Painting Constitution.

by John

I have reached the point in constructing USS Constitution that the hull needs to be painted or varnished, particularly the exposed deck. When the masts and rigging are installed any painting of deck features will be almost impossible.

The original ship was mainly painted black, with white highlights, and some red-brown items. I have decided, with encouragement from SWMBO, to mainly use the natural wood colours for the hull and deck, but maybe using red-brown for the gun carriages, and white and gold and black for some small features.

The Mamoli model is not an exact scale model of the original. And I did not aim to make a model to “exact” scale, or to exactly the original colours. In fact, my aim is to make a model reasonably based on the Constitution, which will be an interesting and attractive display in our home.

The hull has had wood grain filler applied, and 2 coats of satin polyurethrane to all surfaces except the copper sheathing. Still contemplating whether to coat the copper.

Here are some shots of the current stage.

The stand is temporary. The rudder is fitted, but with a long rod which will eventually be replaced with small pins. The satin walnut external planking polyurethrane will probably be rubbed back with steel wool and oil after it is well hardened. That is a method which SWMBO has often used on furniture which I have made.
I rather like the pale colour of the decking. I have seen the bulwarks painted red brown in other Constitution models, and if I should decide to follow that tradition, the polyurethrane can be top coated with a water based paint. But that is unlikely.
Now I can start gluing on parts such as the name plate, stars, stern eagle, and prow.

This model has 50 guns! There are 30 on the gun deck, 18 carronades on the top deck, and 2 long guns on the top deck. The long gun barrels are quite nicely cast metal with a bronze finish. But the bore was only a few mm deep. So I did a boring job….

Despite the bronze appearance, the long gun barrels are made of a softish metal, and were quite gummy to drill. I used plenty of oil, and frequent withdrawals to stop the swarf from clogging up the 2mm drill bit. Using my little Emco lathe. Not so soft that the 3 jaw chuck left any marks.