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USS Constitution's Current Restoration Project


NorthernWolves

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Any word on if the headrails or stern will be changed? The current head and stern date to the 1830s-50s in aesthetic if not in actual timbers. Unfortunately the original plan for the transom is lost, but the original head and quarter galleries were much prettier and more 1812 appropriate than what is on the ship currently

http://home.comcast.net/~iver.franzen/ConstitSailScan.jpg

The last restoration in 1997 put her back to 1812 configuration. Your illustration shows her original 1797 bow configuration. That was altered by her collision with USS President in the Med. See post #8 in the following thread for more detail on her current configuration:

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/3325-constitution-front-guns/

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Indeed it did not, aesthetically. The diagonal riders were added, and crucial structural restoration performed, but it was not until far more recently (2010) that the mid 18th century planking atop the bulwarks was appropriately removed. They did not alter the bow or stern significantly in either restoration. The ship has received many refits since her days as a sailing warship, including one after the civil war era which entirely stripped her of her outer planking, not to mention headrails and quarter galleries. There are no surviving plans of the ship from her frontline duty lifetime except for her building draught. After collision,the bow was almost certainly not altered to the current head, which is well documented as a replacement after a long photographically documented era in the mid-late 1800s when the head was planked in, and which lacks the proper scale and lines for the era. It probably dates to the 1920s or 30s, when other restoration errors(like the planked in hammock nettings) were made. Due to the lack of 1812 plans, the original headrails are a good (and potentially more lightweight) option for restoration.

http://www.captainsclerk.info/archives/visual/restoration%20and%20apprentice%20training/restoration%20and%20apprentice%20training%20ship.html

http://www.captainsclerk.info/archives/visual/visual_record.html

Oh and that plan is her 1803 configuration, as drawn by the shipwright gillmer and presented in his book-IIRC it happened to be on his official website, so that's why I used it as an example here. As far as the hull goes, The 1812 configuration he drew is little different except for built up forecastle bulwarks and a scroll rather than figurehead, as I'm sure you could see if you had the book you mentioned in that post. He himself suggested the original headrails as an appropriate alternative to the current anachronistic configuration. While the 1997 and 2010 restorations were important in bringing the ship closer to its 1812 arrangement, they largely focused on (admittedly more important) structural work, and by no means finished the job

Edited by Captain Armstrong
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I'm kind of mad they went to Indiana for the wood. We have plenty of good trees here in New England, and that would make it much closer to the original (we even have a park here in New Hampshire that was set aside for masts dating back to when we were still a colony).

 

I mean I know I'm spergin' out about it, but it seems an odd choice.

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I'm kind of mad they went to Indiana for the wood. We have plenty of good trees here in New England, and that would make it much closer to the original (we even have a park here in New Hampshire that was set aside for masts dating back to when we were still a colony).

I mean I know I'm spergin' out about it, but it seems an odd choice.

Indiana has a lot of enormous oak trees, and unlike in New England they seem to enjoy cutting them down.

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