johnhoward

Brian, We originally expected find evidence for additional access between the Hurricane Deck and the Gundeck but primarily for the 175 crewmen rather than provisioning and we are now hoping that your new high resolution photos will help confirm or refute this idea. When we had reached the stage of our large scale 1:24 model with all basic structure, decks and deck houses in place and with the starboard side planked but the port side intentionally left open we had a perfect 3-D viewpoint that is hard to achieve using drawings alone. Your comment on ventilation funnel locations is very valid and we tried to locate them where they would actually function.You may notice the ventilation funnels appear to be embedded in the wall on the left side of photo 2 . You probably realized they both raise & lower and rotate. Lower deck temperature control was a difficult issue. I had just completed a rather extensive update of my original #74 posting regarding our Hatch Research and recent evidence, but lost it while trying to add enclosures. I'll try to recreate some of this later but wii just attach 3 photos and a brief summary of each for now. Photo 1 shows the USS Essex being recoaled via a temporary ramp and wheelbarrows through open gunport, which apparently was a common practice. Photo 2 shows a poor sketch of the gundeck below the area of your newly expected access hatch, made by Captain Walke of the USS Carondelet after the war in which he apparently doesn't recall a stairwell. Photo 3 shows a nice open reverse view of the suspected access hatch on Sister ship USS Baron DeKalb but we didn't detect any access hatch. We did think there may have been one inside the deck house. Every time I start writing this story, I remember more details, so I need to stop now. JOHNHOWARD

Brian, Thanks for the nice compliments, but in truth I am also just an amateur at maritime research. By profession I was a mechanical systems engineer in the aircraft industry for 45 years and spent a lot of time trying to identify and resolve the cause of engineering design failures. I was also always a model builder and like to consider my first scratch built ship, when as a 7 year old Cub Scout I made a model of the USS Constitution from a $1.00 kit consisting of a 1" x 1" x 6" balsa wood block, a thin imprinted balsa wood sheet of ship parts and a couple of dowels in 1947, when balsa wood had just come off the WW II Strategic Material's list. (It was used for Life Rafts) The Internet and organizations like the NRG have made maritime research infinitely easier. A few years ago I began attending the Annual NRG conventions and took the opportunity to privately ask the various officers of the NRG, " Who was responsible for the "Research" portion of the "NRG"? We never found a particular individual with that title assignment but concluded that the real answer was that the entire group of NRG enrollment really serve as a world wide research " Jury" by their interaction on projects like these "Model Forums" and their free expression of opinions for debate. JOHNHOWARD

Brian, I have no reason to believe that this is not the USS Cairo and even if it isn't, it's a moot point since James Eads supposedly built all seven City Class Ironclads as identical sister ships except for the color of the stripes on the smoke stacks. I also agree that this is one of the best photos of this class ironclad ever taken. However the photo plate itself is not actually marked with any name and at least one issue of this photo includes the caption reading: " In January 1862, seven impressive creations were lined up along the river at Cairo, Illinois. The looked like something out of a Jules Verne fantasy. ..." The river boats behind it don't resemble "City Class Ironclads" or even if they existed, so the caption authenticity is even in doubt. I'm also not sure about Cairo as the city location, but my copy of the picture appeared in the National Park Service, " Vicksburg" flyer advertising the Park featuring their one surviving City Class Ironclad. I think it would be fair to conclude that this could be any of the City Class ironclads unless someone can determine the color of the Smoke Stack Stripes on a black and white photo. There were some subsequent changes made to most of the "Sisters"which can minimize confusion. I'll Just add an interesting story that I became part of when first starting the research for our USS St. Louis model in 2014. Our "Gateway Model Shipcrafters Guild" knew virtually nothing about Civil War Ironclads although we had a number of very proficient senior scratch build members who primarily concentrated on 17th and 18th century sailing vessels who served as our mentors and were very hard to please task masters. I have previously related how we managed to take on the task of building a "City Class" Iron Clad for the St. Louis Civil War Museum as a club effort using a set of plans that they provided but to a larger scale than the plans to one-half inch to the foot. We had never seen such good looking plans and coming coming from a reliable source, the National Park Service, and not immediately realizing the model would be over 7-Feet long, we immediately accepted and estimated a completion date of 3 or 4 years using or team of about 8 model builders. Having personally previously scratch built several sailing ship models primarily using using plans made from models in Maritime museums such as the French LaFlore frigate and Boudriot's 74-Gun ship, I soon became suspicious of the NPS plans which showed no Deck or Deck house cambers. I had been communicating with Simon Schuster,Secretary of the Tampa Bay Ship Modelers Club who happened to have a team led by Bob Hill about 2 years ahead of us working on a build of the USS Cairo and had already visited Vicksburg and was in the process of digitizing the NPS drawings and using a Laser Saw to cut out wooden parts to build the hull to a scale of 1:48. Bob didn't know anything about the lack of deck camber but we thought that perhaps simple river boats might be built like barges or scows without these refinements, so he suggested I contact Vicksburg for answers. I contacted Elizabeth Joyner who was the current museum curator for the USS Cairo reconstruction and tried to set up a trip to discuss our issues with her local technical. She immediately responded favorably to our trip but added that she had no maritime experts at Vicksburg to answer our questions and that the USS Cairo was being managed from their Denver, Colorado office, which she put me in contact with. The Denver office also denied any real maritime expertise but said they would relay my questions to James P. Delgado who was their consulting maritime archeologist, explorer. His answer came back that "Yes" the decks and deck house roofs actually all had camber to shed water and ice necessary to maintain boat stability. We discovered that the NPS drawings for the USS Cairo were commissioned to a very good historical draftsman with little or no maritime background. The purpose of the drawings and a model was to acquire state and Congressional support and funding for the reconstruction. This effort was obviously successful and we owe a great deal to those who made it possible to save the last "City Class" Ironclad! Needless to say that 8 years later I am still researching for the real version. JOHNHOWARD

Thanks for all of your comments, every bit helps us to get closer to the truth. Roger, Regarding the USS DeKalb crew . It's very intriguing that you may have had a relative by the name of Speer among its crew. Unfortunately, the USS St. Louis/Baron DeKalb log doesn't include a crew roster so we only know the names of its captains and a few crew members who were reported killed, wounded or disciplined onboard as the log was being written. We also have two very good photos of un-named crew members with "USS St. Louis" on their hats. The actual log was hand written and later a typed copy was made in about 1937 for preservation at the LSU Library. More information may have survived at the library. Mark, We were given similar advice from the one professional photographer that we contacted but she admittedly didn't know much about glass plate photo retouching. I was hoping that a study of the six higher resolution photos that Brian recently discovered may be worthy of another expert review, especially in the area of the hammock rails. Brian, How was the identity of the USS Cairo photo documented? I believe I have seen this same photo with other retouches and possibly identification, but this may have only been for the obviously recent colorized version. The only really conclusive identifier would be "gray" stripes on the stacks, but could they also be "Yellow" ? I will review my research in response to your other question on limited access to the Hurricane Deck, next. JOHNHOWARD

Brian, Thanks for the photos, and I too agree with your conclusions, but I believe they are probably all retouches, some more cleverly done than others. You can find similar versions identified for about all seven City Class names, but the give away is that background trees seem to be untouched in all of them. There are also many similar drawings, like etchings, obviously made from these photos. Have you ever tried to find a professional photographer who is familiar with 19th century glass plate retouching methods and who may be able to detect other chicanery in these photos. We did find a photographer who showed us evidence of some possible alterations but results were inconclusive. The 2 photos I enclosed are the only versions that I have any confidence in believing they are actually the USS St. Louis aka USS Baron Dekalb. Unfortunately neither helps us much on the Hammock Rails, however the second clearly shows the main gun deck & hurricane deck cambers as well as the deck house roof cambers that are drawn as flat on the Vicksburg National Park Service drawings. JOHNHOWARD

Brian, Thanks for your excellent assessment of the probable time frame for the ironclad photograph in question, which is obviously also the source of your excellent high resolution versions. I was just about ready to ask you if you had found such information since we had never attempted to resolve it. We did spend a lot of time reviewing the relatively few original ironclad photos and the multitude of retouched versions and renamed versions of the same basic photograph. I believe I read some place that James Eads may have actually commissioned someone to retouch an original photo to represent each of the seven City Class ironclads which he sent to the original captain of each as a personal momento of the occasion. I personally doubt this account but someone may have engaged in this activity for personal or commercial reasons. According to Donald L. Canney's "The Old Steam Navy" Volume Two, " The first of the city-class vessels launched was the St. Louis, on 12 October 1861...The first commissioned was the Carondelet on 15 January1862... and the last commissioned was the St. Louis on 31 January 1862." The only way to differentiate between the "City Class" Ironclads at this stage on black and white photographs, where the stack color stripes weren't decernible, was by the Symbols on the cross bars between the stacks and none were yet installed, if they ever were. Stock photograph glass plates of the Ironclads were apparently continually retouched to include these identification symbols (a Star, Masons Symbol, etc) depending upon the desired use of the photo. Apparently there were no photograph copyright laws enforced during this era. We extensively researched the possibility that the "Masonic Symbol" which was added (Retouched) on some ironclad photos to identify the USS St. Louis, aka Baron DeKalb such that it was called the "Masonic Ironclad" in contemporary newspaper reports, but could find no such evidence. I believe there are solid reasons to believe that all contemporary photos identifying only a single City Class Ironclad may mis-identified. Since all of the "City Class Ironclads" were initially nearly identical, it probably doesn't really make any difference regarding our Hammock Netting Configuration photographic review, but it certainly adds a level of the frustration to the research. JOHNHOWARD

Roger, One more comment , according to the USS St. Louis Logbook the ironclad's carpenters were consistently working on additional wood and iron barricades inside of the gun deck casements to add protection the boilers and engines since the exterior iron plating only covered a portion of the slanted side casement armor and the gunports themselves appear to only be covered by thin oak shutters not capable of sustaining cannon or even rifle fire. The only ironclad armor, as built, considered by itself to safely protect the crew and boats' machinery was that which extended approximately 5 feet below some portions of the waterline. The bow and stern casements were covered by much thicker wood layers (6" to 24") and the 2.5" thick armor plating but again not for the gunports themselves. The most dangerous portion of these ironclads was from plunging fire on the hurricane deck which had no armor at all. They also resorted to adding bales of cotton or straw on the main & hurricane decks for extra protection. Even the pilot house was only covered by i.5" thick armor backed by wood. After one ironclad pilot was killed at his wheel, the USS Cairo added additional layers of wood and plating up to about 19" in thickness to the front of the wheelhouse. JOHNHOWARD

Roger, The Hammock Racks on the City Class Ironclads are only on the Hurricane Deck (Exposed Upper Deck) which has no armor plate protection. JOHNHOWARD

Brian, In a followup to my initial message on Hammock Rails which identified Samuel M. Poohs' specification for the Hurricane Deck railings, the following quotation from Howard I. Chapelle's "The American Sailing Navy" ,page 477 entitled "The Last Years of Sail" was one of the main sources I used to determine that we should utilize the screen netting type Hammock Rails for our model of the City Class Ironclad "USS St. Louis": "The closing in of the hammock rails and the substitution of staving and wooden rails for netting and rope were peacetime maintenance developments; but wooden hammock rails and staving would also be sources of danger from splinters or fire in action, as was often discovered during the Civil War. The wooden rails, with their staving and panels, were neater than the old nettings, weather cloths, and rope support, but were far less practical. The peacetime urge for neatness and easy maintenance often runs afoul of war requirements." (Peacetime here refers to the years between the War of 1812 and the US Civil War} Since the Civil War started in early 1861, before contracts were even issued for the City- Class Ironclads, let alone built , I believe it is reasonable to believe that this safety upgrade (If known) would have been incorporated in the USS St. Louis before she was declared battle-ready or at least before our specified model configuration date of October 1862 just before she was renamed the USS Baron DeKalb and transferred to the US Navy jurisdiction. The purpose for this distinction is that our customer for this model is the "Missouri Civil War Museum" at the Army Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis. The only reliable differences we found between the USS St. Louis and the USS Cairo were the color of the identification stripes on the smoke-stacks, and one more 30 pounder Parrott Riifle and one less 32-lbr Smoothbore Cannon in the stern than the USS Cairo. (Since the USS Cairo was mined and sunk in December 1862 we were fortunate enough to be able to regard the USS Cairo recovery data as also reliable for our model.) However, I believe it is also reasonable for you to ascertain that your USS Cairo model configuration still possibly maintained some peacetime features such as the wood-paneled Hurricane Deck Hammock Rails at the time of the apparent celebration depicted in its famous photograph you have referenced. Some of the City Class Ironclads probably did become subjected to enough Hammock Rail damage for it to be reported. We have a copy of the Log for the USS St. Louis in which damage from enemy action which was severe, is recorded, but no mention is made of the Hammock Rails. It is also important to remember that the City Class Ironclads were built in an amazingly short timespan.

Brian, To begin a response to your assessment of the high definition photos of the USS Cairo Hammock Rails I decided to review my original research data which was conducted between 2014 and 2019 and now resides in at least 17 large three-ring binders which were created chronologically and sorted primarily by our USS St. Louis model fabrication requirements as they occurred. The original intent of this research was to identify specific details on the USS St. Louis aka Baron De Kalb which differentiated it from the other 6 City Class Ironclads (We naively assumed that the Published National Park Service Drawings for the USS Cairo must be correct since they had recovered its wreck in 1963/4.) This research quickly evolved into a process of trying to validate all published data on City-Class Ironclads to determine what to include on our model. The first entry found related to the Hammock Rails came from the Historic Structural Report (HSR) , CAIRO-hsr.PDF which included Appendix "A" Samuel M. Poohs' original "Specifications for building a gunboat". This document was used by the US Government to compete the contract for the 7 City Class Ironclads eventually awarded to James Eads of Carondelet, Missouri. In Appendix "A" page 151 it reads: "To have stanchions fitted all around the upper deck with an eye in the top, two and one-half feet above the deck to receive the ridge rope." This description closely agrees with the second of six Hammock Rail photos that I posted on 29 January 2022 and also some of your enhanced photos. This was the only reference to "Railings" in Pooks' specifications however the HSR also includes footnotes indicating any exceptions that Eads made in his fabrication of the contracted Ironclads, of which there were none for railings. Eads was a competent contractor and master builder especially for iron works and is famous for his bridges. At this point in my research I began looking more closely at the current military practices for Hammock Rails. An interesting point in the ironclad construction is that they were under US ARMY Jurisdiction, General McClellan in particular, for some reason. To be continued, JOHNHOWARD

Brian, THIS IS A TEST MESSAGE! Thanks for the detail photo link. I do plan to access them directly. Last night I tried to send you the first installment of my research data on the Hammock Rail research but it was rejected by the "I am a Robot" check. I spent several hours creating it and now assume it is lost. If this message goes through I'll try again with a shorter version. JOHNHOWARD

Brian, Thankyou very much for the high definition photographs of the USS Cairo which are much better than those I have previously seen and which should help us in making a more accurate assessment of how the hammock racks and Hurricane deck access hatches actually appeared. Contemporary Civil War photography is one of the things that make researching and modeling of Civil War ships so interesting compared to earlier eras when accurate data was scarce and difficult to substantiate or refute. I will eagerly try to review each of the issues and conclusions you have raised and I also solicit any additional opinions on this subject from other NRG Forum reviewers. JOHNHOWARD

Brian, I'm going to try again to add photos on the hammock rails and netting that I found during research for the "City Class Ironclads". The first 2 show contemporary Civil War era fully netted racks similar to the racks we plan to install on the USS St. Louis ironclad which will not include any wood paneling. Some drawings of Hammock Rails in the 1830-1850 peacetime years do specify use of exterior wood panelling on sailing ships, probably for the aesthetics. A canvas top cover and netting, attached on the inside of the rack frames which clears the deck to allow Hurricane Deck scupper rain water to go under the hammocks and down the casement, without getting them too wet. I believe the single horizontal wooden rail in the first photo is just a peacetime convenience for visiting passengers and would have been removed during wartime to minimize the risk of splintering from enemy gunfire. . The third photo of the USS Cairo clearly shows the legs of the crewmen through the empty hammock rack netting, indicating no external wood panelling. The last two photos show the thin slices of aluminum tubing extrusions I used to make the "H" shaped rack supports and a preliminary dry-fit of them on the Hurricane Deck. JOHNHOWARD

Brian, Here are photos of our rolled up hammocks and some of the "H" shaped stanchions which will eventually line the Hurricane Deck USS St Louis IMG_0115.mov IMG_0115.mov IMG_0115.mov Brian, Attached are photos of the rolled up hammocks and some of the "H" shaped stanchions that will eventually line the Hurricane Deck at about scale 6-foot increments of our USS St Louis Ironclad. Netting will line the inside of the stations and a canvas rain cover top. Similar Hammock racks were used on the main decks of sailing warships for hundreds of years. There are also numerous discussions of these hammock racks already posted on the NRG Forum. with good photographs. For some reason some of these files failed to load. JOHNHOWARD IMG_0115.mov

Brian, Attached are a few more anchor photos I found when researching for the City Class Ironclads. Only the last one was labeled as an "artifact" coming from the USS Cairo and it is just the broken "Palm" portion. I believe it was described by the "Joiner Sisters" and is likely to be on display at Vicksburg. Regarding the hammock racks, my research concluded that they consisted of individual "H"-shaped metal stanchions with netting on the outside, bottom and inside to contain the hammocks and a canvas rain cover over the top. In many of the contemporary photographs you can see the lower portions of the sailors, standing along the rails, only occasionally blocked by the stowed hammocks and or the canvas rain cover. The closely packed stored hammocks created a measure of protection against rifle fire for crewmen working on the Hurricane deck. The netting would allow the hammocks to dry out during good weather. A light wooden wall would be dangerously splintered by rifle fire in wartime but might have been used after the Civil War on some of the survivor City Class ironclads for enhanced appearance. Cotton and hay bales were also stacked on the decks to provide additional protection. I somewhere have some photos of this netting type of hammock racks on contemporary gunboats and will hopefully add them later. The "USS Cairo" was only in service for a few months before it was sunk in October 1862 so it didn't survive long enough for many improvements to be made from wartime experience. JOHNHOWARD

Recently I replied directly to Caiella on a question as to the types of anchors and anchor davits carried on the "City Class Ironclads" that based on my research as follows: Attached are the most representative image of the anchors, generally referred to as an Admiralty Type that I believe, four of which, were carried on the "City Class Ironclads" for use on the Mississippi River and the swampy back-waters during the Civil War. Its shank was about 5 feet long and probably weighed less than 500 pounds. The sliding "T"crossbar permitted the anchor to lay flat on the deck when not in use. There is no evidence of any type of davit to raise or drop the anchors but both fore and aft deck gunwales include roller guides for anchor chains or heavy hawsers attached to the anchor shank rings. The anchor itself was probably manhandled over the deck gunwales upon entry or retrieval and possibly deployed away from the ironclad via one of the ironclads small boats. The bow anchor chains fed thru tubes in the bow casement armor to the steam powered capstan and then down to the floor of the hull for storage. The stern anchors probably were simply manhandled for deployment and retrieval. These ironclads were not designed for deep water where heavy anchoring would be mandatory. Most contemporary Civil War photographs depict the ironclads secured by numerous small ropes to posts or trees along the shores of the rivers and I think the main purpose of the anchors and steam powered capstan may have been to help freeing the ironclad after being grounded on sandbars or mud flats or by quick rise and fall of the rivers via thunderstorms during the hot Summers of the lower Mississippi River area. JOHNHOWARD

Joesph A. Rose Regarding the log book for the "U.S.S. St. Louis" when launched in 1861 by Eads was renamed "Baron De Kalb" on September 8, 1862 when it was transferred from Army to Navy control because the Navy already had a ship named "USS St. Louis" in commission at that time. Note: we retained the "USS St. Louis" name and armament configuration for our model because our customer, the St Louis Civil War Museum at Jefferson Barracks is an Army facility. The resulting log was titled " Memorandum Book of the U. S. Str. "BARRON DE KALB" and "LA FAYETTE" (A Steam Ram) This document was located by Scott, one of our original team of modelers, thru his diligent pursuit several years ago and we believe it was found at the Louisiana State University(LSU) although he is still trying to verify this fact. We possess a PDF file of the complete 188 page document which is a type written version made in 1935 from the hand written original log. I am sorry this response took so long but I only very recently discovered your inquiry on the NRG Forum. We are still assembling the research material that we uncovered during the past 8 years. Unfortunately the recovery of the "USS Cairo" in 1963 which provided a treasure of information was far from the ideal process and left many questions unanswered. Our original goal was to scratch build the most accurate model to date of a "City Class Ironclad" at a large 1:24 scale and to document data errors for future modelers. We were later astounded by the enormity of this effort. We would be very interested in any aspect of your own research activity which may relate to this goal. JOHNHOWARD

Brian, Best wishes on your scratch build USS Cairo. Unfortunately, during my research, I didn't find very much reliable information on coloring for the 7 Ead's built gunboats, except "black hull exterior and whitewash interior" and for "stripes on the smokestacks" to differentiate them. Contemporary B&W photographs appear to show a very dark shadow under the chine which is only slightly above the waterline and I doubt there would be any vivid red hull marine paint in this area which could be visible to the enemy from the river shoreline during covert missions. The side casement iron armor plating also extends several feet below the chines. The lifetime of these gunboats, especially the Cairo, was very short and I never found any record, in various personal crew diaries of beaching them for hull repainting, which would have been necessary in the muddy, sand-barred, log and debris strewn Mississippi Bayou Rivers. Unfortunately, modelers license has been applied to enhance or distinguish many USS Cairo models, which simply serves to confuse the facts. Johnhoward

Brian, Regarding your question on the research for the officers quarters: The research I performed several years ago concluded that the only built-in structural cabin was for the Captain and was installed immediately aft of the paddle wheel housing on the gundeck. A small scale floor-plan for this cabin is shown on sheet 12 of the Vicksburg Historical Report drawings and a more detailed floor plan is shown on earlier (!964 ?] National Park Service plans which Bill used to replicate it on the model. Sheet 12 also includes floor plans under the aft port and starboard casements on the gundeck for the junior officers and the medicine room. However, although the original Pook specifications call for cabins, I think these were actually lightweight pole and canvas tenting, rather than permanent structures. My evidence for this includes the photographs of the 1964 USS Cairo remains while stored at the Oscacala{?) Shipyard, Mississippi, which show a perfectly clean gun deck and no sign that structural cabins ever existed. This was apparently a common Navy practice to permit quick tear-down in preparation for imminent action. In addition, there are displays at the Vicksburg USS Cairo National Park showing canvas tent type quarters with foldable camp style cot, chair and table furniture which fit nicely within the deck spaces available. (I got these photos from a "sister" model club which visited Vicksburg but wasn't able to amplify any further and our primary contact at Vicksburg, the museum curator retired and was apparently not replaced). The original divers on the Cairo may have reported seeing remains of cabins or maybe just piles of loose possessions such as trunks & bottles which gave the impression of cabins. I haven't revisited this issue recently however any additional inputs on this subject would be very welcomed. JohnHoward

Brian, The Hammock Storage Stanchions were slices sawn from an aluminum rectangular cross-section extrusion, followed by removal of unwanted material to result in their, final "H" shape. JohnHoward

Tim, Mission accomplished, you're doing a great job. John Howard

Brian, Sorry that this response is so late but although I performed the bulk of the research for this model of the USS St. Louis, I am no longer participating in its construction and unfortunately apparently no one is updating the build log . The basic plans we used are from the National Park Service "Historical Structure Report" and its attached set of approximately 20 sheets drafted by Ashley in 1981 which are probably still available on the Vicksburg National Park Service(NPS) Web Site for the USS Cairo. Although we found numerous problems with these drawings, those of the "lowest deck (cargo hold) shown on sheets 5 & 6, although labeled "Gundeck Framing-Forward & Aft" actually contain the lateral & longitudinal bulkheads for the compartments in the hold which also support the beams for the gundeck.. The various compartments are labeled, probably by relating the artifacts still found in them and the original specifications for building the Seven City Class Ironclads. Sheets 3 & 4 show the actual internal flooring and support beams for the machinery mounted in the hold. A few photographs also exist of these areas during Eads construction, recovery operations and storage which our large scale model reconstruction plank-on-frame model helped to interpret. I verified the reasonable accuracy of these drawings via the use of the NPS drawing VICK306-80024 titled "Torpedo Damage,USS Cairo, which was made by J. Smeal (?) in 1977 from the salvaged remains while in temporary storage at Ingalls Shipyard, Pascagula, Mississippi. The lower hull of the USS Cairo had been sliced into 3 major sections due to the 2 cables under the hull used to raise it from the river in 1963. The lower floor of the hull had been preserved better since it was buried under the river mud but it still broke up into about ten pieces due to the weight of the mud still inside when recovered. This drawing was obviously used as a major resource for the NPS 1981 drawings. However, by the time the USS Cairo was reassembled and "barged" back to Vicksburg much more deterioration occurred. An earlier NPS, Denver reconstruction survey of the "City Class Ironclads" in 1970, apparently performed by marine architects, contains a lot of useful information which helped us interpret and correct the later drawings but not for the lower hull. I hope this information serves useful, Johnhoward

Thanks for all the nice comments, we have a great team working on this model. Eric, the story on the cannons is this: All 14 cannon barrels on the final model for the Missouri Civil Was Museum will have the brass cannon barrels which Tom has been machining. Most of the basic brass barrels are nearly complete but still lack some details such as their cascabels and gun sights. In the meantime we are utilizing some slightly less accurate wooden and 3D Printer cannon barrels with their final wood carriages as models for dry-fits with the overall model structure to make sure of eventual compatibility. The Hurricane Deck and the Bow & Stern Casements will remain removable via screws to permit access for rigging the gun stations and other interior details, but at some point this will become difficult.. Johnhoward

USS St. Louis Ironclad Project Update 31 December 2018 We continue to make great progress on this project but I can't say the same for maintaining the inputs to this build log. Attached are a few new photographs and I will try to update the accompanying text soon. Johnhoward