Cathead

Ferrus, knowing of your admiration for working boats I direct your attention to the link below.
 
  
 

That manufacturer looks really cool...lots of neat engines and other mechanical/industrial stuff if you dig around in their catalog. Thanks for bringing it to our attention!

Thanks a lot guys.  Your likes and comments encourage me to better my work

The cardio docs are tracking this via the echocardio tests and some blood test. The test measures an enzyme level that is a signpost for how hard your heart is working. My last test showed my heart improving with the stents and medication I'm taking. 👍 Used to be some serious operation opening the chest and heart to implant a new valve. Nowadays they can go thru an arm or femoral artery. And implant either a mechanical or animal based valve. The medical field has so many options now.

Thank you, Ken
 
 Other than tracking via testing is surgery a possibility or would that be dependent on how bad the leak becomes? The vascular system is something I took for granted till I had my aneurysm surgery five years ago. I've tried to educate myself to some degree but I've been somewhat reluctant as I'm not sure I wanna know how the sausage is made because so many things can go wrong, it's scary.

Wow, there's finally a break in the action for me to answer a question or 2. I think the bad valve may have started back in the Dark Ages - mid 1990s - while in the Air Force. It became noticeable about 2018 and my cardiac doctors have been tracking it since then. We changed cardio docs last year, mostly due to some over treatment issues my wife had encountered(shes an RN and not to be trifled with in medical affairs). The new crew was/is much more aggressive in treatment. They believe in their tests. Anyway, the leaky valve is still there, but I have an echo scheduled next month or whenever it is  Medicare allows them to do another test. Bureaucrats - phooey.
Good luck with your medical processes.

Found a bit more time this weekend for another round of scenery work. This time I used a patching plaster from the hardware store to spread a thin coating over the rock work, using my fingers and other tools to make a finer bedding-plane texture than the coarse plaster allowed. This smoothed out the surface a bit and gave it a more complex texture that I like, though I'm not sure it comes through well in the photo. It's meant to capture the finely bedded, pitted surface of this limestone. Once I start adding color I think this will really come alive.


 
I also filled in the creek bed and some of the flatter area to the right.
 


Once these areas are fully dry I'm going to go over them with a fine sanding block. Anything that isn't rock bluff will be covered by various scenic materials anyway.
 
And here's one more view of this scene.

Really looking forward to getting some color on this whiteout!

Found a bit more time this weekend for another round of scenery work. This time I used a patching plaster from the hardware store to spread a thin coating over the rock work, using my fingers and other tools to make a finer bedding-plane texture than the coarse plaster allowed. This smoothed out the surface a bit and gave it a more complex texture that I like, though I'm not sure it comes through well in the photo. It's meant to capture the finely bedded, pitted surface of this limestone. Once I start adding color I think this will really come alive.


 
I also filled in the creek bed and some of the flatter area to the right.
 


Once these areas are fully dry I'm going to go over them with a fine sanding block. Anything that isn't rock bluff will be covered by various scenic materials anyway.
 
And here's one more view of this scene.

Really looking forward to getting some color on this whiteout!

Found a bit more time this weekend for another round of scenery work. This time I used a patching plaster from the hardware store to spread a thin coating over the rock work, using my fingers and other tools to make a finer bedding-plane texture than the coarse plaster allowed. This smoothed out the surface a bit and gave it a more complex texture that I like, though I'm not sure it comes through well in the photo. It's meant to capture the finely bedded, pitted surface of this limestone. Once I start adding color I think this will really come alive.


 
I also filled in the creek bed and some of the flatter area to the right.
 


Once these areas are fully dry I'm going to go over them with a fine sanding block. Anything that isn't rock bluff will be covered by various scenic materials anyway.
 
And here's one more view of this scene.

Really looking forward to getting some color on this whiteout!

Found a bit more time this weekend for another round of scenery work. This time I used a patching plaster from the hardware store to spread a thin coating over the rock work, using my fingers and other tools to make a finer bedding-plane texture than the coarse plaster allowed. This smoothed out the surface a bit and gave it a more complex texture that I like, though I'm not sure it comes through well in the photo. It's meant to capture the finely bedded, pitted surface of this limestone. Once I start adding color I think this will really come alive.


 
I also filled in the creek bed and some of the flatter area to the right.
 


Once these areas are fully dry I'm going to go over them with a fine sanding block. Anything that isn't rock bluff will be covered by various scenic materials anyway.
 
And here's one more view of this scene.

Really looking forward to getting some color on this whiteout!

That's some gorgeous detail!

I have completed the crew quarters in the engine room.  The forward two rooms are set up as double bunk bed crew quarters.   The room to the right is set up as the engineer’s closet, and the one across is postal and regular storage. The panel on the back will eventually be used for the starboard engine room superstructure. I will leave the port side open for viewing. 

 

Another view but with the engine room work area & gauges.   The crew quarters do not reach the full height of the boiler room stringers.  This is by design.  The space above was used for numerous cables, pipes, &c.  
 
Now I would like to finish the engine room: place the machinery, finish the starboard superstructure, add in some pipes and detail.  
 
 

Found a bit more time this weekend for another round of scenery work. This time I used a patching plaster from the hardware store to spread a thin coating over the rock work, using my fingers and other tools to make a finer bedding-plane texture than the coarse plaster allowed. This smoothed out the surface a bit and gave it a more complex texture that I like, though I'm not sure it comes through well in the photo. It's meant to capture the finely bedded, pitted surface of this limestone. Once I start adding color I think this will really come alive.


 
I also filled in the creek bed and some of the flatter area to the right.
 


Once these areas are fully dry I'm going to go over them with a fine sanding block. Anything that isn't rock bluff will be covered by various scenic materials anyway.
 
And here's one more view of this scene.

Really looking forward to getting some color on this whiteout!

I just now came across your post about the railroad you're modeling.  Man after my own heart - model railroading.  All looks great so far, will continue to follow your progress.
 
Your river boats will look good in the scene(s) when it's all completed.
 
Thanks for sharing.

Found a bit more time this weekend for another round of scenery work. This time I used a patching plaster from the hardware store to spread a thin coating over the rock work, using my fingers and other tools to make a finer bedding-plane texture than the coarse plaster allowed. This smoothed out the surface a bit and gave it a more complex texture that I like, though I'm not sure it comes through well in the photo. It's meant to capture the finely bedded, pitted surface of this limestone. Once I start adding color I think this will really come alive.


 
I also filled in the creek bed and some of the flatter area to the right.
 


Once these areas are fully dry I'm going to go over them with a fine sanding block. Anything that isn't rock bluff will be covered by various scenic materials anyway.
 
And here's one more view of this scene.

Really looking forward to getting some color on this whiteout!

Found a bit more time this weekend for another round of scenery work. This time I used a patching plaster from the hardware store to spread a thin coating over the rock work, using my fingers and other tools to make a finer bedding-plane texture than the coarse plaster allowed. This smoothed out the surface a bit and gave it a more complex texture that I like, though I'm not sure it comes through well in the photo. It's meant to capture the finely bedded, pitted surface of this limestone. Once I start adding color I think this will really come alive.


 
I also filled in the creek bed and some of the flatter area to the right.
 


Once these areas are fully dry I'm going to go over them with a fine sanding block. Anything that isn't rock bluff will be covered by various scenic materials anyway.
 
And here's one more view of this scene.

Really looking forward to getting some color on this whiteout!

More progress on the elevator hay barn, which is now a unified structure:

I scored a pattern of plank ends into the elevator's siding; the goal is for them to show up faintly after painting, just enough to suggest this wasn't built with 50' planks. In writing this I realized I need to do this on the hay barn's front wall, too.
 
This doesn't look all that different from the last photo, but there's a lot of work you can't see, like internal bracing (especially within the elevator), and getting all the constituent parts lined up into a nice whole.
 
Next will be attaching about 1" of depth to the hay barn and setting up whatever roof framing I want. At that point it's ready for airbrushing, followed by roofing. If you're wondering, this structure would have been fairly new in 1900, so the goal is for it to look well-kept with just enough weathering to not look toylike. Somewhat different from the usual rough neglect we modelers often like our working models to have. So no missing planks or shingles, no peeling paint, no repair patches, etc.
 
By the way, that brief preceding conversation about what the upper doors are for...that's exactly why I decided to go ahead with a build log. There's just such a richer experience to building models when you can benefit from others' insights and questions. That exchange didn't even change the model, but it makes the model richer to understand more about the prototype. Thank you!

There's so many different paths I could take in starting to catch you all up on the context for this project that it's a bit overwhelming. Do I focus on the model-railroad-oriented process of track planning, how we design the track layout to allow realistic operations? Do I focus on more historical details of the railroad in general and Rocheport in particular? Do I focus on building the benchwork and early scenery forms? 
 
All of that takes time to write up, and you all are here for the modeling, so let's start with a simpler narrative, the current building I'm working on. This is a really interesting-looking structure seen behind the depot in only two photographs that I've found, shown below with zoomed-on crops.




The front part of this building is clearly an early grain elevator, with a loading spout set to extend down to the door of a boxcar on that spur. This is the era when grain was shipped in boxcars with planks nailed over their open doors. But what's going on with that huge building attached behind the elevator, with its massive interior, and even weirder, a wide ramp leading up to a second-story "porch"? In the first photo (1898), the ramp and porch are uncovered, while by the second photo, I think in the 19-teens, there's a roof over that whole thing.
 
I finally got the answer from a very helpful contact at the Katy Railroad Historical Society. While the front part is indeed a grain elevator, the back part is a massive hay barn. The Katy did a serious business in shipping Texas cattle north, and built a series of huge barns to store the hay needed to feed these cattle on their journey to processors in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Chicago. So that's a hay barn, and the ramp allows loaded hay wagons to drive up to the second floor and deliver hay into the barn, probably through the doors you see in the first (uncovered photos). Very cool! You'll see Rocheport's small stock yard in the lower right of the wider-view photo, just down the street from the hay barn. This also shows the local economic impact a railroad could have; even a small town like Rocheport would benefit from this major source of local farm revenue coming from the railroad.
 
I wish I had room to model this building in its entirety, but then the scene would extend way too far back. As it is, I can only fit a narrow part against the backdrop. So I did some estimated measurements, using the usefully placed boxcar in one photo for scale, and came up with a representative design that fit my space. I then built a cardstock mockup to see how it looked visually behind the depot (that project is a different topic).



 
This told me that my original elevator tower looked a little too squat, so I redrew my plans to make it a bit narrower and slightly taller. I also removed the loading dock I'd somewhat speculatively placed there, as I don't like the look and it doesn't fit the curve of the siding.
 
Once I'd redrawn my plans, I started building. This is really straightforward after years of complicated shipbuilding curves; lots of nice straight walls and square corners. I'm using pre-scribed siding and styrene castings for doors. Here are two quick photos of the progress so far.
 


That's all I've got for now. I'll keep following up as I work on this. One fun question is what those two doors way up on the elevator's face are for? They're clearly visible in the photo, so I included them, but danged if I can figure them out.
 
 
 
 

While I'm most known on MSW for my scratch-built Missouri River steamboats (see signature links), my interest in transportation along the Missouri River extends to that great rival of river traffic, railroads. So I'm taking a break from steamboat modeling to build at least one module of a possibly larger model railroad depicting the route of the Missouri, Kansas, & Texas railroad along the Missouri River valley in central Missouri, ca. 1900, complete with at least one river scene featuring a contemporary steamboat.
 
MK&T passenger train along the Missouri River, ca. 1900 (State Historical Society of Missouri):

This will be a typical build for me in that it'll be laced with details of local history and geography that set a context for the models. As a former model railroader who transitioned to shipbuilding for a while, I'm finding that I miss the ability to set models in their full context. Most ship models end up sitting passively on a shelf, while a model railroad allows one to actually operate the model realistically through an entire landscape. As a geologist and naturalist who's lived in this area for almost 20 years, I have a strong connection to the Missouri River valley, having extensive experience hiking among its hills, birding within its floodplain, biking along its corridor, and paddling beneath its bluffs.
 
Mrs. Cathead on a shared river trip; these are the same bluffs shown in the next photo below:

 
The Missouri River's route through central Missouri is far more scenic than outsiders with a "flatland" view of the Midwest might suspect. The river follows a 1-2 mile wide gorge lined by limestone and dolomite bluffs towering up to 300 feet over the floodplain. Rail lines built along this corridor were forced to hug the valley walls by the huge river's constant meandering, making their routes often look like overdone model railroads with straight bluffs absolutely dwarfing the trains below. The Missouri Pacific built up the valley's south side in the mid-19th century, while the MK&T (more commonly called the Katy) built down the north side in the 1890s.
 
MK&T main line squeezed between tall limestone bluffs and the Missouri River, ca. 1912, same bluffs as above (State Historical Society of Missouri):

This project has been in the planning stage for several years, and directly influenced my last steamboat build, the Peerless, a small steamboat that operated on the lower Missouri River between St. Louis and the small central Missouri town of Rocheport. I built that model at the common model railroading scale of 1:87 (HO) to allow for its possible future inclusion on a diorama or layout depicting this region.
 
Historic photo of Peerless (State Historical Society of Missouri) and model version for comparison:


The immediate focus of this build is the scenic river town of Rocheport, framed to west and east by some of the most dramatic bluffs anywhere along the lower Missouri, and home of the only tunnel anywhere on the Katy system. This was a major river port in the pre-Civil-War era, and was the upriver home port for Peerless during its 1893-1903 operations on the river. The Katy built through Rocheport in the mid-1890s, meaning the two co-existed for nearly a decade, the perfect hook for a steamboat-and-railroad enthusiast.
 
Rocheport in the early 1900s, as seen from bluff tops to east and west (State Historical Society of Missouri):


Today, Rocheport is a popular tourist town, known for its B&Bs and nearby vineyards, and brought to prominence by its central location along the 240-mile Katy Trail. This is Missouri's cross-state rail trail that follows the old MK&T line (abandoned in the 1980s), and is the longest continuous rail trail in the country. I've cycled the entire length, but like many people, am always drawn back to Rocheport's incomparable scenic setting. The trail also makes modeling the MK&T in this area particularly attractive, since the right-of-way is unusually accessible!
 
Rocheport tunnel and river bluffs (same bluffs as other photos) along the modern Katy Trail:

There's a lot more background information to share, and construction has already started, so this log will work to catch up on past progress while continuing to explain the design, purpose, and context of the project. It's going to be wordy for a while but there's also lots of neat imagery to share. I didn't initially intend to track this with a build log, looking forward to being freed from the tyranny of photography, writing, and reporting. But I'm finding that I miss the community that develops around a build, and I think there's a really neat historical story to tell. And writing about one's work can sometimes help clarify or altering thinking about a project in ways that being too lone-wolf can miss. So welcome aboard!
 
One more historic photo, and three shots of the layout underway.
 

 


 

Found a bit more time this weekend for another round of scenery work. This time I used a patching plaster from the hardware store to spread a thin coating over the rock work, using my fingers and other tools to make a finer bedding-plane texture than the coarse plaster allowed. This smoothed out the surface a bit and gave it a more complex texture that I like, though I'm not sure it comes through well in the photo. It's meant to capture the finely bedded, pitted surface of this limestone. Once I start adding color I think this will really come alive.


 
I also filled in the creek bed and some of the flatter area to the right.
 


Once these areas are fully dry I'm going to go over them with a fine sanding block. Anything that isn't rock bluff will be covered by various scenic materials anyway.
 
And here's one more view of this scene.

Really looking forward to getting some color on this whiteout!

One thing I've learned over time is that small mistakes on models like this tend to be overwhelmed by the greater majesty of the complex finished product. This model certainly qualifies; it's gorgeous to look upon and any oddities you know about can be conversation pieces with knowledgeable visitors.

Phrasing, my friend, phrasing...Don't type stuff like that where Maggie can hear.

OK, now, here I'm going to up and say that you're flat-out wrong. That's a delightfully quirky little vessel, all the more so because she's truly quirky in that she's unique. Rather than just replicating another vessel's quirks, you made her your own. 
 
Cambridge English Dictionary: "Quirky: unusual in an attractive and interesting way". That's the very definition of your Lula.
 
In all your prep work for the upcoming surgery, how long have you budgeted for training your sister to finish detailing and weathering for you? Not to mention keeping up with MSW on your behalf. Priorities are priorities, you know.
 
I keep expecting to see a strand of spaghetti running between them...

That's lovely.

A quick update.  Yesterday I received the brass name plates I had custom made for me.  They're not permanently fixed to the base yet.  The small one gives a shout out to my dad who got me into modeling as a kid, and always has been my biggest cheerleader when I showed him what I was building.  The name plates are a little hard to see in the photos with the Cheerful mounted.  The photos are taken in front of a window, so are backlit.  The ship will be displayed on the opposite wall, so the base won't be shaded, and the plates will be easy to read.  My next steps now are to get the shelf and mounting hardware, and get that built.
 
Erik