USS Constitution — Copper-Bottom Hull Model, Handcrafted Wood | Admiral Line

Built with a metal-sheathed bottom — the detail most Constitution models leave out, and the one that explains how she stayed fast enough to run from squadrons she could not fight.

Below the waterline, the hull is finished in metal plating laid in overlapping courses, the way copper sheets were nailed to real hulls to stop shipworm and weed. Above it, standard Admiral Line construction.

Construction

• Plank-on-frame hull in western red cedar, rosewood and mahogany
• Metal-sheathed bottom in laid, overlapping plates
• Full frigate battery with cast cannon
• Three masts and bowsprit, complete hand-knotted rigging
• Hand-stitched linen sails
• Carved stern and trailboard detail
• Ship's boats, capstan, wheel, anchors and rudder
• Solid wood base and engraved brass nameplate

Why copper mattered

An unsheathed wooden hull fouls within months in warm water — weed and barnacles cost knots, and teredo worm eats the planking outright. Copper sheathing solved both, and the Royal Navy's early adoption of it in the 1770s was a genuine strategic advantage. Paul Revere's foundry rolled the copper for Constitution's later refits.

The ship

Launched at Boston in 1797, one of the six original frigates of the U.S. Navy. She took HMS Guerriere, Java, Cyane and Levant in the War of 1812 and is the oldest commissioned warship still afloat.