Research Note

Ray's Color Chart (colors are called out in Pantone)

In her early years, Constitution was always tarred below the four gun strakes, probably until the 1906 overhaul. As-built in 1797 through 1811, she had yellow ochre (50:50 with white lead -- still a brownish-yellow but not as dull) gun strakes, gun tompions, gallery trim, bowsprit, and lower masts as well as two pin stripes leading aft along the hull from the head rails. The stern had a lampblack ground, with white lead, vermilion, medium-light blue, and light yellow ochre trim. The ship's name is not on the stern in 1812 (see Captain Hull's model of September 1812 at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts). The weather rails were lampblack for all periods. ONLY the four one-inch recessed gun strakes received the contrasting color -- NEVER a broad band of color that I have ever been able to document. The gun strakes were white lead from 1811 through 1815 off and on with yellow ochre (to include a change in the color of the quarter gallery trim and, likely, the gun tompions) and were yellow ochre again from 1815 until the 1817 overhaul when the US Navy was changing to uniform white lead gun strakes in almost all its ships, to include white lead inner bulwarks and waterways from about 1817 as well.

From July 1844 through 14 May 1845, Constitution had a white lead hull with vermilion gun strakes. In May 1845, she was repainted the white on black color scheme. Her configuraton at that time was very close to the Brandywine first class frigates, especially her bow treatment.

The gun port lids were always lampblack on all six surfaces (an exception might have been the vermilion gun strake period, though I doubt it). The gun deck gun port lids were NOT hinged until about the American Civil War but, prior to that time, were completely removed and sent below when exercising the gun deck guns -- no gun port lids were provided in the spar deck, ever. The gun deck gun port lids were split in half horizontally in 1804 but were still NOT hinged, with some minor exceptions to this up forward.

The Bowsprit and lower masts were woolded until 1809 and the woolding was lampblack (rigging tarred). Until 1809 the fighting tops and the doublings were lampblack. ALL of the yards were blackened (coal tarred), just like the bends -- to include the yard arms -- as well as the lower studding'sail booms, spanker boom, and gaff. After 1809, the fighting tops (except for their railings and stanchions) and the doublings were white lead. There was NO white at the mast heads/trucks.

The upper masts were left bright (actually oiled) so that their remaining strength could be determined from their color. Since upper masts were replaced often, they would each be a different color from each of the other upper mast spars. The same is true for the jib boom and the flying jib boom. Until 1809, Constitution had a single lampblack martingale -- and a white lead double dolphin striker after 1809. The doublings for the jib spars were lampblack until 1809 when they were painted white lead. The sails were also replaced and patched, as was the rigging, and none of these items would have been an overall same color nor exactly match any of their sister components.

The rigging included hemp, hide, and flax cordage (plus horsehair in the limber) and was one-stranded through six-stranded, plus the nine-stranded cables and hawsers. Both left-handed and right-handed rope was used as well as water-laid and plain-laid. Some ropes were reverse-laid and others were slack-laid -- at least one case combines both slack/reverse-laid. I know that this opens many rigging questions but the answers would be about 700 to 1000 pages long with a few hundred drawings. Constitution followed Brady's Kedge Anchor, AMERICAN rigging practice, and NOT Lever, Steele, Biddlecomb, Lees, Lavry, et al., which describe BRITISH rigging practice.

The decks exposed to the weather would have been grayed to a depth much beyond just surface discoloration -- holy stoning would NOT normally have removed enough wood to make the decks white. The idea of holy stoning was to remove only the dirt and rigging tar from the deck – not the wood. The gun and spar decks were longleaf yellow pine, except under the guns where they were white oak. The two woods weather in color differently. The tarring of the deck paying was most likely dark chocolate brown and NOT black.

After 1809, the upper studding-sail booms were lampblack (probably tar-blackened) from the tip of the yard arm outboard, when housed, and from the tip of the yardarm inboard, when extended.

The in-between portion was white lead. Prior to 1809, the upper studding-sail booms appear to have been completely blackened. The spanker boom was white lead outboard the taffrail and black inboard after 1809 and all black before 1809 -- the gaff was always black. After about 1809, a mizzen trysail (or snow) mast was installed, which was white lead.

Gun carriages were terra cotta (the brownish boxcar red) except for 1804-1809 when the carriages were "yellow the color of butter" with lampblack gun tubes, iron fittings, and trucks. After 1845, or so, many of the gun carriages were lampblack and all were most likely lampblack upon entering the American Civil War era and afterwards.

Of the 500+ individual guns that have been in Constitution, of fifty-one different types, they were all smooth to the touch except for one type, which I have yet to see modeled. They had a modified varnish coating that produced a satin-gloss (satin for a model) that was pigmented with lampblack. The guns were normally given a fresh water wash each morning and then rubbed down with an oily rag. Tompions normally matched the gun strake color and were not embellished with gawdy stars, etc. Constitution was, and is, a warship -- NOT a circus float...!

The spar deck inner bulkhead (only a quarter deck and forecastle with an open waist until about 1804 or 1809 -- no spar deck, per se, until that time) arguably was vermilion as well as the waterway (a red-orange scarlet color, just like the British used -- but NEVER a red) as the gun sills are known to have been vermilion from 1797-1804. 1804-1809 the sills appear to have been lampblack from then on and the inner bulkhead and waterway butter-yellow. After 1809, the inner bulkhead and waterway were dark green (about that of Humbrol #149, which needs to be scaled and weathered) still retaining the lampblack gun port sills.

After 1817, the inner bulkhead and waterway were, most likely, white lead with lampblack gun port sills.

Deck furniture was likely white lead, with bright pin rails, as-built -- and butter-yellow or dark green to match the changes in the inner bulwark's color changes between 1804 and 1817. I have not yet determined the deck furniture color after the 1817 overhaul from primary documentation. Belaying pins were iron and, if painted, would likely have been hot coal tarred.

Ship's small boats were overall white lead externally, except they were lampblack between about 1835 and 1845. The black paint did not work well at all on the ship's small boats and was replaced with white lead about 1845 throughout the US Navy. The white boats typically had a single distinguishing color on the sheer strake. Ship's small boat painting is, indeed, a very large subject area by itself.

A good color approximation of the red and the blue in the wool ensigns, pennants, and flags for Constitution is: Humbrol #153 with a slight amount of Humbrol #73 wine added for the Madder Root Red and Humbrol #104 made a little lighter (with a touch of Humbrol #34 white) and a bit grayer for the Indigo Blue -- until about World War One when bright synthetic dyestuffs started being used in US Navy flags. The white in flags was undyed white wool -- an off-white color (a touch of Humbrol #71 linen in Humbrol #34 seems to work well). Other flag colors and flags for Constitution are much larger subjects.

Try to avoid using straight black and straight white in a model – they are too stark for scale work and render a toy-like appearance. Use a very dark gray and an off-white (antique white), respectively.

Don-t use the present real Constitution to determine the configuration, or painting, of the historic Constitution for ANY historic period, except 1932, 1960, 1976, or 1996, if then. Presently, the real Constitution is NOT in a War of 1812 configuration as federal law mandates -- she's slowly on her way towards such a configuration, assuming she quits stumbling over the non-1812 fantasized overhaul configuration of 1932.
{Ray Morton}

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