Cathead

Thank you, Roel.
 
Tom, it's in my DNA to harshly judge of my own work. 
 
 Funny you say that, Eric. The top rail is also referred to as the drink rail. 
 
 Thank you, Glen. 
 
Thank you, Jonathan. You got here just in time to join the wrap party for this project. The light from the end of the tunnel is blinding.  

Fantastic craftmanship Keith!

That wide rail seems like a necessary piece of infrastructure enabling the stable placement of adult beverages as needed.

That wide rail seems like a necessary piece of infrastructure enabling the stable placement of adult beverages as needed.

Thank you to everyone for the kind comments and for the likes. 
 
 
 I got the railing around the pilothouse installed. The balusters are 0.03125 (1/32) inches and the top rail is 0.9375 (3/32) inches. I drilled 0.031 holes in the top rail for the balusters. The top rail is about twice the width it should be but I needed the extra width for drilling the holes because the wood has a tendency to split if too narrow. The railing is pretty robust now that everything is glued together so I may try sanding the top rail width a tad narrower but I don't want to mess it up and have a redo. 
 
 I still need to add stairway handrails, some railing (very little) on the boiler deck, and make a mount for the stern lantern and hang it and that's it for construction.  

 

 

 
 Thank you to all for your support and for following along. 
 
  Keith

Thank you, Lynn. 

As you can tell from my username and photo, I heartily approve of this addition to the crew.

Kurt, do you agree with my assessment above? You're the true expert here, you and Roger, and I'm happy to be corrected if I misstated something.

I've learned plenty from your work, believe me.

Keith, most of those appear to be steel-hull vessels. For one thing, the super-long hulls and short stacks imply they're late-era vessels that are more likely to overlap with early metal hulls.
 
#1 is, as you suggest, a harbor vessel and not representative.
 
#2 is the Monongehela, a steel-hull built in 1927 (https://www.waterwaysjournal.net/2021/01/24/the-towboat-monongahela/)
 
#3 I can't identify but looks like a lake steamer design, and a post-1900 one at that given the more modern davits and lifeboats as well as the thin metal paddlewheel, so very well may be a steel hull. Even if not, if she's a lake steamer, she can have a heavier, more rigid hull than a riverboat so may have more muted support structures above deck. Or if she does have a full set of hog chains, they may well be hidden within the superstructure and since we can't see a bow view we can't tell for sure.
 
#4 is the George Verity, another 1927 steel-hull vessel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_M._Verity_(towboat)). And though your view is from astern, the photo from Wikipedia is forward and shows the same long hull, short stack design of that era.
 
#5 is the Orco, built in 1936 according to the UW LaCross library (https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/ACNQC2XXRJ4USX8G), so again very likely a steel-hull vessel.
 
#6 is definitely a steel hull, and the 1935 date of the photo helps confirm this. 
 
These are all fun photos to look at, and thank you for sharing, but I'll maintain that any wooden-hulled riverboat had to have hog chains for structural integrity, until the development of steel hulls or unless it was designed to operate in deeper water (e.g. the Hudson) where shallow draft and/or light weight wasn't a consideration. If I recall correctly, the original Lula was up in Montana, so absolutely fit those constraints. Your version is meant to be a Hudson River / port boat, right? So you can get away with fudging it a bit.

Can you show an example? To the best of my knowledge, and as wefalck implies, this was an integral part of steamboat structure (stern or side wheel) and not easily dispensed with. They're sometimes not easy to see, but until the development of metals hulls were pretty essential. They keep the lightweight hull structure from essentially folding up like an origami construction and so have to run most of the length of the hull. I've never seen a traditional stern or sidewheeler that didn't have longitudinal hog chains and often latitudinal ones as well. 
 
Now, to be more specific, that's true of RIVERboats, because they needed shallow, lightweight hulls to navigate shallow river conditions, and so couldn't afford the hull bracing typical of marine vessels. Your original Lula was indeed a riverboat with hog chain bracing, but your modeled Lula is a harbor vessel with less concern about draft, so you could also assume that it has a stronger hull than the typical riverboat.

Honestly there's an even better pretend option; just assume that the angled hog chain post within the engine room doesn't extend up through the boiler deck floor as on the real thing, but is a bit shorter and set further back, such that the chains you have meet it right at the stern wall. In other words, it's there but hidden from sight. 
 
Yeah, this doesn't fully transfer the weight forward, but that's a detail only the most technical observer will notice. Your current way deals with the more obvious visual question "what's holding up the wheel?".

Once again, I go away for a few days and come back to see more AWESOME work you've done on Lula.  It's looking really great (and i'm so happy there's a cat onboad!)
Good luck on the handrails!  Your attention to detail is fantastic!

As you can tell from my username and photo, I heartily approve of this addition to the crew.

I've lived with a cat/cats in our homes continuously for over 45 years. Of my 78 years I dare say I've spent at least 60 of those years living with a cat.  Some have been so so, others have been totally awesome animals but I've shed bitter tears for each when they made their final  journey. At this point nothing a cat does surprises me and the laughter and love they provide is one of the treasured moments of my life......... stupid cats.   

As you can tell from my username and photo, I heartily approve of this addition to the crew.

I managed to overlook this update somehow, but a belated congratulations on finishing. You've done a nice job bringing this kit to life and it's a lovely gift for your friend.

As you can tell from my username and photo, I heartily approve of this addition to the crew.

As you can tell from my username and photo, I heartily approve of this addition to the crew.

I managed to overlook this update somehow, but a belated congratulations on finishing. You've done a nice job bringing this kit to life and it's a lovely gift for your friend.

I'm now calling this build complete. Here are the finished photos: 

Thank you to everyone for the kind comments and for the likes. 
 
 
 I got the dinghy weathered and glued down, I still need to add a coil of rope around that sprue. You can barley see that sprue in normal viewing. I used a brown pastel to weather the inside of the dinghy but it's got a pinkish tint to it. I know not why and I'm not sure how to fix it other use a little black? 
 
 I received a box of three cats today from an Etsy supplier. They're supposed to be HO scale but they seem smaller which is okay. The one sitting on the fire bucket box is 0.115 inches high. To see any detail it must be viewed under magnification. 

 
 It snuck aboard and I'm really not in favor of it sticking around as I think it's bad luck to have a black cat onboard. I've temporally named the cat, D1. 

 
 This cat sharpening it's claws on topping lift line I named Stump Grinder. It's more or less the lead deckhand's cat. It's a little bigger than D1.

 
I couldn't get a good in focus photo of the cat laying on its belly beside the Derrick crane mast. This cat doesn't have a name yet. It's larger in girth than Stump Grinder. I may name it D8. 
 
 
 If you think I'm procrastinating doing the handrails you are correct. 
 
  Thank you to everyone for the support and for following along.
 
   Keith
 
 

Thanks to steam exhaust products, like cinders and gases given off by coal combustion, the areas around rights of way were fairly denuded of any foliage. The diesel transition started the recovery of the forests near the tracks.

And every once in awhile the steam locomotives cinders would light a fire on the roadbed and clear weeds and sometimes bridges🤪🤪.  That’s why you would see an inspection car running a mile or two behind the train to put out anything that caught fire.

Railroads had these weed burners  back in the day of steam and newer versions today to keep weeds down on the roadways.