Cathead

Looks real nice. How are you doing the lettering? Is that a decal of some kind, or something else?

I'll "like" it as a gesture of respect for the bonds you felt and feel with those important to you. As an obvious cat lover myself, I empathize with your loss. Best wishes to your friend as well; over a decade ago I worked to recover from a serious neck injury that might have changed my life (well, it still did even though I fully recovered). Merry Christmas or Solstice or whatever else floats your boat (as farmers and land managers, we're partial to the solstice ourselves). I'm looking forward to reading more about your ambitious project whenever life allows you to get back to it.

Wow, very nice. So much for my guess.

He's a wizard, that's how. Glenndalf the Gre(at) walks among us.

I'm 37 rather than 77, so it's easy for me to say Go For It, but I do. Think of it this way: most of our projects have value primarily to ourselves. Few of our models will ever be good enough, or unique enough, to matter much to other folks down the road. It's the process that matters, the joy and occupation and mental stimulation that we get out of pursuing these projects. If you never finish, whatever you've accomplished kept you interested and happy during that time, and that's what matters most. A complete or half-complete model will essentially be the same thing long enough down the road, though if you do complete it there will be that much more happiness in your life. I've known, and known of, too many people that can't find anything productive or interesting to do with their time, retired or otherwise, and it makes me sad, as I feel I could have five lifetimes to explore all that I'm interested in. Think of the joy that it will bring, not only to yourself, but to all that care about you, that you have a project and a passion to interests and pleases you. Think of it as some of the cheapest health care you can find. Go for it.

Apologies for misunderstanding your original question and jumping to conclusions; I should have asked for clarification first. Oh well, just a few more pixels spilled. I wonder if some of the "dangling" in photos relates to the likelihood of these boats being photographed while pulled up on a levee where encounters with other boats were more likely. Certainly in Cap'n Bob's photo above, that boat is ashore and might well have another boat come alongside at any moment, so it makes sense to leave the fenders out even if the narrow photo view makes it look unnecessary. It would be interesting to compare photo sets and see if there's any correlation between onshore and underway in the arrangement of the fenders.

Oh, interesting, I see how that could also match leclaire's description. The photos are certainly helpful. In that case I don't know, but your guess of bumpers does make sense, particularly for boats commonly pulled up in the close-packed confines of a busy levee like St. Louis.

Thy patience has no bounds, good sir, nor thy fortitude in the face of such estimable challenges. As our dear bard once wrote, "How poor are they that have not patience? What would did ever heal but by degrees?"

I used artist's pastels on a few plastic models, such as in my avatar. It came out nicely and the pastel grain gives the surface some texture that helps obscure the plastic sheen.

Bob, It sounds to me like you're describing grasshopper spars, which were used to lever steamboats over/through particularly low-water places like sandbars. They were particularly common on rivers like the Missouri which were sediment-dominated (unlike the mostly bedrock Ohio and upper Mississippi), and thus so shallow that boats routinely got stuck but soft enough that doing so didn't rip their bottoms out. Here they are on my Bertrand, an 1865 boat from the Missouri River. You can read a much more thorough description of their setup, purpose, and use in the Bertrand build log, which has a whole post dedicated just to this feature. Grasshopper spars were a key technological innovation that allowed boats to navigate the upper reaches of Great Plains rivers that would otherwise have been inaccessible to steamboats, and really mark a boat geographically. The quick version of their function is that, yes, tney are free-swinging, but are linked to a steam winch/capstan. They hang from twin booms which can be positioned over the side of the bow as desired, and are then allowed to drop into the river, planting the dense, heavy poles into the sand. Then the winch is engaged, which tightens the lines running to the poles' tops, drawing the steamboat up out of the water as if on crutches. At the same time, the wheel is engaged to drive the boat forward (or backward, if needed), essentially levering the boat up and over (or off) the sandbar. This operation was repeated as needed until the boat was clear; the appearance of this repeated motion, and of the tall poles, gave the spars their name. These boats' hulls were so flexible (no equivalent keel to a sailing ship) that they could quite literally slither over a sand bar and back into deep water beyond. The spars gave the boat leverage at the bow to combine with the power at the stern (sternwheelers were most commonly fitted with these for upper river use, as sidewheelers generally couldn't handle conditions as shallow). Does this match what you were asking about?

Such a neat model, in both senses of the word.

Looking really nice. What did you build the boiler out of?

Looks very crisp.

I, too, think the brass is preferable, given that it's a closer match to the common yellowish tones of the boat as you've built it. If I were to use the same material for my boat, which is in a white and black color scheme, I'd probably go with blackened, once again to best match the color overall.

Well, good thing I ordered both blocks and line from Syren today! I had recalled the same experience from the two MS boat kits I've done and decided to spend my credit there on other stuff. Thanks for the feedback, sir.

Well, no worries, I've done my orders and now eagerly await better stuff to work with. In the meantime I have a busy work week and a spousal birthday on Saturday, so not much will likely get done soon anyway.

Thanks to both of you. It's too bad I already did the deck blocks, but I also tended to choose the best of the lot for that job, so even after re-inspection I think they'll serve. Or I suppose I could cut 'em off and try my hand at attaching new ones straight to the rings. Hmmm. Anyway, it's the support network and the presence of actual builders/sellers like Chuck and other small businesses on here that make this such a great place (and yes, my membership in NRG is up-to-date so I'm not just saying that!). While I wait for all this new stuff, I'll probably work on shaping the masts and rebuilding the cross-trees from scratch (another crappy metal piece I've given up on, and they should be wood anyway). Matt, is M-E's rigging line any good? I ask because I have an unused credit there and budget is always a concern for me. I'm definitely ordering blocks from Syren.

If you're fitting a rod and ring to that beam, is it going to be some kind of pivot? Are you essentially making a bearing? I can't figure out what for, though, and could be way off. Hey, you said guess.

Well, would you look at that, now. I'd been all over the site but never thought to click on the actual blocks. Thank you, sir. Do you have an alert set up for your name or something? I thought of pming you but didn't want to waste your time with such a newbie question. An order will be forthcoming.

I'm facing a challenge, which I hope one of you more experienced sorts can advise me on. This kit has finally broken my desire to stick with the supplied materials. Both the blocks and belaying pins are near worthless, and the rigging line seems cheap. So I've decided to bite the bullet and order better stuff from Syren or an equivalent quality provider. But here's my dilemma: I don't know what size rigging line to order. Nowhere in the Corel instructions can I find a listing of the three line thicknesses they provide. And what really makes me paranoid is, I don't know how large the holes are in, say, the Syren blocks. So how do I determine what size line to buy, so that it's right and fits through good blocks? Any suggestions? I found the line-size chart on Syren's website, which is nice, but it doesn't help me determine what will fit properly in different blocks. Help a newbie, please!

The yellow stripe is very British; were American ships ever painted following that pattern? It looks nice but I wonder if it's at all authentic? Really nice rundown of color options and models.

I think Bertrand was around 160 feet long, which at 1:87 comes out to a little over two feet. The decking looks nice so far; I'm a big fan of that varied, weathered look: whether or not it's more accurate, it tends to feel more realistic than a uniform painted finish. And, as you said, perfect for a fictitious boat anyway.

She's a big beast, all right! Thanks for the update, I was wondering how you were coming along. Nice progress. What kind of wood are you using?

Made some nice progress this weekend, lots of photos below. Matt, thanks for the kind words! You probably actually think I'm nuts for sticking with the kit materials, but it's an interesting challenge to my way of thinking. Plus, I don't have anywhere near the metal-working skills you do (yes, I know there's only one way to change that). It's too late on the rings, I already glued them in, so we'll just see how that goes. Also, I did use Cog's advice and knotted some small strips beneath the channel blocks; seems to have worked nicely. Building the cabin, you guessed it, involved overcoming flaws in the kit. First, the kit only provides fore and aft bulkheads to build the cabin around, with only very thin planking to wall it in. That seemed like a bad idea to me. So I added longitudinal bulkheads to provide a solid surface all the way round. The same problem exists for the roof, which again they expect you to plank in with no support. Uh uh. So I added some roof braces. Of course, the height of the shoulders on the kit-original bulkheads didn't match, so that the fore bulkhead was higher than the after bulkhead. So I sanded a camber into the fore bulkhead to accomodate this, figuring it was probably a realistic choice anyway. I also started adding windows and planking. After some trial and error I got the whole cabin built and planked. So little extra wood is given in this kit that I literally finished this with nothing to spare. I couldn't have afforded to break one single piece. I think it came out nicely, although one part of the roof planking is slightly cockeyed. It's only visible to the camera lens under harsh light, though. I like how the color balance came out, I wanted to cabin darker than the deck so it would stand out. Now for another kit problem. The pre-cast mounting ring for the carronade has two pegs underneath that are meant for holes in the deck. No problem, right? After all, those holes are pre-drilled in the plywood underdeck, so all you have to do is plank over them, file them open, and mount the ring. Yeah, no. I didn't think to pre-test the fit of the ring until now, and sure enough one of the holes was way off. One hole was right where it should be to mount the ring dead-center on the deck; the other was over a diameter too far outboard. I had to measure and drill a new mounting hole. Below left, you see the ring mounted properly, with the original factory-drilled hole in its horribly visible location. Below right, you see how I decided to handle this: I just filed a couple of wood scraps to look like some kind of step or brace against the ring. They'll vanish into the clutter of the deck once the model is complete, and only a serious naval historian would wonder what the heck they're for (and that person would already realize that this model is not museum-quality). Finally, I mounted the rudder. More CA glue leaked around the edges of the iron bands than I would have liked, under the right light there's some annoying glistening along the edges. But under most conditions it's not noticeable and I think the rudder looks nice overall. I also mounted the tiller. The kit-drilled tiller hole didn't come close to matching up with the angle of the rudder, so I just cut off the rudder post and shaped a new tiller post that I glued to the top of the deck instead. No one will ever now but you, gentle readers. I have to say, it's been really fun adding all the deck detail, this thing is starting to feel like a real ship build. I hadn't intended it to turn out as it has so far, but now I'm liking the shades of bare wood and the simple black iron fittings. I've given up on trying to match this to any specific plans or ship, it's evolved to just become a fun personal model. Thanks for reading.

I agree with the Cap'n, those scuppers are a nice touch. I noticed their lack on my current kit, but didn't think I had it in me to add them. Kudos for a nice detail.