Cathead

Cool! As for the T-shape, I'd forgotten about that. Would be it easier to start over and manufacture a T-shaped keel using two different pieces of wood, rather than trying to cut the T-shape onto your solid piece? Another option, depending on the tools available to you, could be to carefully use a table saw set very low to "rout" the lower edges of your keel. Whether that's practical or safe depends on the size of the saw and workpiece. How does the T-shape transition to the wedge shape? I can't quite picture this. A wedge sounds like it could be carved/filed/sanded fairly easily, but I'm not sure about the connection.

A bit more progress framing the hurricane deck: I also added the railings protecting the main staircase. If you look closely you can see another goof. I ran two of the longitudinal beams too close to where the chimneys had to be (they aren't installed permanently yet) and had to file a slot on the outboard sides of the chimneys to let them sit where they needed to be. It's going to be essentially invisible when the decking is in place, but it caused some temporary gnashing of teeth.

You could try building your own miter box/jig out of scrap wood, something that would provide a flat, smooth surface that the whole razor saw blade can be held against as it cuts. That would also help with ensuring consistent cuts in different pieces.

Paul, I highly recommend this thread (started in 2013 and still going) where people post photos of their workstations and otherwise discuss the topic. My workspace is a ~3'x4' table in a corner of my small living room, which has been sufficient for all my various models. I have a few power tools in the garage that I use occasionally for certain things, but the vast majority of my actual modelling happens at that table, using simple hand tools. I think the best thing I've done is to develop an organizational system that lets me store a lot of stuff in a small space and find it easily. This includes a vertical wood-strip holder (made of PVC lengths glued together), a similar unit for tools that's mounted on a simple turntable, and a plastic storage unit with lots of little boxes for all sorts of small parts. Most folks would likely agree that a good source of light is key. Ventilation can also be important, as even raw sawdust can be pretty irritating and even dangerous, much less paint fumes or dust with paint/glue in it. If I'm doing more than light, raw wood sanding, I take it to the garage or outdoors and/or wear a mask. I also make a point of emphasizing benign materials like wood glue and water-based paints, as those are less toxic and irritating, especially given my living room location. Have fun getting started!

So that was strange. I wrote a whole update post, which was then eaten when I tried to post it by some Firewall Error. But when I went back and did a test post it went through. So here's a shorter version because I don't feel like rewriting it all. Bending beams for the forward part of the hurricane deck: Connected together and installed on the model, using pins at the back: Adding vertical supports and testing the heat shields that keep the chimneys from burning passengers or setting the boat on fire; these are made from scrap PVC: Heat shields painted and vertical posts all complete: View from the bow: If you look closely, you may be able to tell that this structure is a bit out of alignment; the forward curve is closer to the port side than the starboard. It's fairly obvious from some angles and not at all from others. Redoing would mean starting over on this entire structure and I'm not up for that, so I'm going to do my best to hide it. The finished model will have enough detail and complexity that I think it'll be pretty easy to overlook. This is why I'm not a professional (among other reasons). Happy (soon) New Year to all of you.

Cut one side, trace it onto the other, then cut the other with a bit to spare so that you can file/sand it to its final configuration. Practice on some spare material to get the idea and figure out any details that might not be obvious.

Kris, looks like your photo didn't load properly. Can you try again? As for your previous question, depends on what tasks you consider easy. A single-piece keel will be stronger and potentially easier than ensuring that five different pieces are all glued together straight, but it may also be harder to cut out properly. If you screw up on a smaller piece it's easier to redo. The multi-part keel is more authentic, but whether you care about that is your call.

Brian, short answer, we do the logging ourselves and hire in a portable bandsaw mill for the initial milling. It can handle logs up to 20' long. I have a rough cut list for what I want. The milled pieces are stacked on a concrete pad in our open pole barn to cure. After than they can be shaped just like any lumber using normal tools (table/circular/hand saw). Over the years I've built multiple outbuildings and varius home furniture with 100% on-farm cedar and sold a fair amount of custom-milled lumber to other people for things like barn siding, porches, garden sheds/beds, etc. The strips shown above were milled on the Byrnes saw from a tiny piece of scrap (roughly 3/4" x 2" x 6"). I used the Byrnes to smooth both thin edges, then cut thin veneer sheets from the 3/4" edge, then stacked them and cut them into thinner planking strips. Took just a few minutes. Small-scale work really doesn't take much wood compared to the scale I'm used to working in; I have a lifetime of model-scale cedar just in the scrap piles I haven't burned yet. We normally use cedar scrap as spring firewood for boiling down maple syrup as it burns hot and fast but isn't ideal for indoor firewood due to its high resin content. Druxey, thanks! Looking forward to it.

Another Christmas arrival: Thanks to all who answered my recent questions in this thread. Given that I do a lot of timber management on my mostly wooded 40 acres already, and have stacks of maple, cherry, cedar, and other woods curing in my barn, I'm really excited to start making more fine-scale materials with this saw. Here's a few Eastern Red Cedar strips I milled up just to make sure the saw was functioning properly after shipping: It's so pretty, I'm curious to try modeling something with it.

Got the stern half of the hurricane deck glued down: Edges need some trimming but I'll do that all at once when the whole deck is installed. The larger news is the arrival of a new tool in the Cathead workshop: That's a Byrnes table saw on the workbench. Technically a Christmas present, but I wanted to make sure all was in order. I did one quick milling of some Eastern Red Cedar scrap I had lying around, making thin planking-scale pieces and veneer strips. It's really pretty in person: I hope I never have to buy model wood again. Living on 40 acres of mostly woodland with an orchard mixed in, I have lots of fun self-harvested stuff to play with, and this will let me mill up quite a bit of stock from my scrapbox. Reusing things and avoiding waste is a big deal for me, so I'm very excited for this development. A Missouri River craft of some sort built with all Missouri wood sounds like a really fun and unique project once Arabia is done. Happy Holidays to all of you. Our big celebration is a solstice party this weekend for a variety of rural friends and neighbors, featuring homemade mead and some good traditional fiddle-tune jamming.

Lovely details. Sorry to hear of the upcoming delay but sounds like it's in a good cause.

Although all the advice given here is good and well-meaning, it's also the case that the value of a build lies ultimately with the builder. We're not all shooting for pure presentation or accuracy; most builds are about the process as much as the product. So I think it's pretty cool that you're taking on (and sharing) this project as a personal journey. Case in point, I built a simple Maine lobster boat for my mother's 70th birthday as she's loved coastal Maine for a long time. She didn't care one bit that it wasn't museum quality, I loved building it for her and she has it proudly displayed in a little Maine shrine in her home with an Acadia poster behind it. So I hope this project serves you well for the purposes you desire. And if you learn some things about ship modelling from the experience (and the advice), all the better.

Interesting project, Kris. I'm of partial Norwegian descent myself, from a grandfather who was very proud of his heritage (and claimed direct lineage to Erik the Red, though who doesn't?). A proper Viking ship is on my wish list as well and I'll be interested to see how your project goes. I, too, am a "learn it yourself as you go" kind of person and have the mistakes to prove it, so wish you success on this difficult but fascinating choice of build. For what it's worth, MSW has a lot of good tutorial articles in the help section that may answer many of your questions regarding specific aspects of ship modelling.

Very neat project, I'm looking forward to learning from your planking as I've never done clinker before.

Still plugging away. I filled in the tops of the wheel housings and painted both assemblies: I started building the frames that will support the hurricane deck out over the stern (the roof of the boiler deck). You can see the beginnings of these in the above photos. These will be really delicate, so I gave some thought to how to make them stronger and easier to assemble. The plan I came up with was to insert small pins into many of the joints, using a small drill bit and leftover brass nails from a kit. Above you can see one such joint, with the pin sticking out at upper right and another pin ready for another joint at upper left. I bent a beam in a full 180° curve to form the deck's stern contour, and attached a central supporting beam: Here's that beam installed on the model. Each end fits into a pin in the already-installed framing (see next photo down), with a pin into the deck beneath the stern-most support: More framing. This is now ready for the hurricane deck to go on. I also built the rear staircases between the two decks, using basically the same method I did for the pilot house stairs. These aren't glued in yet, just set in place for appearances. Another view of the hurricane deck framing and stairs: You may notice that I included a bit of an upward curve here toward the stern. I think this adds some style and is similar to other boats of the era. Finally, I started cutting thin sheets of wood to form the base of the hurricane deck. As this will be fully covered in simulated tarpaper (like the pilot house and Texas structures), there was no need to plank it. These aren't attached, just set in place to test the fit. I think I'll use pastels to lightly color the open bottoms of these rather than waste paint (and risk curling the thin sheets). That's where the model stands. Current plan is to work my way forward from here. I started at the stern as I expected it to be simpler, the forward framing will be more complex, so now I have a better idea of the mechanics I want to use. At times this project feels like it'll never end, then I get moments where it seems like it's racing along. Thanks for reading!

Mine is on its way. Now I just have to make space for it.

Cog, that's strange. I've run into similar problems every now and then on random websites, where I'll get a notice about security configurations being incorrect so the browser blocks it. My memory says it's usually major government sites (like NASA or NOAA in the US), so I suppose that fits for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. I've found that using a different browser solves the problem, don't know why it happens in the first place. No idea why Missouri would have it in for the Dutch otherwise. Belgium, maybe, after InBev bought Budweiser, but we don't have any beef with the Netherlands that I'm aware of.

Thanks, Gary! As you might expect for a Missouri-based river history buff, I love Mark Twain. I live about 1.5 hours from Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site, which is really cool. One thing I love about American river history is how different each major river's culture and development were, including steamboat design. Living near the Missouri River, and being married to a scientist who spent years doing research on the morphology of the river, really makes that my primary interest. I wish Twain had spent more time on "my" river, I'd love to have his perspective. Anyway, I appreciate the comment and am glad you're enjoying this project.

Happy Thanksgiving to all the American readers (and the rest of you)! I'm grateful to have a community like this that makes this hobby so much richer than toiling away in isolation. I've been quietly working away at planking the port wheel housing. I decided to add the two windows shown in the painting; I don't know whether or not they were really there, but you can see similar features on other vessels. I built frames for these and added backing so they'd fit right into the planking (like a window in a model kit). Since you can't really see behind these, this was an easy way to get them installed. I then hung them from the planking and started planking around them. And here's the fully planked port side. There's a fair bit of detail to add here, various vertical ribbing and so on, but it'll come later when the model is closer to being complete. Next I'll start planking in the upper surfaces of both wheel housings. Thanks again for being part of this journey, I wouldn't (and likely couldn't) be doing it without you.

This is definitely a positive consideration for me. I handle cars the same way; buy a high-quality new one, take care of it, and run it forever. My 13 year old truck has had $100 of non-routine maintenance done on it, a great value in the long run. Thanks for your feedback on this question, it's been helpful. Kurt, thanks also for your feedback. I really like the idea of making my own wood; shipping wood across the country when I'm surrounded by harvestable trees just drives me bonkers! That tool of yours looks good and it does make sense to not have to precisely reset the fence every time.

I'm 40 but am involved in mostly "retiree" interests like model building, birdwatching, and playing American/Irish/Scottish folk/bluegrass music. I generally stick out like a sore thumb. There is an element of generational change, but it's also true that most people in my age bracket +/- 15 years are deeply involved in some combination of working, saving for retirement, raising kids, etc. and that leaves relatively little time or funds for outside hobbies. I've never attended an NRG conference even though I'd like to because flying across the country for a several-day event is pretty expensive per unit time, especially when I have limited time off and the first priority for that goes to family visits and regular travel interests that usually don't correspond with conference locations or timing. Realistically, there may well be another generation waiting in the wings to take up model shipbuilding once their kids move out, they finish paying off college loans (theirs and/or their kids), and/or they're financially comfortable enough to retire. Keep in mind that, the younger you get, the less likely any of those things are to happen at an equivalent age to older generations, given the changing nature of the job market and the economy, at least in the US. The average 40-year-old now has more debt, less job security, and less-well-off kids than a 40-year-old 20 or 30 years ago, so it'll be harder to draw them in. I don't disagree that there's a potential need to "reach out" somehow and connect with people who might be interested in this hobby if they were exposed to it. I'm not sure social media is really the way to go, but I also avoid it like the plague so I'm biased. I've been thinking about this and don't know the answer; I'm rather unrepresentative of my generation so don't have a good insight into the right approach. A few years ago I tried offering an Intro to Wooden Model Building class through a local adult-education program that has lots of craft-type classes, but it only got two signups and was cancelled for lack of interest. Don't know what else to try. I don't think it helps that people are increasingly disconnected from older modes of transportation that used to be far "sexier", like ships and trains, which are now increasingly bland and standardized (to an amateur eye) and ever more out of sight, out of mind. Most older modellers now still grew up in the passenger train era and with a one-generation memory of the great naval battles of WWII; my generation has almost no direct connection to such things in ways that encourage the urge to recreate. Now I'm just rambling; told you I was an honorary old person!

Kurt, can you clarify what you mean? The only $30 option is listed as "extended rip fence" but doesn't say anything about being adjustable whereas the "miter gage adjustable extension" is $12. Cog, can you clarify whether/why I would need the micrometer stop? Doesn't the saw already have markings to allow one to set cutting width? I should probably clarify a few other factors for me. I've been doing timber management on my land for over a decade, cutting my own lumber and custom-milling planks and beams for both my own use (sheds, barns, furniture) and sale (other peoples' projects including decks, sheds, garden beds, etc.). So the wood I'd like to use for model work is either already bandsaw-milled into planks or billets and stacked, stickered, and cured, or has the ability to become so. I am not a full-time model maker and do not want to go berserk ordering high-end equipment that will get used a few times a year. It seems to me, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that a basic table saw and tabletop bandsaw (which I already have) should be sufficient for an amateur modeler who wants to occasionally reduce some wild-harvested wood to reasonable billets for the Byrnes saw. I don't care about kerf loss because wood is utterly renewable for me and I have a fleet's worth of it already waiting for use. What I want to do is take rough-cut billets and make model-scale planks or beams in various thickness/width combinations from 1/32" to 1/4", with occasional larger pieces. My understanding is that the Byrnes saw allows me to do this; am I correct, or am I misunderstanding what this tool can do?

So I am very strongly considering making this my Christmas purchase as well. However, I find the thought of reading back through a 300+ comment thread impossibly daunting. Does anyone care to provide a reasonably brief summary of the most important points to consider when buying one, especially with reference to all the possible add-ons? I have a budget and cannot just splurge on "all the goodies". I am primarily interested in sawing my own planks and other parts (i.e., frames) as I have a large stock of maple as well as cherry and other fruitwoods harvested on my property that I'd love to start using instead of shipping wood across the country. I also like the idea of making thin pieces for use in other wood artistry. Thanks for any feedback you all want to provide.

Do you have any specific examples? I'd say many European kits of American riverboats are classic examples, such as AL's King of the Mississippi, which is toylike in its utter disregard for realism; it's the steamboat equivalent of a Playmobile pirate ship. You don't have to be a purist or an expert to see this, five minutes with Google Images should convince anyone that this kit is trash. Can you imagine the howls if an American manufacturer came out with an expensive Victory kit that was equivalently ridiculous? Another is the Corel Ranger, which seems cobbled together from many different actual known examples of topschool schooner revenue cutters but doesn't match any known design. It wouldn't have been much harder for them to just base the model on an actual design rather than inventing their own. You'd still have an attractive model for those who don't care but a much higher-value product for those who do.

Welcome from a fellow Missourian! Hope you enjoy this hobby as much as I do.