by Dietmar Carstensen
1/96 USS Constitution (Revell Monogram)
The USS Constitution served in the nineteenth century for about 80 years under the American flag. She sailed as a flagship in the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. During the Civil War she fought her famous battles. She widely was called "Old Ironsides" after a battle with the English fregate HMS Guerierre, because her hull withstood the cannonballs of the enemy ship.
At another battle within the same war she conquered two English fregates at the same time. 34 seamen on the enemy ships were dead, whilst the Constitution lost 4 seamen. But not only was her construction superior. American seamen and officers were high qualified and very well trained compared to their adversaries at sea.
Between 1844 and 1846 the Constitution undertook a voyage around the world. After sailing the goods for the World Exhibition from Boston to Le Havre in 1878 her long carrier ended in 1879.
Out of Revell's kit of the "Old Ironsides" a very high detailed and beautiful model can be built. The scale 1/96 also allows the modeller further detailing and scratch-building. Building this model was very exciting. It was my intension to make a fine detailed model and to present the model under full sail as a waterline model.
Some scratch building was done, such as wooden barrels, anchor buoys, additional cannon rigging on the upper deck, cannonballs, buckets and extra figures (in total 38 were used).
Unfortunately I cannot recalculate how many hours were needed to finish this model, since I had to make some long breaks during building. But this definitely is not a project, which can be finished within a few weeks and could probably be done within a years time.
Photos were made with a Fuji S5000 camera, at daylight as well as at artificial light. As a background I used a poster, which I bought in a shop for rail-modelling accessories.
