Cathead

Paul, go straight at it with carpentry clamps: This issue scared me, too, until various nice folks on my log assured me that it was a common quirk and quite fixable. So I just tackled it head on and hoped for the best. I found that when the thwarts are glued in, they're enough to hold the hull in place without spreading, which made installing the gunwales easy as the hull was now stable and the proper shape.

I agree, with my kit I just compressed the hull back to the original/intended with and glued in the thwarts and such. Didn't cause any issue.

Lots of progress lately. By the end of this post, Bertrand will be ready for the final bits of rigging and details. The end is in sight! Here we go: Pilot house Here I'm laying out pieces for the pilot house. Like the cabins, this uses pre-scribed wood, though I'm cutting & staining the window & door frames individually. I didn't have anything that small on hand, so split each piece manually from wider strips, using a hobby knife. Here you see the pilot house partially assembled. You'll notice that I made the windows with two layers of wood, technically not accurate since a real window would have the panes and frames all in one plane. I decided that I didn't have the skill to make perfect square small-paned windows like these in 1:87, so went with the two-layer approach as a reasonable approximation. One reason I stained the windows dark, is to help hide their 2-D nature. The resulting shadow keeps the eye from seeing that, compared to if they were all white. And I think it looks nice. When you step back more than 6", it's hard to see the difference. Here's the pilot house installed, with a beginning to the clerestory roof. I carved a series of roof braces with a gentle curve to support this area, instead of bothering with full rafters, as this can't be seen from any angle. Much easier. Then I just planked in both roof areas as I'd done the hurricane deck, using the same pre-coloring technique with pastels. If you look real close, you can see the wheel, which I made by cutting a hoop from the styrene tube soon to be used for the chimneys, and gluing thin styrene rods radially. I thought I took pictures of this process, but can't find them now. Oops. Chimneys Though the model railroader in me wants to call these smokestacks, apparently the steamboat world generally called them chimneys. In any case, these were built from two diameters of styrene tubing, one of which slides neatly into the other. I cut a series of hoops from the thicker diameter, and drilled holes in styrene sheet to create a kind of cover plate for where the chimneys cross the hurricane deck. Middle photo shows the assembled chimneys. The thicker, lower section simulates the heat shields such chimneys used to protect passengers on the boiler deck from the hot chimney pipes. The various hoops simulate thicker iron bands on the chimneys, placed approximately where various plans and period illustrations suggest they should be. As styrene is too smooth and shiny to really simulate rough iron to my eye, I used a past trick of mine and wrapped the chimneys in layers of strong masking tape, making each seem a quarter turn from the layer below. These seams simulate the chimneys' construction from tubes of iron, and produce a nice rough texture. On the right, you see the painted and installed chimneys, weathered with rust-colored pastels. I think they look convincingly like frontier iron work. Stairs Three sets of stairs are needed to reach the pilot house from the boiler deck; one from boiler deck to hurricane deck (right), one from hurricane deck to clerestory roof (not shown), and one from clerestory to pilot house (left). I built these in the same manner as the main staircase from main deck to boiler deck, described before in this build. In the background, you see some hog chains, which I'll discuss soon. Boiler deck railing Probably the most fiddly part of this build. I'm not entirely happy with how these came out, but they look fine from more than a foot away. I started by building the internal railing that keep passengers from falling down the main stairwell (left). Then I glued a long, painted strip wrapped around all the stanchions on the boiler deck, as the upper rail (center). Then I hand-cut a whole whoppin' mess of little railing posts to line the railing with, and carefully levered each one into place with tweezers and a dab of glue. Once again, step back a foot and it looks great. Up close, it looks like the work of someone still developing his fine-woodworking skills. (Almost) completed steamboat And here she is, very close to done. This is the best view of the hog chain system, the longitudinal iron trusses that keep the bow and stern from sagging in a ong, thin boat with no keel and lots of stern-weight. These I simulated with fine rigging thread painted black, run through holes drilled in the decks and stretched tight. They should have turnbuckles on them for tensioning, which I haven't decided how to simulate yet. All that remains is the "rigging", which in this case means a few support cables for the chimneys, and the various cables and tackles for the grasshopper spars, which I'll discuss when they're done. There are a few other details, such as hoists and tackles for two launches, and splitting some 1:87 firewood for the main deck. But she's close. One question for you all: how would you go about lettering the name, which should go in large black letters on the engine-room wall just forward of the wheel? I've never done lettering before. Hopefully within two weeks I'll post the absolutely completed Bertrand. In the meantime, just two days late, here's Dave Hum playing the Eighth of January, an old tune named for the British defeat at New Orleans that closed the War of 1812, just over 201 years ago:

No, although that could be a nice detail to experiment with. Instead, it means I used a chisel to gently smooth some of the rougher joints. From my log, just above the section you quoted: In other words, I used a chisel as a plane, to gently plane down any rough spots or plank edges sticking up at a seam, moving the chisel blade parallel to the seams. This could be done with lots of sanding, but the chisel/plane goes much faster and produces a nice smooth surface. You can see a few of these rough spots in the original photo I posted here, especially between the planks below the stealer (toward the top of the boat), where their edges don't quite meet properly and leave a ridge. From this build, I learned that wood filler absolves many sins!

When I built this last year, I ended up with a thin gap at the shutter plank. Rather than remake the plank, I just made a thin stealer to fit, as described in this post and shown in this image:

I love the crisp, professional style of both wood and metal work in this build. Question: How were the hull and deck planks attached, and do you plan to simulate that in any way? As for the uneven planking widths, you see the same thing in drawings of Bertrand. Builders pretty clearly just used whatever they could find and afford. Thanks for the update, I've been looking forward to your return. Happy New Year!

So, first of all, ALL wheels weren't red, I've read of some boats with white or green or other color wheels. But red clearly was a common standard. I'd say it relates to the availability of cheap red paint during that era. In my understanding, before modern paint chemistry, paint/preservative was based on linseed oil, with something added for pigment. Iron oxide was a very common and cheap substance you could use, which gave the paint a dark reddish-brown tint (surprise!). This is why red became a standard color for barns in Europe and the US. So I assume many steamboat builders used it for the same reasons. I believe that the bright fire-engine red we see on modern steamboats is inaccurate, as the early paints couldn't achieve that brilliance, but would have been duller and rustier. That's one reason I chose to use muted colors on the Bertrand, as opposed to the bright red I see on some models. As for why the wheel alone was red, and not the hull and superstructure, I'd guess that whitewash or whatever else they used was even cheaper. Given that appearance was a big factor in the intensely competitive riverboat market, the wheel color may have been because they wanted it to stand out, or because someone realized that a white wheel would look awful all caked in mud and gunk as it revolved up from the river. The underside of the white hull would have been nasty, too, but few would ever see it unless the boat capsized, and which point your marketability just went down the tubes, anyway. A nice dark red color would have hidden the gunk nicely, like brown kitchen tile. I suspect this is also why many boats had their stern paneling (facing the wheel) painted red as well, hiding the gunk thrown onto it by the wheel, as well as worse coming down from the outhouses above. If anyone else can correct or add to the above, please do!

Despite harassing Ken about his typing, I've now twice mis-stated the coloring agent used on my deck. Just to be clear, it's Model Expo cherry stain. Not gun carriage red, as initially stated, and not cedar stain, as I "corrected" it to say. I've been chainsawing cedar trees all week, and apparently they're in my head.

No worries, Ken, just giving you flak. Or is that the wrong thing to tell a fighter pilot? chborgm, all the wood in this model is basswood strips from Model Expo.

chborgm, for the main & boiler decks I pre-stained each plank, using diluted Model Shipways gun-carriage red paint cedar cherry stain. I mixed very small batches at a time, and stained sets of 24" long planks together. Then I would remix a batch and do another set, and so on. The result is a bunch of planks that are subtly different colors and shading. Then, when I planked the decks, I cut each individual plank to length, from a different 24" piece, so that they changed shade end-to-end as well as side-to-side. The result was a nice gentle variation in color across the deck. This image from early in the build (way back in April) shows what this looks like from above: For the hurricane deck, I did exactly the same thing, except I rubbed a dark grey pastel stick across each 24" length first, and rubbed the result in with my fingers. I find that finger oil does a really nice job of fixing pastel to wood; I never bother to seal wood I've handled this way unless it's an area that will be handled routinely. Again, doing each strip separately ensures a variation in the darkness of the pastel, so that when you cut the individual planks you get a nice variation. It sound very fussy but really isn't; I just work ahead at a time when I'm too tired to think about the actual model and just want a mindless job for 1/2 hour before bed. Then I have a nice big stock of planks to work with when I'm ready. All the wood in this model is basic basswood strips, by the way. Ken, I have to say that the one mode of transportation I've never developed any interest in is cars. Thanks, everyone, for the likes and praise. Photography can hide many faults in a model!

Well, I'm definitely going to miss my personal goal of finishing this by the New Year, but it sure does feel like I'm getting there. In the quiet time around the holidays, I was able to finish framing and planking the hurricane deck, along with building the outhouse/laundry structure. This framing was difficult, and I'm not entirely pleased with the results. It really tested my skill level to create a delicate web of beams, curving both with the port-starboard camber and the fore-after sheer, while resulting in a smooth support for the uppermost deck (which will be very visible on the finished model). I didn't always succeed; a close look in person will reveal some strange twists and angles in the framing. The aft end also took some creative fiddling to get right; a close look in subsequent photos will show that I had to graft another support beam onto the existing structure to support the deck properly. The good news is, as it always is for most models, is that such details tend to blend into the background of a finished model, and most viewers will never notice. But I do, and despite some un-Christmas-like language at the time, also consider such things part of the process of developing my skills. The end result will look good enough. Here's the outhouse structure, which hangs over the stern so that the paddlewheel helps with disposal. There are separate mens' and womens' chambers, separated by a laundry room in the middle. Two plans show two different ways to arrange these: one has the doors all at the front, the other has the outhouse doors on each side of the structure. I went with the latter, as I figured it provided a bit more privacy for the occupants of these public multi-holers. As it was, these weren't always good for dignity: one book notes that sometimes when repair work needed to be done on the paddlewheel during voyages, lookouts were stationed at the outhouses to prevent a mutual loss of dignity to those below and above. It wasn't clear to me which side the mens' and women's chambers should go, so I followed old practice and placed the womens' on the left and the mens' on the right. And here are a few views of the current status, showing the planked-in hurricane deck and the paddle-wheel support braces. I haven't installed the hog chains yet, as I think they'll be in the way of other work, but I do have the holes drilled in the decks to accommodate them. You'll also notice that the hurricane deck is a different color. There's no one clear answer on what color steamboat decks tended to be; some sources say they were painted or stained various shades of red, others that they remained natural wood. I suspect it varied quite a bit between builder, owner, and such. I went with red for the main & boiler decks because I like the visual contrast with the white hull & superstructure, but changed to grey/black for the hurricane deck and outhouse roof. In this case, I remember reading somewhere that these uppermost surfaces were sometimes tarred or otherwise sealed differently, and I think the different color helps establish that these areas are different than the lower two decks, serving primarily as a roof rather than a surface. And I think it adds a little more visual interest to the model. Without a clear answer, builder's choice takes precedence. If you're wondering, the main & boiler decks were stained with thinned Model Shipways paint, while the hurricane deck is rubbed with grey pastel. This is my favorite way to color wooden models, one I use a lot in model railroad buildings, as it keeps the grain of the wood rough and realistic and tends to naturally look faded in a way that paint & stain don't always do. Next up: building the pilot house atop the clerestory and roofing/decking in that area, and adding the chimneys. Then I need to build the delicate railings that line most of the boiler deck; I'm not looking forward to that. But once that hurdle is past, the physical model is about done, and it's on to rigging the various hog chains, spars, and other lines around the boat. I'm certain I'll have this done by the end of January. In the meantime, here's the April Verch Band with A Riverboat's Gone:

Heh, good question Mike. Perhaps they had drainage holes in the bottom? Siggi, thanks for sharing the rest of the passage, I'm disappointed to be wrong that there's no further info there. I'd love to see any other ideas, mine was just supposition based on my understanding of the language used.

Siggi, Apparently ropes (laniards or modern spelling:lanyards) were attached to the buckets. That line appears to refer to how the ropes were stored. A Flemish coil looks like this: and would be a very easy way to coil rope into a fire bucket for storage, as it would be out of the way but easy to pull out when needed (no knots). The English language loves to turn nouns into verbs, so in this case "laniards flemished close down inside" means that the laniards attached to the buckets were coiled tightly inside the bucket ("flemished"), disposing of the whole rope easily. At least that's what it means to me. It might also help to know the rest of the next sentence, which begins "some ships that do not stow", as it might shed light on this, assuming that sentence tells what happens on ships which don't stow their buckets and laniards in this manner.

Cairo was an ironclad gunboat, so it stands to reason she'd need more power than a lightly-built riverboat intended for speedy passage of cargo and passengers. I've visited Cairo at Vicksburg, it's a real treat to walk up to and around in person.

I've just been catching up on this log, especially interesting as friends of ours just spent 3 months in Sydney on sabbatical. I enjoy learning more about Australian history, it's a fascinating place. Thanks for this really unique and beautiful build. Forgive this question if it's been answered and I missed it, but what is the design purpose behind the rudder being angled like that, and curved in at the bottom rather than flat-bottomed? It looks very different from the (admittedly few) ship's rudders I can recall. Merry Christmas to you.

Ironwork from steamboat wrecks was routinely salvaged, and indeed boilers, engines, and more were re-used on multiple boats. Bertrand's own machinery wasn't original, but was salvaged from another wreck and installed on the newly-built Bertrand. I went back and re-read the academic papers by Dr Crisman dealing with Heroine's excavation, and they did not directly explain the 4-boiler count, other than citing an earlier reference to general practice of the time. However, there's an interesting comparison to be made with reference to my earlier guess about boiler numbers being related to the support structures. Nowhere in the Heroine papers could I find a direct reference to the WIDTH of the boiler supports, though they are described in general. The area of Heroine's hull where the boilers sat was the most damaged, and didn't have any decking remaining to preserve more evidence. On the other hand, the Bertrand wreck did have the boiler-area deck intact, with special cross-timbers and decking in place to support the boilers, so we know for sure how wide that area was: about 10'. That's pretty narrow for a hull that was about 34' wide, not including the guards. As far as I know most steamboat boilers were around 3' in diameter (the papers state that Heroine's were 34"); that means Bertrand couldn't have had more than three boilers, and 2 seems more likely to accommodate the rest of the boiler structure. In comparison, Heroine is a much narrower boat, with a hull width of only around 20' (judging from the published diagrams), so four 34" boilers would have taken up 12'-14' of the total 20' hull width (though she also had guards). I believe Arabia's hull was about 30' wide, and we know she had 3 boilers. Finally, for whatever it's worth, Heroine is especially thin compared to later boats; her hull appears to be about 140' long though only 20' wide, compared to Bertrand's 161'x34'. This does NOT mean we should jump to conclusions about Heroine's boilers; there's no rule (to my knowledge) saying the boilers on a steamboat should be X% of the total hull width, and Heroine was built very early in the creative process of developing western riverboats, while Bertrand was built over 30 years later in a relatively more standardized age. But it is interesting to consider if/why Heroine had such a large boiler capacity for a small, one-engine boat compared to larger craft like Bertrand or Arabia, and I wonder if she turned out to be at all top-heavy given all that heavy power plant on such a narrow hull. I don't want to derail Glenn's build log into a longer discussion of other boats, so in general we should direct discussion of the Bertrand to my log instead. But in this case I think the comparison is interesting; I'm really interested in Glenn's thoughts or corrections on my guesswork here.

Glenn is right, that's the boiler from Arabia. The "flywheel" is part of the water pump, commonly called the Doctor, which is labeled in the image. I included one in my build but it's buried mostly out of view. I'll go read through Petsche again to see if I recover forgotten hints on boiler layout assumptions. I appreciate your kind words, Glenn, it's an honor to be of any service to a master craftsman.

In return, it's not clear (at least to me) how Jerome Petsche's reconstructions decided Bertrand had two boilers (they were salvaged shortly after the wreck, as I assume Heroine's were, iron being so fantastically valuable on the frontier). His drawings show them as such, but he doesn't discuss that aspect of the reconstruction in his book. It may have something to do with the dimensions and layout of the supporting structures for the boilers, which were preserved in the main deck of Bertrand and (I assume?) also on Heroine. A given width of support timbers may strongly suggest X number of boilers, given that most were made to similar plans/dimensions. Just to show the uncertainties involved, a privately-drawn set of Bertrand plans I initially started working with, before setting them aside as too inaccurate compared to Petsche's data, have Bertrand with three boilers. It's all very confusing. Thanks for the pump info! I'm loving learning more about this boat through your work, and again apologize if I ever over-step my bounds.

I'm not a sail expert, but wouldn't it partly depend on the conditions and context? My limited understanding is that topsails were generally used for light maneuverability in square-rigged ships, so in theory would often be the first set from a standstill, but I'm not sure of the procedure on a schooner rig.

I'm not sure about the initial aspects of the procedure, but as far as removing the hot material safely from the boat, many boats had a special ash trough that allowed the hot coals & such to be swept/washed away from the boilers, either over the side or through an opening in the guards. Here is a picture of the brick-lined ash trough from my Bertrand build. As for boiler explosions, they were quite common on western riverboats, due to a combination of high-pressure boilers, limited or no safety equipment (such as dial pressure gauges), limited knowledge/training of the engineers running the boilers, and a commercial (and passenger) culture which favored speed and power over safety and caution. For a long time, the only safety valve on riverboat boilers was a simple weighted lever, which was very easy for an ambitious engineer to over-weight or even tie down, increasing the pressure in the boilers. With no clear testing or standards, no one really knew what pressure boilers could hold, and there was no calibrated way to measure pressure. Water levels in the boiler also couldn't be measured easily (again, no gauges), so this too was guesswork and instinct. Thus, if water levels got too low, or levels fluctuated as suggested for Sultana, boom with no warning. All of this was made much more likely by the river culture of the time, in which the fastest boats received premium rates and reputations, regardless of safety concerns. In addition, river conditions could lead to explosions, as when boats attempted to force a bar or round a bend under high-water conditions, needing every ounce of steam in the attempt. One particularly deadly explosion in central Missouri happened after a boat repeatedly tried to round a bend in front of a towns-worth of onlooker, failing over and over and being swept back downstream in embarrassment, before the engineer apparently tied down the pressure valve and went for it all. The boat blew up mid-bend, sending debris into the onlookers on the bluff and killing many passengers. Glenn, I'm curious how you know the Heroine had four boilers. The number varied from boat to boat; I was surprised to learn that Bertrand only had two. Also, do you know what kind of pump the water supply used?

My post was general in nature, too, based on the claim that there aren't kits suitable for beginners learning how to plank. There are.

Mischief, there ARE plenty of beginner kits available, including some with pre-cut planks so you don't even have to shape them (much). But it's still not the manufacturer's job to hold the modeler's hand through even the most basic steps (Step One: Which end of the knife to use). At some point people should take responsibility for learning a new skill, not demanding that everything be handed them on a platter (this goes for modeling building, too).

A clarification: pre-scribed wood is just what the doctor ordered for a situation like this cabin structure, but I didn't do the scribing myself. You can buy sheets of pre-scribed wood in various thicknesses, dimensions, and styles. For example, you can get plank-style like I used, or board-and-batten. I've built a fair amount of structures with it for my model railroad (based on a Missouri River port town during the steamboat era), and have a variety of scrap left over that was easy to repurpose for this project. I used it here because building a frame and planking both sides would have made the walls far too thick at this scale (1:87), and I don't have any wood thin enough to do that in scale (and I'd be afraid it'd be too fragile anyway). These boats were built cheap and fast, and these stateroom walls were knocked together from thin pine. Actual framing worked fine on the main deck, because those walls weren't finished on the inside and so it's necessary to show the framing, and doesn't look too thick because you can't easily see the ends. But having stateroom walls well over a scale foot thick would have looked ridiculous; if nothing else the windows would have looked wrong, either too thick or too recessed. I couldn't see another way to show cabin interiors without using solid sheets of wood at this scale. If I'd built the cabin whole, I probably would have framed and planked it, because I wouldn't have cared about the interior look or depth, but saw this as a compromise to allow the interior view. avsjerome, thanks for that snippet. I've read about the steamboats on the Columbia and such, including the famous first trip down the rapids showing that it was possible, but I never knew that Idaho itself was named after a steamboat.

With the boiler deck planked, apart from a section I left open for internal views, I moved on to building the cabin structures. Typical riverboats of this design had two lines of crew/passenger cabins (usually called staterooms), separated by an open main cabin (or parlor) down the centerline in which meals were served and folks could socialize. Only stateroom passengers were allowed in here; those paying for deck passage fended for themselves on the semi-open main deck. The forward-most staterooms would be used by the captain, pilot, clerk, and engineer, then a few mens' staterooms, then a larger room on each side used as galley & storage, then more staterooms aft. Generally the aft-most section of the main cabin was carpeted and reserved for ladies & families only, along with the aft-most staterooms, to save their exposure to cigars, spittoons, cursing, and other male tendencies of the period. The boiler deck has a slight, but clear, sheer both fore and aft (especially aft). So I couldn't just assemble nice, straight walls and set them down, I had to account for the curvature of the deck. The longitudinal walls were built in three sections, with notches to help each fit together. I filed slight angles into these joints, so that the sections fit together in a subtle curve, matching the deck. I cheated slightly with these, using sheets of pre-scribed wood rather than building frames for individual planks, as I did for the main deck structures. However, I did build all the doors and windows from scratch, as advised by the commentariat. In the photo above, the top row are the two ends of the cabin structure (one turned over to show the bracing for the walls), the middle row are the outer walls of the port staterooms, and the lower row are the inner walls of the port staterooms. Lady for scale. I only build the port-side walls, leaving the starboard side open for views of the inner main cabin. I started installing the walls by clamping squares across the deck to guide the fore end (not sure "bulkhead" is appropriate in this context). Then I glued guide strips of scrap wood along the deck, inside the runs of the port walls where they wouldn't be seen, and used these as gluing and clamping guides for the walls. Each 1/3 wall was glued in, then the next one sanded to fit and glued in, then the last one. Above is the completed cabin structure. By not exposing the interior of the port staterooms, I was better able to support and straighten them with internal stringers. In return, I built two open-sided staterooms at the fore and aft end of the starboard side, to allow a view of the interiors, but left the rest open for better internal views and light. The main cabin should have tables, chairs, wood stoves, chandeliers, and so on, but I'm not up for building all that right now. I'll always have access to this area if I choose to detail it later on. A closeup view showing how small these staterooms were, just two bunk beds at most 6' long and perhaps a small cubby for hanging clothes. These were rough frontier boats, not the floating palaces of the lower Mississippi River. Toilets and laundry facilities were at the stern, and will be built and explained in a later post. In this photo you can also see that I managed to install the forgotten engine vent stacks just fine (note: the main smokestacks were actually called "chimneys" on riverboats; I don't know if this terminology extends to smaller stacks). Main cabins had a raised clerestory with skylights along the length, allowing light into this central area. Thus I needed to build two of these long, narrow structures complete with regular windows, but strong enough to span the open, unsupported stretch on the starboard side. I did this by laying out two parallel beams on double-sided tape, then setting my cutter to the inside dimension and cutting lots of filler pieces. Using spacers, I laid out the window pattern along the whole structure, then glued in the spacers. When the whole assembly had dried, I peeled it off the tape, sanded it smooth, and painted it. I built two of these one right above the other, so I could visually line up the spacers and ensure the two pieces were identical. And here's the result, along with a good start on the beams supporting the hurricane deck (supposedly named for the constant breeze up there). And here's a better overall view from an angle, giving a sense of the cabin's overall structure and placement. Next tasks: Frame in the rest of the hurricane deck (also serving as the cabins' roof), which extends forward as far as the boiler deck does, but aft only to the end of the cabins. In other words, the forward boiler deck is covered but the after boiler deck is open. Build the aft-most structure, housing the pit toilets (opening into the wheel) and laundry. Lay out and install the hog chains, iron rods which extend longitudinally through multiple decks and support the fore and aft weight of the boat, preventing it from hogging (particularly from the weight of the sternwheel). When I started this project, I had hoped to complete it by the end of the year. That seems unlikely now, but the end is nevertheless in sight. It's exciting to see the Bertrand really taking on its full form, beyond the barge-like appearance it's had for so long. No music this time, too busy to come up with something interesting. Thanks for reading, and Merry Christmas or whatever seasonal salutation warms your cockles.

Which just goes to illustrate another point made in this thread: do some research before you drop money based on a pretty picture. Caveat emptor applies to models too.