Mike Dowling

Thank you matey !!! I really have looked everywhere that came with this 'savaged' kit and the numbers for the parts really don't exist on the instructions, plans or anywhere. That is why I was hoping to find someone out there in the bright blue yonder who had done the same kit and survived the problems !! I had vowed that I wouldn't do another Constructo kit as their die-cast cutting is pathetic at best so, it probably serves me right and I should have stuck to my vow!!
 
The thought is appreciated though, I didn't mean to sound rude.

Oh great !!!!! I cut out one piece and all the vertical lines on the false keel to take the frames and sure enough my first piece fitted beautifully. Then the blade broke on my brand new, Christmas present Dremel moto saw. For reasons best known to others this has broken the blade holding and tensioning mechanism on the saw so you can't get a new blade in at all now.
 
Isn't life wonderful ?!!! My dilemma now is, do I try to cut out all those pieces with a coping saw by hand and use loads of sandpaper afterwards. Do I get a replacement Dremel - I don't think so if they break so easily !! Do I get a different make of scroll saw (recommendations welcomed) or do I just bin the project, put it down to experience and forget scratch building ?
 
All hints and suggestions warmly welcomed.

The piece you numbered 3 I have surmised is actually a piece of deck at the focsle  which would then explain the two number 8 pieces which will go in about the middle of the hull. The two curvy bits (upper middle on the picture) would be number 16s and the bits on the upper left are frames which go below piece number 3 at the focsle.
 
Anyway, this all leads to your help being invaluable - thank you very much.
 
As a matter of interest, is this a vessel that you are familiar with or did you work out the numbers from experience ?

Thank you very much for that, I think I can make sense of it. I reckon as this boat has comparatively parallel sides that the nearly identical pieces will run around the middle of the hull. The false keel is shown as one piece and I don't think it splits but the deck has two levels, roughly in two halves so that would make sense.
 
Anyway, I will have a go and see how good I am with a motorised fret saw !! Never used one before but got one for Christmas. Fingers crossed !!

No I am afraid not, there are photos of the construction process but they won't really help as it is unclear from them which frame is which.

Here goes -

I could take a photo of the empty sheet showing the outlines. Is that what you meant ?

Can anybody help me with a problem I have.
 
I have obtained a used kit of the Constructo Lady Smith boat but nearly all of the die-cut and laser cut pieces have been removed. I am left with the wood sheets with only the outlines to play with.
I am going to try to scratch build the parts using the 'empty' sheets as templates, brave huh ?
 
My real problem is that the sheet which would have contained all the hull pieces and frames would I guess have had the part numbers printed on them as there is no reference to this sheet in the instructions. Can anyone help me with numbering these parts ?

Good Luck Guys.
You're right, it is brave
 
Kenneth

No I am afraid not, there are photos of the construction process but they won't really help as it is unclear from them which frame is which.

Here goes -

I could take a photo of the empty sheet showing the outlines. Is that what you meant ?

Can anybody help me with a problem I have.
 
I have obtained a used kit of the Constructo Lady Smith boat but nearly all of the die-cut and laser cut pieces have been removed. I am left with the wood sheets with only the outlines to play with.
I am going to try to scratch build the parts using the 'empty' sheets as templates, brave huh ?
 
My real problem is that the sheet which would have contained all the hull pieces and frames would I guess have had the part numbers printed on them as there is no reference to this sheet in the instructions. Can anyone help me with numbering these parts ?

Finished my first spar, very little information how to actually attach them but I have not got the mast fitted yet so That's a future issue. I am going to have all parts (Spars) made ready and just grab them when needed. Canon bolts also added, I have been flicking across jobs, canons & spars to prevent the jobs being monotonous.

I agree with all the comments above. This forum has enforced my feelings of riverboats. Growing up in Pittsburgh in the 30-40s I spent a lot of time sitting on the hill watching the boat traffic. 
I have built the "Chaparon", and am in the process of building the Mississippi Riverboat" Mantua. This kit seems out of proportion in so many ways, that I am spending a lot of time doing research to try to get it right. All of your words and those of others have helped.
Maybe there should be a corner of this site for Riverboats.

Here are the final details added to Bertrand.
 
Yawls
 
Bertrand likely carried two small boats (called yawls in my sources), based on comparable boats of the time. These weren't lifeboats, but served a similar role as in sailing ships, like a small car towed behind a recreational vehicle for light-duty use. My understanding is that these weren't lowered from davits, as on a whaling ship, but rather lashed to davits that themselves were lowered. Thus the two white spars seen here were actually hinged at the bottom; to lower the boat, the crew loosened the lines holding the davits to the deck and rotated them 180 degrees until the yawl hit the water. The length and position of these davits matches this procedure perfectly.
 
I had considered trying to make these small boats from scratch, but also had two castings in my scrap box that were the perfect size and scale, so just went with that. I painted them white, then gussied them up with hand-carved benches, oars, and rudders. Then I just glued them to the hurricane deck and lashed them to the davits, using the same method to coil the rope ends as described for the grasshopper spars. Pretty straightforward, really.
 
Lettering the name

In the previous photo you can see the lettered name on the pilot house; I also had to add the name to the engine room wall. I decided to use a fine-tipped marker to do this, and practiced multiple times on pieces of painted scrap wood. For the pilot house, I just went ahead and made the sign on a separate plank before attaching it, which looks good to me. For the engine room, it was a bit trickier, as the real boat had the name painted on the side, and I wasn't at all sure I was up for that. So, again, I made several practice letterings on painted scrap, reasoning that I would choose the best one and glue it in place, sacrificing a bit of realism for a better overall look.
 
Then Mrs Cathead pointed out that, if I was going to glue something over the place anyway, I might as well give a shot to lettering it in place, since if I messed up it could be covered anyway with my initial plan. So that's what I did. 
 
In the photo above, you see my best lettering attempt on a separate plank (better wrist angle and control) and my attempt actually on the model. The separate one is definitely a bit better, but the in-place version does have a more authentic feel. I'm not thrilled with any of them, they're all a bit shaky in a really close-up view, but as with so many things, when you step back just a little it blends right in. So I'm going to leave the on-model version, and save the plank version in case I change my mind. This is a case where photography really highlights flaws which don't really show up in an overall view. You can judge for yourselves when I post photos of the finished model.
 
Firewood

Western river boats were voracious users of fuel, burning anywhere from twelve to 75 cords of firewood DAILY. Wood was plentiful along the rivers, and quickly became a cash crop for farmers or dedicated woodcutters who stocked landing places with piles of firewood for sale. Boats took on fuel once or even twice daily, sometimes having to stop and cut their own if no sale point could be found. 
 
I wanted to display firewood on Bertrand, but wasn't up for hand-cutting and splitting 75 cords of 1:87 firewood. So I settled on just a few small stacks to give the idea; apparently Bertrand is actively looking for wood to buy! To make these, I just rummaged in the kindling box next to my wood stove and selected a variety of straight, smooth twigs that looked about right for scale tree trunks. I cut them to length with a small saw, then split them with a hobby knife. I laid out  piece of double-sided tape and put down a first layer of wood, then a layer of wood glue, then a layer of wood, and so on until I'd built up a proper pile. Two of these line the area next to the boilers nicely and get the idea across.
 
Stanchions

Just how Bertrand's boiler deck was supported from the main deck is apparently an issue of slight disagreement. The archeology reports clearly document finding sockets along the outer edge of the main deck guards, into which stanchions would have been placed, leading up to the boiler deck. They also found one of these iron stanchions during the dig. Yet the large-scale model the museum, and several other illustrations, show Bertrand without stanchions, but with knee-like braces curving outward from interior posts; see photos here. I decided to follow the archeologists' reconstruction, and installed stanchions all along the outer guards. These are wooden strips, painted black and rubbed with pastels to hint at a little rust, making them more metal-like. I saved this detail until the very end, to ensure access into the deck in case I needed it.
 
Cargo
Bertrand was loaded heavily with cargo, probably piled to the full height of the main deck along every square foot it could be stored. One successful run to Ft. Benton in western Montana could pay the entire cost of the boat's construction. But I decided to forgo that detail for now, for two reasons. One, I like the open view of the full structure, and two, right now it would be cost- and time-prohibitive to either buy or make the sheer numbers of scale crates, barrels, sacks, and more I'd need to do this. I think at some point, I'd like to go back and add some cargo detail, but right now I actually like the fully open deck really showing the boat's structure and layout. So that's where that stands for now. 
 
This evening I hope to post a variety of photos of the now-completed model.

Good day,
 
Well I've finally finished second planking on both sides below the wales anyway. I'll get the hull ready for the wipe-on-poly tomorrow except where I'll be fitting the wales. I can say without any reservations that I am ready to move on .​
 
 

Lots of progress lately. By the end of this post, Bertrand will be ready for the final bits of rigging and details. The end is in sight! Here we go:
 
Pilot house
 

 
Here I'm laying out pieces for the pilot house. Like the cabins, this uses pre-scribed wood, though I'm cutting & staining the window & door frames individually. I didn't have anything that small on hand, so split each piece manually from wider strips, using a hobby knife.
 

 
Here you see the pilot house partially assembled. You'll notice that I made the windows with two layers of wood, technically not accurate since a real window would have the panes and frames all in one plane. I decided that I didn't have the skill to make perfect square small-paned windows like these in 1:87, so went with the two-layer approach as a reasonable approximation. One reason I stained the windows dark, is to help hide their 2-D nature. The resulting shadow keeps the eye from seeing that, compared to if they were all white. And I think it looks nice. When you step back more than 6", it's hard to see the difference.
 

 
Here's the pilot house installed, with a beginning to the clerestory roof. I carved a series of roof braces with a gentle curve to support this area, instead of bothering with full rafters, as this can't be seen from any angle. Much easier. Then I just planked in both roof areas as I'd done the hurricane deck, using the same pre-coloring technique with pastels. If you look real close, you can see the wheel, which I made by cutting a hoop from the styrene tube soon to be used for the chimneys, and gluing thin styrene rods radially. I thought I took pictures of this process, but can't find them now. Oops.
 
Chimneys
 

 
Though the model railroader in me wants to call these smokestacks, apparently the steamboat world generally called them chimneys. In any case, these were built from two diameters of styrene tubing, one of which slides neatly into the other. I cut a series of hoops from the thicker diameter, and drilled holes in styrene sheet to create a kind of cover plate for where the chimneys cross the hurricane deck.
 
Middle photo shows the assembled chimneys. The thicker, lower section simulates the heat shields such chimneys used to protect passengers on the boiler deck from the hot chimney pipes. The various hoops simulate thicker iron bands on the chimneys, placed approximately where various plans and period illustrations suggest they should be. As styrene is too smooth and shiny to really simulate rough iron to my eye, I used a past trick of mine and wrapped the chimneys in layers of strong masking tape, making each seem a quarter turn from the layer below. These seams simulate the chimneys' construction from tubes of iron, and produce a nice rough texture. 
 
On the right, you see the painted and installed chimneys, weathered with rust-colored pastels. I think they look convincingly like frontier iron work.
 
Stairs
 

 
Three sets of stairs are needed to reach the pilot house from the boiler deck; one from boiler deck to hurricane deck (right), one from hurricane deck to clerestory roof (not shown), and one from clerestory to pilot house (left). I built these in the same manner as the main staircase from main deck to boiler deck, described before in this build. In the background, you see some hog chains, which I'll discuss soon.
 
Boiler deck railing
 

 
Probably the most fiddly part of this build. I'm not entirely happy with how these came out, but they look fine from more than a foot away. I started by building the internal railing that keep passengers from falling down the main stairwell (left). Then I glued a long, painted strip wrapped around all the stanchions on the boiler deck, as the upper rail (center). Then I hand-cut a whole whoppin'  mess of little railing posts to line the railing with, and carefully levered each one into place with tweezers and a dab of glue. Once again, step back a foot and it looks great. Up close, it looks like the work of someone still developing his fine-woodworking skills.
 
(Almost) completed steamboat
 


 
And here she is, very close to done. This is the best view of the hog chain system, the longitudinal iron trusses that keep the bow and stern from sagging in a ong, thin boat with no keel and lots of stern-weight. These I simulated with fine rigging thread painted black, run through holes drilled in the decks and stretched tight. They should have turnbuckles on them for tensioning, which I haven't decided how to simulate yet.
 
All that remains is the "rigging", which in this case means a few support cables for the chimneys, and the various cables and tackles for the grasshopper spars, which I'll discuss when they're done. There are a few other details, such as hoists and tackles for two launches, and splitting some 1:87 firewood for the main deck. But she's close.
 
One question for you all: how would you go about lettering the name, which should go in large black letters on the engine-room wall just forward of the wheel? I've never done lettering before.
 
Hopefully within two weeks I'll post the absolutely completed Bertrand. In the meantime, just two days late, here's Dave Hum playing the Eighth of January, an old tune named for the British defeat at New Orleans that closed the War of 1812, just over 201 years ago:
 

Well, I'm definitely going to miss my personal goal of finishing this by the New Year, but it sure does feel like I'm getting there. In the quiet time around the holidays, I was able to finish framing and planking the hurricane deck, along with building the outhouse/laundry structure. 
 

 
This framing was difficult, and I'm not entirely pleased with the results. It really tested my skill level to create a delicate web of beams, curving both with the port-starboard camber and the fore-after sheer, while resulting in a smooth support for the uppermost deck (which will be very visible on the finished model). I didn't always succeed; a close look in person will reveal some strange twists and angles in the framing. The aft end also took some creative fiddling to get right; a close look in subsequent photos will show that I had to graft another support beam onto the existing structure to support the deck properly. The good news is, as it always is for most models, is that such details tend to blend into the background of a finished model, and most viewers will never notice. But I do, and despite some un-Christmas-like language at the time, also consider such things part of the process of developing my skills. The end result will look good enough.
 

 
Here's the outhouse structure, which hangs over the stern so that the paddlewheel helps with disposal. There are separate mens' and womens' chambers, separated by a laundry room in the middle. Two plans show two different ways to arrange these: one has the doors all at the front, the other has the outhouse doors on each side of the structure. I went with the latter, as I figured it provided a bit more privacy for the occupants of these public multi-holers. As it was, these weren't always good for dignity: one book notes that sometimes when repair work needed to be done on the paddlewheel during voyages, lookouts were stationed at the outhouses to prevent a mutual loss of dignity to those below and above. It wasn't clear to me which side the mens' and women's chambers should go, so I followed old practice and placed the womens' on the left and the mens' on the right.
 
And here are a few views of the current status, showing the planked-in hurricane deck and the paddle-wheel support braces. I haven't installed the hog chains yet, as I think they'll be in the way of other work, but I do have the holes drilled in the decks to accommodate them.
 



 
You'll also notice that the hurricane deck is a different color. There's no one clear answer on what color steamboat decks tended to be; some sources say they were painted or stained various shades of red, others that they remained natural wood. I suspect it varied quite a bit between builder, owner, and such. I went with red for the main & boiler decks because I like the visual contrast with the white hull & superstructure, but changed to grey/black for the hurricane deck and outhouse roof. In this case, I remember reading somewhere that these uppermost surfaces were sometimes tarred or otherwise sealed differently, and I think the different color helps establish that these areas are different than the lower two decks, serving primarily as a roof rather than a surface. And I think it adds a little more visual interest to the model. Without a clear answer, builder's choice takes precedence.
 
If you're wondering, the main & boiler decks were stained with thinned Model Shipways paint, while the hurricane deck is rubbed with grey pastel. This is my favorite way to color wooden models, one I use a lot in model railroad buildings, as it keeps the grain of the wood rough and realistic and tends to naturally look faded in a way that paint & stain don't always do. 
 
Next up: building the pilot house atop the clerestory and roofing/decking in that area, and adding the chimneys. Then I need to build the delicate railings that line most of the boiler deck; I'm not looking forward to that. But once that hurdle is past, the physical model is about done, and it's on to rigging the various hog chains, spars, and other lines around the boat. I'm certain I'll have this done by the end of January. In the meantime, here's the April Verch Band with A Riverboat's Gone:
 

Thanks for the likes and kind comments. I have decided to have a small update on my way to finishing second planking (below the wales anyway). It seems like a small step but in fact it has been a rather large effort getting this planking done. I'm going to take a bit of break before I post again.
 
Happy New Year to you all!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
and it just never seems to end...
 

I personally think that a model can often look better with less detail.  Its like the old adage, addition by subtraction.  Sometimes all the stuff that goes on to make the model authentic gets in the way of even seeing other things.  I just think your Victory is fantastic as it is.  The point you make about the shrouds getting so narrow that ratlines are simply superfluous is spot on.  They can be tied on, but end up just being a little tangle of thread when the shrouds resume their position.  I'm going to go only as high as the ratline can be clearly distinguished as a step.  As for going as high as the catharpins, I might do that if I knew what a catharpin was.  LOL.  Gotta look that one up.

With the boiler deck planked, apart from a section I left open for internal views, I moved on to building the cabin structures. 
 

 
Typical riverboats of this design had two lines of crew/passenger cabins (usually called staterooms), separated by an open main cabin (or parlor) down the centerline in which meals were served and folks could socialize. Only stateroom passengers were allowed in here; those paying for deck passage fended for themselves on the semi-open main deck. The forward-most staterooms would be used by the captain, pilot, clerk, and engineer, then a few mens' staterooms, then a larger room on each side used as galley & storage, then more staterooms aft. Generally the aft-most section of the main cabin was carpeted and reserved for ladies & families only, along with the aft-most staterooms, to save their exposure to cigars, spittoons, cursing, and other male tendencies of the period. 
 

 
The boiler deck has a slight, but clear, sheer both fore and aft (especially aft). So I couldn't just assemble nice, straight walls and set them down, I had to account for the curvature of the deck. The longitudinal walls were built in three sections, with notches to help each fit together. I filed slight angles into these joints, so that the sections fit together in a subtle curve, matching the deck. I cheated slightly with these, using sheets of pre-scribed wood rather than building frames for individual planks, as I did for the main deck structures. However, I did build all the doors and windows from scratch, as advised by the commentariat.
 
In the photo above, the top row are the two ends of the cabin structure (one turned over to show the bracing for the walls), the middle row are the outer walls of the port staterooms, and the lower row are the inner walls of the port staterooms. Lady for scale. I only build the port-side walls, leaving the starboard side open for views of the inner main cabin.
 

 
I started installing the walls by clamping squares across the deck to guide the fore end (not sure "bulkhead" is appropriate in this context). Then I glued guide strips of scrap wood along the deck, inside the runs of the port walls where they wouldn't be seen, and used these as gluing and clamping guides for the walls. Each 1/3 wall was glued in, then the next one sanded to fit and glued in, then the last one.
 

 
Above is the completed cabin structure. By not exposing the interior of the port staterooms, I was better able to support and straighten them with internal stringers. In return, I built two open-sided staterooms at the fore and aft end of the starboard side, to allow a view of the interiors, but left the rest open for better internal views and light. The main cabin should have tables, chairs, wood stoves, chandeliers, and so on, but I'm not up for building all that right now. I'll always have access to this area if I choose to detail it later on.
 

 
A closeup view showing how small these staterooms were, just two bunk beds at most 6' long and perhaps a small cubby for hanging clothes. These were rough frontier boats, not the floating palaces of the lower Mississippi River. Toilets and laundry facilities were at the stern, and will be built and explained in a later post. In this photo you can also see that I managed to install the forgotten engine vent stacks just fine (note: the main smokestacks were actually called "chimneys" on riverboats; I don't know if this terminology extends to smaller stacks).
 

 
Main cabins had a raised clerestory with skylights along the length, allowing light into this central area. Thus I needed to build two of these long, narrow structures complete with regular windows, but strong enough to span the open, unsupported stretch on the starboard side. I did this by laying out two parallel beams on double-sided tape, then setting my cutter to the inside dimension and cutting lots of filler pieces. Using spacers, I laid out the window pattern along the whole structure, then glued in the spacers. When the whole assembly had dried, I peeled it off the tape, sanded it smooth, and painted it. I built two of these one right above the other, so I could visually line up the spacers and ensure the two pieces were identical.
 

 
And here's the result, along with a good start on the beams supporting the hurricane deck (supposedly named for the constant breeze up there).
 

 
And here's a better overall view from an angle, giving a sense of the cabin's overall structure and placement. 
 
Next tasks:
Frame in the rest of the hurricane deck (also serving as the cabins' roof), which extends forward as far as the boiler deck does, but aft only to the end of the cabins. In other words, the forward boiler deck is covered but the after boiler deck is open. Build the aft-most structure, housing the pit toilets (opening into the wheel) and laundry. Lay out and install the hog chains, iron rods which extend longitudinally through multiple decks and support the fore and aft weight of the boat, preventing it from hogging (particularly from the weight of the sternwheel). When I started this project, I had hoped to complete it by the end of the year. That seems unlikely now, but the end is nevertheless in sight. It's exciting to see the Bertrand really taking on its full form, beyond the barge-like appearance it's had for so long. No music this time, too busy to come up with something interesting. Thanks for reading, and Merry Christmas or whatever seasonal salutation warms your cockles. 

Thanks John for the kind  words . Yes i believe the full yard will look best , my problem now is figuring out which blocks etc will be necessary because of the restricted masts as i don,t want to many blocks hanging unused but don,t fancy fitting any once the yards are fitted . Might be easier removing than fitting ??. I also want to keep the rigging to a minimum so might follow the Billings drawings which seem very basic .I knew they would be usefull at some stage !!!!

Shipyard Update,
4 pumps constructed, bashed from "Amati 15mm wood pump".
I really wanted them to look as though made of timber, metal bands.
 

Left: The Corel Kit supplied a brass twin pump piece. What can I say, typical of many items supplied in the kit, not appropriate.
Right: The Amati kit pump was not up to scratch, so bashed it into something like >>>
 
 
I made two(2) types of pumps. 2 more were added whilst in the Deptford Yard ?
- 1 type has the taller barrel with strut over the cap(2 original "Pembrook" pumps)
- 1 type with a shorter barrel and strut 180 deg. facing away(added at refit, Deptford yard)
I replaced the top flange with a cap(a small hole in the middle for pump shaft).
I shaved the barrel and 3 black rings into hex(6 sides) so they look like that in the AOTS.
Also added bar at the end of the handles.
Some timber stain and a clear coat of lacquer to seal them up.
Each one even works up and down. 
 
A lot time, but I think worth it.
 
Just got to get them in the right place on the deck. I saw in another Endeavour log, that the 
 
 
 
Dave R

O.K. i post somes photos of the lighning in somes cabins . It's suppose to be represent some oil lamps . The pictures are not very good .