Introduction
In order to help model builders build a more accurate representation of the famous vessel, I thought it would be easier to go through the Revell instructions step by step and make a few corrections and suggestions. You need to read these instructions completely as I have followed the steps in the manual during writing the article.

I use two different brands of paint on the model because of the texture and pigment size give excellent coverage. Testors and Floquil.

Testors Colors are: Flat White, Armor Sand, Flat Black.
Floquil Colors are: Lt. Green, Copper, Antique White, Roof Brown, Rail Brown.

Step 1. Hull Preparation
General instructions are close to being correct in this step but slight modifications are needed to give better color results. First, glue the hull together and fill any seams along the keel. Next, paint the white stripe on the gunwale before anything else, including the stern gallery windows frames, inside of the spar deck and upper gun deck bulkheads (walls). White can be covered by any color, so it should goe on first. After this has dried for 24 hours, mask the white off with painters masking tape, mask off the copper plating on the lower hull, and paint the upper hull flat black. After this has dried remove the tape from the copper plating and mask off the wooden part of the hull you just painted black.

Kalmbach Publishing has a book written by Mr. Les Wilkings entitled "How to Build Plastic Ship Models" ( See the book review in the Book Reviews section of this site). This book details how to make copper plate look as authentic as possible. First airbrush the entire lower hull (copper plating) with a coat of Floquil Copper, let this dry (18-24 hrs), then using a #6 water color brush (1/4 - 1/2 inch in size) paint antique white over the copper plate in alternating spots and sizes, then while the white is still wet, paint light green over the same white paint.

Next, while the white and green paint is still wet, paint turpentine over this paint blending all three colors together (NOTE: turpentine is the only solvent you can use during this step).

Stern Galleries:
Warning: Do not use the plastic window material they supply in the kit, you can do better by using Micro-Scale Krystal Klear (liquid medium for model windows). The lower scroll work under the gallery is painted gold, while the upper shingle roof is COPPER. You can try to antique as stated above, but copper is the correct color.

If you notice the hull has two square notches molded in the lower part of the hull, this is for two 1/4" square nuts to be put in so the model can be mounted on a base of wood instead of the plastic stands they give you in the kit. If you wish to mount your model, get two nuts that will fit in these areas, and two bolts that will fit the nuts and are as long as you need them to be so you can mount them through the wood base. You must drill holes trough the hull where these notches are from the inside to accomodate the bolts.

Step 2. Aft Bulkhead
The painting pattern, is correct for this version on the bulkhead, although I have seen photo's from the 1931 refit showing a very plain stern bulkhead in Old Ironside: an Illustrated History of the USS Constitution by Thomas P. Horgan on page 69. If you look at the photo closely you will notice that the rear view shows rigging used to hoist open the stern cannon port holes. If you wanted to make the stern board less decorative, carefully and slowly remove the raised detail, using your #11 blade and a chisel type blade from x-acto brand, you can clean up these light marks by using fine steel wool.

Note: I cover assembling the gun deck along with the sapr deck in Step 6.

Step 3. Interior Cabin Decor
There is not much you can do to change this area. You could try to replicate the exact layout by scratch building all new detail, but one must ask themselves, can anyone see this area? You can visit the Constitution's web site for up to date info on any additional refitting done and see some great color photos.

Step 4. Gunports
The instructions show what they believe to be correct, and was a general style for ships of this period. However, the Constitution had split style gunports. To remake this type you need to scrape off the hinges from each door, and drill a hole of the appropriate size in each, then re rig. You can make the correct style by the following steps.

First: Careful find the center of the gunport door and mark this spot.

Second: Starting with a small drill bit, drill a hole in the door, and enlarge this hole until you can get a cannon to fit through it, be careful you don't have a lot of room to work with.

Third: After you are satisfied with the fit, carefully cut the door in half down the long axis, you will have to use a jewelers saw to do this, nothing else will work. Now you need to decide how you want to leave the ports (open or closed).

Fourth: Now drill two small holes for the halyards to lift the top part of the door up. Use very small diameter thread for the halyards.

Step 5. Placement of Cannons
This step is close enough to being correct. However, the gun carriages are painted brown and the wheels are painted black. You need to figure out which way you want the cannons to be used: either RUN OUT or STOWED. Follow the rigging instructions, you may want to secure the rigging with a small drop of ACC glue (crazy glue for model builders).

Step 6. Assembly and Painting of the Lower Deck and Main Deck.
THIS PAINTING METHOD APPLIES TO ALL DECK SECTIONS:
Carefully examine the edges where the parts of the deck meet, see if they meet flush, if not lightly sand down the edges and butt them together. Cut a few pieces of bass wood 2" long by 1/2" wide (8) should be enough. Turn parts over and glue several strips of wood to one side leaving about an inch sticking out to be glued to the other side. Be careful not to get to close to the edge as it may interfere with the hull glue points. Once dry, glue the other side to these pieces (what you are doing is creating a good brace so the deck will not sag). Next, spray a light coat of Testors Flat Black on all sections of deck. Once dry, spray these sections with Testors Armor Sand. Let dry for 24 hours. Next, using fine steel wool and a #11 hobby blade, rub/scrape down the deck sections, this will bring out the deck/grain detail and really show off the paint job. Trim out the deck openings with Floquil Roof Brown. If you use this method to paint the deck no matter how good the paint job, the seams will show.

If this bothers you, there is another method that will cure this seams. Go to your local hobby shop and look for THIN bass wood with a scribe lines in it to look like deck and after placing the plastic deck sections in the model overlay this material over the plastic deck, using ACC to glue. You need to choose what color to stain, the lighter the better, to look like teak or oak (the sun bleached out the deck all day long). This type of decking makes the model really look sharp. I've used this method on over 10 Constitutions, everyone looked great. You will need to carefully make a "Onion Paper" template (tracing) pattern of each section of the Main Deck. The size wood I use is 1/64th of an inch thick and the planking size is about 1/32nd of an inch wide.

Step 7. The Wheel
Follow the instructions on this step. However, you may not want to connect the rigging to the rudder as the spokes on the wheel break easy and you will not be reaching in the model's rigging to turn the wheel anyway, just wrap several turns and tuck the ends in the deck. The kit's plastic eyebolts will break if you put too much stress on them. I don't like to take chances, so I buy or make metal eyebolts to replace the plastic ones. Use ACC to glue them on.

Step 8. The Stern Gallery
Follow the instructions.

Step 9. Spar Deck Eyebolts, Cleats and Fore Pinrails
Follow the instructions, but use the metal eyebolts and ACC to glue. Parts 49 are painted white.

There is another thing you can do to make you model look better than the average model. Cut off the plastic belaying pins and drill a hole where they were and use metal ones (Ask your local hobby shop or call the Dromedary Ship Model Supply Co.).

Steps 10 through 16. Fitting Out The Spar Deck and Spar Deck Cannons
Follow instructions, but remember to paint all gun carriages brown with black wheels.

If you feel comfortable with using the wood for the deck, try this in the boats themselves. Look in the bottom of the boats and you will see faint scribe and detailed planking. You can use a brown wash to highlight this or you can place bass wood over this area. Shape a piece of the same size for the bottom of the ships' boats, all you need to cover is the planking for the bottom of the boats, trying and sanding as you go. You can sand down the back side of the bass wood will make it conform better. Glue with ACC.

The oar locks should be painted brass, although they are just bumps on the gunwale of each boat, it will make them stand out. You can use the plastic eye bolts on the ship's boats because they will be no stress on them. Use the brass eye bolts on the main deck beams that the boats rest on, because these will have some slight stress on them when you tie off the rigging lines.

Steps 17 through 21. The Ship's Boats
Follow the instructions, but use the deck painting technique I mentioned earlier on the seat section. The hulls are painted white, the floor of the boats are washed with a dirty look.

Step 22. Seats of Ease
The best seats in the house! (well not quite correct). The Constitution had the latrines in this section of the bow (head) but there were two rows and several holes. For those of you who need a quick lesson on why the crappers are in the part of the ship! The wave action washing up against the bow would continually rinse and wash down any waste that fell against the ship. In the stern gallery's the Officers had seats of ease in each of the overhanging quarter gallery's There is not really much you can do with part #94, but drill them through to complete the "look". If you want to get really nitty and gritty, you can carefully remove the hunk of plastic and remount a small piece of wood to replicate the longer seat, make a few depressions and call it a day. Part # 92-93 are the head timbers and should be painted flat black.

Step 23. Head Pumps
Follow this step, paint all parts black, remember to use metal eye bolts. On parts 90-91 these are made of plastic and should be ok for you to use. However, I 've broken these parts a few times and went to cussing, so now I shape a small piece of thin brass and drill out the holes in the position of the eye bolts.

Step 24. Hammock Railing
Although you may follow the instruction in this step as stated, but I prefer do this step AFTER step 30. When completing the installation of parts 100, use ACC glue to hold in place, if not you will find that several of them tend to lean, not good. DO NOT USE parts 101-104, in my opinion these are the worse part in the kit, they break easily, never hold up to any type of pressure when rigging, are very hard to remove the flash from and are slightly out of scale. You can order similar parts from the Dromedary, ModelExpo, or BlueJacket Ship Crafters. Also if you want to add a bit more realism you can fill the areas with folded up hammocks. You will have to scratch build these from Milli-put or similar material. If you've ever built the H.M..S. Victory by Heller, you might remember, they provided you with the "bagged" hammocks that fit in the railing area. Being from New Orleans I have a unlimited supply of small beads shaped beads that work great. I just fill one end with ACC and paint them a light beige or tan color. At one time this railing had a fish net type of rigging, I believe either would be correct.

Step 25-26. Dead Eyes Channels
This step requires you to be VERY CAREFUL. The reason is because when you are constructing the dead eyes and channels, you need to make sure you clean ALL the flash off all parts carefully. Remember you will either tie the plastic ratlines to the tops of these parts or you will tie you custom-made ratlines to the tops of these parts. You need to make sure that you can pass a piece of rigging material through the top of the deadeye. Use metal eyebolts on the outer part of the ship and glue with ACC. Do not paint the deadeye ropes tan, although these were moving and working parts of the rigging, there were coated with tar as a preservative, paint all parts flat black.

You need to make sure that the lower parts of the channels make contact with the side of the hull. You can use acc at this step or you can use styrene but it takes longer. Make sure that you clean out the hole for parts 107 for each side of the frigate, you will need to pass rigging material through this hole.

Step 27, 28, 29. The Bowsprit
This step requires little additional work however, you need to be careful with part #139 as it get thin toward the end. You can replace this part with a piece of hardwood if you want to just sand and shape to correct size. Use metal eye bolts with ACC at all places needed. Part 136 has built in eye bolts, ream these out, there should be OK because no real stress will be place on them.

Step 30. Gammoning
Here is a part of the model that certainly is FUN, no matter how many times I've done this step always takes me an HOUR, it breaks down to about 30 minutes for trying and 30 minutes for crying. I use Coats and Clark black heavy duty thread and a small needle to rig the material around all the parts., a pair of tweezers also helps at this stage. Make sure that you clean out the oblong hole (gammoning hole) in the bow of the frigate. Now you can put the hammock railing on the model , as it won't be in you way. Aren't you glad you waited?

Step 31. Anchors and Etc.
In the kit Revell supplies a really good anchor rope, however, you need to stain it to a dark brown or tar color, as it was coated to protect against salt water over a long period of time. When you treat the rope with the stain it will make slightly stiff, which is good. To be authentic, you should replace the plastic shackle with a metal one because you will need to make a half hitch and THEN seize the rope .

Step 31-46. Two years before the Masts? (no just kidding)
Follow the instructions closely, but before you begin you really need to make sure that you know where all parts go. I lay out each set of all mast parts in order to the mast and pre-assemble and dry fit the parts together. You need to paint different areas white and brown, look at the box art or get a picture of the mast. There is a great picture in Les Wilkins' book How to Build Plastic Ship Models. Follow the same general rule for the upper-tops dead-eyes.

Webmaster's note: The Wilkins's book is reviewed on this site - look under the Book Reviews section.

However, on all of the mast I chose to replace the very upper part called the "ROYAL MAST". I never did like the flimsy plastic parts. Start with a 1/32 dowel and slowly sand down to a taper, no one can really tell the difference and you have a lot better strength. Make sure that you replace any holes in the mast where the original mast had them. When changing the part out for wood, test fit and then use ACC to glue in place. It ain't easy, but it is better. Also, you must remember to use a triangle file to deepen the grove on each of the crosstrees, so that the rigging material will stay in place. Once done you may use a small amount of ACC to hold in place. In steps 35, 40 and 45 of the instruction sheets they explain to you that you must attach all blocks to the yards, this will save you time and since the rigging get rather tight from this point on you really wouldn't be able to reach into the model to put them in place.

BLOCKS, BULL-EYES AND TACKLE
Before you even try to begin any of the rigging, take a day or two to clean and make up the proper blocks as shown in the on page one of the rigging instruction. How many to make is a good question I've never really counted. One week when I was really, really bored I cleaned over four hundred blocks, so I would not have to do it when I needed them.

GO OUT ON THE YARD AND PLAY
Sorry, I got caught up in what my mom would tell me. Before you mount the yard to the mast you need to rig up a few items for each one. First you need to rig up the foot ropes, follow the instructions from the manual. AT THIS POINT YOU NEED TO DECIDE IF YOU ARE GOING TO USE SAILS OR NOT, then look in the rigging instruction and check every step for what blocks you need to attach.

Final Step - Rigging
Of all the types of model our shop builds for customers, when ever they see the ship that are rigged, the first thing they say is I could never do that. What they and most modelers fail to think of is that it is just ONE LINE AT A TIME. That's the international secret of model ship building. DON'T TELL ANYONE OR THEY ALL WILL START BUILDING SHIP MODELS.

The rigging needs to be broken down into several parts, based on what needs to go first.
1. Standing Rigging includes Shrouds, Ratlines, Fore-stays, and Back-stays.
2. Running Rigging includes Lifts, Braces, Halyards and Coils of rope.

THE SHROUDS and RATLINES
In the instruction sheet that Revell gives the modeler, they include 3 very clearly drawn and detailed sheets of instruction for the rigging of the frigate. You need to start with the placement of the lower ratlines. Follow the instruction for the model if you wish to use the plastic ratlines given in the kit.

If you wish to make your own set of ratlines here what you do. Contact either ModelExpo or the Dromedary and order a "Loom-A-Line" shroud and ratline jig. Retail price is between $15 - 20. The jib is made of heavy plastic and you may set the shroud pins in different location to represent the placement of dead-eyes.

The jig will allow you to make the ratlines for both sides of the mast, you may tie overhand knots or use ACC glue where the two lines meet, I prefer to tie the knots, it gives a better appearance. Lay your deadeye at the bottom of the jig and set the pins in the place where they meet. If anyone has had the pleasure of building the H.M.S. Victory by Heller, you will remember that they provided a ratline jig in the kit. However, because of the small size, you had to glue the lines together, but in that scale who going to complain. It takes me about 5 hours to make a set of ratlines. Leave extra line on the shrouds as you will need it to tie off at the top of the dead-eye.

Look at figure "C" in the ratline instructions, this is not correct, you must loop the shroud completely around the dead-eye and come back through the top, then tie it off. Use half of a simple overhand knot, and touch it when a small drop of ACC. Notice figures "D and E" I researched the available material on the ships of the period, and either way to tie off the lower dead-eye would be correct. I prefer method "E" as it just looks better. Repeat you favorite method of shroud building for all sections of the mast.

HEAD GEAR RIGGING
You must use and place all of the block dead-eyes that are required or you will come up short when needing to rig the jib boom. When tying the blocks and bull-eyes too any part of the frigate I only use Coats and Clark carpet and button thread (Black) because of it's strength. When tying the jib boom stays do not put a lot of pressure on the thread because of the warping factor. REMEMBER every stay has a counter stay, that keeps the mast and boom from getting out of alignment.

FORESTAY RIGGING
Sit back and take a break you deserve it. Your mental state will possibly have a defeatist attitude, but your halfway home. First take time to look at the drawing, you notice some of the lines go from one point through a block or tie off and keep going to another point? First the complication of the rigging starts getting hard at this point, a few simple tricks will help you. When ever you see a lop and tie off such as drawing "K" cut a piece of thread about 6-8 inches long and tie a tight half of a overhand knot at that point where needed, then you may wrap one side of the thread a few turns, touch with ACC.

TO SAIL OR NOT TO SAIL, IS THAT THE QUESTION?
I have always preferred to rig the vessel without sails, the reason is because in my opinion the sails hide the beauty of the rigging. Some modelers feel just the opposite. You need to figure out what way you wish to build the kit.

If you wish to use the sails you will find that Revell has provided you with a set of nicely molded plastic ones. I have never used them because they look like plastic. No matter which way you cover them with wash or antiquing, they never look right. Here is what I've done in the past, I bought some sail cloth from the local sewing center,( tan or cream colored canvas like lightweight material, then I cut out the same size piece of cloth as the plastic sail I was duplicating. Then using a iron and spray starch, I liberally apply a medium to heavy coat of starch to the material and iron our sail flat.

This gives the sail a stiffness that helps keep the outer edges from unraveling. After you have ironed the sail you want to trim off single threads that have came loose from the sail. Look at sheet 1 called "Running Rigging with Sails" Under the section of Jeers and Halyards, attached the needed blocks to the sails at the points shown.

Now attach the sail to the yard being careful not to foul up the foot-ropes or blocks that you have already attached in the earlier steps. Call your friends you should be finished, I did not go into detail on the simple things like flags, washes and the such, if you have built a few models you have probably gotten the basics down pat. This was a guide to help you with a few short cuts and simple tech. That I have discovered, or copied over the years, I hope you have as much fun building as I have, Good Luck.