Cathead

Glad to hear you like it! I was reminded of a bit of advice after using mine last night: the cutter can handle some relatively thick stock, but as you go thicker it gets easier for the blade/arm to deflect and produce a non-square end. It isn't like a miter box where the cutting blade is locked in place. So just be aware of that, at times I've needed to square off cut ends with a file or other tool. Other times I've used the cutter to mark a precise cut and then finished it with a miter saw to be sure the cut was square. Also, change the blades as soon as you feel it's not cutting right. One of the great things about this tool is it's designed to use basic razor blades, not some custom design, so it's easy and cheap to keep sharp. Happy Holidays to you as well, I look forward to this project coming back on the table, so to speak.

OK, shut down the site, we're done here. We've reached the model singularity.

Just don't forget that on many sternwheelers, the heads overhung the wheels for obvious reasons of disposal! So maybe check the wind direction first (not that that means much on winding North American rivers).

So that makes sense, but is that the case for something like the image below, which you shared earlier? It just stretches my logical/factual brain to see those right-hand shrouds as being intended to represent the port-starboard mirror image of the correct ones aft of the mast, since they're carefully placed at a completely wrong angle symmetrical to the right ones. In addition, the three forward shrouds are even drawn as combining with what appears to be a forestay before reaching the mast, different from the aft three (oddly, there's no aft stay at all). I realize these aren't blueprints and that art in this period was somewhat abstract, but it boggles and fascinates me to try to understand the mix of detailed realism and perspective inaccuracy. It's like trying to learn a truly foreign language with some recognizable patterns but fundamentally different grammar (like Japanese numbers). ] Not trying to take this thread too off course, I'm just fascinated, and part of the theme here is understanding what we can learn and understand from these images.

Some of those images seem to show shrouds both fore and aft of the mast, while your prototype shows them only aft. Thoughts as to why?

To me, one of the significant tradeoffs is how to handle details at scale. The larger you build, the easier it is to get details in scale, but you're also under more pressure to include those details and get them right. The smaller you build, the harder it is to get details in scale, but you can also start eliminating them. Examples in wooden ships could include treenailing, rope thickness, wood joinery, sail stitching, and even just the texture and grain of the wood itself. As for examples of large-scale ship models, here I am a few years ago with a 1:20 model of the Esmerelda at the Museo Maritimo Nacional in Valparaiso, Chile.

Not as such, given the damage to the wreck, and the museum just displays one full engine/wheel assembly out of context. But in the thread I linked above are several photos of the wreck that show the boilers and engines in place, which give a sense of the overall setting. Details are gone, washed away by the river, but from various things I've read the area might have included a small blacksmith's shop and other workbenches (boats generally had to do their own repairs, even on the relatively civilized Mississippi River).

Great find of the engine drawings! That'll be a challenging but fun project. In case you hadn't run across it, when I was planning my Arabia build, I made a separate thread to share the various photos I'd taken at the museum and found in my research; these include a lot of views of the engines and wheels, both at the museum and from the original excavation. You might find it useful to look through that for real-world views of the actual machinery, which does look very similar to the plans you show above. I can also look for additional photos in my collection if you're trying to see a certain viewpoint not shared in that thread. Regardless, can't wait to see how you approach this.

Keith's suggestion is good, you can set up a pretty simply jig using a clamp and a piece of wood as a stopper at the right length; just butt the piece to be cut against the stopper and you'll know that the saw is working in the right place. As another option, I strongly recommend the Northwest Short Line chopper: It's excellent at making accurate, consistent-length cuts at various angles. I even use it for pieces that are too thick for it to cut on its own, by using the blade to mark each piece accurately. The divot made by the razor blade becomes a natural guide for a razor saw. But if I'm right about the scale of the pieces you're showing, the Chopper would make short and accurate work of them, one after another. I'm not a big tool collector overall, but this one is simple, affordable, and fantastically useful for all sorts of modeling applications, which inevitable require that you cut small parts to consistent lengths (or angles).

Welcome! I just finished that half-hull kit and found it very useful. I'd strongly recommend going back and forth between the instructions and the official build log, as each have details and insights lacking in the other. Have fun!

Everything looks crisp and consistent. I like how the red fits into the overall color scheme, too.

These are things they taught in the builder's yard, father to son, master to apprentice. Most of us are trying to make a shortcut across hundreds of years of accumulated skill and knowledge.

Nice! How did you make the rivets?

The era is similar, so it seems reasonable to assume the engines followed the same general concept. Probably a lot bigger, though, given how large that vessel is. If you want to build engines, I strongly suggest getting a copy of The Western Rivers Engineroom Cyclopœdium by Alan Bates. It's rare but you can find it used in places, or you could always put in an interlibrary loan request. His companion volume The Western Rivers Steamboat Cyclopoedium would also be an excellent resource, and has some basic information on engine design and layout. You can also find some good visual resources on various websites by a basic Google search.

Please tell me there's more than just that page!

Very late to this party but just have to add my awe and thanks for sharing this. It's giving me some inspiration for future projects.

I can't tell if it's a trick of the lighting, but did you add a little color on the tarps beneath the ropes? Or is that just a shadow? Because it would make sense for the ropes to leave a little staining under their run. I can only echo the others in saying how fantastic that all looks, and that I want to remember that boat tarp technique.

Nice upgrades! Planking actually sounds easier to me, in terms of getting a nice smooth run through difficult curves, than trying to achieve that through sanding. And the result looks great. I definitely agree with adding the planking, too, there's little way to hide that plywood grain across scribing. I know what you mean about the architecture, the superstructures on these are so different from sailing ships and so much more complicated. This is certainly a more complex vessel than I've ever attempted. Looking forward to seeing how it comes together.

I would've said the one on the right, but the middle is good too. Least of all the left-hand one.

Surprise! The model is finished. I got wrapped up in finishing it and kinda lost interest in documentation along the way. I'm actually pretty pleased with the result, some serious sanding and multiple coats of wood oil really brought out the colors and contrasts in the walnut, maple, and cherry. I painted the exposed basswood keel black since it didn't look right raw against the nicer woods. The maple had some really interesting patterning that adds a lot of visual interest. For mounting, I dug out a slab of walnut from my wood shop with an interesting fault at one corner, and used a hand planer and orbital sander to smooth its face. It has a strong cup to it that I couldn't quite remove, meaning that the model doesn't sit quite flat against it, but this is only noticeable at close range and I don't really care. I glued some thick blocks between the model's framing and then screwed the hull to the mounting board from the back. I made a nameplate from maple, had my wife hand-letter it since she's better at that than me, and attached it using several small magnets. This way, if the model ever gets remounted, the nameplate can go with it. Here are a few more photos: This is a gift for my stepfather, now in his 70s, who has been a woodworker his whole life and is a true artisan in wood. I learned what skills I have, along with a love for building in wood, from him. He loves boats and fishing, and recently built his first wooden boat. The photo below shows us with that vessel in his small woodshop, where he still builds beautiful frames and other creations for sale at various art shows. He's never done model work and is fascinated by my projects, so this gift is pretty meaningful for me to give back to him. I shipped it off today (he's ~900 miles away in rural Western New York), since I won't be traveling for Christmas. Looking forward to his reaction when he opens it. The model wouldn't win any awards for pure craftsmanship, I can see its flaws as much as anyone, but it's attractive and interesting and will look great on his wall. Thanks for reading this log. It's probably not been the greatest resource for others who want to do this project, but I do recommend the kit as a great way to learn and practice planking skills. Making the wood myself had a serious learning curve that I hope to draw from in future, but I'm not sure how to convey those lessons in a way that would be useful to others (other than that a thickness sander or other way to ensure plank thickness would have been very helpful). Thanks to Toni and the NRG for developing this kit; my next project will be its cousin, the scratchbuilt capstan, for further practice in making and using my own wood.

Happy to follow along, this will be an interesting step up from your current project.

That's a lot of shaping! Always up for another riverboat build.

This is a cool project, regardless of where it falls on the fanciful-real spectrum. Will be great to see how this progresses, as others have said.

Nice start to what should be a neat model! Put very simply, the rabbet is where the lowest plank intersects the hull, usually defined with a groove carved into the keel so that the plank is slightly inset into the keel rather than just touching it. This thread here on MSW will give you some additional insights and resources, including a video on what this looks like in real life. MSW also has a whole section devoted to questions about planking, which includes this page with links to tutorials. Planking is a specific skill and is well worth studying up on if you haven't done it before; usually kit instructions aren't sufficient to teach the basic skill set and context needed.

Nice job, thanks for sharing. She looks lovely in her case.