Cathead

She sunk in 1943? Must've been one desperate U-Boat Kapitan.

Kurt, that's a really useful and interesting perspective. I've read the warnings about CA going brittle, too, but didn't have enough experience to judge. I looked at my bottle, and sure enough although it's Model Expo brand, it's the BSI maker that you recommend. Now I feel better about using it! Glenn, thanks for your answer. It makes a lot of sense, and certainly gave me more to think about for future builds.

Hearty congratulations! It's been a fascinating project to follow, full of creativity and education. Many thanks for the time you spent sharing it with us.

Glenn, great explanation of the partition, thanks. I'm curious: if you were to do the boilers over (and I'm NOT suggesting that you do), how would you approach them differently?

You're right, you could easily have fooled me into thinking that was a solid sheet! Nicely done.

Keith, that's a really interesting model. Is there a specific prototype, or something whimsical you came up with?

Looks really nice, Glenn. I wish I'd taken better photos of the boiler construction on Bertrand. It wasn't my favorite part of the build, either, both in the doing and in the result. Kinda nice to know I'm not the only one! What you've got certainly captures the feel of a typical steamboat boiler, which since it's speculative anyway, is more than good enough. And as on most boats, the boilers kinda get buried under the shadow of the boiler deck anyway, so any little mishaps fade from view. Speaking of which, what's that slatted structure over the boilers in your drawing? Some kind of screen nailed to the outer stanchions? What's it for? Whatever it is, it'll also help hide any boiler imperfections. Edit: also meant to ask, how did you emboss the rivets? By hand or with a ponce wheel? Curious to know what you tried and what you'd try differently in the future, since you didn't like the result.

I wasn't sure if you meant how much firewood was used to run a steamboat, or how much wood was used in construction, so here's my take on both. Good question either way. Firewood (from Steamboats on the Western Rivers, Louis C Hunter): "Steamboats of the smaller classes burned 12 to 24 cords of wood every 24 hours, and the larger boats running at mid-century consumed anywhere from 50 to 75 cords per day." Also, keep in mind that firewood quality varied tremendously along western American rivers, everything from well-cured oak with lots of heat potential to green cottonwood that was barely worth burning. Early boats (like Heroine) probably had to cut their own wood daily as they worked up-river (salvaging driftwood, dead trees, live when necessary), whereas woodlots began to proliferate along navigable rivers as traffic developed, meaning that boats could stop and buy wood daily instead, often finding better-quality stuff as woodcutters could stack and cure wood for later sale knowing that boats would be coming along. Especially on the Missouri River, this too changed along the route, as the river slowly left behind forested areas and extended into the mostly treeless plains and prairies of the Upper West. Construction (from The Western River Steamboat, Adam Kane): "According to the 1880 census, the shipyard at Sewickley PA consumed 100,000 to 225,000 feet of oak, pine, and poplar in the construction of each steamboat hull between 180 and 260 feet long...this equates to approximately 20-50 old-growth trees per hull". Early boats were built tough and heavy, simulating maritime construction, but builders quickly realized this wasn't the way to go about things, and starting building them lighter and lighter, using less oak and more pine & poplar, and using thinner pieces. American riverboats needed to be light and flexible, not hefty and rigid like an ocean-going ship.

John, Kurt, or other moderators: given the immediate interest expressed in riverboats worldwide, should we just change the title of this topic to something like "Steamboats and rivercraft - general discussion"? I'd be happy to edit my opening post to make it less focused on the US if we all think it's better to have this topic broadened. Keith & leclaire, welcome to the steamboat addiction! To the latter, at risk of self-promotion, check out my build log for Bertrand. If I can scratch-build a steamboat, then I suspect many others can as well.

Hey, John, I sure don't mind if folks want to talk about riverboat anything. I set this up the way I did, in part because US boats are all I know, and because it seemed to be the focus of models here right now. But it's neat to learn anything that anyone wants to share, and I hope I didn't offend anyone by making it US-centric. Your photo of the Adelaide shows a really neat craft that's noticeably different from anything in the US. Thanks for sharing!

Wow, Gerhard, that's a new one for me. Recently, reading a book on the Ottoman Empire, I found a maddeningly vague reference to the British army using steamboats to transport troops and supplies up and down the Tigris & Euphrates rivers during WWI. Would have loved to know more. I really only know anything about American vessels, and only so much about that. So much history, so little time.

Yeah, I agree, Bob. Much prefer the pickups to the palaces. There are a few obscure boats, like yours above, from the Osage and Gasconade rivers that would be really interesting scratch projects too. The oddballs are just so interesting!

Bob, good question. I'd say you have to drill down a bit deeper to answer, though as a very broad characterization you wouldn't be wrong. The lower Missouri (especially Omaha or Kansas City or St Louis) had a fair amount of passenger traffic and regular packet service. There was even service up a few of the larger tributaries, like the Osage and Gasconade. The upper river certainly focused on hauling freight to Montana and gold/furs back, with only primitive passenger accommodations. We tend to see photos of the floating passenger palaces on the Mississippi, but they obscure the existence of lots of regular cargo/work boats, too, hauling cotton and other agricultural products downriver to New Orleans and lots of imports and other stuff back up. Then there's the question of what era we're talking about, which influences the question, too. But, yeah,to me the "typical" Missouri River boat was essentially a pickup truck with cramped quarters while the "typical" Mississippi boat was a tricked-out SUV with some cargo space.

Glenn, I have some really interesting news: the team that found Arabia has found another boat, the 1841 Malta, in west-central Missouri. It'll be an amazing comparison to Heroine if they end up excavating it. I know the area well, I pass through it whenever I go to Kansas City. This gave me the kick in the pants I needed to finally start a general steamboat/river-craft thread in the Nautical History section of MSW, so we don't have to fill up build logs with side discussions. I put a story link about the Malta in there, along with a few photos of other rivercraft models I've built that relate to the recent stories in the Nautical Research Journal. Hope this is of interest to you and your readers!

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.