1/1200 GHQ USS Constellation

Here for your viewing pleasure (I hope) is GHQ's version of the 38-gun USS Constellation. One of the original six Humphreys frigates authorized by Congress in 1794, Constellation and Congress were designed as 36-gun frigates. They were over sized for their ratings. The keels for Constellation and Congress were 135 ft long, with a 163 ft gun deck. Contemporary British 36 gun frigates had a gun deck that was 137 ft in length, and the 38-gun British frigates rarely exceeded an overall length of 150 ft. Even Pomone, a French 44-gun frigate, had a 159 ft gun deck. Humphreys designed these ships to mount 28 18-pdr long guns on the gun deck, and eight 9-pdrs on the spar deck. As designed, it would have given them a punch greater than the standard British 38-gun frigate, but in actual practice, both ships carried more and heavier guns on their spar deck than their design specified.

As modeled:
L=163'; B=41'; DH=13.5'; 1,265 tons burthen; Crew=340

Armament:
28 x 18pdr long guns on gun deck
20 x 32pdr carronades on spar deck

My inspiration painting:

Standing rigging

Finished Model

Not sure what I'm doing next. Until next post........

1/1200 Card Buildings

I was surfing through Pinterest for ship plans when a few card ships popped up, Once I clicked on them a whole new world of card models started showing up. Every one I clicked on brought more. Including buildings. All of the buildings I have bought for my 1/1200 scale terrain have been rather expensive. I wondered if I could possibly shrink down a card building small enough to work with my ships, and still be able to put it together in a decent amount of time and look good enough for the table. So I tried it and I think this is going to work.

I downloaded the following two jpeg sheets from Pinterest. Then I inserted them both, along with several others, into a Microsoft Word document. I took measurements of several of my 1/1200 Langton buildings and came up with approximately 5 millimeters per story. I shrunk these photos down to approximately 1/1200 size then printed the sheet out on paper first to check the size. Last I printed it out on 110 lb card stock.

Cutting out the now tiny pieces was fiddly, but using a small pair of scissors and a sharp xacto knife I got it done. Figuring out where all of the little pieces went was another thing entirely. I believe I mostly got everything where it was supposed to go but I did have to improvise a bit in a couple of places. Here is the result mounted on a large washer.

With a penny and a French third rate  for size comparison.

Here are a few individual buildings I completed before attempting the more difficult one above:

I have decided this is a very economical way to make buildings for my scale, and there are so many. I hit a bonanza when I found http://papermau.blogspot.com/
I now have card Vauban forts, castle keeps, castle/fortified towns, whole villages, farms, etc. That's just Europe.I also now have Middle Eastern, North African, Japanese fortifications and buildings. All can be reduced to 1/1200 scale and be built. Here are some samples:

Large French Castle

Completed village (Normal 28mm scale)

Small French Castle

Small Spanish Castle

And acouple of finished castles:

And the church

Scratchbuilt Halifax Schooners Part II

This is the update I promised when I first posted my scratch building experiment on the very small Halifax Schooners (only 9/16 inch long: Not easy! I am sure if my hands were steadier and my eyesight better, I could have done better job. I should have made the masts taller, along with a few other small mistakes. Having never done anything this small before, I was sort of just feeling my way along, referring to numerous photos, drawings and paintings on the internet. Here is the first one rigged. The second one is slightly different with a poop deck and even shorter masts, with rigging just started.

Comparison with 100 gun SOL Queen Charlotte

Rigging just started on schooner two

Thanks for looking.