USS Constitution’s GunPort Covers

PART A. The GunPort Covers. See the photos. They were attached yesterday, after the previous post’s pics were taken.

Magnified photos show warts and all. Like crooked gunport covers, gappy bulwark rail, bent channels. and a long gun which is aiming very low.!

The photo setup… black background, natural light, some telephoto. Gunport covers are in place. Looks OK from this distance?
The gunport covers supplied by Mamoli are soft metal. The originals were thick painted wood. I imagine that they had separate round covers to block the central hole in rough weather. I quite like the soft grey colour, so will not paint them. But the wooden anchor bar needs some metal bands painted on.
The plans for the barge davits had only single ropes, and the ropes for the blocks which attached to the boat were tied to shroud deadeyes. I could find no authoratative reference regarding these details. But I did note that Constitution currently has davits which are hinged, and when the pins are removed the davits are bent, moving the boat away from the hull and towards the water. I thought the boat crew could assist with the lowering using the tackle which is hooked to the boat, so I ended the ropes onto the boat. Rope coils will be added.
Rope coils will be added to the belaying pins also. I ran out of the Mamoli supplied belaying pins and purchased 40 new ones which are the same length, but thinner and shinier. The shiny ones will tarnish eventually.

I have mulled regarding the carronade ropes. My intention is to install breech ropes, just winding them around the carronade knobs. The carronades are mounted on carriages with recoil slides built in. So the breech ropes can be fairly short. Installing gun positioning blocks and tackle will be overly fiddly, difficult at the scale, and look too crowded on the model so they will be left out.

PART B. The Case.

I have vacillated about this. Already the model has accumulated more dust than I like, and I know from experience that the longer the dust remains the harder it is to clean off. So a transparent cover is required.

Glass is heavy and dangerous if it breaks. Dangerous to personnel and the model.

Polycarbonate is very strong, but expensive, and apparently scratches easily if incorrectly cleaned.

Acrylic is less expensive (roughly half the cost of polycarbonate), less tough than polycarbonate (not bullet proof, but this is Oz not USA), and slightly less transparent. But on balance seems the best option.

The design has been given considerable thought and research. I drew up plans using acrylic, fluted corner columns, wooden base and framed acrylic. Then the problem was solved from a different source.

SWMBO said…”it needs to be simple, and not compete with the ship. So just a plain glass box.” So that was that. Except that it will be acrylic not glass. My thought is that the walls and roof will be 4.5mm acrylic, glued together, and lifted on and off the base in one piece. The base will be thick black plywood with rubber feet. Sitting on top of the plywood will be some 10mm black gloss acrylic. I have used black acrylic layered with black painted plywood on another model (cannon), and it looks good. If I decide to add some LED’s and batteries, the thick plywood base could house the batteries and wires.

Just to show the black acrylic layered on top of painted plywood. I quite like the appearance but maybe customwood would give a smoother appearance than ply. Or maybe I should use 2 layers of black acrylic and hang the expense. The build of the 1866 Armstrong 80pr rifled muzzle loader was posted 5 years ago on johnsmachines.com.

Next decision, will I make it myself, of get it made professionally? Not yet decided. I like to have control of the process, and supervise the quality control, and it would be less expensive. Also I could buy sheets of acrylic, enough to do the 3 or 4 ship models in my possession and planned. (I have 2 model ships which I bought recently, so I can give one to each daughter eventually. And I intend to assemble the model of Pharaoh Khufu’s ship.