Printing a Capstan
1/16/2025: After rebuilding portions of the 3D model, it printed, mostly. The center hole that should go all the way through the bottom capstan, didn't, again, for reasons I don't get, and some of the capstan-bar sockets didn't print right, but otherwise, it printed fine.
I'll putty up the holes that shouldn't be there, drill out the one that should, and Macedonian will have a capstan.
1/24: Mac's battery of 18 pounders and 32 pounder carronades, are all printed, with a few extras. I also built the ship's wheel based on the model I had for Constellation.
There's some 3D things yet to make: blocks, hearts, bullseyes, fairleads, dead-eyes, crew figures, stuns'l irons, binnacle, pin-rails, cleats, ship's boats & boat-chocks, gunport lids, eyebrows, decorative carvings (I still plan on modeling the entire transom and quarter galleries),
and barrels, boxes, plus whatever else I think is needed.
The hull itself needs wood padding around all the gunports and ceiling planking from the gun-deck up so the hull can get painted and at least start to look like a boat. ;)
1/27: I looked for data regarding gunport lids all over the forums, the net, and in my books, with no luck. Everything is Victory and Constitution, I couldn't even find good images of Trincomalee or Unicorn as references for a frigate's gunport lids.
I did find a drawing at NMM, basically a memo for gunports dated 1811. Macedonian was launched in 1810, so I don't know how appropriate would be to my model, but I doubt it's too far off.
So I cobbled a 3D model of one together, and printed a few just to see. I probably need to make some adjustments before printing a full set, but I think they'll do the job. They don't need German optics kind of tolerances since I plan to have the guns run-out and all the lids open anyway.
The two gunports most forward are "catting-ports" and get split lids because a lifting lid would be in the way of fishing up the anchor, etc. Haven't made those yet...
I stumbled over a lion face door-knocker STL file and thought I could use it for the cat-heads. I tossed some of it's "embellishments," like the knocker, flattened it, a lot, and put a square block behind it. In my scale it's 1cm square, about the size of someone's pinky finger-nail.
The other item I made are dead-eyes. There's 6 different sized ones just for the lower shrouds and stays, and I'll have to guess at the top-mast shroud sizes. I printed a few of the largest size and I'll save the rest till I need them.
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