Cathead

As there are few build logs for this kit, I'd like to make this one as useful as possible for others who might follow it later. So I'm going to attempt to match my posts to each stage of the instructions, offering my own interpretation of the intended work. I hope to provide a clear depiction of this kit's progress. First a quick look at the parts. The frames are pre-cut, unlike the laser-cut parts left in sheets that I've encountered in previous kits, meaning there isn't any spare material to work with if you break something. No parts list was provided, meaning I just have to hope everything is here. The wood seems of reasonable quality to my amateur eye. The fittings are bagged, but again with no parts list, so I'll just hope for the best. I have them all divided up into my handy organizer. Many of the castings seem coarse with a lot of flashing and other mess, and I'm going to be tempted to replace or rebuild many of them, but that's a later discussion. Stage 1 - Structure of the hull I glued the proper walnut lath onto the bottom of the keel. Each precut frame is numbered and corresponds to a numbered slot on the false keel. While the plywood seems nice and solid, the slots weren't cleanly cut and many needed significant filing to widen them enough to allow the parts to fit together properly. Once they all fit, I test-fit the plywood deck to ensure that everything seemed square. The instructions don't suggest this, but it's a good idea, as filing the slots wider can make some frames off-kilter without correction. Another suggestion: test-fit the masts through the deck into the holes in the keel; these holes don't line up quite right and some extra sanding needs to be done. It was much easier to do now than later. See photo above for testing of deck and masts with frames (note that the deck hasn't been bent into its final camber yet). Only when I was sure of everything did I glue the frames in place. Oh, one other note: carefully check the deck's fit over frames 8 and 10, which stick up through and beyond the deck to form walls of the small deckhouse. I found that I needed to file down the edges of these walls, at an angle, to match the angle of the deck's precut hole. Only by doing this could I get a proper fit. Next up: properly fitting the plywood deck.

For weathering, try using basic artists' pastels to gently rub on a coat of grey or light brown, which will dull any "shine" from the paint and bring out some wood texture. Has worked great for me for many years.

I bought two models on that deal. It was definitely a credit. 50% off the list price at purchase, the other 50% as a credit toward anything they sold, without expiration.

Crisp work on the planking.

That structure does sit approximately where the boilers would be on a real vessel, so boiler room seems an appropriate label.

Sal, That's a neat prototype, to be sure. Just to clarify, the placement of the paddle wheels isn't diagnostic of the boat's design or location. Western river boats used both stern and side wheel designs, as each has its benefits and drawbacks. Stern wheels were generally better for shallow or snag-filled water, as the hull protected the wheel, whereas side wheels were quite susceptible to damage being exposed on the sides. In addition, stern wheels could be used to help a boat cross shallow bars or back off muddy shorelines; setting the wheel in reverse forced lots of water under the hull, "floating" it off an obstacle. On the other hand, side wheels were more maneuverable, as they could be independently stopped or run in opposite directions, spinning the boat in place (at least on later designs with separate engines for each wheel). They also distributed the weight of machinery closer to the center of the vessel, reducing the "hogging" so common on stern wheel designs. For rivers like the Hudson, which were deep and tame compared to the western rivers, side wheelers made a lot more sense, so that's what you mostly see. This is also true of the lower Mississippi, below the confluence of the Missouri and Ohio rivers into the main stem. But you saw a lot more stern wheelers as you went upstream to the upper Ohio and Missouri rivers in particular, and their smaller tributaries. This is also the case because the western rivers, especially the Missouri, tended to have a lot of debris in them because their basins' geology wasn't as dominated by bedrock. Banks were always eroding away in huge chunks, dropping wads of trees into the river, and changing the rivers' courses regularly. By contrast, most eastern rivers like the Hudson are bedrock-dominated; they don't change course much at all and they don't erode their banks in the same way, so they tended to be "cleaner" of debris with more stable channels, negating the main benefits of stern wheel designs. So you tended to see side wheelers in the east, and a mix of the two in the West depending on where the boat's main work was intended to be (and various other factors, it's not quite this cut and dry). This is a broad overview, there are many per-river details that I could write a small book on. But hopefully that clarifies part of the question. Personally I don't have any resources to suggest about walking-beam engines, but hopefully someone else does. I've seen examples on craft from various parts of the world, so hope that someone else here can help you out. I hope you can find resources specific to eastern boats, as the designs and construction will be pretty different from the western boats, due to differences in materials, industrial capacity, design philosophy, and river conditions between the two regions. But the placement of the wheels, on its own, isn't a factor.

Thanks again to all of you. I've moved on to my next project, the Corel revenue cutter.

Sorry, Glenn, I don't have any special insight. Any idea of Heroine used heat guards around the chimneys? You make a good point about consistently keeping it simple, rather than extrapolating beyond current knowledge. Part of my questions was when/how you're going to run the chimneys through the boiler deck. Will you make a separate assembly leading up to that deck, for ease of installation soon, then drop the rest of the chimneys in on top later on? Or will you make it all one assembly that you'll run through the boiler deck framing, and plank around later on?

In this context, "western" means the river basins west of the Appalachian Mountains. When steamboat technology was developing in the early 19th century, this area (including the Ohio basin) was still the frontier, and nearly isolated from the developed part of the country along the Atlantic seaboard. Much of the design and technology that went into steamboat construction on the upper Ohio River, where almost all the boats used along the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio rivers (and their tributaries) were built, was fairly indigenous and not imported from elsewhere. This is especially true since conditions on these rivers were very different from most rivers draining east into the Atlantic. So we talk about "western river boats" to mean the unique set of designs and construction methods that arose in that region, distinguishing these craft from the very different boats built for eastern rivers like the Hudson. Even as late as the Civil War, this region was still considered the "West"; it wasn't until the development of railroads that the Mississippi basin really became integrated into the rest of the country. It gets a bit messier once you go west of the Rockies, to boats operating on the Columbia and other Pacific rivers. But as far as I know, these mostly derived their designs from the original "western" boats and so still qualify as such.

Roger, do you know if similar designs evolved along the Missouri, where conditions were quite different, and even harsher, than on the Ohio? Given that most Missouri River boats were built along the upper Ohio, it's certainly logical that the design you describe was supplied to boats destined for the Missouri, but I could also see a new subdesign developing in that basin to meet unique local conditions. I've never thought much about this aspect of Western River steamboats before, and appreciate you bringing it up.

Speaking from my own knowledge, many riverboats used a dark red paint on their lower decks, wheels, etc. And white is very definitely accurate. Though for true correctness you might stain the lower bit muddy!

Mike, I agree with Chuck, and heck I could send you the plans I used for my Far West, as I don't need them anymore. Anyway, great start, keep it up!

(Image via Model-Expo, from whom I bought the kit). This kit is meant to represent one of many ships built in the early nineteenth century for the US Revenue Marine (fore-runner of today’s Coast Guard). However, no “Ranger” was ever built for that service during this time period, so the model only approximates a real prototype. The closest real vessels, according to my research, seem to be the two Alabama-class topsail schooners built in 1819 (Alabama and Louisiana). This conclusion is based on several factors: Recommendation of the Coast Guard Modeling website Comparison to plans available from the USCG website Dimensions given by USCG fact sheet for USRC Louisiana My own calculations. The resources above list the Alabama-class cutters as having a 52’ keel and 18’-6” beam, while Wikipedia also lists a length on deck of 56’-10”. The table below shows the kit’s measurements (taken from the plans), the kit’s size at full scale converted to feet, the actual dimensions from the sources above in feet, and the difference between the two scaled back down to kit size, in cm. Deck: kit(cm) 28, kit(feet) 62.6, real (feet) 57.0, diffrence (cm) 2.5 Beam: kit(cm) 9, kit(feet) 20.1, real (feet) 18.5, diffrence (cm) 0.7 Keel: kit(cm) 22.5, kit(feet) 50.2, real (feet) 52.0, diffrence (cm) -0.8 The kit does not perfectly match the Alabama-class cutters, most notably in deck length, but it’s closer to those than the other options (the 56’ Surprise class or the 60’ Search class). At this scale, only a true historian of the Revenue Marine will notice that the model is a few centimeters off; as I intend to build it as a fictional ship rather than as Alabama or Louisiana, this will matter even less. The overall hull shape, sail plan, and deck layout seem reasonably similar, and I will probably use the USCG drawing of Louisiana as a guide when the kit plans are uncertain or I prefer the former’s appearance. For example, the USCG drawing shows two swivel-based carronades of different calibers, which I find intriguing, and overall it’s more crisply drawn than the poor-quality photocopy in the kit. I could only find a few previous build logs for this kit, which are listed here for future reference (if I’ve missed one, please inform me): Ranger by matt s.s.: heavy kit-bash of the model into a glorious pirate ship. Ranger by trippwj: unfinished log, not updated since 2014, progress as far as beginning planking; intended to follow plans for the larger Search class vessels. Ranger by Small Stuff: unfinished log, not updated since 2014, many photos missing, progress as far as bulkheads. Ranger by Woodmiester12: unfinished log, not updated since 2015, progress as far as first hull & deck planking. So it looks like I’ll embarking on a fairly new adventure here, the most challenging model I’ve tackled to date, especially with the rather poor instructions in hideous English translation. Some may ask why I’m attempting this somewhat problematic kit when BlueJacket just released what is, by all accounts, a high quality kit of a similar revenue cutter. The answer is quite simple: I purchased this kit before learning of the BlueJacket release. Both I and Mrs Cathead love the look of topsail schooners, and I thought the challenge of working with a foreign kit would be good for developing my skills. Now that I’ve bought it, I’m going to build it. And for those of you wondering why I’m not tackling another steamboat, there is a twofold answer: one, the previous sentence, and two, it’s going to take me significant time to do the research and design necessary for a new scratchbuild. I’d like to do something that doesn’t have plans, like the Missouri River sidewheeler Arabia, and that’s a long-term project. So I’ll work on this revenue cutter in the meantime to keep my hands busy and my skills developing, and work on my steamboat plans in the background.

This is great. I've gone through and renamed my logs.

Those windows...I'll need to wipe the drool from my keyboard. What's your plan for running the chimneys through the boiler deck?

Mike, I'm not sure what it means to be a "friend" in this system but it sounds benign enough! For reference, this site is where I ordered plans for the Far West. I'm sure Kurt, Roger, and others will be quite helpful if and when you want to start looking at ideas. In the meantime, sorry for contributing to the takeover of your log, and look forward to the resumption of the topic at hand.

I'll follow along, and wish you much enjoyment from the project!

While I've never handled the AL kit, to my eye it looks toylike; out of scale and inaccurate. An attractive model can be made from it, just not a realistic one. So it depends on what you want. If you're really into realistic steamboats, there are a number of craft with good plans available that you could scratchbuild. From what I've seen, your skills are more than enough for that undertaking.

Kurt & Roger, Any insights into the whaleboat-like craft shown in the final photo, which as Kurt noted is more similar to the kit boats? I didn't know anything like that was used on the rivers, I assumed everything had a flat transom like a regular rowboat. The photo boat seems shallower draft than the kit boats, too, unless I'm seeing it wrong. Mike, thanks, but I'm an amateur compared to Kurt and others. I can't wait to learn more about this from you and the rest.

Cool, can't wait to see what you do with her. Thanks for the kind words.

Hey, Mike, welcome back. I'm so glad to see a new log for this kit, as an American riverboat aficionado. I'll be very interested in following along and learning more about what the kit is like, as from afar it seems to be one of the few reasonably accurate steamboat kits out there.

The longboat is finished! Work really slowed down as summer kicked in, and I struggled some with getting the standing rigging right, but it's done. I'm not happy with the quality of the deadeyes supplied in the kit; the holes are drilled in really uneven patterns, but I chose the best ones and made do. I had difficulty getting the tiny ironwork right, too, as you can likely see in the photo below, but like the rest of the model, it passes the "more than a foot away" test. Especially since the only folks who will likely ever see it will know less about sailing than I do! I made four oars, but left out the anchor and windlass handles, because I decided I wanted the hull to look cleaner and less cluttered. The sails add a lot of life to the model, and I decided that was enough. I built a simple base, mounting the boat on thin wire inserted into holes drilled into the keel and base. This allowed me to bend the wire slightly, heeling the boat over onto her port side a bit, as she would be with the sails set this way. I think it adds some life to the display. Here's a photo gallery of the completed longboat. I'm pretty pleased with the overall outcome. It wouldn't win any awards at a show, for sure, but it's pleasing to the eye. The sails and the new color scheme make it feel unique, and gave me a feeling of ownership over a very common kit. Many thanks to all of you who followed along, offered advice and encouragement, and politely overlooked my shortcomings. And thanks to Chuck for such an interesting little kit.

So pretty it gives me the shivers.

Ah, you're right, I hadn't zoomed in. Apologies. Lovely work.

John, those are fantastic! I hadn't considered the model railroad side, despite being one of them for so long, but it certainly makes sense that there would be a few kits for smaller craft from that direction, and that they'd be high quality. Thanks for sharing!