Friday, June 18th, 2025: Still trying to figure out the davits. In the 1856 painting of the ship by Tamoso de Simone, the quarter-boat davits are depicted without the boat in them. Still, it's not much more than a silhouette. They appear fully arched, or nearly so. There' no indication that they extend below the channel to bace against the hull, so I assume there must be some sort of brace to the bulwark that not depicted in the image. So I went purly with the silhouette, and printed it. It didn't print well. I print four and two failed completely. What I got was enough to see how it looked.

Relative to the painting, they look right; I just wish I could find a real example of this style, even on other ships. Constellation had very different styles of davits by the time photography came along.

19th: Made and installed the portside spray-screen tarpaulin. Laced it up to the frame and gave both sides a coat of paint, inside and out. It's pretty much done now, except , of course, for touch-up painting every-where. The sheer runs the full length of the boat now.

The next thing is puting in the iron braces for the pin-rails, which will be brass strip. I tried doing one and putting it in place was maddening, and I didn't manage to do it. I'll have to make a tool of some sort to hold onto it while I CA them in.

21st-22nd: For a change-of-pace, I decided to paint the 3D printed crew figure I had. I didn't have any white, black, or blue, so I didn't get far. I did have half-a-dozen or so skin-tones, so I just painted hands and faces. That alone made a big difference in them, but today the paint I ordered arrived and they got white pants, blue jackets, and light blue flaps. I still to order more paint for various hair colors, and things like buckets and casks. Even Ivan got a new look, and I think I'll leave him clean-shaven this time, since so many of the other fellows have facial hair.

23rd: The rest of the figures I have were painted as far along as I have colors for. More paint should arrive tomorrow and everyone will get haircuts and beards trimmed. 24th: Everyone now has hair, and buckets, cask, pistol grip, handles, etc. There's some touch-up to do, which will cause more touch-up, and so on. I also made a black crewman, there'll be some more, but I have to print more figures.
Ivan got a white shirt with a light-blue front like the "American Tar."

~28th: I modified the files of three figures; two "walking" figures got straw-hats, and I swapped head and implements on the Rammer fellow, to make a sponger holding his sponge upright, instead of at port-arms. Meanwhile, I printed a batch of "stock figures," but of 11, only 7 came out. I started a batch of the figures I modded, which printed fine, except the hat brims were too thing and didn't turn out. I cut donuts from plain paper and brushed resin from the printer on them, then zapped them with UV making new hat-brims.

This batch of crew will be getting white jumpers.

Using the poor print of a davit from earlier, and some chipboard, I worked out a brace for the davits that seemed likely. I made a new "block" portion, with a ring at the tip for the line or chain that linked the davits. We'll see how, and if, it turns out in 4 hours.

29th: More like 6 hours because the printer wasn't doing anything for 2 hous before I noticed. Anyway, I think they do the job. When it's time to do the job, I'll drill the bottoms for brass pins that'll go through the channel

29th: More like 6 hours because the printer wasn't doing anything for 2 hous before I noticed. Anyway, I think they do the job. When it's time to do the job, I'll drill the bottoms for brass pins that'll go through the channel

30th: The second batch of crew is painted, but for some touch-up. The ship's getting quite busy.

July 17th: I made templates for the head gratings from chipboard, scanned it, and made a 3D model. At first I was going to install beams at each of the frames inside the head, but the bowsprint prevent anything from going all the way across. Instead, I'm going to install cleats along the frames at the bottom of the spray sceen, and on the hull on either side of the bowsprit, to act a ledges for the gratings to sit on. I want them removable, in case I need to dust and clean under them, so I'll probably use magnets to hold them in place. The whole head is a bit asymmetrical, so each grating is a little different than the other.

The slicer says they'll take nearly 4 hours to print, so I'll get them started when I get home in a couple of days.

20th-26th: Printed the head-gratings for a trial fit. I need to install the cleats for it to sit on to see if they fit properly.
I installed the cleats, clamps, ledgers, whatever, and the printed gratings did not fit well, so I made new templates, and remodeled the gratings. While they printed I painted in the head and rebuilt the gammoning iron (not in picture).
These gratings did fit, but kept trying to curl, so I glued a wood beam along the long end to prevent that, and primed them.

29th-31st: Getting back to the rub-rails, from page 40, that I got diverted from so long ago...
In the 1856 portrait of the ship, there are three definate rub-rails on her side that align with the main hatch. I though there might be some between the davits, by I can't see any. In later paintings, and then photos, the three for-certain are always there, and some were added for the new arraingment of quarter-boats. I decided to install just the three amidships (ignore the '?' I don't know what that's a shadow of).

I made a pattern of the side to shap the rails, rather than spring straight pieces in place. I cut them from the musical instrument wood I have, based on the paintings and photos to figure their position and length. The got CAed onto the hull, with any gaps filled with fine sawdust and CA. The I drilled and pinned them with 1/16" brass rod.

Both sides of the hull got some quick paint. At a point before the chain-plates go on, the hull will get a neat and proper paint-job, so please pardon the sloppyness for now..