Cathead

Hi Cisco, I‘be been using the small quick clamps. I only have three of them so I should get another pair. Probably should get a pair of Dewalts and a pair of the American Tools clamps which are smaller and get into tighter places. Used white pva where the garboard entered the rabbet. After that I used white pva to edge glue the planks and CA to glue the planks to the bulkheads. Also use CA where the planks enter the rabbet at the stem and the stern post. I‘ve been gluing three or four bulkheads at a time and clamping for ten minutes until the CA sets up. Here’s a couple of photos. Just finished Belt B today. I’ll post some “action “ shots when I start Belt A.
 

 

 

 
 

Hi Everyone, The Pinky is ready to plank.The planking will be 1/16” x 1/4”. The directions suggest that you can make the wide section of the garboard and the steeler out of one piece of sheet so that’s what I did. Laid a strip of wood along the hull where the broad strake would sit in order to get an idea of how far forward the garboard would run and to get some dimensions. This is where my first oops occurs. I sanded the garboard so that it sat in the rabbet at the stern post and along the keel. I took measurements at the stern post and at bulkhead number 7. Joined the two points with a straight line and cut.
 

 

 

 

 
This is what I ended up with. Both sides are the same so I  it wasn’t a sanding error. Should have taken measurements at each bulkhead.
 

 
The next strake needed some finessing to fill the gap. Been gluing scraps of wood to the backside of planks at the stern where the planks twist to keep them on the same plane. 
 

 

 

 
 
 
The planking looks like it’s back on track so I lined off the hull where belt C ends and used tick strips to measure the remaining two strakes in that belt.
 

 

 

 

 
Belt C is finished so I lined off the hull for Belts B and A
 

 
That  is where the build is at as of today. See you next time.

Hello Everyone, I’ve been working on this build for a couple of weeks now. The plan was that if the first bit of planking went well I would start a log. After an oops or two it seems to be on track so here we go. The model is going to be of a working boat so the deck layout will be different from Glad Tidings’.
 

 
 I got along fairly well using Chuck’s planking tutorials and his monograph for Cheerful so I thought that I would give it another go with this build. Replaced the kit supplied wood with Alaskan Yellow Cedar from Modelers Sawmill. The basswood that came with the kit was very nice but I think the AYC is easier to work with. Glued the two halves of the bulkhead former together which ends up being 1/4” thick. Glued a strip of 1/16” x 1/8” basswood to the center of the former leaving 1/16” on either side. Then tapered from the bearding line to the basswood strip.
 

 

 

 

 
 
Cut new stem, keel, and stern post from a 1/4” sheet of cedar using the kit parts as a template. Attached them to the former and then planed and sanded them to the correct profile.
 

 

 

 

 

 


There are a lot of bulkheads in this kit. They are less than an inch apart. Started at the bow and cut spacer blocks as I went.
 
 

 

 

 

 


 
Roughed in the subfloor and walls of the footwell. Because the deck layout is different, I’m not installing the deck beams and carlings as shown in the drawings. The Keel Klamper won’t fit between the bulkheads so I attached two plywood tab for it to clamp to.
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Going to end this post here and restart in a little while with the planking 
 
 
 
 

Build goals
 
Although I have a couple scratchbuilds planned in my head, I chose this kit as my next project for a couple reasons.
 
The outstanding large-scale detailed scratchbuilds of USS Cairo by @mbp521 and her sister ironclad USS St. Louis by @thorn21g and the Gateway Model Shipcrafter's Guild have been really fascinating and inspiring. MSW doesn't have any completed build logs for this kit; the only log of any kind didn't get beyond an opening post before being abandoned. BlueJacket is a good company but seems under-represented on MSW build logs, so I wanted to raise awareness of their kits (and this one in particular). There are so few realistic riverboat kits that this one should get more attention. I hope @MrBlueJacket will be able to pop in from time to time. I don't have a full workshop right now and am not ready to dive into a full scratchbuild. Just before my injury last winter, I packed up my entire workshop in preparation for remodeling a spare room into a permanent improved workshop, but that's been on hold ever since. I'll be building some kind of small portable workstation to bridge the gap until I can complete the home renovations necessary to start on a real scratchbuild again. It'll let me learn/practice some new skills.  I've never built anything at this small a scale. I've never built a solid-hull model. I've never worked with this much metal, and especially not fine-scale brass details. I'm still really backed up on other real-world projects and don't have the mental bandwidth to dive into a complex scratchbuild right now, so hopefully a simpler kit lets me ease back into model-building. So overall my goal is for this project to be a fun and relatively straightforward return to building, though I'm quite certain I'll find various ways to enhance the kit with alterations or details based on the above-mentioned builds. I also hope it'll serve as a review of this kit for other MSW members who might consider it. Thanks in advance for looking in and following along.

Bulkheads and inner transom assembled and ready for fairing:
 

 

 

The kit arrived today!
 
When I placed the order, it was advertised as coming with free brushes and paint, for a limited time. Next day, that was changed to two offerings- one being the kit alone, at a lesser price, the other with paint and tools. I received the version with paint and tools. Although I had most of the tools already, you can't have too many, right? And I did not have paddle-end tweezers, seen below:

 

The kit was packed well, except for the two large plan sheets, which were crumpled more than I'd like.  Almost all of the wood is in laser-cut sheets.  A couple of the sheets have some marring, I'm assuming from milling the stock, but those seem to be with parts internal to the model, so not concerned. Many of the sheets are quite thick which at first was surprising, but this after all is a larger scale model of a small boat. When I saw the size of the metal blocks it started to make more sense to me.
 
There are no key plans for the laser-cut sheets, but an improved Parts List lists the parts that should be included on each sheet. Hopefully, that, along with the pictures in the instruction manual, will be enough to figure out what each is. Some, but not all of the sheets are engraved with the part names.
 
I did an inventory of parts against the parts list; both of the metal block sizes were short in quantity- I will place a request for those. Otherwise, all seems to check out.
 
The manual indicates that this model is part of the progressive learning series, as did the Harriet Lane, but does not indicate its place in the lineup. I assume it's the fifth. Harriet Lane has not been added to the "Shipwrights Series," the website does not mention the series- it is only the manual that indicates that it is part of a series. HL was quite a challenge. At first glance the Nonsuch looks much simpler, but I expect some surprises. Certainly, shaping the curved mast and wishbone boom are bound to be tricky.
 
So far, ME has not posted a downloadable PDF of the manual. I hope they do- being able to zoom in on details is very helpful for my old, overtaxed eyes.
 

 

 
Started removing char from the main structural pieces, reading the manual, and watching videos of these boats in action.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

When I saw this new model designed by David Antscherl, who also designed the Model Shipways Shipwrights series which I just completed- well, I had to have it, right?
 
It's a modern fiberglass boat (but built of wood, of course).
 

 
This kit is on pre-order, available at the end of this month. Can't wait to start!

So, I solved the riddle of the radiators. As far as I could tell, the parts in question earlier were simply shown in the wrong places in the diagrams. I assembled them in the order that seemed to make the best sense and ended up with structures that look like radiators.
 

 
IMO, Halinski kind of went overboard on engineering the radiators (surprise, right?), but whatever -- they're done now.
 
Which means (trumpet fanfare) that it was time to mate the wing and fuselage assemblies (after adding gun blisters, of course), so here they are:
 

 

 
Cheers!

Wow -- that sounds alarming. Glad you were able to recover!

I'm interested and watching!
 
 

I look forward to following along, Eric.

My next project will be the USS Cairo kit from BlueJacket. This vessel was an ironclad gunboat designed and built during the American Civil War for service on the Mississippi River and its tributaries, as part of the Union's push to control the West's inland waterways and cut off Confederate supply lines, communications, and commerce. Her actual service was unremarkable, and she sank less than a year after her commissioning upon hitting several mines near Vicksburg, Mississippi. However, she became immortal when her wreck was discovered mostly intact in the mid-1960s and eventually salvaged, restored, and placed on display at Vicksburg National Military Park. I've visited the display and associated museum, where it's absolutely fascinating to be able to actually walk around the vessel and peer into her depths. 

 
When completed, this will join my scratchbuilt Western River steamboats Arabia and Bertrand, two other examples of mid-19th century Western River steamboats salvaged from old river channels in the American interior. This kit is a much smaller scale than those two models (1:64 and 1:87, respectively), so will nestle comfortably alongside the Bertrand. 

For inspiration, I'll have on hand this simple paperweight acquired at the Cairo museum!

Announcing the start of this build feels unusually good, as I've had a forced ~7 month hiatus from modeling building due to a complicated situation involving a serious hatched-derived wrist injury (with subsequent surgery and long recovery) that, for a while, had me unsure if I'd regain the dexterity and strength necessary to keep building scale models (much less the larger-scale timber management and building work I do in real life). The Cairo kit is a 43rd birthday present but also a celebration of a return to reasonable normality.
 
Thanks for looking in! Next post, I'll cover why I chose this model and what I hope to achieve with it.
 
 
 

My next project will be the USS Cairo kit from BlueJacket. This vessel was an ironclad gunboat designed and built during the American Civil War for service on the Mississippi River and its tributaries, as part of the Union's push to control the West's inland waterways and cut off Confederate supply lines, communications, and commerce. Her actual service was unremarkable, and she sank less than a year after her commissioning upon hitting several mines near Vicksburg, Mississippi. However, she became immortal when her wreck was discovered mostly intact in the mid-1960s and eventually salvaged, restored, and placed on display at Vicksburg National Military Park. I've visited the display and associated museum, where it's absolutely fascinating to be able to actually walk around the vessel and peer into her depths. 

 
When completed, this will join my scratchbuilt Western River steamboats Arabia and Bertrand, two other examples of mid-19th century Western River steamboats salvaged from old river channels in the American interior. This kit is a much smaller scale than those two models (1:64 and 1:87, respectively), so will nestle comfortably alongside the Bertrand. 

For inspiration, I'll have on hand this simple paperweight acquired at the Cairo museum!

Announcing the start of this build feels unusually good, as I've had a forced ~7 month hiatus from modeling building due to a complicated situation involving a serious hatched-derived wrist injury (with subsequent surgery and long recovery) that, for a while, had me unsure if I'd regain the dexterity and strength necessary to keep building scale models (much less the larger-scale timber management and building work I do in real life). The Cairo kit is a 43rd birthday present but also a celebration of a return to reasonable normality.
 
Thanks for looking in! Next post, I'll cover why I chose this model and what I hope to achieve with it.
 
 
 

Hi All,
 
Ice chocks strategy seems to be working, they have been successfully built up and removed. Additionally I’ve started on the bow plating. It certainly is tedious work, but I believe it will be well worth it. Rivets are slightly out of scale, but I’m satisfied with the look so far.

As you say the original Chaperon had painted red decks, but I too plan to have just stain and poly my decks.     After all the work, I have a hard time covering them up with paint.     As for 20' decks, I really wish I had done that.   Cutting, marking the edges, and gluing these 3" planks is driving me crazy.    A 20' (5") plank would have been so much easier...  And I guess more authentic too.   I am about 1/2 way down the hull.   I will post some pictures later today.

Tiny update as I am doing a few other things in other build areas of Indy too.
 
I now have some colour on the model. I first varnished the exposed strip on the inner bulwarks and then used masking tape before I added paint. For this, I used some Plastikote Red Oxide (same as on the lower fisher hulls) and decanted it from the aerosol so I could airbrush it. The paint was left to de-gas for a few hours. That's important as it'll boil if you try to use or do anything with it when fresh from the rattle can. The paint was then thinned with mr Levelling Thinner, about 60:40 paint to thinner. When completely dry, I airbrushed Tamiya Flat Red over the red oxide. 
 

 
 
After more judicious masking (and masking the ports off from interior), I did the same paint regime for the gun ports. Once dry, everything was unmasked.

 
 
 
The standard kit will be supplied with Red Alder for deck planking. This is a beautiful timber. However, for this, I am using an engraved maple veneer deck. There will be an option for a maple deck, but it's an actual maple deck, not veneer. Fitting the deck will be the same as for this, with a subtle flex and sliding into the rear first, underneath the stern timbers. First though, a test fit should be done and the edges sanded so it lies flat to the bulwark edges. 

 
 
 
The deck was then glued down and left to dry. In the meantime, the main gu deck coamings were masked and airbrushed in Tamiya Flat Black. The grates will be added after the coamings are fitted, so to reduce rigidity when fitting.


 
 
More soon(ish) 

Summertime in Saratoga Springs means lazy afternoons at the track watching the horseraces, outdoor concerts, visits from friends and family, long bicycle rides in the surrounding countryside, daytrips to the many historical sites in Upstate New York, watching too much baseball (Let’s Go, Mets!) and occasionally, just occasionally, finding time to continue work on my Statenjacht.  I realized I hadn’t posted anything in two months, and didn’t want anyone to think this was another “dead” build-log!
 
I’ve been continuing the slow work on the deck cabins and furniture, working my way towards the stern.  The stern superstructure, which I have most recently been working on, is quite intricate and has been a bit of a challenge since the side panels are too short for the laser-cut front and back of the cabin.  I partly solved that issue by sanding down the tops of the front and back as much as practical without interfering with the windows.  It was important that the tops of the side panels line up with the tops of the front and back to properly fit the roof (yet to be built).  So I ended up gluing the side panels a bit higher up off of the deck rail than shown in the plans, hence the gap at the bottom – I plan on fixing that by adding a bit more planking than called for in the instructions.  I don’t see this as a major problem going forward.  One thing I’ve learned is to not be afraid to improvise when things don’t go exactly as shown in the plans or instructions.  Which happens a lot.
 
I continue to enjoy all the interior details on this kit – each of the deck cabins are removable so that the interiors I had worked on earlier can be viewed.  I’m currently working on the stern cabin doors, then I’ll tackle the roof and side paneling.  Onward! 
 

I love the lines of that hull.

Hard to say what the plank length was on the actual Chaperon, if I’m not mistaken I went with 20’ planks myself. I think the Chaperon, like many others had her decks painted to protect against weathering, so if you were to look at the pictures of her there would be no way to tell what length they were. I chose not to paint my deck, just leaving the natural wood color. This is something that I have done on all of my ship models so far. Although not authentic, I like the way the natural deck looks. 
 
-Brian

Hull Planking continued…

Hull planked, let the sanding begin. 🍻

I have ordered several of my cases from Grandpa's Cabinets ( https://www.grandpascabinets.com/ ).     Bring you wallet,,, he is not giving them away by any means.    But to me the quality is fantastic.

Yeah, that looks fine for a first build. Keep at it!

Well, now it's on to the wing-mounted radiators. These have an insane number of parts. My recent Spitfire Vb had only one such radiator, but the Bf-109E has two -- great. I got the first parts in (parts 54) and then got completely stumped about how the next parts (54a and 54b) are supposed to go in -- they don't match the existing contours at all. I'm going to have to study some build logs.
 

Brian,
 
Thanks for your comments....  As I mentioned earlier, and as you have said, it is (and will be) a very long process.   I am about 1/5 of the way down the main deck.  We had guest over for the Labor Day weekend so shipbuilding came to a grinding halt.   
 
For those of you who plan to plank the deck, I really recommend using 1/8"x1/32" planking.    1/32" thick plans will not throw off an measurements that might effect the model later on, and the 1/8" width "more or less" matches up with the 1/8" etching on the planks.   Various wood thickness and such you will not be able to stay in the 1/8" etching lines, but they are a good guide to at least help you keep the planking straight.
 
In my case I tried to simulate a 12' plank, so my planks were 3" in length.    Planking a 34" main deck (and eventually the boiler deck) 3"x1/8" is a lesson in patience.  I am going "nuts" staring at planking and trying to keep the 1,3,5,2,4 patter straight.   I do not know if the Chaperon used 20' planks, but if they did, in the name of being more accurate (and not going crazy with planking), by all means use the simulated 20' planks which would come to 5" on the model.   You can thank me later.

Google "knitted military tank" and you'll find quite a few creative results, like this:
 

 
Very cool model so far. I haven't really dabbled in the non-ship parts of MSW before but this is too interesting to let go.