It's been a while since I have worked on U.S.N. early sailing warshps, but what plans are you using on this build? Not being at my workshop, I can't say which Seagull plans I have, but memory seems to recall they are in fact COLUMBUS (but could also be OHIO). I too, have all the Chapelle books and in my opinion, his knowledge of these ships is fairly accurate. Keep in mind that the ships used different sizes of scantlings and were not set in stone much like todays steel warships.I have run into something of a conundrum. I Am getting to the point where I will be installing the cannonades on the spar deck. However, the Chapelle plans for the Columbus show a gun port height of 3 feet, whereas all the plans I have seen of 32 pounder cannonade show a height if about 3'8" from the bottom of the casters to the top of the max diameter of the barrel. Chapelle's book also shows a cut away view of the gundecks of the Delaware that give a much higher gun port dimension for it's spar deck cannonades. I have made all of my cannonades as you can see from previous photos, but, Once I cap the spar deck gun whale, the cannonades I made will not fit. I suspect that the plans of the Columbus spar deck gun ports is incorrect, and, I believe I will deepen the gun ports to fit the cannonades I made, What do You guys think?
I will look this week when I'm back in my shop for the Seagull plans I'm referring to as I think that they have a small detail section that shows the deck spacing and also the corresponding gunport which would give the scaled size & clearances needed. The USN at the time these liners were built did not have one size fits all approach. For example, NORTH CAROLINA was of a different class (and thus dimensions, etc) than COLUMBUS and may have had different requirements for her ports even though using the same size carronade. My understanding of this is that various carriage designs were incorporated, not just one. Certainly, CONSTITUTION's carronades would not have fit in a ship of the line and vice versa. Carriages were made for the specified ship, thus requiring a gunport made for that particular carronade assembly.
Hope this helps,
Hank
Edit - I did find a list of Seagull Plans by William Crothers and the one I cited is COLUMBUS (1819) - I'll check this over for you and if any info regarding the gunports/carronades is useful I'll post next week.
Looking forward to more progress! These sailing ships are really beautiful too!