Cathead

I may be from Missouri, but I vote for the Hornet anyway. Now, if you promise to model the former with the full surrender ceremony in place with accurate figures, maybe I'd reconsider.

Oh, I agree, they look fine with the model for the reasons you state. The difference isn't enough to matter, I was just curious. As for the horses, do you mean height at the withers (top of the front shoulder) or at the top of the head or ears? If the latter, it may not be that far off; I'm 6' and I've stood next to horses that dwarfed me. Wikipedia states that a big draft horse can easily exceed 6' at the withers and one record horse exceeded 7', so a big stallion with its head erect could at least approximate 10' in total. See this Clydesdale next to a 5' 3" human, not far off a reasonable human height for the 1800s. Just figure that your boat is carrying some valuable breeding stock.

Not just generational. I'm 38 with no cell of any kind (wife, neither). But I suppose we're hardly representative.

I'm curious. You say that the 38 mm figures are too small for 1:50, but if I did the math right (38*.039*50), that's about 6' 2", far higher than the period's likely average of around 5' 7" or even less. So if anything they're a bit too big. What's the scale height of those doors, for comparison?

Hah! You're right, I never noticed that, I was so focused on the hull itself. Maybe the problem isn't historic photography, but the observer. I overall think it makes sense not to plank the undersides; although doing so might protect against a certain amount of damage (from water or debris), it's a lot of extra material and weight.

Hull planking is progressing steadily. This isn't the most interesting part of most builds for readers, so thanks for bearing with me. This will start to get fun once I flip her over and begin working on machinery and superstructure. Overall hull status, almost caught up on the starboard side. Notice the solid strips inserted between the bulkheads in places, evenly spaced from the stern and bow. These are meant to provide support for the future display stand; I can screw pedestals or other supports into the hull this way. I filled the whole area to ensure that I have flexibility in deciding what will look good later. Two shots of the stern, with the camera catching every flaw. Some of these planks are less than ideal, with some gaps or other oddities. I think that judicious filler and careful sanding will improve things considerably. And the bow for good measure, which is much easier to plank than the stern: Trying to show the curved chine area, but it's hard to focus on. I'm tempted to build a few mini frame replicas to show the different chine styles used on different boats. Closeup of how I've decided to fill in the rest of the hull's bottom. It makes more sense to lay straight planks with angled edges than to bend every plank from here on. I don't know how it was done on the real thing and have never found a clear description of steamboat planking in this regard, so I'm going with this. If something like this was done, I suspect the builders may have notched each plank end into the wraparound plank rather than terminating at such fine points, but I can't prove that's right and don't want to do that much work for something that's pure guesswork and won't hardly ever be seen anyway. The planking will soon get easier and faster as I move toward finishing the flat bottom. Then it's time for filling, sanding, and finish work before she's flipped over. I do have one question for anyone knowledgeable: Were the undersides of the guards typically planked or left open? Photographs never show this angle. If I'm going to plank them, I'll need to do that next. If not, I'll need to fill in the guards with the rest of the beams (they'd be at a much tighter spacing than my basic structure above). But for this model it's one or the other (planked guards not requiring all beams, or unplanked requiring all beams), so I need to decide what's right. As always, thanks for reading, and I hope to move on from the interminable planking stage soon.

That looks really good!

I'm no expert but it sure makes more sense to me to have the keel, etc. in place. One thought, are they assuming that you can use the stem and sternpost to hide the ends of the planking? If you add them first, you have to get the planks perfectly butted up against them (especially at the stem), whereas without them you in theory can be a bit sloppy and fit the stem over the ends to hide the imperfections. Personally I think I'd fit them first and just do the planking job right. My preferred planking method is to soak the plank, fit it in place on the model, use a hairdryer on high to heat and dry it, adjust as needed by sanding or shaping, then attach. A hull shape like that, I think you're likely to need some serious tapering and probably some drop planks to avoid too much edge bending. Again, no expert, but I've done a few hulls of different shapes and you're better off not trying to force too much lateral curvature in planks. I'm looking forward to following this build, as I wish more manufacturers would do "interior" kits like this that are more interesting and educational than just the hull.

On that one picture, where that one plank is notched into the overlying strake even though the others aren't, I'd guess it's because of the sharp point at the end of that plank. All the others can have a pretty broad joint butting up against the overlying strake at a mostly perpendicular angle, but the curvature of the hull means that last one suddenly comes to a point. So rather than wedge a thin point into the full joint between all the planks, they notched it into the overlying strake, such that the plank's end doesn't come to a complete sharp point, making the joint stronger. Those are neat photos, they definitely show that some real builders did stuff that model-building resources say you should never do!

Based on my experience, Popeye's advice is good so far. The type of wood can matter, too. Something relatively soft like basswood will take a lateral bend a lot easier than some of the harder woods, which won't and thus exacerbates the clinkering. I'm not quite sure what you mean by your last question? You're certainly going to want to taper as you go forward for any plank. You might try taking a really flexible piece of very thin wood, or even plastic, and using that to "practice" laying out the remaining planks so you get a sense of how the planks will want to lie naturally. You can even mark what that test strip "wants" to do for future reference.

Very nice and a great resource for future builders.

You're right, cameras are the worst critics in the world! Your workmanship looks plenty crisp to me. The main deck of these boats was both the cargo and engineering space (boilers, engines, forge, etc. take up a lot of room); genteel passengers were generally discouraged from using most of it except for boarding and disembarking, particularly on fancier boats like this kit is meant to represent. However, I'd bet that any slaves or lower-class passengers would be confined to this deck unless specifically serving an individual in the cabins above. Certainly, on lower-end boats, and particularly on those heading west up the Missouri, foreign immigrants were often packed into whatever space could be found on the main deck along with the livestock and cargo. Kinda like the immigrant trains that packed all those Swedes, Czechs, etc. into livestock cars heading for the plains because they weren't wanted in the coaches. The boiler deck and above are for the upper-class set. This all meant that the all-too-common boiler explosions often hit the poor/immigrant classes harder because they were closer to the source and/or more likely to be trapped by debris or fire.

That looks fantastic. What is that platform for; it appears to lead to nowhere?

Steamschooner, that's precisely the question I'm asking. My leaning is to follow the same approach as Kurt's Chaperon, the last photo shown above, and run the rest of the planks parallel to the "keel" (although these boats had no proper keel). This seems more logical and straightforward for the builders. As for the chines, there were multiple shapes and approaches that have been documented. Adam Kane's book has excellent drawings of the different variants. In short, it seems to have been more common to use an angular chine, but he says that Arabia used a rounded chine made with compass timber on each frame. This would have been more expensive and complicated, so not as common. To simulate this, I rounded the corners of each bulkhead and shaped the planks to at least somewhat curve around this bend. If the chines were angular, there'd be two sharp 45 degree angles from bottom to side rather than the smooth curve I've been shooting for. I think you can see this in the photos above, but I'll try to take a more specific photo.

The model image you show (last of your photo set) certainly fits the drawing you show (first of your photo set) and makes sense to me. I don't have any independent helpful knowledge, but the way you've talked it through here is logical.

Hull planking is progressing smoothly now. I've begun working on the starboard side now that I can use the port side as a frame of reference (and guide to what to do better). There are still some imperfect areas, but nothing that can't be fixed with a bit of filler and sanding. I do have a decision to make and am curious if anyone has input. Here's the current state of the (further-along) port bow and stern: On these wide, flat boats I just don't see how the entire hull's planking can be condensed into the bow and stern. It works for sailing ships with more rounded, well-proportioned hulls, but in this case I'd have to shrink each strake to paper-thin to fit them all in. Up until now, it's been most sensible to curve each strake along the flow of the hull, meeting the centerline at an angle at the bow and pinching together at the stern. This stern pattern matches what I can see of the preserved stern (roughly) and the bow pattern matches the few photos I can find showing nothing but smooth, parallel planking at the bow of such boats. However, I'll need to drop some planks pretty soon because it can't keep going like this. The question is, do I run the remaining planks (a) in a continuing set of curves (as before) so that each end is cut to butt up against the centerline, or (b) parallel to the centerline so that each plank is cut to butt against the last curved strake? In the photos above, I've laid loose planks out in both rough configurations to illustrate what I mean. My inclination is (b), which matches what Kurt showed earlier in this log for the bottom planking of Chaperon, the only accurate wooden steamboat kit I know of (Kurt, is it ok if I repost this here for clarity?). Note that on Chaperon, the planking stayed curved until the flat bottom was reached; I followed the same pattern on my model as it makes the most sense. Thus I'm ready to make this transition at the bow and not quite ready at the stern. Chaperon doesn't inform the stern question as sternwheelers had much simpler sterns than sidewheelers. Anyway, that's where the model stands. I'm going to keep filling in the starboard side, hoping to do a slightly cleaner job as I consider this the intended display side (the reason I started on the port side). But I'd like to decide how to proceed on the bottom. Thanks for reading!

Being self-employed myself, I agree that commercial considerations are very important. The Pegasus cross-section will almost certainly be the easiest for you to market. I hope it does well enough to allow you to pursue the more obscure interests as well. Are you sure you don't want to do a non-warship cross-section, like a whaling ship or the Beagle instead? It'd be awfully neat to get an inside look at a working but non-military vessel of that period.

One of the best pieces of advice I've ever received on this site was to bend/shape each plank until it sat perfectly without glue. Treat each plank as its own mini-model and only use glue to gently hold it in place, rather than to force it in place. I don't always get this right anyway, but it's a great ideal to shoot for. I also agree that a rotating work stand is fantastic. I use a different version but it's such a help.

Good progress so far. You're certainly right that this kit is pretty fanciful, but it can produce a very attractive display piece nonetheless. The figures add good life.

This is a fun and deceptively challenging kit; I look forward to your continued progress. You've made a nice start so far. I suspect you may want to fair that first bulkhead from the bow a bit more; the tight curve there means you'll want the maximum gluing surface once you start planking, and right now you have a very narrow strip for the planks to attach to. Those first few, especially, you may want to fair until all the laser char is gone and the entire surface will be flush to the planks.

I would be potentially interested in either the Pegasus or the Chebacco (which I keep reading as Chewbacca), although I can't promise I'd be a customer. I really wish there were more kits that focused on the structural and utilitarian design of ships, and the former fits that mold even though it's yet another warship. The latter is unique and (to me) completely unknown. The Dutch ship looks very interesting, but it's so obscure and unusual that I can't see myself investing in building and displaying it.

So the solution to my planking problem was absurdly obvious once I thought about it, with the nudges given me by steamschooner and amateur. I had been assuming that the first few strakes of planking were full-width because they're wider than the ones below, but that's probably not true. They're probably tapered as well. There are multiple drawings in Adam Kane's book showing that hull planks could be 12" wide or larger, whereas the widest planks at the stern in my photos are maybe 5-6". My base material for planking is 1/8" strips, which scale to about 8" in reality. So the obvious solution is to taper all the stern planks. In retrospect it seems pretty dumb to have not thought of this in the first place, but I was stuck on the assumption that the first few planks were full width all the way back, in which form they really didn't want to follow the hull's curve. Once I started tapering planks toward the stern, everything started to work better. Also, steamschooner is right and my stern profile isn't quite the same as the real thing. Or rather, I made a dumb mistake when laying out the frames and guards and didn't allow for the height of the guards when carving the stern frames. So the last few frames are pretty close to the real thing, but the guards should start at their top, not flush with their top, meaning that the more vertical part of stern frame is buried within the guards rather than being part on the run of planking. That's just a basic mistake on my part, but I don't think it's going to be particularly noticeable as the model progresses. If I had gotten that right, the first few strakes wouldn't need to be tapered as much since they'd remain more vertical, and my planking would look even more like the real thing. Oh well. After a week of evenings working on this new approach, here's how she looks. This still may not be "right", but it's closer and at least works properly. The planking looks rough in these, partly because the light picks out every shadow, and partly because it is. I'm not a master craftsman, and I honestly like my riverboat models to look a bit rough. To scale, this planking job far rougher than it should be, but once it's sanded and painted, I think it'll settle down to a slightly rough finish that conveys the idea that this isn't a perfect schooner's hull. That's what I tell myself, anyway. I've only been building ship models a few years and am still learning. I admire people who can build perfect hulls, but for western riverboats at least, a bit rough around the edges conveys the feel (if not the literal reality) of these craft. At least the basic run and taper of the planks looks reasonably similar to the real thing, and makes sense to me from a construction point of view. Here's the bow and the hull overall. In case anyone wonders, here's how I've been shaping and clamping my planks. I preshape each one roughly (tapering/sanding), soak it for a few minutes, then clamp it in place and use a hair dryer to heat and dry the wood. When it's taken the intended shape, I do any final sanding/shaping needed for a reasonable fit, then use wood glue for attachment with the same set of clamps. I've had to remove a few of the braces supporting the outer rim of the guards to allow for clamp access, but those can be easily replaced when I'm done. At this point I think I've gotten a handle on how this hull will work, and will just keep plugging away at it. Once this side is mostly done I'll switch to the other side, bring it to the same point, then finish off the final internal planks along the bottom of the hull. Thanks for reading and offering advice/support. Also, if you're reading this I assume you're interested in steamboats in general, so you really should check out this new thread on Russian riverboats modeled after American ones, it's pretty fascinating stuff.

As Roger says, on regular river steamers ashes etc. were just dumped overboard. Some actually had a brick-lined trough leading from the boilers across the deck to a hole in the guards, so the ashes could just be (swept or washed, not sure which) right down that chute and into the river. Here's an example from my model of Bertrand, which was clearly shown in the archeological drawings: I still can't quite wrap my head around the internal geometry of Cairo, so I don't know if this is at all relevant. This is such an interesting discussion. By the way, John, I will be in St. Louis for a few days in early February for a conference. Is your project open to the public?

Thanks for the clarification, John, I was having a hard time envisioning the three-dimensional nature of the interior. That's interesting that they pivoted the guns for each reloading; seems like that would lead to a really slow rate of fire and lots of wear on the deck. For coaling, is it geometrically or practically possible that they ran some kind of chute or even canvas tube through a port and down to the storage areas? That would allow bulk loading through a potentially twisty path.

Steamschooner, your question triggered a thought process that I think leads to the answer, but I don't have time to explain yet. Stay tuned. Amateur, that's definitely a possibility. Proper compass timber was already becoming scarce in this period (for things like curved frames) but thick trunks were still available. My further answer to steamschooner may help answer your question above. Again, stay tuned.