The materials used in rebuilding and restoring USS Constitution span from 45-foot-long, 12,000 pound white oak trees to three-inch copper pins. Currently, Stephen Nichols, blacksmith for the Naval History & Heritage Command Detachment Boston, is finishing the last of 468 hand-made copper pins that will hold protective bronze plates to the forward edge of Constitution‘s cutwater.
![[Courtesy Naval History & Heritage Command Detachment Boston]](https://ussconstitutionmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/2.jpg)
Stephen Nichols works in a purpose-built blacksmith shop near USS Constitution in the Charlestown Navy Yard. [Courtesy Naval History & Heritage Command Detachment Boston]
An acetylene torch is used to heat copper rods to 1700 degrees Fahrenheit. Stephen can tell the approximate temperature by the color of the metal as it heats up. [Courtesy Naval History & Heritage Command Detachment Boston]
As the hydraulic press lifts, the headed pin is released from the die. [Courtesy Naval History & Heritage Command Detachment Boston]
A box of newly headed copper pins. [Courtesy Naval History & Heritage Command Detachment Boston]
Three copper pins showing the first two stages of manufacture. The pin on the left is headed. The two pins on the right show the cold-pressed tips before they are cut into points. [Courtesy Naval History & Heritage Command Detachment Boston]
This view below the waterline shows the beginning of the cutwater restoration in the summer of 2015. [Courtesy Naval History & Heritage Command Detachment Boston]
USS Constitution‘s cutwater, as seen in 2009. [Courtesy Naval History & Heritage Command Detachment Boston]
-M. M. Desy & K. Monea
Why is the Cutwater not referred to as the Stem?
https://ussconstitutionmuseum.org/2015/08/05/cutwater/
There is a good sketch in this blog post showing that the cut-water protrudes from the stem and is in fact a separate piece.
Good question, John. Below are the definitions as found in “Falconer’s New Universal Dictionary of the Marine”, edited by William Burney (1815):
“STEM, …a piece of timber, into which the two sides of the ship are united at the fore end; the lower end [of the stem] is scarfed to the keel, and the bowsprit rests upon the upper end. The stem is formed of one or two pieces, according to the size of the vessel; and as it terminates the ship forward, the ends of the wales [thick hull planks] and plank of the sides and bottom are let into a groove or channel, in the middle of [the stem’s] surface, from the top to the bottom: which operation is called rabbetting. The outside of the stem is usually marked with a scale of feet, according to its perpendicular height from the keel.. Its use is to ascertain the draughts of water at the fore part, when the ship is in preparation for a sea-voyage, etc.”
“CUT-WATER, Knee of the Head, is the foremost part of a ship’s prow, formed of an assemblage of several pieces of timber, to render it broad at the upper-part, where it projects forward from the stem to open the column of water as the ship sails along…”
In other words, the stem is the structural vertical timber (itself possibly made up of several pieces to make the whole) that creates the terminus for the bow of the vessel.
The cutwater is forward of the stem and is additional timber that adds little to the structural integrity of the vessel, but is advantageous to the hull design as it eases the vessel through the water in better fashion – this would be important where the vessel’s speed was paramount; or for a large vessel such as Constitution. For instance, small, oar-powered boats have stems, but do not have, nor do they need cutwaters, given the nature and use of the row-boat.
Please ask CMDR Sean Kearns if any relatives lived in Riderwood Md … Thnx
Great answer Constitution Museum
Former Constitution Crewmember here. Fantastic work on my most favorite duty station. A wonderful display of modern folks, doing old school shipwright work. From the Mouse restoration, to the planking, cutwater, coppering, just a fantastic job. Please extend a warm BZ to all the folks working on her, as well as the museum people. I look back with warmest feelings, of my time on board her.
Constitution crewman,April 1985-Jan 1987