Cathead

Note: I altered the title and topic of this post later on, to be more inclusive of rivercraft from all parts of the world. I'd started it as a topic on river craft of western American rivers in the nineteenth century, because that's what I know most about and what most of the models here seem to be of. But the burst of interest in other regions and periods led me to think it'd be best to open this up to a broader set of interests. Below is my original starting post. Many unique and interesting watercraft developed along the interior and western rivers of the United States, especially the Mississippi River system and its major components such as the Ohio, Missouri, Arkansas, and Red rivers. The most recent issue of the Nautical Research Journal (spring 2016) has several good articles about early, unpowered craft on these rivers, like the keelboats, flatboats, and barges that were poled/rowed/sailed up the rivers and floated down again. Once steam power developed in the 1830s, a unique class of steamboats developed along these river systems. There seem to be a number of folks with an interest in western river craft on MSW, judging from the interest in recent projects like my own sternwheeler Bertrand (1865), ggrieco's sidewheeler Heroine (1838), gerhardvienna's USS Cairo (1862), chborgm's Mississippi riverboat (1870), and so on. It's easy for general questions and discussions to take over such build logs, so I thought perhaps we should have a discussion/question forum for this topic in general. Perhaps it'll take root, perhaps not. I'll kick off with two topics. One, I was delighted to see the articles on keelboats and such in the latest NRJ, as a few years ago I build models of a Missouri River keelboat and Lewis & Clark's barge when I was first getting into maritime modelling. As a Missouri resident and river buff, I never expected to see my inland maritime empire so prominently featured. Here are the models I built based on the research I was able to do from home: I thought some folks who read the NRJ articles might be interested in seeing models of the subject matter. Two, although steamboat wrecks were exceedingly common in western US rivers, very few boats have ever been found, recovered, and studied. Thus, there was some great news recently when the team that excavated the Arabia (and displayed its cargo in a beautiful museum in downtown Kansas City, Missouri) announced its discovery of the steamboat Malta in central Missouri. The town of Malta was named for the boat, as the wreck was well-known when it happened in 1841, but the location was long-lost as the river's course shifted dramatically over time and left the wreck buried somewhere beneath miles of farm fields, as was the fate for many such wrecks. Here's a news story about the discovery; this should be especially exciting because we have almost no information about early steamboats from the 1830s and 40s; the Heroine is a rare exception. If this team does end up excavating Malta, we'll have a lot more information about this period. I drive through the town of Malta whenever I go to Kansas City, and it's really neat that its namesake craft has been found.

I've been working on the rudder, which was slightly simplified by my color scheme (no need for color striping or friezes). Sanding it to shape was straightforward, and needs no explanation. I was worried about my ability to align the iron straps of the pintles properly, as they should be at an odd angle to the rest of the piece. So I decided to experiment with filing a gentle notch into the rudder where the straps should fit, to help guide their placement. I also pre-made the pintles and gudgeons by wrapping blackened brass strip around the spare rudder and cutting them to length. I then CA-glued a piece of wire inside both, and cut it to length. I think if I were to do this again, I'd do it by gluing the wire into a straight piece of brass, then wrapping that around the rudder so I could get the pin adjusted just where I wanted it. I experimented with shaping the tiller using scrap first. I didn't think I'd be able to make the tiny hole & tenon for inserting the tiller into the rudder, but it actually wasn't bad. I used a square file (top of image) to gently file down all four sides of the tiller, to the width of the file, until I judged it narrow enough. The resulting peg was longer than I needed, but it was easier to file a longer stretch and cut it down to length, than to file a tiny stretch. I drilled a tiny hole in the rudder, then widened it with a round file and squared it with a nail as I did for the windlass. The first result showed why I tested all this first on the spare rudder piece, as I drilled too far and came out the backside. This taught me how to do it right on the real, stained tiller. To shape the rest of the tiller, I used a wide flat file to shape a broad notch just before the "ball" of the handle. I then gently rounded off the ball, and used wrapped sandpaper to round off and thin the handle overall. I used several rounded files to create and maintain that notch in front of the ball throughout the thinning process. The photo above shows my test pieces, my final pieces, two of the files I used, and another view of my metal work. And here is the completed rudder. Turns out that, even with the filed notches, I didn't get the strap angles quite parallel to each other, but once it's mounted it's not very noticeable. And I did find that the notches made it much easier to slide the pintles on and get them oriented quickly before the CA dried. It's also worth noting that, as the instructions suggest, I did deepen the slots for both pintles to allow more room for them to fit flush with the forward end of the tiller. I stained the tiller with a mix of the darker rudder/stern color and the lighter interior color, to provide visual interest and to help link those two shades together across the stern. And here's the rudder mounted. I simply held it up to the stern, marked where the upper eyebolt would go, drilled that, and inserted it. Then I hung the rudder on that bolt, carefully marked where the lower gudgeon should go, and glued that on while holding the rudder in place to ensure I got it aligned. The result is actually pretty accurate; the rudder sits nicely to my eye, swings cleanly through about 45 degrees either direction, and is easy to take on and off for further work on the model. You may note that I've also completed a few other minor details, like the thole pins, knees, and horse. The latter I shaped with a jig, just a length of square wood sanded into a curve at each end and the width of the hull, over which I bent wire to get the right shape. Then I just drilled holes and pushed the horse in. Now it's time to start thinking about masts and rigging.

Thanks for this wonderful build. I've enjoyed following along quietly, thinking ahead to building a schooner of my own. I appreciate your careful photography and documentation of every step.

The boilers really help flesh out the machinery. Nice work, as always.

I'll look forward to your resumption, and wish you the best on the other project.

Pilot house wheel, not paddle wheel. Sorry for confusion.

Very nice progress. I agree that having some wood piles on board is a good touch. Interesting that this boat's wheel is fully above the deck; on some, the wheel was large enough to extend through the deck so it could be set low enough for handling.

Roger, thanks for your input. At this point my longboat's paint scheme is pretty well set. David & Per, I'm actually looking forward to the rigging, though we'll see if I change my tune once I get there.

Thanks for the kind words, folks. I'd intended to do more this weekend. Instead, two glorious days meant I spent a lot of time outdoors. Time well spent. The longboat waits patiently for its rudder.

After a really useful discussion of squaring off windlass holes over on Ryland Craze's build log, I hunted around in my wood shop and found a perfect nail to use as a hole punch. I didn't even have to file it down, it already had a nice squared-off point. This was almost embarrassing in its simplicity, but it hadn't occurred to me until both Ryland and DocBlake suggested it. Thanks! I pre-drilled holes for the windlass, as shown, and used very short lengths of wire to hold it in place. The instructions aren't kidding, it has to be really short or you can't get the windlass in there. I still ended up making a slight gouge across the riser, but as the end of the windlass pretty much blocks it, I didn't worry about it. Above is my windlass in place, showing another problem that I think other folks have referenced. If you don't sand down your frames enough, they take on an angle too quickly, so that the thwart riser ends up angled toward the interior rather than mostly vertical. This creates a slightly odd platform for the thwarts, and also makes the windlass installation more challenging, as it doesn't sit (or rotate) cleanly against the angled riser. I was terrified of overdoing my frames, so let them stay a little thick, but this is what it does down the road. If I were to build this again, I'd measure down the frame to where the bottom of the riser should lie, and be sure to sand the frames nearly vertical that far down before allowing the turn of the bilge to begin. As it was, I just sanded a small angle into the windlass and accepted that it wouldn't rotate 360 degrees. It turns about 180 degrees, which is enough for me. In the absence of contrary advice, I proceeded with hand-sanding my own belaying pins and completing the mast thwart from a 1/4" plank. While the resulting pins are certainly larger than scale, I also think it's cool that I made them myself, and they have a slightly rough quality that seems to fit visually with the rest of the boat. The wood does look better than painted metal. And it seems like I should be able to belay rigging to them. So I'm happy with how that came out, even if it's not "right". I also ended up doing the iron straps a little differently. The one that wraps around the mast was easy, I just used the second one I'd made as a backup on my jig (discussed earlier). However, the two support straps that wrap around the thwart got a different treatment. The first time, I'd bent them around a jig ahead of time, but found it hard to get the ends exactly the same length. This time, I glued strips of brass onto one side of the thwart, arranging the ends nice and evenly, then wrapped the strips tightly around the thwart, cut off the other ends just right with some nippers, then glued those in place. This produced a better result than the jig method, as the straps fit exactly in their intended spot and I didn't have to fuss about making adjustments while glue set. So here's how the longboat currently looks, with windlass, thwarts, lift rings, and locker hinges installed. Oh, a note about those locker hinges: I had the devil's own time trying to manipulate tiny strips of brass and wire to get something that looked remotely good. Finally I sanded down a narrow strip of wood really thin, painted it black, and glued wire on top. With two coats of shiny black paint it's nearly indistinguishable from metal. Moving on...

That's generous of you, Glenn, as you have access to experts far more informed than I! One question does occur to me: did Heroine have additional planking under her boilers, the way Bertrand did? On the latter, the boiler area was supported by a second layer of planks run athwartships, I assume to provide additional strength in addition to the extra cross-timbers supporting the deck in that area. Was that part of the hull preserved enough to document that? My limited references don't talk about that aspect of construction, I just have the archeological drawings showing that feature's existence. Thinking about the same area, did Heroine have an ash trough in front of the boilers to carry away hot material? Also, thinking ahead to details, early safety gauges could be a fun project. Some boilers used a series of gauge cocks at various elevations, the idea being that you could open them in turn to approximate the water level in the boiler. Glass tubes were tried, too, with mixed success. I'm pretty sure all of these were in very primitive stages of development in the 1830s, and I have no idea which Heroine might have used, but it'd be a fun detail to play with. Apologies if you've already thought this through and I'm getting ahead of you.

Looks great to me!

Between you and Glenn, the steamboat corner of MSW has gotten much larger and better! Can't wait to see how she progresses.

I like the idea of filing a nail flat. That's the tool I've been missing, something to really square off those edges (my file wasn't doing it properly). Thank you!

Gerhard, I'm so looking forward to this build, as a big fan of western American steamboats. I recently completed a fully-framed steamboat from 1865 (see my tagline); though the framing was tedious, once I had a jig set up, it really wasn't as bad as I feared. My craftsmanship isn't anywhere near Glenn's, or I suspect yours, but I point it out in case there's any value to be gleaned. Also, I have some photos of Cairo from a visit to Vicksburg a few years ago. If they'd be of any use to you, I'd be happy to share. Viel Glueck!

John's right, the scale is right there, but something seems odd to me. I tried to measure it in Photoshop, but then realized I can't read the scale on the image, it's too small. However, the scale bar looks like it represents 10 feet and 3 meters, both by the digits and by the pattern of the divisions (there are three divisions on the meter scale, and 10 on the foot scale, which is the right ratio between the two, and the foot scale ends with two digits). So far, so good. But when I copied that scale bar, and duplicated it along the length of the hull, it took 32 repetitions. I tested that conclusion by using the Photoshop ruler tool to measure the hull, measure the scale bar, and divide the two; this also returned a length of 32 times the scale bar. That would make the hull over 300 feet long, rather than 175. Unless I'm missing something, that scale bar is wrong, which means you can't use it to get the right length of the hull. Also, those blue lines sure seem to be dimensional lines laying out the end points of a measurement, but without knowing what measurement the draftsman intended, who knows what they represent. I would guess, like others, that the 175 foot length that's referenced everywhere is for the solid hull without rudders, but the placement of those lines is odd. Is there any other information, or another plan, that would help?

I woke up this morning feeling refreshed and inspired, and decided to take a new stab at the mast thwart. This was helped by finding dcicero's build log, which I had overlooked before, which seemed to wrestle with several of my questions posed above. So below is a new thwart carved from a 1/4" wide strip (with the old one for comparison). I laid it all out in advance, drilling the holes before doing any carving, and it seems like it'll work. I also decided to try making my own belaying pins. I don't have a lathe or other machinery, so gave it a shot by hand using small files. I used the flat file shown to thin a dowel down for the pin's bottom, then both round and gently rounded files to carve a depression in the head. I held the dowel against a solid surface and rolled it back and forth while filing slowly, to get a reasonable consistent texture all the way around. What do you all think? Will this work? I made this first one in about 15 minutes, so it won't be horrific to make three more. One thing I'm not certain of is whether this filed-down dowel will hold up. I'd hate to have it crack off as I try to tie rigging to it later on. But it was a fun thing to try no matter what.

Handyman. You're literal AND funny.

It has been a disappointing week. I'm not happy with my work on the mast-thwart, or the windlass, and am trying to figure out what to do differently. The thwart started well. I carefully shaped the plank to match the images I've seen, including filing a matching slot for the mast dowel. As I'm not great with metal, I built a jig to help shape the mast strap, by filing an equivalent slot into a block of wood and gluing in a scrap of dowel. This let me shape the strap over a solid surface without risking breakage of the thwart. I made two, just in case. I did the same with the support straps (not shown), forming them over scrap wood, and making twice as many as I needed (four). I then blackened the strips and started assembling the thwart. It looked good when I got ready to drill holes for the belaying pins, but that's when I realized: it's somehow not wide enough. The instructions explicitly say to form this thwart from a 3/16" strip, wider than the 1/8" used for the other thwarts, but it's not nearly wide enough to allow for the drilling of two belaying pin holes far enough apart to be useful. See second image above; I went ahead and did it anyway, but my pins are nearly touching, and there's no room to put the holes farther apart. I reread multiple build logs but could find no reference to this problem. Everyone else's looks like they started with a wider strip that the kit doesn't supply. Am I supposed to glue a second wood strip onto the edge of a 3/16" thwart and shape THAT to hold the mast? Regardless, I'll have to start over. But how? Now for the second frustration. I've made three attempts at a windlass, none of which seem quite right. I can't seem to find the trick for shaping the perfect square holes I see in other logs, but I haven't been able to find anyone describing exactly how they did it (not even BobF's meticulous documentation, unless I missed it somehow). The instructions talk about using a square punch; I've tried using a square file of the right size, but the soft wood doesn't take the hole cleanly, it's still rounded and ragged. I've tried cutting the corners with a fine-tipped blade but the soft wood just splits or bends. Of the three attempts shown above, the nearest is the best, but it still doesn't look right. I also learned a few things about shaping the windlass properly. On the middle one, I used sandpaper too much (even very fine) and ended up with a rounded shape. The nearest one, I relied on a metal file and very careful use of a sanding stick to keep the edges sharp. I think I'd be okay with it, if the holes weren't still sloppy looking. If this is the best I can do, it'll likely still blend into the model's overall amateur appearance as slightly rough if you look too close but fine from a few more inches away, but I'd certainly be interested in any other tips I could try while there's still a few windlass-lengths left on the blank. Kinda fitting for a week in which a strong late freeze killed most of the fruit blossoms in our orchard, I came down with a stomach bug, and other work issues cropped up. Hopefully I can get back on track. In the meantime, thanks to anyone who's reading this; I doubt it's all that instructive given the excellent work done elsewhere, but having an audience at all helps keep the motivation going.

It's mesmerizing to look at. I really appreciate that last wide-angle view, too, really puts the machinery in context.

Looks really nice. How did you do the windlass holes? I've been struggling with mine, just can't get them to square off properly in the soft wood.

Warmer temperatures are definitely a distraction. It's almost always too windy here to work on models outdoors!

Looks very nice. Best wishes on getting back to full health. This is such a neat model.

I've made progress on the hull's interior, adding the thwart risers and the floors. The main floorboards were straightforward, though I departed from the instructions by sanding a taper into the outer boards' edges to help them form a nice parallel curve at bow and stern. I forgot to take a photo of this before covering them with the bow and stern platforms, though. It's nothing new from regular planking, though. In order to get these platforms right, I made patterns from thin cardboard, using multiple attempts to get the shape right. I started with the shape shown in the plans, and worked to adapt it to the actual shape of my hull, which apparently was subtly different. I particularly had trouble with the bow platform, I just couldn't seem to get the curve I wanted. I tried two different ways of transferring these patterns to wood. For the stern, I covered the pattern in double-sided tape, then laid planking onto that (top side down) and laid thin cross-supports underneath. The instructions just say to glue the planks together at the edges, but the real thing would obviously have had supports underneath, so I didn't mind doing this. Then I peeled off the tape and pattern and sanded the platform to fit. For the bow, I pre-made a square of edge-glued planks, then traced the pattern onto it and cut it out. This seemed flimsy, so I again added cross-supports underneath. They can't be seen in either case, but made me feel better about handling the piece. Again, I really had trouble getting this platform right; I discarded two attempts in wood before settling on my third as good enough. I was having a really hard time getting the perfect shape and notches of the pattern transferred to wood strips, which were too thin at the edges to hold the shape well. Not sure what I was doing wrong, but I settled for the approach seen below, which approximates the idea and will be partially hidden beneath the forward thwarts. I also departed from the instructions when installing the thwart risers, by attaching them before installing the platforms. I felt it was important for the platforms to be at a proper spacing from the risers, and wasn't sure that would happen if I did the platforms first. I edge-bent the risers as suggested, tapered them a bit, and they went in just fine. I clamped some scrap wood below the cap rail as spacers to keep the risers parallel, and that worked great. Then I did some final shaping on the platforms to help them match the risers, and glued them in. Next, I'll be working on the locker at the stern.

Words of praise and awe. Rinse, repeat.