USS CAIRO by Gerhardvienna - Live steam, Radio

[Gerhardvienna]

Has been some days till my last report, heer comes the news. I could set some timbers to the inner structure, just to make the walls look a bit better than they were from plywood. Cut a lot of 2 x 3 mm pinewood strips, and glued them to the walls. And I made 2 crossways from port to starboard, there I used 5 x 5 mm pine wood.

 

Timbers glued into the gas tank room

 

All internal walls related to the engine compartement are glued in, all unnecessary frame parts are cut away.

 

The crossways from port to starboard side

 

Thank you for watching, and comments or critics too!

Regards

Gerhard

 

 

 

[cog]

Following and watching in amsement ... can't seem to get updates often enough, Gerhard.You need to speed up things

[Gerhardvienna]

16 minutes ago, cog said:

Following and watching in amsement ... can't seem to get updates often enough, Gerhard.You need to speed up things

Hi Carl

I KNOW, I should have to speed up................

But there is so much to do exept model building, but with time there will be a new born Cairo

 

Best Regards

Gerhard

[BANYAN]

Nice work Gerhard, your Cairo is progressing very nicely.  Any update is a good update - it took me 14 years to complete my first model   Life simply gets in the way sometimes.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Gerhardvienna]

5 hours ago, BANYAN said:

............. - it took me 14 years to complete my first model   Life simply gets in the way sometimes.

cheers

Pat

Thank you Pat!

So I`ve got 13 years more for the Cairo, but i hope it will not take that long. No clue what I will do next, today I must visit my parents-in -law, maybe there is little time later for the ship.

 

Regards

Gerhard

[johnhoward]

Hi Gerhard,

Attached are the first of many photos we just received from Cher Petrovich, member of the Missouri Civil War Historical Society, author and professional photographer, who visited the USS Cairo Museum at Vicksburg, Mississippi last week and was responding to our list of requests. These are much clearer photos of the museum mural showing the 12 pdr howitzer and light carriage on the USS Cairo hurricane deck. By the use of her credentials, our photo request list, and other artwork & photos of our USS St. Louis model, Cher was able to get a private tour of the USS Cairo into areas inaccessible to usual visitors. Some of these were in areas with insufficient lighting for good photos which we are attempting to brighten up to be more useful. She was able to get closer access to the main steam engines and I will post them for you as I sort them out. The NPS has not yet appointed a new curator for the Museum but she made contact with several other employees, including a model maker, who may be a good source of additional detailed information. I will keep you advised of our progress.

 As you can see these are very high quality 8.8 mb photos.

 

johnhoward

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi johnhoward

 

Thank you, great pics, and many thanks to Cher too. NOW i know, why I`m a Cher-Fan

For smoe reasons I found no time to compare my version of the light carriage with your drawings, these photos show a lot more than I had before from the original thing!

 

Best regards

Gerhard

[Gerhardvienna]

Today I found time for the comparison of the carriages, my version fits almost to the drawings johnhoward showed earlier. It`s a matter of a few 1/10mm so I will lwt it as it is.

The red drawn parts show how I made them.

 

Regards

Gerhard

[BANYAN]

Only a very knowledgeable person would pick up those differences Gerhard; you did very well with the info you had on hand at the time.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[johnhoward]

Gerhard,

In response to your earlier request for Cairo main steam engine and Pitman Arm close-ups, I've attached the best photos that Cher was recently able to take at Vicksburg and a few others I have collected so far. Cher was able to get a special tour under the Cairo's remains and got a few shots I haven't seen before but some were originally pretty dark.

  We haven't started modeling the engines for our USS St. Louis ironclad but we assume that Eads didn't use a specifically designed engine for her, due to his short build cycle. The main difference from most contemporary sternwheeler steamboat horizontal engines is their installation on the 15-degree support ramp and consequent rotation of the poppet valves to a vertical attitude. Drawings of these details appear to be available on the internet. My plan is to eventually follow-up on old steam engine company records and archives to search for usable drawings. Perhaps information from the contemporary steamboat "Arabia" will be useful.

Cher has also promised to provide us contact information for an old time employee/model-maker she heard about at the Cairo Museum, who may be able to help.

 

johnhoward

Steam Engine,Cairo..bmp

Cairo Steam Engine.bmp

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi johnhoward

 

Thank you and Cher for that, once more some new views from the engines. Especially the first three pics show the engines from another angle, I`ve never seen in any forum or website! There will be some differencies in my build, due to the conditions for sailing the ship by RC. But most of the components of the engines will be really close to the original one!

Meanwhile I made the drawings and .stl files for the paddlewheel bearing blocks, they will be 3D printed. This saves a lot of working time, and makes it easier to work with.

 

 

All measurings on the drawings are in 1/10th mm!

 

Regarsd; and thank you all for watching!

Gerhard

[Gerhardvienna]

Back to the 12pounder carriage, I made the small rear wheel. I used 6 mm brass tube for the "tyre", 4 pieces of 2mm brass tube for the rim, and 1 piece of 1mm brass tube for the hub. I had no 1,5mm tube, so i had to use the 2mm, and could set only 4 instead of 5 pieces for the rim, but it looks good, I`ll keep it.

All the little pieces in the soldering form

 

After soldering.....

 

Filed to correct width, and mounted to the carriage

 

Best regards, thank you all for watching, thanks for comments, hitting the button,

Have a nice day!

 

Gerhard

 

[cog]

Nice tiny wheel, Gerhard.

[Gerhardvienna]

17 minutes ago, cog said:

Nice tiny wheel, Gerhard.

Hi Carl

 

Thank you! Took me more than one attempt to make it, the first tries were absolutley bad. Did not photograph them, but in the end it worked out fine.

 

Regards

Gerhard

[cog]

Trial and error as usual, Gerhard. With a little perseverance one can reach one's goal, as you have shown!

[Gerhardvienna]

Just working on the bigger front wheels, lets see how many times I will have to make them. But as you said, try and error is what we do until we got it right

 

Regards

Gerhard

[johnhoward]

Great job Gerhard,

Bill just finished the rear wheel for 12 pdr carriage for our USS St. Louis model at 1:24 scale, twice the size of yours, which really shows how tiny your wheel really is. I'll post a photo on the USS St. Louis build sight.

 

johnhoward

[Gerhardvienna]

1 hour ago, johnhoward said:

Great job Gerhard,

Bill just finished the rear wheel for 12 pdr carriage for our USS St. Louis model at 1:24 scale, twice the size of yours, which really shows how tiny your wheel really is. I'll post a photo on the USS St. Louis build sight.

 

johnhoward

Hi johnhoward

Thank you!

Have seen it in an earlier post in your build thread, wonderful workpiece! Now I`m working on the soldering form for the front wheels, will take some time to solder 14 spokes as shown in all old drawings to center and outer tyre ring.

For the "nonmetric" folks here, the diameter from my rear wheel is 0.2362 inches (6 mm)!

 

Regards

Gerhard

[BANYAN]

Very good metal-smithing Gerhard, that small wheel turned out nicely.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Gerhardvienna]

On 27.6.2017 at 1:56 AM, BANYAN said:

Very good metal-smithing Gerhard, that small wheel turned out nicely.

cheers

Pat

Hi Pat

Thank you again

And many thanks too for all watching, hit the button, or just enjoying it!

 

The next step I made were the front wheels, just to make some progress. 

I printed 2 sheets of the scaled carriage for each wheel, glued them to 2 mm balsa wood, and cut the spoked part out from one of them. The inner and outer radius was then sanded to correct size.

 

Then I drilled 3mm holes to the centers of both parts, and glued them together to create the form

 

Then I cut grooves for the spokes

 

As next I made a ring from 1mm brass sheet, 2mm high, and layed it into the form. The 1mm was a bit too thick, so I used 0,5mm sheet later!

 

Some spokes are set to the ring, and a piece of 3mm and 2mm brass tube into the center, the inner 2mm tube is around 1mm longer.

 

First test wheel, a bit too thick I think!

The carriage with new wheels from 0,5mm sheet, barrel still not mounted

There are still 2 parts missing, the endcaps for the axels. I will make them from 2mm brass tube, 1mm logn, and solder them to the axels.

 

Regards, and thank you for you interest!

 

Gerhard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cog]

It looks like that went a lot smoother than your first, smaller, wheel. Very nice Gerhard.

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi Carl

 

YES, was a bit easier than I thought.

Now the endcaps for the axels are soldered, and the whole thing is painted flat black. The blackening fluid did not work on the soldered spots, so I had to use paint instead.

 

I wanted to have the wheels moving, so I had to use baking paper between the endcaps and the wheel, and the same behind the wheels to the carriage.

 

The finished carriage, beneath that lies the boat carriage

 

Just the elevator screw missing, this little part will be set to the carriage with 5-min. epoxi. Soldering would not be good at that place, I`m in fear that the whole carriage would break into parts from the heat!

 

Regards, and thank you all for watching!

Gerhard

[JerryTodd]

I have one of these to do in 1:36 scale yet, for Constellation's launch.  I was thinking of doing it in styrene, I tend to not burn my fingers so much working in plastic.

 

[BANYAN]

That looks very good Gerhard, a great job of constructing the gun.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi Pat

 

Thanks again!

Was not too hard to make the carriage, the wheels were not easy!

 

Hi Gerald

 

If you watch the thread from post #178 on, you will see there is no plastic used, everything is made from brass. I used 0,5mm brass sheet, for all metal parts of both carriages. In 1:36 you will need 0,8 mm brass sheet.

 

Regards

Gerhard

[johnhoward]

Gerhard,

I found this interesting photo of the recovered USS Cairo's main steam engine just after it was cleaned up that may be of value in its modeling.

 

johnhoward

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi johnhoward

 

WOW!!

Thank you, this is one of the most worthful photos from the engine(s).

 

Regards

Gerhard

[Gerhardvienna]

Last thing done on the carriage, elevator screw is set into place. And I could grind the bottom of the hull to shape, just raw at the time, but enough to set the bow and stern blocks to the frames, and then grind all to final shape.

 

 

Thank you all for your interest

Regards

Gerhard

[popeye the sailor]

the cannon looks top notch Gerhard    very nice progress indeed!

[Gerhardvienna]

8 hours ago, popeye the sailor said:

the cannon looks top notch Gerhard    very nice progress indeed!

Not too much progress this week, the heat almost kills me, above 30 degrees here in Vienna

But today i will go to the store, and buy some extra materials for the ship!

 

Regards

Gerhard