ship, so the rigging is holding them in place as it would on the real ship.

Nov 1, 2013

USS Constitution build log 3

Chains, anchors, and deadeyes have been installed.  
(The chains are attached to small platforms called channels built on the side of the hull of a ship used to assist in the practice of depth sounding. They are also where the deadeyes are attached that adjust the tension of the shrouds that hold the masts vertical. The fuselage... I mean hull... is pretty much finished.

Below are the chains on real Constitution. It is the platform between the row of guns on the gun (lower) deck and the spar (upper) deck. Deadeyes can be seen between the gun ports on the spar deck.

 Now I have to start on the masts!!!

("Pickering, this is going to be ghastly!")

Oct 27, 2013

USS Constitution build log 2

Fast-forward 11 days. The spar deck (top deck on the Constitution) has been installed. The 32-pound caronnonades have been installed on their carriages and breech lines rigged. Even though these guns shot a

heavier 32 pound ball, they were smaller and lighter than the great guns, were less accurate, and had a shorter range. They were for close up fighting. The big guns are on the lower deck to keep the center of gravity low so the ship would not tend to capsize. Boats have been painted, assembled, and lashed in place. Inside the boats you can see the oars lashed to the seats, ready for use.

Also, the ships wheel is installed (it really turns the rudder), as is the capstan, fife rails, hatch gratings, and belay pin rails. If you look closely at the top of the bulwarks, you will see “U” shaped stanchions running the length of the ship with a fine netting modeled. This is made from black “tule” from the bridal section of Hobby Lobby. Think of trying to glue a spider web to the ship. Those alone took a week to install, but I like the way they look. The cat heads (large timbers near the front of the ship that will eventually hold the raised anchors) are in. If you look closely you will see the “carved” image of a cat face on the end of the timber. I printed that out and glued it in place. Here is the picture of the real thing.

Oct 6 2013

USS Constitution build log 1

Dad and I

I actually started on this model of USS Constitution about a month ago. I was inspired to do it after our summer trip to Maine and Boston with Grandpa Ed. While in Boston we visited the USS Constitution, the oldest commissioned naval vessel afloat. (Lord Nelson’s HMS Victory, still commissioned in the Royal Navy,  is 30 years older, but has been in dry dock since 1922.) I had built this particular model a couple of times before, the last time while stationed at Little Rock AFB in the mid-1970s. It represents Constitution as she looked during the War of 1812 and is based on a model at the Smithsonian. The current Constitution has some things that have been changed over the years, but they are working on getting it back to the way it looked in 1812.

Dad and 32-pound carronade
Aft spar deck, USS Constitution

I found the model at Amazon.com and ordered it. After I got it, I spent about a week getting things like paint, brushes, glue, etc. I used to have a lot of this stuff, but it had been decades since I had used it, and the old stuff was lost, dried up, or the wrong color.

First I had to do a lot of painting. Unpainted plastic looks like plastic even if it is the right color, so pretty much everything gets a coat of paint.

The hull got a coat of flat black paint, and then was allowed to dry overnight. Next I had to tape off the area for the white gun streak down the side and spray paint it and let it dry overnight. Then re-tape it to spray paint the copper plated bottom.  I also had to paint the decorative carvings on the beak head (bow) and transom (stern) of the ship. My famous hand tremor made this a challenge. It didn't 
come off great, but it came off okay. The inside of the hull next to the gun deck (bulwarks) had to be painted white, and the bulwarks around the spar deck (top deck) are green.

Gun deck completed

All 54 guns had to be hand painted gun metal color, and all the gun carriages had to be painted red. In addition, I wanted a little additional detail so I hand-made eye bolts for the 30 24-lb great guns on the gun deck out of 26 gauge wire (2 per gun) so the breech lines that contain the guns recoil when firing looked better. A lot of effort for a gun deck you can’t see when the model is finished. (I would use over 100 of the hand-made eye bolts on the ship to replace most of the supplied plastic ones. They look better and are not prone to break like the plastic ones can.)

The decks were spray painted flat black, allowed to dry, and then painted tan. Then I took some fine grit sandpaper, and sanded the decks so the wood grain molded into the plastic showed as black through the tan top coat of paint. I also took an X-Acto knife and scribed each of the caulk lines through the paint so you could see the individual deck planks. Then everything got a coat of flat varnish to even out the look and to remove any gloss left from the tan paint.

Gun Deck, USS Constitution

When the picture was taken on 16 October, the hull has been glued together with the rudder and steering rigging has been installed, and the gun deck is in place. The bulkheads for the captain’s cabin have been painted and installed. I even printed out tiny paintings and glued them on the wall in the captain’s cabin. Another detail you can barely see through the windows in the transom. The gun port lids have been glued in place and rigged with a piece of thread representing the rope that would be used to hold the port open. The 24 pound great guns have been assembled and glued in place, and breech lines have been installed on each of them. (24-pound canon fired a ball that weighed 24 pounds. They could also shoot pieces of chain to cut rigging or a canister of musket balls to make a monster shotgun. The canons themselves weight about 2.5 tons, and without the breech line would hurl themselves 20-30 yards on recoil.) I left two guns out at the very front of the ship. It is doubtful guns would have been installed there as it would have very difficult to work those guns that close the next set. If they needed to shoot forward, they would have moved guns into those ports.