USS Constitution - Finishing Stern Cabin

During this post, I will present the finishing of the stern cabin, together with its final build on the hull, which posed some challenges. Basically, there are two operations covered: assembly of the taffrail, and stern cabin wall final gluing.

Assembling Taffrail

After the spar deck is assembled, it is time to finish the stern cabin. During the assembly of the gun deck, the gallery stern remained unglued. It is now the time to put it in the right place.

This was the initial situation

I needed first to prepare the taffrail (deburring, painting)

deck side painting

... and stern side painting.

Once the paint dried, I glued it to the gallery and fixed in place until the glue dried.

Gluing the Stern Cabin Wall

The biggest challenge was to position the gallery properly on the lower side, near the rudder. Again, since it is made from plastic, it doesn't fit well, and the corners are outside the hull. The picture below was just a check made to verify how the pieces match together.

You can see the lower right side corner sticking outside. I tried several ways to secure the gallery in the right position, but with no results. Eventually, I glued two plastic spare sticks on the inside, to keep the gallery in the desired position.

This was my mistake, because the gun deck lower edge is normally in contact with the gallery, but due to these helpers, it was not possible anymore.

Of course, I realized this only after the glue was dried, so I had to polish the pieces off and glue new ones, shorter

After waiting one more day waiting for the cement to dry, I fixed the gallery in the final position. I needed to put a significant tension on the plastic piece, to keep it in this position.

Finally, after half of day, I took off the tweezers and let the glue to completely dry. The final result: