References:
“CSS Alabama; Anatomy of a Confederate raider” by Andrew Bowcock
July and September 2012 issues of FSM : kit bash by Joseph Bossert
After Market:
Cottage Industries complete gun set for the Alabama
Others I haven’t determined yet.
Let me begin by saying that I am well aware of the problems w/ this kit in terms of its accuracy and the impossibility of building a completely accurate representation.
With that said; here are the following modifications I have made so far.
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removed and sanded down the moulded on gun port covers.
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Added the correct number of gun and bollard ports according to specs from Andrew Bowcocks’ “CSS Alabama, Anatomy of a Confederate Raider” (more on this later).
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Removed the top bulwarks wales and scratch built the hammock cranes. (more on this later as well)
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Scratch built and added the channels.
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Corrected the gangway
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Added the scuppers
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Added the portholes
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fill in the gap for the kits cathead. (the Alabama used the forward boat davit as its cathead)
I won’t go into detail about how I made the modifications. It’s pretty standard measure, measure, measure, drill, measure, fill, scrape, sand, etc., but I will say it has been a steep learning curve and I have had to correct a ton of mistakes (the portholes for example) and redo items that just weren’t up to snuff. I am leaving it in the rough as shown until I can get the other half done and do all my painting at the same time. I may add the chain plates as well before painting.
Particulars:
Getting the correct positions for the gun and bollard ports was quite the challenge. Even though I have Bowcock to draw the correct measurements from, the kit hull length is short by about 8.5 scale feet. I ended up “subtracting” the missing length from the forward section that has the greatest length between ports. The chart below shows the dimensions that I used. All the dimensions aft of the gangway were used according to spec from the book.
**NOTE: 26.5’ is wrong and should read 28.5’
This is going to present some interesting fitting issues for the deck furniture down the line, but this really was the best way I could determine to do this, and it “looks” right as well.
The hammock cranes are non existent in the kit. According to Bowcock they should look like this…
and are solid wood w/ the deadeyes and chainplates passing through. I went ahead and just made them as seen in the next pix.
I will be staging them w/ their covers on so the only part that needs to be “boxed” is for the chainplates.
The gangway had to be cut to a depth just above the channel. I went ahead and added new gangway boards while I was at it.
The scuppers proved to be quite difficult to get right. I ended up “framing” them as I just could not get a clean line by using a file. The ‘framing’ is sanded down nearly flush so it shouldn’t show once I get some paint on her. They look like they are too large, but in fact are sized correctly.
I will have more once I do the same mods to the other half.
