steamschooner

Eric, I was thinking the area in blue looks like it has been pushed in somewhat. More so on the right near the paddle box. Planking would still be at a angle on the guard timbers. You are right that it seems to be a unusual way to plank.
 

Eric,  It also looks like the hull is pushed inward at the paddle box making it look like the decking would need to change direction. But if paddle box was pushed back out the remaining decking would line up fairly well. From what I can see in the wreck photo the planking at the stern looks like they used wider planking with narrowed ends with a fan shape.
steve

Eric, Did the missing deck planks straighten out or did they continue at that same angle? Its looks like a short run to the paddle box so keeping the planks angled should not have been much of a deal for the builders.(Just my 2 cents worth)
Steve

Eric, Your hull looks very good, I wonder did they paint the bottoms on these early riverboats or use some sort of tar or pitch mixture?

Eric, The planking is looking very nice. Since no body knows how it was planked who's to say you are wrong in doing it the way you are. Like my project there is alot of best guess when working out construction. For me that is part of the appeal of building a boat/ship that has not been modeled before.
 The few photos I have show no planking on the bottom side of the guard timbers( later boats )
 

Eric, How do you plan to form the transition at the bow? Will the planking butt together on the center of the keel? or will there be a plank that runs the length of the keel? (which you can see in the recovered stern, tiller photo ) I wonder if in real construction if they used chine logs at the point where the side planking meet the flat bottom planking. Putting some blocking between bulkheads, or moving the ones there will give you some backing for those drop planks.
At some point in the future I hope to build a stern wheeler from this area so I follow along.

Eric, I don't remember what scale you are working in but are your planks to scale? Do you know the sizes of the planks on the recovered stern?
Comparing the photo of the stern and your model It looks like your last bulkhead is shaped differently than in the photo.
Since most of the bottom will not be seen and most likely painted matching the original is not as important.
My 2 cents 
 
 

Hello again, and thanks for looking in.
 
Construction continued with the sheer strakes which incorporated the bulwarks of the working decks at the bow and stern.  They are at different levels, with the bow being part of D Deck, while the stern is at the E Deck level.  For the bow I took wider strips of styrene which were 0.015” thick.  I thought I needed the extra thickness for structural strength above the support of the hull block. 
 
The lower edge of the new strip was fitted to the upper edge of the prior plates and parallel with the top line of portholes, then it was taped in place.  Using a compass I marked the inside with a line setting a consistent height of 4 feet (1/4”) for the bulwarks.  The strips were removed and shaped to the line.  I located and drilled three round holes for the hawser leads and two slots for the fairleads, although these were hidden by solid hinged doors such as the one that can be seen just aft of the bow.

 At the stern the strakes around the compound curves had to be built up one at a time, then faired into a final vertical bulwark.  I made and discarded several sets of paper patterns before getting it to match the photographs.  Here I did my first significant split painting.  I sprayed dark grey primer on both sides of the hull with the inside of the stbd bulwark masked to keep it white.  Then I masked the port side and painted the stbd side black.  I got some underspray but I decanted some of the primer and cleaned it up with a brush. 
 
The deck is also split.  Many of the photos of the troop ship have decks that look a lot like they match the grey of the deck houses and bulwarks, so we decided they should look it on the model.  It also gives a stark contrast between the two representations.  To keep the lines of the deck planks visible I misted the paint from a distance to make a translucent layer.  This deck is a test piece and was ultimately replaced.

My guide for the bulwarks was this photo of the troop ship.  The wood deck ends several feet from the bulwark, leaving a gutter space for the triangular supports for the bulwark.  Also in that space are two four-post fairleads near the bow and two three-post ones further aft near the chain winches.  A fairly wide caprail tops the bulwarks with a small breakwater mounted on top at the bow.

The supports were chopped from a ¼” strip using an inexpensive commercial device I bought a while ago.  It has served faithfully as long as I replace the blade frequently.

The fairleads were built up by taking thick strip ¼” wide, cutting pieces to length and sanding a bevel into the inner edge.  Short posts were cut from solid rod as carefully as I could.  Using the squarest ends they were glued to the bases with white glue which gave me some time for adjustments as it set.  When the glue was dry the posts were all reinforced with CA.  When everything was sturdy I lightly sanded to tops of the posts level and even.  Then they were topped by small discs punched out of a sheet with a leather-working punch.

The fairleads were primed dark grey, as were a number of bollards and winches that started life as Bluejacket castings.  They were set in place to help locate the fairleads exactly.  The fairleads then located the bulwark supports and the spacing between them.  This then determined the locations of the stanchions which support the next deck, and they are marked in black.

Everything was removed and the bulwarks, supports and perimeters were given contrasting colors.  I decided on a dark grey for the port side to match the primer on the fittings.  A better deck was made, a margin plank applied, and the port side misted grey before being glued down.

Another test.  The port side fittings are a light grey, the stbd ones are buff colored, as seen in a few photos.  The buff ones are good, but on the port side I did not like the contrast between the light fittings and dark bulwarks. 

At the bow I made the fairleads and bulwarks the same light grey.  I like the look better, and it is closer to what I see in the photos.  I will probably do some dark washes at the end of the build to bring out a bit of contrast.  Now I could mask the interior of the bulwark and paint the liner side gloss black to a point just past the end of the working deck.  The stbd caprail had been left off until now to keep it pristine white, and now it was attached, making a very clean color separation line.

In the middle of this area is a large deckhouse spanning the full width of the deck.  Side panels sit on top of the caprails and curve into them.  A number of portholes pierce all sides of the house, with two wide corridors running through the house, which could be closed off with double steel watertight doors on the forward face.  The forward mast, several boats and davits, winches and ventilators cover its roof, but those details are for much later.

The deckhouse is built up from a ½” basswood for the body of the house, with a 3/32” roof.  It is sheathed in styrene which extends just a bit above the roof.  This lip will anchor the brass railings that will go on later.  Portholes on the sides were installed as before, but I left the ones on the liner side bright brass.  On the forward face I cut two large doorways with rounded corners and flanked them with doors made from strip.  The portholes on this face are PE from Tom’s Modelworks, Nice, but ultimately I did not like them.  It was a question of visibility.  They just did not stand out well enough. Handrails on the liner side are bright brass wire.  On the liner side, soft iron wire.  This is the basic pattern that all future deckhouses will follow.

From the opposite angle you see that the PE portholes on the troop ship side have disappeared completely.  The portholes on the face of the main deckhouse are much more visible and match those on the hull.

The aft side of the deckhouse has the same corridor openings, but without the watertight doors.  The round pillars are bases for tall, thin horn ventilators.  The roof has been pierced for staircases, cut small to be expanded later.

All along I have been taking test photos to judge my progress.  Here is one to check the symmetry of the hull and the details.  If you have a sharp eye, you will notice that the small triangular roof extension at the forward corner of the deckhouse is smaller for the liner than for the troop ship.  This is just the first of many subtle and not so subtle differences from one to the other.

The same techniques were used to build up the small, but detailed, 4th Class entryway which fits on deck between the deckhouse and the superstructure.  Some more detailing is needed, but it will help locate stairways, cargo cranes, and other fittings.

Here are some of those details for the bow deck, including three hatches and a number of bollards.

And here they are set in approximate place.  Now, as I write this, I can see that the entryway that I spent a good bit of time on is too big.  It crowds the hatches and will get in the way of future fittings, including a gun platform on the troop ship. 

I will have to make up another one.  But not now.
 
Be well
 
Dan

Hello again all.   Here is the next segment, posted quickly since I will be leaving for the NRG conference in Las Vegas tomorrow morning.  Hope to see some of you there.
 
Now that the hull block has been shaped and primed, I had to decide how detailed I wanted to make its surface.  From a distance – even by modeling standards – the liner hull is a fairly undifferentiated black.  The troop ship hull is a riot of colors and shapes.  In both cases I believe that I could have left the surface fairly clean without compromising the educational value of the model to the museum.  However, that is not my way, as anyone who knows my mania will tell you.
 
The hull was built up out of steel plates that appear to be about 8 feet tall and 25 feet long.  The upper strakes overlap the lower ones, so there is a step up with each successive plate from the hull to the sheer.  Judging from the shadows that they cast, the plates appear to be about 1 inch thick.

These plates were attached with rows of rivets along their bottom edges and through the overlapped plates of the strake below.  They were secured to each other along the same strake with narrow vertical connector plates that covered the joints and were riveted to both plates.  I resolved to replicate this look as best I could.

Extra-high resolution photos showed that the plates were also secured with a number of lines of rivets in the middle of the plates.  This was a step too far for me, but perhaps I will attempt it if I do another hull where I have more building time.

I started with 0.005” styrene sheet, which scales out to 1 inch thick.  The sheet was cut to 6 inches wide, which scales out to 100 feet, or 4 full sized plates.  To make the lines of rivets I butted the edge of the sheet against a straight metal rule which had been taped down to a cutting mat.  A second rule was placed on top of the sheet and adjusted so it was parallel with the first, then it was clamped in place.  The shaft of a Dremel circular saw bitt was slipped into a hole in a piece of scrapwood so it could spin, then rolled along against the edge of the top rule.  This left a line of indentations pushed down into the soft cutting mat.  The top rule was moved out and a second line of indentation was made, then a third.  Then the sheet was placed in a wooden cutting jig and a ½” strip parted off with the triple line of rivets along one edge.

To keep the lines of rivets consistently spaced from each other, and from strip to strip, I made up a quick rivet spacer with three steps.

The end result was a plating strip with three parallel rows of bumps that were close enough in scale to approximate the real rivets.

These strips were applied to the hull block from the waterline up, following a series of drawn lines that matched the lines of plating strakes seen in the photographs.

At the bow they ended before the edge of the stem.  In the photos these areas do not have rivets and look to have been welded.  The drawn circle is the future location for the housed anchor.

At the stern the strakes fair upwards and taper slightly to cover the complex curves and to match other photos.

The connector plates were made from ¼” wide self-adhesive copper foil on a paper backing.  This is available from any stained glass supply company in every width up to a full half inch in 1/32 inch increments, so the right one can be found whatever scale you are working in.  A 5 inch length was cut off the roll and 4 lines of rivets impressed from the back through the paper and into the mat.

Short lengths of the riveted foil were cut off and applied to the plating strips.  They covered each joint between strips and then in a staggered pattern to define the individual plates.

Some of the copper plates had to be adjusted forward or aft, but I could set up a pretty regular pattern that never had one joint directly above another.

The developing pattern clearly defines the curved sheer of the ship.  I left the uppermost strake off at this point because the final strake will be thicker and will incorporate the solid bulwark around the open deck.

Here is the starboard side for the liner with all the plates and connectors applied.  The port side was done the same way.  Without counting precisely, I estimate that there are over 200,000 “rivets” on the model.

The port side was sealed with another coat of dark grey primer and the lines of portholes located according to the photos and plans.  These were drawn on the hull and adjusted as needed to make smooth, fair curves that matched the plating strakes.  Then the “porthole plan” from Cutting Plan 1 was cut along the line of one row of portholes and taped to the hull so I could get the location of each porthole.

Here you can see the process in one view, from the bottom up.  1) the lines were drawn; 2) a small nail was used to make dimples at each porthole location; 3) a hole was drilled at each dimple that was deep enough to accept the shaft of a small brass grommet; 4) the holes were painted with white glue and the grommets slipped in; 5) any grommets that were out of line were corrected and they were all tapped down flush.

At the bow you can see how the lines of portholes relate to each other and to the stowed anchor and a pair of auxiliary hawse holes.

In the midships area there are two sizes of portholes, some of which are set in a square pattern of four.

By actual count there are more than 2,500 portholes on the model.  Inserting them individually into their proper holes aggravated a carpal tunnel-like problem that I get, which my doctor calls “porthole thumb”.   It requires a somewhat painful cortisone injection to the base of my right thumb, but it does clear up.   So here is the troop ship port side with all of its portholes set up almost to the sheer. 

After the starboard liner side was done the hull was basically complete, and I turned to some of the detail work on the bow and stern working decks.  I will post that when I get back from Vegas.
 
Till then, be well.
 
Dan

Hello again and welcome to the next segment of the build.  In this one the hull block will be roughed out.
 
First, to determine what wood to order, I laid out the lifts.  Taking the profile view I adjusted it until it was exactly level, then drew in horizontal lines to divide the hull from the waterline up to the level of the working deck at the bow – D deck.

I started with a ¼” lift at the waterline and just below.  This will later be attached to the building board which will become the base for the ocean.  Four ½ inch lifts follow.  Each lift is labeled to show its thickness and the deck plan that will be used to rough cut each to the outline of the hull.   Above the fifth lift is another ¼” lift and then two upper layers that are tapered to account for the rise of the sheer at the bow.   

At the stern the lifts are similar, although the open working deck here is one level down, at the level of E deck.  There is a similar taper in a lift for the sheer.

The model was going to be just under 5 feet long, but basswood only comes in lengths of 2,3,4, and 6 feet.  I could have ordered 6 foot planks, but they are significantly more expensive and there would be a good deal of waste.  Instead, I pieced the hull together by alternating 2 and 3 foot lengths, staggering the joints from layer to layer.  I also only ordered a few pieces in the full 6 inch breadth of the model.  The rest were 3 inches wide and would be joined together in the construction process.
 
The plans for each lift were cut from the printed sheets and laid out on the wood.  A spray photo mount glue was used so they could be easily removed later.  For each lift the wood pieces were clamped together without glue and the plans were attached.  While still clamped in place the paper was cut along the joints.  Here are the first three lifts laid out in a somewhat confusing composite photo.  Hope you can understand it well enough.

The lifts were cut out along the perimeter of the plans, leaving them a bit oversize for later shaping.  The base waterline lift was left intact, but above that the lifts were hollowed by removing most of the interior wood.  I do this so that wood movement is minimized and the stresses have some where to go other than deforming the exterior shape.  Using the narrow planks meant that I had open access to the middle of the lift, so I could remove the wood with my band saw and did not have to drill, chisel, or rout it out.  Two bridges were left at the 2 and 3 foot positions along the lift for structural strength.  Here is the waterline lift with the next lift above it.

Each lift was glued to the one below with woodworkers’ yellow glue that was colored black with a few drops of acrylic paint.  They were individually clamped and secured, making sure that each was exactly on the centerline.  Here I have built them up to the last fully horizontal lift, which is also the last one that was hollowed.  I glued a penny to the center of the ship for luck.

The tapering lifts were cut to shape and planed to the proper profile.  When all were set a power sander was used to shape the hull.  Here at the bow you can see that tapered lift.  Using the black glue always gives me reference lines, no matter how much wood is removed.

At the stern the shaping was a bit more complex.  I did not have any cross-sections for this area from the plans, just the stern profile.  I used the photographs to refine the shape, setting them up on my laptop so I could look at them as I worked.  Even with all my planning I found that the first thick lift was too narrow in one spot, so a strip of wood was glued in and shaped to fill the gap.

Using the black glue also let me see the symmetry of the hull as it was being shaped, especially at the stern.  There is still a bit more refining to do in this shot, but it is getting close.

The issue at the bow is that Leviathan carried not only the usual two anchors on the sides of the ship, but a third larger anchor which ran out from the nose of the ship.  This meant that the bow flared out in a long diamond shape so there was room for the hawse hole.  This is a detail that cannot be seen on any of the plans, but only on the various photographs.

The location of the hole was carefully drawn on with the oval shape that the angled hawse pipe makes, and then carved into the excess wood that had been left at the bow.  The black glue that secured the narrow lift pieces together established an indelible centerline that I used to guide the shaping of the bow.

When the basic shaping was done I gave the hull a first coat of primer to show me where I needed more fairing and smoothing, some of which you can see.

Where I was satisfied with the shape the wood was given a coat of Minwax wood hardener.  I like this product because it dries quite hard and protects the cut and shaped edges from dings and nicks.  I only use it where I am very close to final shape because it is a bear to try to sand after it has set.  You can see from the darkened areas that I have only used it at this point on the edges of the hull block and the thin area above the rudder.

The hull block was built up in this way up to D deck plus the forward portion of the deckhouse of C deck.   Although I cut out the shapes of the decks and deck houses up to A deck, they were left rough but stacked in place to give me an idea of future work to do.  So here is the model at this point in front of the triple image.

Next time, plating, rivets, and portholes.
 
Be well
 
Dan     
 

The wheels are mostly done. Assembling the three rings into a coherent, well-aligned whole was extremely difficult. It was made worse by the fact that I wasn't as precise as I thought in keeping all three built to the same pattern; even very slight misalignments of the spokes led to difficult problems.
 
First, I made spacers to hold the rings the proper distance apart, and spent lots of time spinning and testing the rings to find the best alignment.

Some spokes needed filing or filling to get the buckets (the paddle planks) reasonably aligned. These changes looked terrible as I made them but they really fade into the background with painting and with the complexity of the wheel as a whole. Plus, I made a point of not modifying the outer ring, the only one that's really visible.

As previously discussed, I built the port wheel at about 40% completion as everything above that will be invisible. Here are four pictures of the completed 1.4 wheels test-installed on the model.




I think they look pretty good for scratchbuilt wheels, and am very, VERY glad to be past this portion of the project. I want to do some more weathering and I haven't yet decided how to install or simulate all the iron bolts that hold each bucket to each spoke. More on that later. Thanks for reading!

Hi folks!
 
Thanks for all the positive reactions and comments to Genesis’ construction journey so far.  Much appreciated as always!
 
This latest update shows that I’ve been adding more detail to the large settees on the aft main deck, as well as bit more furniture on the aft of the Sun Deck.  
 
Also, as a homage to the real ship that Genesis is based upon, Khalilah, I’ve added gold card to the main deck house and other assorted areas of the superstructure, in order to bring some contrast to the black superstructure.
 
I hope you enjoy these photos.
 
Have a great weekend!
 
Cheers. 
 
Patrick
 
 
 

Hi to those of you who are following along, and those just looking in.  I hope to make this journey informative and enjoyable for all, as it has been for me.  Just hit the 'like' button if I am succeeding.  
   
The research for the project started, as with all my models of modern ships, by surfing what could be easily reached on the internet.  Wikipedia gave me the basic history that I summarized in segment one, along with a few photographs. 

I always look at the research notes and sources at the bottom of a wiki article, which led me to the photo archives of the Naval History and Heritage Command (www.history.navy.mil), also known as the Naval Historical Center.  This is a site maintained by the US Navy, and any of the photos that can be seen there are in the public domain.  Fortunately, they had over 200 photos of her taken mostly while she was a troop ship during WW I, including this shot of one of the 6-inch guns that were installed so she could defend herself. 

Another excellent site is NavSource Naval History (www.navsource.org), an organization of volunteers who put together histories and photographs of US Navy vessels.  Here there were many more photos, not just limited to those of her as a troop ship, but included those of her as the SS Vaterland before the war and as the SS Leviathan after the war.  However, many of the images are copyright protected and so I used them only for research. 
 
A wider net was cast by searching Google images under all three names of the ship and a flood of photographs were found.  Everything from high-resolution images of the liner’s deckhouse to low res blurry shots of the troop ship being filled with coal. 


Side branches led me to even more images.  One of those was to an image of the cover of a huge six volume set of books by Frank O. Braynard, a noted maritime historian, prolific author, and one of the founders of South Street Seaport museum and historic area New York. 

The books were available on the net, but for a minimum of $200 for the set.  Fortunately, the Merchant Marine Academy museum has a set, which I devoured.  Here I found many more photos that I had not seen before.  Unfortunately, the books had been produced in sepia-tone, and the images had lost some resolution in the process.  I scanned those that gave me viewpoints that I did not already have, converted them to greyscale and played with contrast and lighting to get as much information out of them as I could.

My final resource for images was a man I was introduced to by Professor Smith.  Richard Rabbett of Boston is a liner enthusiast, especially Leviathan.  He has studied her for years and has an impressive collection of artifacts, photos and knowledge.  He even moderates a Facebook group about the ship at  https://www.facebook.com/groups/ssleviathan/     He has generously given his time and advice to the project.  Even now I rely on him when there is a particular perspective or camera angle that I do not have.
 
From all of those I selected about 200 that cover just about every square inch of the exterior of the ship in as much detail as possible.  Some, like this aerial view, from Richard, are unique and had to be included, despite the long range and some resolution problems.   

Getting a good set of plans was less easy.  There are no complete ones that could be located either through a plans company or on the net, although some individual deck plans were found.  They were incomplete and some were poorly rendered.  I did find a good cross-section drawn by Gibbs & Cox during the conversion from troop ship to liner, but only a few deck plans.

Nor was there a full set in the Braynard books.  Some were printed on the inside covers, but they ran across the fold so some dimensions are questionable.  Some others are labelled in German, so they must be plans of the SS Vaterland, before two conversions, and could only be relied on for the general outlines of the decks.  Even the historian at Newport News Shipbuilding, where the last conversion took place, could not find a complete set, yet I know that it must exist, because Richard Rabbett has a set from the conversion.  But his are both too large and too fragile to flatten for a scan.  He took photos of them for me, but they would need a lot of work before they could be used to base a model on.

Nonetheless, I managed to assemble digital images of almost all of the deck plans from the waterline up.  They were dropped into Photoshop, cleaned up and cropped.  Then each one needed to be straightened out, since most were scans of paper plans which had warped over time.  A centerline was established and each warped segment of the plan was returned to center using the skew and distort functions of the program.  They were resized to the 57” LOA of the model and assembled vertically in one image.  I used the G&C cross section as my guide, and adjusted each deck plan to match it.  Ultimately, this is what I came up with.  It is highly reduced here, but it scans as 19,500 px by 27,000 px (119 megabytes) and would be 6’ x 9’ if printed full size.

This plan got taken apart and assembled into two ‘cutting plans’ for convenience, then taken to the blueprint service company where three sets were printed out. 

At the top of cutting plan 1 is what I call the ‘porthole plan’.  I took the plan for the exterior hull which I mirrored vertically so I would have the locations of every porthole, door and fitting on the hull, both port and starboard.  Small sections of the bow and stern were also included from which I made templates to help shape the hull.  Finally, I put together a triple image of the exterior plan, an exterior photo, and a plan view of the ship which I could easily consult during construction.

This process took several weeks, during which I also ordered wood, surfed the net for fitting and fixtures, and got the shop in the upstate house cleared and cleaned.  Next segment, we start cutting wood.
 
Till then, be well
 
Dan
 
 

Hello to everyone who followed me from the SS Michelangelo build log.  I hope that you will enjoy this one as well. 
 
This is the first of what will be 7 models built over the next 4 years for the museum at the US Merchant Marine Academy at Kings’ Point, NY.  It is a gem of a small museum, open to the public, well worth visiting for the history of the US merchant marine during war and peace, as well as dozens of beautiful and informative ship models.
 
This first model is of the most famous ship that I knew nothing about until I started this commission.  The USS/SS Leviathan was, in her day, the largest ship in the world and a major contributor to the allied victory in World War I.  Built in 1913 by Blohm & Voss Shipyards in Germany, she began service in 1914 as the SS Vaterland for the Hamburg-American Line.  Displacing 54, 282 tons she was 100 feet in breadth and 950 feet long, some 67 feet longer than RMS Titanic, yet her engines could push her along at a very respectable 26 knots.

After only one and a half trips from Hamburg to New York she found herself here in August when the war broke out.  She was interned by the USA, a neutral country at the time, and spent the next three years in Hoboken, NJ.   When America joined the war she was seized (stolen, the Germans say) and taken into the US Navy as a troop ship, renamed the USS Leviathan. 

As a troop ship she made a major contribution to the allied victory.  In her 14 round trips she carried over 100,000 soldiers to the front, and the same number back, some wounded, some with the Spanish flu, but most just glad to be going home.  On one return trip she carried over 12,000 troops plus another 2,500 officers, sailors and nurses, a total of over 14,500 souls aboard.

During her first transit she stopped off in Liverpool where she took on a coat of ‘dazzle’ camouflage paint.  Dazzle was developed by British marine artist Norman Wilkinson and used complex geometric patterns and contrasting colors to disguise the outline of the ship from German submarines and torpedo boats.  The scheme for the Leviathan was particularly bizarre, but seems to have worked, since she was never attacked.

After the war she was taken into the United States Lines as their flagship.  She was completely renovated by Gibbs & Cox, with little help from Blohm & Voss, who were still smarting at the seizure of their masterpiece.  Restored to her former splendor by 1923 she cruised from New York for the next decade before the newer, sleeker ships, the SS America and the SS United States, took her place.

As I mentioned in the Michelangelo log, my contract is to provide a model that reflects, on the port side, her dazzling appearance during the war, while the starboard side will show her civilian colors. Down the centerline things will get dicey, and there will be many puzzles and challenges along the way.  It should be an interesting trip.
 
Next, research and plans.
 
Be well
 
Dan 

Hello again to all, and thank you all for staying with me on this journey of the SS Michelangelo project which ends with this final segment.   My efforts are now focused on the next project, the USS/SS Leviathan, which you can follow by clicking on the new link in my signature, below.
 
As the last segment ended I had made up and installed the three types of lights around the ship.  The final detail was the rigging.  This was fairly simple and consisted of only two types, the stays and the radio antenna. 

The stays were of three different weights, but all were made up in the same way.  The lowest shrouds for the two masts and their forestays were done with Accu-Flex stainless steel beading wire in 0.0095” diameter, while the middle backstays were done in the slightly smaller 0.007” diameter.  Despite these small sizes they are each laid up from 7 strands of stainless steel wire wrapped in a clear plastic coating.  They look like metal because they are metal.  The uppermost backstays and the lifts for the spars are made from silver fly tying line, about 0.005”. 
 
Each line was secured with a scale turnbuckle made from a small piece of brass tubing.  The line was fed through the body of the turnbuckle, then through a small eyebolt twisted up from iron wire, then back through the turnbuckle tube.  After the shaft of the eyebolt is glued in place the wire is pulled taut and the tube slid down to lock it in place.  Then it is simply glued and the excess line clipped off and the turnbuckle painted silver.  For size comparison, the background is a normal paper towel with its embossed pattern.

Here is the finished model with the stays installed.  The radio lines are black so they do not show up here.

Taking a tour of the ship, here is the forward half with the winches, hatches, and cargo cranes of the bow working deck.

The midships area has the main pool, the boats, and those 3-D printed cages for the funnels.

And the stern, with the two smaller pools and the numerous complicated light poles.

Viewed from dead astern I can see just a little wobble in the upper green stripe, but overall I am quite happy with her.

And of course, the obligatory shot from low on the bow.

The final decision was how to display and case her.  I located a nice mahogany case on line and had it shipped from Vietnam.  The shiny aluminum pedestals nicely set off the colors of the model, but the light maple wood base that I first selected just did not go.  It did not match any of the colors, and made the model look too high in the case.

Instead, I refinished the base to match the mahogany case and the results were, I think, a significant improvement.

So now it is ready to motor off to someone else’s collection.  I will be contacting brokers who deal in ship models to see if there is any interest.  Frankly, my wife will not mind if it does not sell.  She thinks it looks perfect on our sideboard.  I have to agree, though I say it who shouldn’t.

Meanwhile, I will be posting my progress on the Leviathan project.  If you enjoyed this journey with me, I invite your participation, comments and suggestions on that one, as always.
 
And as always, be well.
 
Dan

To finish one wheel assembly, I needed to make two more identical sets of rings. My first plan was to build these on the paper plans just like I'd done the first one, but I was afraid that would enable too much variability. So I hit on the idea of building the next rings right on top the first one. After cutting the next 18 spokes, I clamped each one to its counterpart on the original:

The end clamps made the spokes warp up a bit in the middle, so I used large clamps to hold the whole assembly in place and flat:
 

Next, I used the same approach as before and smeared wood glue into the central area, being sure not to overdo it so none leaked down to the original ring below. This worked great; once it dried, I had a solid set of spokes following the same pattern as the original. I flipped this over, treated the other side the same way, then set about completing it just as described above. I did this a third time and ended up with three nice wheel rings, shown below after sanding. This was MUCH faster than laying the first wheel out on the paper plan using pins.
 

In case you were wondering, I marked the end of one spoke of each piece so that I'd know where to line them up again. These look nice in the photo but they're certainly not perfectly symmetrical (I'm not that good a craftsman), so it's important to know how best to align them.  Next I painted them, which took longer than I expected. There are so...many...nooks and crannies in these darn things that all have to get color!
 
Below are two shots of the three rings temporarily threaded on an axle and placed loosely on the model just for visual interest (no attempt to line them up perfectly or join them); I wanted to see what they'd look like in place.
 

 

They're obviously pretty bright and need to be toned down. I tried the vinegar/rust soak I used for the decking, but as these are painted on all sides it didn't really do anything (no raw wood to soak into), so I used a thin wash of black paint to dull the color. I don't have a photo of that but they look a lot better now. Next up, cutting and painting all the bucket boards (the horizontal pieces connecting the rings) and working out the best way to build this complex structure so that everything lines up (including both the buckets and the axle holes). I think it's going to be tricky.
 
Also, Roger mentioned the difficulty of building half a wheel. I think that, using the methods above, it'll be fairly straightforward to lay out half a wheel on the paper plan, glue the spokes in place at the center, then duplicate that twice using the clamping method. If I then attach wheel hubs and string them on an axle, the half-wheel will naturally hang down into the visible part of the wheel housing, and no one will ever be able to see up into the upper half. That's the current thinking, anyway.
 
This was a nice stage to reach this weekend. Thanks for reading.

Hi folks!  
 
Another quick update. I’ve done a bit more work on the interior of the Sky Lounge on the top deck. Everything is dry-fitted at this stage.  
 
I hope you enjoy these photos. 
 
All the best. 
 
Patrick
 
 

Working on the paddle wheel has been a refreshing change of pace. As a reminder, here's one shot of a restored wheel at the museum (with me for scale); there are many more in this post from my design thread.

I couldn't measure the wheel directly, but sources say it's 28' (~8.5 m) in diameter. I know the width exactly because one of the axles is on display within the museum and I could photograph and measure it up close (see photo later in this post). I estimated the overall layout of the wheel by visual inspection of my photos, then drew up a plan on my computer that I could print out and use as a template. Luckily, the Arabia has 18 spokes, making a nice easy 20° angle between each. For contrast, Bertrand had something like 13 spokes, meaning none of them lined up properly and were harder to lay out cleanly.
 
To actually build the first ring, I drew on techniques I used to use when building Guillows balsa-frame aircraft. I laid the plan on a piece of cardboard and used sewing pins to mark the end of each spoke along the outside circumference:
 

I "sharpened" the end of each spoke at roughly the correct angle for all to fit together. On the real thing, each spoke's end would fit into a precisely cast iron hub, like this:
 

But I felt that my skill set wasn't up to trying to manufacture such a detailed piece, especially having to make three identical ones (so all the rings lined up). So I decided to fudge it by assembling the wheel spokes as a solid mass and placing a flat hub along the outside. Notice how all the spoke flanges face inward on the axle; this means they'll be barely visible on the finished model anyway, so my approach should simulate the right effect. I may even draw in some faint black lines or shading to suggest the presence of the flanges separating the spokes.
 
Given that choice, I laid out all 18 spokes on the plan and used more pins to hold them in place. I filed a slight notch at the outer end of each spoke so they'd sit against the end pins more securely.
 

Once I was happy with the layout, I smeared wood glue within the central "sharpened" zone so it would sink into the slight gaps between spokes and bind them together. When that dried, I flipped the assemblage and repeated the process. I was careful not to use too much so that it wouldn't drip down and bind the spokes to the paper plan. I kept the glue within the rough area that would be covered by the wheel hub, to minimize any change in appearance of the finished wheel. This worked great; the wood absorbed the glue and held fast as a tight structure with no reinforcement necessary:
 

Next, I started filling in the rings. I started with the outermost one, figuring that it would hold the spokes in the proper alignment while the rest were filled in. Starting from the inside out had too much potential to deform the spokes and end up with an uneven and unsightly pattern. This was the correct decision.
 
I cut each piece using a combination of sharp hobby knife, sharp blade on a "chopper" type platform cutter, and a small razor saw. I used files, sandpaper, and the hobby knife to adjust the end angles until I was satisfied, then glued the piece in place. Some weren't perfect and there are subtle differences in spacing between spokes, but they're all but invisible in the collective view. Here's the wheel with the first two rings completed:
 

And here's the finished wheel, sanded to a smoother finish:
 

I'm quite happy with how this turned out. Of course, now I have to make at least two more. It was a fun project the first time, we'll see how I feel after repeating it. I say "at least two more" because each wheel consists of three such assemblages, so in theory I need six of these. However, I'm only planning to leave one side of the Arabia open to view, as I did on Bertrand, so I need one fully developed wheel. As the other side will be enclosed, it seems unnecessary to build a full wheel that will be 90% hidden within the paddlebox. So right now I'm considering only building the lowest part of a "dummy" wheel for that side and hiding it in fully planked paddlebox. I think by the time I build three of these, that will feel like the right decision.
 
It took a week to build this first one, but perhaps the next two will go a bit faster now that I've worked out my methods. In any case, it was nice to celebrate my birthday today with a finished mini-project. It's raining here, so we're having a quiet indoor day with good food, which is just fine with me at 39. We're making fried rice with garden produce and homemade sweet-and-sour-sauce for lunch, then German potato pancakes, homemade breadstick-pretzels, and pear sauce (fruit from our orchard) for dinner with a coconut-lemon rum cake. Will probably open a bottle of homemade mead to celebrate.
 
Thanks for reading

The main deck is planked!


Apologies for no updates in a while. Planking is slow and tedious and there really isn't much to show as it progresses. Plus, August was my busiest-ever work month so I was particularly disinclined to get on the computer for any other purposes.
 
Sharp eyes may have noticed that my deck planks are a bit wider than they appear to be in the original wreck photos. That's intentional; I knew I wanted to paint and stain each plank individually, and thought I would go absolutely crazy if I used really narrow scale planks. As it is, this deck took me over two months to complete. I think it captures a realistic feel and honestly that's more important to me than exact replication.
 
I remain really happy with the steel wool & vinegar stain I've been using on all these planks. It darkens the paint just the right amount and gives any exposed raw wood a nice weathered tone. The underside of the deck, though it will be difficult to see on the completed model, has a nice appearance to my eye:
 

 
Look closely and you'll see that a couple of red paint blobs seeped through here and here (particularly just forward of the port wheel). I tried to check each plank before installation, but obviously got sloppy in a couple places. I can't fix it, and again this is an angle that won't be seen on the finished model, so I'll live with it. Trying to keep a pure white hull clean during the building process is also proving to be a challenge; just too easy to grab her with pastel-grubby hands or accidentally smear stain. I'm considering whether to stain/pastel the lower hull brownish to simulate a river-mud waterline.
 
Next up, I return to machinery work. I need the wheels and boilers built and installed, along with the engines, before I do any superstructure work so I can be sure they all work together properly. Gotta say I'm not looking forward to building the wheels!
 
Thanks for reading and for putting up with the long delay.

She is back in the centre of the shop, ready to be worked on. I whipped up a new portable stand from a surplus IKEA wardrobe.
 

 

 

 

 

 
I did some tidying up and put the main-sheet back together. Now who can spot the poorly belayed rope.
 

 
It really feels good to get  the cutter back on the  shipyard floor. Now off to have some supper with Judy.
 
Michael

Just so you all know I do work on my model from time to time. Like most I have many spring and summer things to do and do not get to spend much time in the shipyard. I have managed to cast some deck cleats( twice ) The first ones I ended up not liking, in photo on the left. The second ones are more correct with the wood block base as I have seen examples locally. For my stays and shrouds I used some telephone wire That had four coated strands and each strand has 7 small copper strands. After cleaning the coating from the wires I separated them and twisted up 3 strands for my davits and stack stays also aft mast shrouds. For my main mast shrouds I twisted up 7 strands. I used a single strand as whipping to tie off eyes. the copper wire will take L.O.S. nicely.Now on to the shroud bars/ladder.

Patrick, I have been at the bench just not alot to show for it. I did manage to get these little buggers made. Two on left the line was to heavy and they came out a little big for scale. I liked the color though. Middle ones are cotton string which was the right size scale wise but the color needed help. I colored one on the left. The three on the right is also cotton string that I found in my line stash. It had a reasonable color and the scale size worked out. Still need some triming and maybe a little coloring/weathering. Now it's on to the bow fender..... oh boy!!

It's been awhile since I posted on my build. As some of you know I have been casting parts for my build. These are the latest, some anchors for the fore deck. I made up a master out of brass and copper. Made a vulcanized rubber mold to fit a tray a friend made for me. Spun up some anchors and added a cross arm made from copper wire with a small copper ring soldered on for a stop along with a couple small blobs of solder for the balls on the ends. Lightly sandblasted and drilled for arm, chain ring with a little color added.

I have been working on a little project lately, something I've wanted to do for years, making my own boat.
It's an Iain Oughtred design, Tammie Norrie, a 4.5mtr (15 foot) clinker sailing dinghy.
 
I'm really enjoying using full sized hand tools, especially the planes but the lessons learned in ship modelling have been a huge help.

DANG IT ! ( not the words I really used )