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You can now subscribe to receive new Restoring an Icon posts straight to your inbox! Sign up here.  *  *  * Building or restoring a vessel would be nearly impossible without scaffolding and the ability to lift heavy objects into and out of the ship. In the 1790s, scaffolding was a simple system of wooden posts, crossbars, andRead more

Plate 18 from Peter Guillet’s Timber Merchant’s Guide. [USS Constitution Museum Collection, 1742.1]USS Constitution‘s hull is made up of three layers of oak: white oak for the exterior horizontal planking, live oak for the vertical framing, and white oak again for the interior horizontal planking. Oak is not only rot resistant, it is also extremely strong.Read more

Naval History & Heritage Command Detachment Boston ship restorers have been hard at work since the ship entered dry dock in May 2015. Here is an update on current projects. Copper USS Constitution is covered below the waterline with 3,200 copper sheets. A major part of the current restoration is to remove the copper that was installedRead more

Over the past few weeks work has begun on USS Constitution‘s cutwater, which is the projecting curve from the ship’s bow. The cutwater is formed by assembling several pieces of large timbers and its purpose is to open the column of water as the ship sails along. This is one of the first major projects of the 2015-2017Read more

The origins of the Naval History & Heritage Command Detachment Boston (NHHC DET Boston), which performs USS Constitution‘s restorations, can be traced to September, 1897, when Constitution arrived at the Boston Navy Yard (a.k.a. the Charlestown Navy Yard), one month before the 100th anniversary of her October 21, 1797 launch. Although no one in 1897 could have predicted the ship’sRead more

Over the course of USS Constitution‘s 2015-2017 restoration, approximately 350,000 pounds of white oak timber, cut at the Naval Support Activity Crane in Indiana, will be fashioned into hull planks and other structures. The first two deliveries of trees arrived in the Charlestown Navy Yard on July 7 and July 14, 2015. A truck carrying the first delivery ofRead more

Using two cranes, USS Constitution‘s mizzen fighting top was carefully removed from the lower mizzen mast on the morning of June 18, 2015. The top will be refurbished during the restoration and reinstalled at a later date. In the photo below, a man-bucket holding three Naval History & Heritage Command Detachment Boston workers hangs from the craneRead more

On June 9, 2015, CDR Sean D. Kearns, the 73rd Commanding Officer of USS Constitution, and USS Constitution Museum President Anne Grimes Rand, ceremoniously removed the first sheet of copper from the ship’s hull. This ceremony, akin to a ground breaking, commemorates the start of restoration work for Old Ironsides. Media surround USS Constitution MuseumRead more

On Wednesday, June 3, 2015, Constitution‘s late 19th-century galley stove, also known as a “camboose,” was removed from the forward gun deck in preparation for the stove’s de-leading and repairs. Late 19th century “camboose,” or galley stove, being lifted out through the main hatch, June 3, 2015. [Courtesy Naval History & Heritage Command Detachment Boston]The ironRead more

Almost exactly 182 years ago, in 1833, USS Constitution entered Dry Dock 1 for the first time under the command of Commodore Isaac Hull, hero of the War of 1812. Although she was the first ship to enter this dry dock, it would be another 94 years before she entered it again on June 16, 1927 forRead more