Cathead

Nice progress! I was curious about the bull rail question so did some sleuthing (since I haven't built this myself though I've followed many builds of it). Photos on @mbp521's build log show the bull rails mounted, as you suggest, on the second and third posts. See here: And so does photo 12 from p. 8 of the online M-E instructions (which may well differ from what you got in the box): So whatever your instructions say, you seem to have made the right choice.

Ken, that's exactly what I used, I went back to our Christmas stash and grabbed some white paper. I took a few outdoor shots today in better light. The smaller structures aren't attached, just placed loosely for the photos. This shows the softer color on the wood, vs. the darker armor, better. I think I like the subtle contrast, even though I still don't like the texture of the plain wood.

Yeah. It's small. Don't think I really appreciated just how small when I bought it! Been working on some more details. First I decided I really didn't like the plywood roofs on the rest of the wheelhouse either, so used an old trick and glued some tissue paper over them to simulate the texture of tarpaper or canvas. I then mixed up some black with a little brown, to emphasize the subtle change in texture. It really doesn't come through in photos but it's visible in good light. I liked the effect so much I used the same mix to repaint all the wooden parts of the main casement, again giving a subtle difference in appearance from the metal armor. Whether or not it's prototypical, I think it adds to the visual effect. Maybe I'll get some outdoor shots at some point and you can see it then. Next I made the chimneys. These are brass tubes slid down over metal fittings. Actually straightforward for once. As directed, I drilled one hole in each for the support rod that'll go there later. I roughed up the tubes with sandpaper, then I primed and painted them. Had a bit of a disaster when I masked the upper chimneys to add the grey stripe that was Cairo's distinctive visual marker; the tape stuck to the paint below and peeled it off down to the brass. So I repainted and freehanded the stripe. It's not great but it'll work at distance, like the rest of the model. Next I worked in the bulkwarks around the bow and stern, which are made of a square styrene strip. I prepainted this so I wouldn't get paint on the weathered deck. At the bow, I made two strips, shaped one end of each to match the casement, then glued a small section in place. Once that was firm, I bent the rest, cut it carefully to fit against the prow, and glued the rest. I used the same procedure at the stern. Next the instructions have you cut the fairleads through which cables and anchor chains run. These are ridiculously small at this scale but it'd look odd to leave them out. Following directions, I drilled a small hole through the bulwark in each location. But instead of using a knife as directed, I used small jewelers files to widen and round a notch. I used my lit-up magnifier for this because it was so darned tiny. Once I painted over these I'm not sure you can even tell there's anything there. So here's a photo of the current progress that might maybe show the subtle color differences in the wheelhouse and casement, as well as the finished stern bulwarks. Meh, it's progress. Next the instructions have you make the hammock nettings, which look really fiddly. Some other time, I'm burned out for now.

Quick update on the wheelhouse. I decided to upgrade the curved roof slightly by scribing "planking" on a new piece of 1/64" plywood and adding that. Here it is in raw form: And here's the wheelhouse after painting and a first light round of weathering.

Thanks, Brian. I hear you on the medication and related issues. It's interesting that your photos (and I believe your model) show a gently curved roof on the structure aft of the wheel, while both the BlueJacket plans and the more detailed digital plans you sent me show that to be flat. I went with flat because it's how the kit was designed and it was easier. You probably covered this in your log but I was lazy and didn't go looking for it. I think I have the roof angle on the little side structures too steep, but oh well. Not the first inaccuracy this model will have. I suppose I could try "planking" the curved area over the wheel with very thin strips to see if I can achieve the effect you're describing.

As you might have expected from my style on this project, I ended up just plowing ahead because I had time today. Just made executive decisions about that I thought would work, with loose consultation of the kit plans and the better digital plans I also have. The kit's 1/64" plywood worked fine for roofs, it bends easily and holds it shape. So here's the whole assembly put together and mostly primed (I forgot to add the ladders until after the first layer of primer. It's not too shabby. Paint will tie it nicely together, I think.

So next up is the paddle wheel house, which is assembled from various (mostly laser cut) blocks of wood. Seems pretty straightforward. Here's the only illustration in the instructions ("Sketch 9"), and here's what it looks like mocked up (the long piece gets cut to fit). My problem is that two key steps have no clear guidance or illustration that I can find. First, the instructions say "cut the roof sections from the 1/64" plywood sheet and glue them in place". OK...but nowhere in the instructions or plans are any roofs shown clearly. Sketch 9 shown above certain doesn't, and this is the closest the plans come: How much overhang? You can sort of guess from this, but it's a pretty rough drawing and doesn't show the other dimension. Does the curved part get a roof panel too? Second, and related, the little side buildings aren't supposed to have flat roofs, but angled ones. The instructions say "sand the pitch into their roofs". OK, what's the pitch? You get a 3D hint from Sketch 9 and a loose sense from the plans above, but for someone actually interested in accuracy it would be nice to have a clearer idea. The little piece of basswood you cut to length also needs to have an angle put on it, and again no clear guidance is given for this. Wouldn't be hard to include a quick plan view with an actual template for doing this. Maybe I'm complaining too much because you can more or less figure out a workable approximation from these drawings. But it's just so sloppy, and again the kind of thing that will befuddle a beginner and annoy a perfectionist. The most specific question I have, and it's the one least answered by the kit, is whether I'm bending a plywood roof over the curved part of the wheelhouse. No drawing shows this one way or another. I think it would make sense for visual consistency, but I'm curious what Brian and others think.

Thanks for all the diverse thoughts and advice! I've gotten it worked out, using an approach closest to @gak1965. Basically, I realized that part of the problem may have been me misunderstanding the vague instructions. When they said "remove the disc of flash from the bottom of the pilot house", I focused on cutting vertically first to eliminate the visual disc extending away from the pilot house, not realizing how much extended below and how uneven it was. What they might have meant, and what I should have done regardless of whether they meant it, was to cut horizontally in the first place, using the upper edge of that flashing disc as a guide for a razor saw. I made a drawing to illustrate this: That drawing took me five minutes to work up and is the sort of thing that should be included in clear instructions. What you see in the background is all that you get. Note that the drawing doesn't show the "wedge" shape of the flash, which made fixing this harder than if it was even thickness all the way around. So I just eyeballed a horizontal cut across the remaining flash, as I realized (like gak) that it didn't really matter if I cut too deep. This took some care not to slip and cut my fingers, but it worked. After this it took about 20 minutes of careful sanding to get the base flat, and short enough that the armor would extend down to the deck. I thought about cutting off the top instead (a lot less material to remove!) but test-fitting pieces showed me that that would screw up the geometry of how they fit together at the top. @Roger Pellett's point about just using the casting as a mold would have worked well, I think, but I'd already completed my version when I saw it. So once I finally got the darn thing in workable condition, I sanded the armor pieces' edges to bevels that would fit together, and started attaching them. I found that no matter what I did, the armor pieces didn't quite line up when held against the casting (and you can't sand much as there's little margin for error), so I did my best and decided that paint, scale, and distance would fill any remaining gaps. This, again, is where Roger's suggestion might have helped, but oh well. Note that I intentionally shortened the casting enough so the armor pieces stick up higher, allowing me to sand the whole thing flat. There were some gaps at the top, which I filled with wood glue, then resanded. And here it is freshly painted (and so still shiny). I know, bad photo, it's cold outside where the better light is. For now I just want you to see it in reasonably completed form. Next up I'll be posting about another maddeningly vague bit of instructions and seeing what Cairo experts like @mbp521 think I should do.

Oh, good memories of the various casts/braces I was in last March after hatcheting my wrist. Poor sleep, no modeling, etc. Best wishes for recovery!

Nana, see the comment above yours, which addresses this exact question.

Happy New Year! Got some work done on a few small details, starting with the small and large skylights. The small skylight has an angled roof. You're given a tiny block of wood and told to shape it to the proper angle, which I did with a sharp hobby knife. Then you bend a piece of flat brass to match the roof angle. This should come to a sharp point simulating the two sides of the roof coming together. There was a similar bend needed in the side armor, but that piece had a scoring line on it that made the bend easy, consistent, and sharp. Didn't work that way with this tiny piece. When I tried the bend, it kept coming out as a curve, no matter what I tried, and it kept getting more mangled. I finally more or less flattened it to "close enough" The brass piece also seems quite a bit larger than the provided wood block, so there's a rather "Alpine" roof overhang on the assembled part (see below). But I can't do anything about it, because there's another fine piece of brass grating that goes over this (see photo above), and cutting down the base piece of brass would mean that part would be too big. So again it's just going to have to be "good enough" After painting, here's what the skylight looks like. I used a silver pen to hint at light between the gratings. It's really hard to photograph parts this small with an iPhone, so apologies for the bad image. Next up is the large skylight. This is simpler since it's flat. Just glue a piece of brass to a thin strip of wood, paint, then glue brass gratings over it. I painted the lower brass to look like brighter glass, pre-painted the grating, and assembled. Meh. Here they are set in place on the casement: Now for the real fun. I got started on the pilot house and ran into a doozy of a problem that I'd like advice on. Here's how it's supposed to work. There's a resin core in the shape of the pilothouse, over which you place various pieces of laser-cut wooden "armor". Not sure why these are wood and not brass, for a more consistent texture on the model (where all other armor is brass), but whatever. I'll give the kit credit here, they provide extras of these flimsy little pieces. Looking closely, you see that there are two sizes of armor; slightly larger ones that go on the front three panels, and slightly smaller ones that go around the rest of the structure. Seems pretty straightfoward, right? The resin part is designed to match the wood, you just sand the armor edges to fit and they make a nice neat pilot house. Like this: But first you have to get rid of that big lip of flashing all around the base of the resin core (the armor should reach the deck). Also notice that the core is a little taller than the armor; see it sticking up above those pieces? I cut away the flashing around the base carefully, at which point I discovered that the core isn't even close to evenly cast. This is hard to show for such a small part, so I took a couple different photo sequences. First here's the front of the core once the flashing base was trimmed away, followed by the back: OK...here's what happens when you hold a few of the proper armor pieces against the core. Trust me that the tops of these (hidden behind my fingers) are flush with the top of the core: There's basically a huge angular wedge of resin at the base of this thing; it's properly flush at the front but really thick at the back. Remember that the armor is supposed to reach the deck. Here's another view, trying to use calipers. I couldn't photograph this perfectly, but calipers confirm the huge difference in thickness front-to-back: The smooth sides meant to hold the armor are accurate; their bases line up all the way around. It's this big wedge of extra resin at the base that's the problem. How do I get rid of this? Seems like a ton of sanding (and nasty resin dust), while I'm not sure how to cut it away evenly because the piece is really hard to hold or brace. The instructions simply say "remove the disc of flash from the bottom of the cast resin pilot house". Not much help there. They also later say "sand the tops and bottoms of the sections [meaning the wood armor] flush with the top and bottom of the pilot house", which is funny because the opposite is true. The resin casting is too tall on top (see earlier photo) and has a big wedge on bottom. So my question is, what's the best way to remove this bottom wedge of resin to get a smooth bottom surface that will sit flat on the deck? Do I just take my best shot with a razor saw and hope I don't mangle it too badly? Definitely not thrilled with the quality of this casting or the bare-bones instructions on how to handle it.

Did some preliminary weathering; it's an improvement though I'm not sure I'm done. I don't really like the way the raw wood casement looks (anywhere there isn't armor). It looks like what it is, a sanded slab of wood painted black. This is especially true on the aft casement (third photo). No trace of the planking or structure that should be there. I tried to create a horizontal texture using brush strokes but it doesn't come through. Not sure I care enough to fuss over it, though. Next up is building various small details like skylights and the pilot house.

I've always loved the geometric creativity of shield patterns from this era.

Now for part 2, progress on the pizza oven itself. Here's a reminder of where that's been dormant since October: The next overall step is to pour a 3.5" concrete slab over the whole top to provide a solid base for the oven itself. Before that can be done, I needed to provide a base that spans the inside hole, block the open holes within the concrete blocks, and build a form around the outside. Step 1: Interior I built a frame of scrap pine 2x4s (all pine used in these steps was also saved/salvaged from the porch work this summer). This fits snugly in the interior and will support a piece of Hardiebacker concrete board that will seal the opening. Notice that it's recessed about 3/8" below the surface of the concrete blocks to allow the board to fit reasonably flush with the upper surface. This is supported by scrap pine supports underneath, set up on thin wedges. There's no hardware anywhere, it's all cut to fit tightly and hold together on its own. Once the concrete is set, I'll knock out the lower wedges and all the parts should disassemble themselves from below. That's the goal, anyway. Here's another view: Step 2: Exterior framing Next I built the framing that will form the outer walls of the concrete slab. The slab is meant to be 3.5" thick, so I first built a lower layer of 2x4s flush with the concrete blocks, but adjusted to be absolutely level using shims: You can see that the foundation slopes to the south (following the base slab), so the wooden frame appears to tilt upward to the south. No big deal, it'll be slightly thicker at that end. Once this was in place, and level and tight to my satisfaction, I added a second layer of 2x4s to create the actual walls of the concrete form: I then screwed on cleats to connect the two levels of framing into a solid mass. I also screwed on extra 2x4s horizontally to the upper frames, to help ensure that they don't bend outward under any pressure from the concrete: Step 3: Blocking the interior holes I still needed to block the remaining interior holes in the concrete blocks, which I didn't want/need to do with solid material like gravel or concrete as that would be too much expense and work. So I made a series of wooden plugs nailed onto thin supports, using scrap cedar from on-farm-milled lumber (like the rest of the kitchen). These drop into each hole and fit closely enough that I can use masking tape to seal off the remaining gaps: These will be forever entombed but I don't care, they're scrap wood that would go onto a bonfire otherwise. And here's a view of the finished result: All that's needed now is to cut the filler board for the center and tape over all the smaller openings. But I won't do that until we're close to pouring, which could be anywhere from the next two weeks to the next two months depending on weather. It's really exciting to get this step done as it creates a feeling that we're much closer to having an oven, even that if that could still be months away. But now we can take advantage of the first long-enough warm spell to pour the slab with very little further prep. I already have six bags of concrete in the garage just biding their time... Thanks for your continued interest in this slow-moving project!

We soared to 71ºF (22ºC) here today, quite a change from lows below 0ºF (-18ºC) last week. That broke today's old record high by a full 4º! So I took a day off and got a bunch done on the outdoor kitchen project, which has been otherwise dormant during a long stretch of cold weather and general busy life. This update will come in two posts since there are two very different accomplishments. First I made some upgrades to the structure, primarily by adding a gutter along the west side that feeds a downspout that feeds another gutter carrying water away to the southeast and lowest corner of the landscape. This will keep rain off the main entrance into the structure. I might or might not add a gutter to the east side. Like the roofing, all the gutter/spout materials were salvaged from last summer's work on our house for reuse here, rather than buying new material. Remember that deer-hanging davit I added on the north side? I wanted to protect that wood, and the pulleys, by adding a small roof extension over it. I used an old piece of roof cap, again left over from the house project and matching what's already on the main kitchen roof. I cut three triangular wedges to match the cap angle and screwed them in place onto the beams: Then I simply popped the metal roof cap on and attached it with roofing screws: Ties the whole thing together nicely. In the next post I'll describe progress on the pizza oven, a preview of which you can see in the last photo above.

I'm glad you found that thread useful! Nice job on the color of those sails.

Roger, great to hear from you! I didn't think to try scissors, I assumed anything like that would destroy the brass. Oh, well, something new learned. I've definitely kept a riverboat rail ferry in the back of my head for years. The plans you sent would definitely make a good model, all the elevations and details are there, while I've also always loved a photo I saw somewhere (but can't currently find) of a similar ferry operating on the upper Missouri River, though I wouldn't even know where to begin with that one. The Katy railroad bridged the Missouri River on a fantastic span not far from where I live, first in the 19th century and replacing it in 1930. You can walk out on it today, it's part of a statewide rail trail (though you can't cross the whole span). We visit it regularly as it's such a great vantage point to watch the river.

Update time! Just a few days later, downright dizzying speed. I did a preliminary round of hull painting, and it definitely makes a difference: You can see the bright wood shining out from within the cannon holes, I need to go back and darken that. I also intend to do some weathering to give more texture to the surfaces. But it does hide faults nicely! Note that I haven't done anything with the decks yet. Also, here's my Christmas haul of model-related items. Top two are the most relevant, bottom left is obvious, and bottom right is research for a possible future project. Let's see if I can keep up the progress on this thing. A bit worried about all the tiny fiddly brass bits coming up...

Hey, Ken, I forget where you are exactly, but my grandparents lived for ~30 years in a cabin they build themselves up in the mountains above Black Mountain. It was a beloved place for me, growing up. Fond memories of Christmases in those mountains.

Found another hour last night to dabble in this thing. The next step is to drill out holes that will later hold the guns, and attach the rest of the gunports (the ones that don't go on the armor). So I marked out locations for the guns and ports using calipers to transfer distances from the plans: Below, testing aft gunports. I used their location to set my drilling location (by the middle of the gunport). Anyone see a problem about to happen? Compare to the photo from @mbp521's log of where these go: Yeah, I set the ports on the wrong side of my location line, so they're much too far inward. They should be sitting outboard of the marking line, not inboard. Oopsie. Didn't notice this until after the holes were drilled and the ports glued on. So I chipped the ports off, filled the old holes with toothpicks and wood glue, and filed smooth. Hopefully they'll fade into the background under paint. Here's the updated aft casement, also with ladders attached. These castings are pretty rough but I'm not up for trying to rebuild something more to scale. Below you can see another looming problem. The kit has you drill different hole sizes depending on the size of the gun to be inserted. But some of these are smaller than the gunport opening, leaving extra wood showing behind the port. This will probably look odd since everything behind the port is supposed to be open. I didn't recognize this problem until after everything was glued into place. So I took a sharp knife and tried to carve a "cone" within the gunport to at least set the wood back a little, hoping all the black paint will create a collective shadow effect. It's a bit rough but the best I can do without damaging the brass. If I were to do this over, I'd use a small counter-sink bit or something to widen the mouth of every gun hole before gluing on the ports; this would create a smoother and more authentic negative space behind the ports while not interfering with gluing them on. Oh, well. But since the kit has you glue on the armor before drilling holes, that would require carefully locating all the ports first. Currently instructions have you glue the armor (and associated ports) on before doing any drilling, making the drilling very finicky so you don't catch the brass with the drill bit. You could locate all the gun locations first and drill them all out (so you could countersink everything) but that would require extreme precision on a small rough wood casement, because you can't adjust the armor the way you can adjust individual ports. Personally I'd rewrite the instructions to do these steps consistently; place your armor in its final position and mark ALL the gun holes, then drill them all before attaching the armor & other ports to the casement (rather than attach armor, drill holes through armor gunports and into raw wood, then attach other ports). Anyway, this is what I got trying to follow the instructions (and making my own dumb mistake). Side ports drilled through armor ports (again, very touchy as the drill size is very close to the opening in the brass): Fore casement with more holes carefully drilled through armor ports, and another chunky ladder. Top view: That's as far as I got. I think the next step is to prime and paint this whole assembly; I'm really hoping that subdues the various awkward stuff and helps blend it into a more appealing whole. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, festive solstice, or whatever your favorite approach is. Thanks for all your interest and support, both in logs and PMs, as I work through this. I'm stubbornly determined to produce something that'll look ok from 4 feet away in my display cabinet! As a final note, here's the view from Cathead Valley after our bitter winter storm blew through with the coldest December air here since the late 1980s. Luckily we have a well-supplied wood stove, also enjoyed by our current three-legged foster cat.

Lovely! I completely agree that leaving the railings and bimini off produce a consistent open look to the model that shows off your detail and workmanship. A great example of what I often think about in model building re. the tradeoff between accuracy and artistry.

It may be slow and tedious, but at least it's not steamboat railings! Looks nice so far.

Great prototype, I'll enjoy following along.

Confusing instructions are such a bane of the model world. As a freelance editor experienced in working with global clients, a few years ago I contacted various kit makers to propose having me review their instructions for both English language accuracy and general clarity. All refused, insisting that their instructions were fine. Sigh.

Great job on a complex build! She really came out nicely. Don't forget to show us the case when you get her in it! A nice addition to the steamboat library here on MSW.