Cathead

Lots of progress lately. By the end of this post, Bertrand will be ready for the final bits of rigging and details. The end is in sight! Here we go:
 
Pilot house
 

 
Here I'm laying out pieces for the pilot house. Like the cabins, this uses pre-scribed wood, though I'm cutting & staining the window & door frames individually. I didn't have anything that small on hand, so split each piece manually from wider strips, using a hobby knife.
 

 
Here you see the pilot house partially assembled. You'll notice that I made the windows with two layers of wood, technically not accurate since a real window would have the panes and frames all in one plane. I decided that I didn't have the skill to make perfect square small-paned windows like these in 1:87, so went with the two-layer approach as a reasonable approximation. One reason I stained the windows dark, is to help hide their 2-D nature. The resulting shadow keeps the eye from seeing that, compared to if they were all white. And I think it looks nice. When you step back more than 6", it's hard to see the difference.
 

 
Here's the pilot house installed, with a beginning to the clerestory roof. I carved a series of roof braces with a gentle curve to support this area, instead of bothering with full rafters, as this can't be seen from any angle. Much easier. Then I just planked in both roof areas as I'd done the hurricane deck, using the same pre-coloring technique with pastels. If you look real close, you can see the wheel, which I made by cutting a hoop from the styrene tube soon to be used for the chimneys, and gluing thin styrene rods radially. I thought I took pictures of this process, but can't find them now. Oops.
 
Chimneys
 

 
Though the model railroader in me wants to call these smokestacks, apparently the steamboat world generally called them chimneys. In any case, these were built from two diameters of styrene tubing, one of which slides neatly into the other. I cut a series of hoops from the thicker diameter, and drilled holes in styrene sheet to create a kind of cover plate for where the chimneys cross the hurricane deck.
 
Middle photo shows the assembled chimneys. The thicker, lower section simulates the heat shields such chimneys used to protect passengers on the boiler deck from the hot chimney pipes. The various hoops simulate thicker iron bands on the chimneys, placed approximately where various plans and period illustrations suggest they should be. As styrene is too smooth and shiny to really simulate rough iron to my eye, I used a past trick of mine and wrapped the chimneys in layers of strong masking tape, making each seem a quarter turn from the layer below. These seams simulate the chimneys' construction from tubes of iron, and produce a nice rough texture. 
 
On the right, you see the painted and installed chimneys, weathered with rust-colored pastels. I think they look convincingly like frontier iron work.
 
Stairs
 

 
Three sets of stairs are needed to reach the pilot house from the boiler deck; one from boiler deck to hurricane deck (right), one from hurricane deck to clerestory roof (not shown), and one from clerestory to pilot house (left). I built these in the same manner as the main staircase from main deck to boiler deck, described before in this build. In the background, you see some hog chains, which I'll discuss soon.
 
Boiler deck railing
 

 
Probably the most fiddly part of this build. I'm not entirely happy with how these came out, but they look fine from more than a foot away. I started by building the internal railing that keep passengers from falling down the main stairwell (left). Then I glued a long, painted strip wrapped around all the stanchions on the boiler deck, as the upper rail (center). Then I hand-cut a whole whoppin'  mess of little railing posts to line the railing with, and carefully levered each one into place with tweezers and a dab of glue. Once again, step back a foot and it looks great. Up close, it looks like the work of someone still developing his fine-woodworking skills.
 
(Almost) completed steamboat
 


 
And here she is, very close to done. This is the best view of the hog chain system, the longitudinal iron trusses that keep the bow and stern from sagging in a ong, thin boat with no keel and lots of stern-weight. These I simulated with fine rigging thread painted black, run through holes drilled in the decks and stretched tight. They should have turnbuckles on them for tensioning, which I haven't decided how to simulate yet.
 
All that remains is the "rigging", which in this case means a few support cables for the chimneys, and the various cables and tackles for the grasshopper spars, which I'll discuss when they're done. There are a few other details, such as hoists and tackles for two launches, and splitting some 1:87 firewood for the main deck. But she's close.
 
One question for you all: how would you go about lettering the name, which should go in large black letters on the engine-room wall just forward of the wheel? I've never done lettering before.
 
Hopefully within two weeks I'll post the absolutely completed Bertrand. In the meantime, just two days late, here's Dave Hum playing the Eighth of January, an old tune named for the British defeat at New Orleans that closed the War of 1812, just over 201 years ago:
 

Lots of progress lately. By the end of this post, Bertrand will be ready for the final bits of rigging and details. The end is in sight! Here we go:
 
Pilot house
 

 
Here I'm laying out pieces for the pilot house. Like the cabins, this uses pre-scribed wood, though I'm cutting & staining the window & door frames individually. I didn't have anything that small on hand, so split each piece manually from wider strips, using a hobby knife.
 

 
Here you see the pilot house partially assembled. You'll notice that I made the windows with two layers of wood, technically not accurate since a real window would have the panes and frames all in one plane. I decided that I didn't have the skill to make perfect square small-paned windows like these in 1:87, so went with the two-layer approach as a reasonable approximation. One reason I stained the windows dark, is to help hide their 2-D nature. The resulting shadow keeps the eye from seeing that, compared to if they were all white. And I think it looks nice. When you step back more than 6", it's hard to see the difference.
 

 
Here's the pilot house installed, with a beginning to the clerestory roof. I carved a series of roof braces with a gentle curve to support this area, instead of bothering with full rafters, as this can't be seen from any angle. Much easier. Then I just planked in both roof areas as I'd done the hurricane deck, using the same pre-coloring technique with pastels. If you look real close, you can see the wheel, which I made by cutting a hoop from the styrene tube soon to be used for the chimneys, and gluing thin styrene rods radially. I thought I took pictures of this process, but can't find them now. Oops.
 
Chimneys
 

 
Though the model railroader in me wants to call these smokestacks, apparently the steamboat world generally called them chimneys. In any case, these were built from two diameters of styrene tubing, one of which slides neatly into the other. I cut a series of hoops from the thicker diameter, and drilled holes in styrene sheet to create a kind of cover plate for where the chimneys cross the hurricane deck.
 
Middle photo shows the assembled chimneys. The thicker, lower section simulates the heat shields such chimneys used to protect passengers on the boiler deck from the hot chimney pipes. The various hoops simulate thicker iron bands on the chimneys, placed approximately where various plans and period illustrations suggest they should be. As styrene is too smooth and shiny to really simulate rough iron to my eye, I used a past trick of mine and wrapped the chimneys in layers of strong masking tape, making each seem a quarter turn from the layer below. These seams simulate the chimneys' construction from tubes of iron, and produce a nice rough texture. 
 
On the right, you see the painted and installed chimneys, weathered with rust-colored pastels. I think they look convincingly like frontier iron work.
 
Stairs
 

 
Three sets of stairs are needed to reach the pilot house from the boiler deck; one from boiler deck to hurricane deck (right), one from hurricane deck to clerestory roof (not shown), and one from clerestory to pilot house (left). I built these in the same manner as the main staircase from main deck to boiler deck, described before in this build. In the background, you see some hog chains, which I'll discuss soon.
 
Boiler deck railing
 

 
Probably the most fiddly part of this build. I'm not entirely happy with how these came out, but they look fine from more than a foot away. I started by building the internal railing that keep passengers from falling down the main stairwell (left). Then I glued a long, painted strip wrapped around all the stanchions on the boiler deck, as the upper rail (center). Then I hand-cut a whole whoppin'  mess of little railing posts to line the railing with, and carefully levered each one into place with tweezers and a dab of glue. Once again, step back a foot and it looks great. Up close, it looks like the work of someone still developing his fine-woodworking skills.
 
(Almost) completed steamboat
 


 
And here she is, very close to done. This is the best view of the hog chain system, the longitudinal iron trusses that keep the bow and stern from sagging in a ong, thin boat with no keel and lots of stern-weight. These I simulated with fine rigging thread painted black, run through holes drilled in the decks and stretched tight. They should have turnbuckles on them for tensioning, which I haven't decided how to simulate yet.
 
All that remains is the "rigging", which in this case means a few support cables for the chimneys, and the various cables and tackles for the grasshopper spars, which I'll discuss when they're done. There are a few other details, such as hoists and tackles for two launches, and splitting some 1:87 firewood for the main deck. But she's close.
 
One question for you all: how would you go about lettering the name, which should go in large black letters on the engine-room wall just forward of the wheel? I've never done lettering before.
 
Hopefully within two weeks I'll post the absolutely completed Bertrand. In the meantime, just two days late, here's Dave Hum playing the Eighth of January, an old tune named for the British defeat at New Orleans that closed the War of 1812, just over 201 years ago:
 

Lots of progress lately. By the end of this post, Bertrand will be ready for the final bits of rigging and details. The end is in sight! Here we go:
 
Pilot house
 

 
Here I'm laying out pieces for the pilot house. Like the cabins, this uses pre-scribed wood, though I'm cutting & staining the window & door frames individually. I didn't have anything that small on hand, so split each piece manually from wider strips, using a hobby knife.
 

 
Here you see the pilot house partially assembled. You'll notice that I made the windows with two layers of wood, technically not accurate since a real window would have the panes and frames all in one plane. I decided that I didn't have the skill to make perfect square small-paned windows like these in 1:87, so went with the two-layer approach as a reasonable approximation. One reason I stained the windows dark, is to help hide their 2-D nature. The resulting shadow keeps the eye from seeing that, compared to if they were all white. And I think it looks nice. When you step back more than 6", it's hard to see the difference.
 

 
Here's the pilot house installed, with a beginning to the clerestory roof. I carved a series of roof braces with a gentle curve to support this area, instead of bothering with full rafters, as this can't be seen from any angle. Much easier. Then I just planked in both roof areas as I'd done the hurricane deck, using the same pre-coloring technique with pastels. If you look real close, you can see the wheel, which I made by cutting a hoop from the styrene tube soon to be used for the chimneys, and gluing thin styrene rods radially. I thought I took pictures of this process, but can't find them now. Oops.
 
Chimneys
 

 
Though the model railroader in me wants to call these smokestacks, apparently the steamboat world generally called them chimneys. In any case, these were built from two diameters of styrene tubing, one of which slides neatly into the other. I cut a series of hoops from the thicker diameter, and drilled holes in styrene sheet to create a kind of cover plate for where the chimneys cross the hurricane deck.
 
Middle photo shows the assembled chimneys. The thicker, lower section simulates the heat shields such chimneys used to protect passengers on the boiler deck from the hot chimney pipes. The various hoops simulate thicker iron bands on the chimneys, placed approximately where various plans and period illustrations suggest they should be. As styrene is too smooth and shiny to really simulate rough iron to my eye, I used a past trick of mine and wrapped the chimneys in layers of strong masking tape, making each seem a quarter turn from the layer below. These seams simulate the chimneys' construction from tubes of iron, and produce a nice rough texture. 
 
On the right, you see the painted and installed chimneys, weathered with rust-colored pastels. I think they look convincingly like frontier iron work.
 
Stairs
 

 
Three sets of stairs are needed to reach the pilot house from the boiler deck; one from boiler deck to hurricane deck (right), one from hurricane deck to clerestory roof (not shown), and one from clerestory to pilot house (left). I built these in the same manner as the main staircase from main deck to boiler deck, described before in this build. In the background, you see some hog chains, which I'll discuss soon.
 
Boiler deck railing
 

 
Probably the most fiddly part of this build. I'm not entirely happy with how these came out, but they look fine from more than a foot away. I started by building the internal railing that keep passengers from falling down the main stairwell (left). Then I glued a long, painted strip wrapped around all the stanchions on the boiler deck, as the upper rail (center). Then I hand-cut a whole whoppin'  mess of little railing posts to line the railing with, and carefully levered each one into place with tweezers and a dab of glue. Once again, step back a foot and it looks great. Up close, it looks like the work of someone still developing his fine-woodworking skills.
 
(Almost) completed steamboat
 


 
And here she is, very close to done. This is the best view of the hog chain system, the longitudinal iron trusses that keep the bow and stern from sagging in a ong, thin boat with no keel and lots of stern-weight. These I simulated with fine rigging thread painted black, run through holes drilled in the decks and stretched tight. They should have turnbuckles on them for tensioning, which I haven't decided how to simulate yet.
 
All that remains is the "rigging", which in this case means a few support cables for the chimneys, and the various cables and tackles for the grasshopper spars, which I'll discuss when they're done. There are a few other details, such as hoists and tackles for two launches, and splitting some 1:87 firewood for the main deck. But she's close.
 
One question for you all: how would you go about lettering the name, which should go in large black letters on the engine-room wall just forward of the wheel? I've never done lettering before.
 
Hopefully within two weeks I'll post the absolutely completed Bertrand. In the meantime, just two days late, here's Dave Hum playing the Eighth of January, an old tune named for the British defeat at New Orleans that closed the War of 1812, just over 201 years ago:
 

Lots of progress lately. By the end of this post, Bertrand will be ready for the final bits of rigging and details. The end is in sight! Here we go:
 
Pilot house
 

 
Here I'm laying out pieces for the pilot house. Like the cabins, this uses pre-scribed wood, though I'm cutting & staining the window & door frames individually. I didn't have anything that small on hand, so split each piece manually from wider strips, using a hobby knife.
 

 
Here you see the pilot house partially assembled. You'll notice that I made the windows with two layers of wood, technically not accurate since a real window would have the panes and frames all in one plane. I decided that I didn't have the skill to make perfect square small-paned windows like these in 1:87, so went with the two-layer approach as a reasonable approximation. One reason I stained the windows dark, is to help hide their 2-D nature. The resulting shadow keeps the eye from seeing that, compared to if they were all white. And I think it looks nice. When you step back more than 6", it's hard to see the difference.
 

 
Here's the pilot house installed, with a beginning to the clerestory roof. I carved a series of roof braces with a gentle curve to support this area, instead of bothering with full rafters, as this can't be seen from any angle. Much easier. Then I just planked in both roof areas as I'd done the hurricane deck, using the same pre-coloring technique with pastels. If you look real close, you can see the wheel, which I made by cutting a hoop from the styrene tube soon to be used for the chimneys, and gluing thin styrene rods radially. I thought I took pictures of this process, but can't find them now. Oops.
 
Chimneys
 

 
Though the model railroader in me wants to call these smokestacks, apparently the steamboat world generally called them chimneys. In any case, these were built from two diameters of styrene tubing, one of which slides neatly into the other. I cut a series of hoops from the thicker diameter, and drilled holes in styrene sheet to create a kind of cover plate for where the chimneys cross the hurricane deck.
 
Middle photo shows the assembled chimneys. The thicker, lower section simulates the heat shields such chimneys used to protect passengers on the boiler deck from the hot chimney pipes. The various hoops simulate thicker iron bands on the chimneys, placed approximately where various plans and period illustrations suggest they should be. As styrene is too smooth and shiny to really simulate rough iron to my eye, I used a past trick of mine and wrapped the chimneys in layers of strong masking tape, making each seem a quarter turn from the layer below. These seams simulate the chimneys' construction from tubes of iron, and produce a nice rough texture. 
 
On the right, you see the painted and installed chimneys, weathered with rust-colored pastels. I think they look convincingly like frontier iron work.
 
Stairs
 

 
Three sets of stairs are needed to reach the pilot house from the boiler deck; one from boiler deck to hurricane deck (right), one from hurricane deck to clerestory roof (not shown), and one from clerestory to pilot house (left). I built these in the same manner as the main staircase from main deck to boiler deck, described before in this build. In the background, you see some hog chains, which I'll discuss soon.
 
Boiler deck railing
 

 
Probably the most fiddly part of this build. I'm not entirely happy with how these came out, but they look fine from more than a foot away. I started by building the internal railing that keep passengers from falling down the main stairwell (left). Then I glued a long, painted strip wrapped around all the stanchions on the boiler deck, as the upper rail (center). Then I hand-cut a whole whoppin'  mess of little railing posts to line the railing with, and carefully levered each one into place with tweezers and a dab of glue. Once again, step back a foot and it looks great. Up close, it looks like the work of someone still developing his fine-woodworking skills.
 
(Almost) completed steamboat
 


 
And here she is, very close to done. This is the best view of the hog chain system, the longitudinal iron trusses that keep the bow and stern from sagging in a ong, thin boat with no keel and lots of stern-weight. These I simulated with fine rigging thread painted black, run through holes drilled in the decks and stretched tight. They should have turnbuckles on them for tensioning, which I haven't decided how to simulate yet.
 
All that remains is the "rigging", which in this case means a few support cables for the chimneys, and the various cables and tackles for the grasshopper spars, which I'll discuss when they're done. There are a few other details, such as hoists and tackles for two launches, and splitting some 1:87 firewood for the main deck. But she's close.
 
One question for you all: how would you go about lettering the name, which should go in large black letters on the engine-room wall just forward of the wheel? I've never done lettering before.
 
Hopefully within two weeks I'll post the absolutely completed Bertrand. In the meantime, just two days late, here's Dave Hum playing the Eighth of January, an old tune named for the British defeat at New Orleans that closed the War of 1812, just over 201 years ago:
 

So, first of all, ALL wheels weren't red, I've read of some boats with white or green or other color wheels. But red clearly was a common standard. I'd say it relates to the availability of cheap red paint during that era. In my understanding, before modern paint chemistry, paint/preservative was based on linseed oil, with something added for pigment. Iron oxide was a very common and cheap substance you could use, which gave the paint a dark reddish-brown tint (surprise!). This is why red became a standard color for barns in Europe and the US. So I assume many steamboat builders used it for the same reasons. I believe that the bright fire-engine red we see on modern steamboats is inaccurate, as the early paints couldn't achieve that brilliance, but would have been duller and rustier. That's one reason I chose to use muted colors on the Bertrand, as opposed to the bright red I see on some models.
 
As for why the wheel alone was red, and not the hull and superstructure, I'd guess that whitewash or whatever else they used was even cheaper. Given that appearance was a big factor in the intensely competitive riverboat market, the wheel color may have been because they wanted it to stand out, or because someone realized that a white wheel would look awful all caked in mud and gunk as it revolved up from the river. The underside of the white hull would have been nasty, too, but few would ever see it unless the boat capsized, and which point your marketability just went down the tubes, anyway. A nice dark red color would have hidden the gunk nicely, like brown kitchen tile. I suspect this is also why many boats had their stern paneling (facing the wheel) painted red as well, hiding the gunk thrown onto it by the wheel, as well as worse coming down from the outhouses above.
 
If anyone else can correct or add to the above, please do!

CH, well done iron chimneys. Good technique wrapping the tape around the styrene tubes. Bertrand looks excellent!
 
Have you looked at Grandt Line or Tichy for turnbuckles? The HO ones are tiny, but they do make S (1/64) and O (1/48) scales, too. Or scratch them from thin tubing.

Bluejackett has some nice turnbuckles in several small sizes. They used them on their Portland Model I built.
 
Somewhere along the line I missed the overall dimensions of your model. Especially the diameter of the paddle wheel. I have just started the Mantua Mississippi Riverboat and some of the dimensions look wrong when I compare it the "Chaparon" that I built. for example the Wheel scales to 28ft. 

Lots of progress lately. By the end of this post, Bertrand will be ready for the final bits of rigging and details. The end is in sight! Here we go:
 
Pilot house
 

 
Here I'm laying out pieces for the pilot house. Like the cabins, this uses pre-scribed wood, though I'm cutting & staining the window & door frames individually. I didn't have anything that small on hand, so split each piece manually from wider strips, using a hobby knife.
 

 
Here you see the pilot house partially assembled. You'll notice that I made the windows with two layers of wood, technically not accurate since a real window would have the panes and frames all in one plane. I decided that I didn't have the skill to make perfect square small-paned windows like these in 1:87, so went with the two-layer approach as a reasonable approximation. One reason I stained the windows dark, is to help hide their 2-D nature. The resulting shadow keeps the eye from seeing that, compared to if they were all white. And I think it looks nice. When you step back more than 6", it's hard to see the difference.
 

 
Here's the pilot house installed, with a beginning to the clerestory roof. I carved a series of roof braces with a gentle curve to support this area, instead of bothering with full rafters, as this can't be seen from any angle. Much easier. Then I just planked in both roof areas as I'd done the hurricane deck, using the same pre-coloring technique with pastels. If you look real close, you can see the wheel, which I made by cutting a hoop from the styrene tube soon to be used for the chimneys, and gluing thin styrene rods radially. I thought I took pictures of this process, but can't find them now. Oops.
 
Chimneys
 

 
Though the model railroader in me wants to call these smokestacks, apparently the steamboat world generally called them chimneys. In any case, these were built from two diameters of styrene tubing, one of which slides neatly into the other. I cut a series of hoops from the thicker diameter, and drilled holes in styrene sheet to create a kind of cover plate for where the chimneys cross the hurricane deck.
 
Middle photo shows the assembled chimneys. The thicker, lower section simulates the heat shields such chimneys used to protect passengers on the boiler deck from the hot chimney pipes. The various hoops simulate thicker iron bands on the chimneys, placed approximately where various plans and period illustrations suggest they should be. As styrene is too smooth and shiny to really simulate rough iron to my eye, I used a past trick of mine and wrapped the chimneys in layers of strong masking tape, making each seem a quarter turn from the layer below. These seams simulate the chimneys' construction from tubes of iron, and produce a nice rough texture. 
 
On the right, you see the painted and installed chimneys, weathered with rust-colored pastels. I think they look convincingly like frontier iron work.
 
Stairs
 

 
Three sets of stairs are needed to reach the pilot house from the boiler deck; one from boiler deck to hurricane deck (right), one from hurricane deck to clerestory roof (not shown), and one from clerestory to pilot house (left). I built these in the same manner as the main staircase from main deck to boiler deck, described before in this build. In the background, you see some hog chains, which I'll discuss soon.
 
Boiler deck railing
 

 
Probably the most fiddly part of this build. I'm not entirely happy with how these came out, but they look fine from more than a foot away. I started by building the internal railing that keep passengers from falling down the main stairwell (left). Then I glued a long, painted strip wrapped around all the stanchions on the boiler deck, as the upper rail (center). Then I hand-cut a whole whoppin'  mess of little railing posts to line the railing with, and carefully levered each one into place with tweezers and a dab of glue. Once again, step back a foot and it looks great. Up close, it looks like the work of someone still developing his fine-woodworking skills.
 
(Almost) completed steamboat
 


 
And here she is, very close to done. This is the best view of the hog chain system, the longitudinal iron trusses that keep the bow and stern from sagging in a ong, thin boat with no keel and lots of stern-weight. These I simulated with fine rigging thread painted black, run through holes drilled in the decks and stretched tight. They should have turnbuckles on them for tensioning, which I haven't decided how to simulate yet.
 
All that remains is the "rigging", which in this case means a few support cables for the chimneys, and the various cables and tackles for the grasshopper spars, which I'll discuss when they're done. There are a few other details, such as hoists and tackles for two launches, and splitting some 1:87 firewood for the main deck. But she's close.
 
One question for you all: how would you go about lettering the name, which should go in large black letters on the engine-room wall just forward of the wheel? I've never done lettering before.
 
Hopefully within two weeks I'll post the absolutely completed Bertrand. In the meantime, just two days late, here's Dave Hum playing the Eighth of January, an old tune named for the British defeat at New Orleans that closed the War of 1812, just over 201 years ago:
 

Lots of progress lately. By the end of this post, Bertrand will be ready for the final bits of rigging and details. The end is in sight! Here we go:
 
Pilot house
 

 
Here I'm laying out pieces for the pilot house. Like the cabins, this uses pre-scribed wood, though I'm cutting & staining the window & door frames individually. I didn't have anything that small on hand, so split each piece manually from wider strips, using a hobby knife.
 

 
Here you see the pilot house partially assembled. You'll notice that I made the windows with two layers of wood, technically not accurate since a real window would have the panes and frames all in one plane. I decided that I didn't have the skill to make perfect square small-paned windows like these in 1:87, so went with the two-layer approach as a reasonable approximation. One reason I stained the windows dark, is to help hide their 2-D nature. The resulting shadow keeps the eye from seeing that, compared to if they were all white. And I think it looks nice. When you step back more than 6", it's hard to see the difference.
 

 
Here's the pilot house installed, with a beginning to the clerestory roof. I carved a series of roof braces with a gentle curve to support this area, instead of bothering with full rafters, as this can't be seen from any angle. Much easier. Then I just planked in both roof areas as I'd done the hurricane deck, using the same pre-coloring technique with pastels. If you look real close, you can see the wheel, which I made by cutting a hoop from the styrene tube soon to be used for the chimneys, and gluing thin styrene rods radially. I thought I took pictures of this process, but can't find them now. Oops.
 
Chimneys
 

 
Though the model railroader in me wants to call these smokestacks, apparently the steamboat world generally called them chimneys. In any case, these were built from two diameters of styrene tubing, one of which slides neatly into the other. I cut a series of hoops from the thicker diameter, and drilled holes in styrene sheet to create a kind of cover plate for where the chimneys cross the hurricane deck.
 
Middle photo shows the assembled chimneys. The thicker, lower section simulates the heat shields such chimneys used to protect passengers on the boiler deck from the hot chimney pipes. The various hoops simulate thicker iron bands on the chimneys, placed approximately where various plans and period illustrations suggest they should be. As styrene is too smooth and shiny to really simulate rough iron to my eye, I used a past trick of mine and wrapped the chimneys in layers of strong masking tape, making each seem a quarter turn from the layer below. These seams simulate the chimneys' construction from tubes of iron, and produce a nice rough texture. 
 
On the right, you see the painted and installed chimneys, weathered with rust-colored pastels. I think they look convincingly like frontier iron work.
 
Stairs
 

 
Three sets of stairs are needed to reach the pilot house from the boiler deck; one from boiler deck to hurricane deck (right), one from hurricane deck to clerestory roof (not shown), and one from clerestory to pilot house (left). I built these in the same manner as the main staircase from main deck to boiler deck, described before in this build. In the background, you see some hog chains, which I'll discuss soon.
 
Boiler deck railing
 

 
Probably the most fiddly part of this build. I'm not entirely happy with how these came out, but they look fine from more than a foot away. I started by building the internal railing that keep passengers from falling down the main stairwell (left). Then I glued a long, painted strip wrapped around all the stanchions on the boiler deck, as the upper rail (center). Then I hand-cut a whole whoppin'  mess of little railing posts to line the railing with, and carefully levered each one into place with tweezers and a dab of glue. Once again, step back a foot and it looks great. Up close, it looks like the work of someone still developing his fine-woodworking skills.
 
(Almost) completed steamboat
 


 
And here she is, very close to done. This is the best view of the hog chain system, the longitudinal iron trusses that keep the bow and stern from sagging in a ong, thin boat with no keel and lots of stern-weight. These I simulated with fine rigging thread painted black, run through holes drilled in the decks and stretched tight. They should have turnbuckles on them for tensioning, which I haven't decided how to simulate yet.
 
All that remains is the "rigging", which in this case means a few support cables for the chimneys, and the various cables and tackles for the grasshopper spars, which I'll discuss when they're done. There are a few other details, such as hoists and tackles for two launches, and splitting some 1:87 firewood for the main deck. But she's close.
 
One question for you all: how would you go about lettering the name, which should go in large black letters on the engine-room wall just forward of the wheel? I've never done lettering before.
 
Hopefully within two weeks I'll post the absolutely completed Bertrand. In the meantime, just two days late, here's Dave Hum playing the Eighth of January, an old tune named for the British defeat at New Orleans that closed the War of 1812, just over 201 years ago:
 

Paul, go straight at it with carpentry clamps:
 

 
This issue scared me, too, until various nice folks on my log assured me that it was a common quirk and quite fixable. So I just tackled it head on and hoped for the best. I found that when the thwarts are glued in, they're enough to hold the hull in place without spreading, which made installing the gunwales easy as the hull was now stable and the proper shape.

No, although that could be a nice detail to experiment with. Instead, it means I used a chisel to gently smooth some of the rougher joints. From my log, just above the section you quoted:
 
 In other words, I used a chisel as a plane, to gently plane down any rough spots or plank edges sticking up at a seam, moving the chisel blade parallel to the seams. This could be done with lots of sanding, but the chisel/plane goes much faster and produces a nice smooth surface. You can see a few of these rough spots in the original photo I posted here, especially between the planks below the stealer (toward the top of the boat), where their edges don't quite meet properly and leave a ridge.
 
From this build, I learned that wood filler absolves many sins!

Lots of progress lately. By the end of this post, Bertrand will be ready for the final bits of rigging and details. The end is in sight! Here we go:
 
Pilot house
 

 
Here I'm laying out pieces for the pilot house. Like the cabins, this uses pre-scribed wood, though I'm cutting & staining the window & door frames individually. I didn't have anything that small on hand, so split each piece manually from wider strips, using a hobby knife.
 

 
Here you see the pilot house partially assembled. You'll notice that I made the windows with two layers of wood, technically not accurate since a real window would have the panes and frames all in one plane. I decided that I didn't have the skill to make perfect square small-paned windows like these in 1:87, so went with the two-layer approach as a reasonable approximation. One reason I stained the windows dark, is to help hide their 2-D nature. The resulting shadow keeps the eye from seeing that, compared to if they were all white. And I think it looks nice. When you step back more than 6", it's hard to see the difference.
 

 
Here's the pilot house installed, with a beginning to the clerestory roof. I carved a series of roof braces with a gentle curve to support this area, instead of bothering with full rafters, as this can't be seen from any angle. Much easier. Then I just planked in both roof areas as I'd done the hurricane deck, using the same pre-coloring technique with pastels. If you look real close, you can see the wheel, which I made by cutting a hoop from the styrene tube soon to be used for the chimneys, and gluing thin styrene rods radially. I thought I took pictures of this process, but can't find them now. Oops.
 
Chimneys
 

 
Though the model railroader in me wants to call these smokestacks, apparently the steamboat world generally called them chimneys. In any case, these were built from two diameters of styrene tubing, one of which slides neatly into the other. I cut a series of hoops from the thicker diameter, and drilled holes in styrene sheet to create a kind of cover plate for where the chimneys cross the hurricane deck.
 
Middle photo shows the assembled chimneys. The thicker, lower section simulates the heat shields such chimneys used to protect passengers on the boiler deck from the hot chimney pipes. The various hoops simulate thicker iron bands on the chimneys, placed approximately where various plans and period illustrations suggest they should be. As styrene is too smooth and shiny to really simulate rough iron to my eye, I used a past trick of mine and wrapped the chimneys in layers of strong masking tape, making each seem a quarter turn from the layer below. These seams simulate the chimneys' construction from tubes of iron, and produce a nice rough texture. 
 
On the right, you see the painted and installed chimneys, weathered with rust-colored pastels. I think they look convincingly like frontier iron work.
 
Stairs
 

 
Three sets of stairs are needed to reach the pilot house from the boiler deck; one from boiler deck to hurricane deck (right), one from hurricane deck to clerestory roof (not shown), and one from clerestory to pilot house (left). I built these in the same manner as the main staircase from main deck to boiler deck, described before in this build. In the background, you see some hog chains, which I'll discuss soon.
 
Boiler deck railing
 

 
Probably the most fiddly part of this build. I'm not entirely happy with how these came out, but they look fine from more than a foot away. I started by building the internal railing that keep passengers from falling down the main stairwell (left). Then I glued a long, painted strip wrapped around all the stanchions on the boiler deck, as the upper rail (center). Then I hand-cut a whole whoppin'  mess of little railing posts to line the railing with, and carefully levered each one into place with tweezers and a dab of glue. Once again, step back a foot and it looks great. Up close, it looks like the work of someone still developing his fine-woodworking skills.
 
(Almost) completed steamboat
 


 
And here she is, very close to done. This is the best view of the hog chain system, the longitudinal iron trusses that keep the bow and stern from sagging in a ong, thin boat with no keel and lots of stern-weight. These I simulated with fine rigging thread painted black, run through holes drilled in the decks and stretched tight. They should have turnbuckles on them for tensioning, which I haven't decided how to simulate yet.
 
All that remains is the "rigging", which in this case means a few support cables for the chimneys, and the various cables and tackles for the grasshopper spars, which I'll discuss when they're done. There are a few other details, such as hoists and tackles for two launches, and splitting some 1:87 firewood for the main deck. But she's close.
 
One question for you all: how would you go about lettering the name, which should go in large black letters on the engine-room wall just forward of the wheel? I've never done lettering before.
 
Hopefully within two weeks I'll post the absolutely completed Bertrand. In the meantime, just two days late, here's Dave Hum playing the Eighth of January, an old tune named for the British defeat at New Orleans that closed the War of 1812, just over 201 years ago:
 

Posted this on your build log, but figured I'd share it here too if anyone else wonders the same question: 
 
Based on my experience, go straight at it with carpentry clamps:
 

 
This issue scared me, too, until various nice folks on my log assured me that it was a common quirk and quite fixable. So I just tackled it head on and hoped for the best. I found that when the thwarts are glued in, they're enough to hold the hull in place without spreading, which made installing the gunwales easy as the hull was now stable and the proper shape.

I agree, with my kit I just compressed the hull back to the original/intended with and glued in the thwarts and such. Didn't cause any issue.

Lots of progress lately. By the end of this post, Bertrand will be ready for the final bits of rigging and details. The end is in sight! Here we go:
 
Pilot house
 

 
Here I'm laying out pieces for the pilot house. Like the cabins, this uses pre-scribed wood, though I'm cutting & staining the window & door frames individually. I didn't have anything that small on hand, so split each piece manually from wider strips, using a hobby knife.
 

 
Here you see the pilot house partially assembled. You'll notice that I made the windows with two layers of wood, technically not accurate since a real window would have the panes and frames all in one plane. I decided that I didn't have the skill to make perfect square small-paned windows like these in 1:87, so went with the two-layer approach as a reasonable approximation. One reason I stained the windows dark, is to help hide their 2-D nature. The resulting shadow keeps the eye from seeing that, compared to if they were all white. And I think it looks nice. When you step back more than 6", it's hard to see the difference.
 

 
Here's the pilot house installed, with a beginning to the clerestory roof. I carved a series of roof braces with a gentle curve to support this area, instead of bothering with full rafters, as this can't be seen from any angle. Much easier. Then I just planked in both roof areas as I'd done the hurricane deck, using the same pre-coloring technique with pastels. If you look real close, you can see the wheel, which I made by cutting a hoop from the styrene tube soon to be used for the chimneys, and gluing thin styrene rods radially. I thought I took pictures of this process, but can't find them now. Oops.
 
Chimneys
 

 
Though the model railroader in me wants to call these smokestacks, apparently the steamboat world generally called them chimneys. In any case, these were built from two diameters of styrene tubing, one of which slides neatly into the other. I cut a series of hoops from the thicker diameter, and drilled holes in styrene sheet to create a kind of cover plate for where the chimneys cross the hurricane deck.
 
Middle photo shows the assembled chimneys. The thicker, lower section simulates the heat shields such chimneys used to protect passengers on the boiler deck from the hot chimney pipes. The various hoops simulate thicker iron bands on the chimneys, placed approximately where various plans and period illustrations suggest they should be. As styrene is too smooth and shiny to really simulate rough iron to my eye, I used a past trick of mine and wrapped the chimneys in layers of strong masking tape, making each seem a quarter turn from the layer below. These seams simulate the chimneys' construction from tubes of iron, and produce a nice rough texture. 
 
On the right, you see the painted and installed chimneys, weathered with rust-colored pastels. I think they look convincingly like frontier iron work.
 
Stairs
 

 
Three sets of stairs are needed to reach the pilot house from the boiler deck; one from boiler deck to hurricane deck (right), one from hurricane deck to clerestory roof (not shown), and one from clerestory to pilot house (left). I built these in the same manner as the main staircase from main deck to boiler deck, described before in this build. In the background, you see some hog chains, which I'll discuss soon.
 
Boiler deck railing
 

 
Probably the most fiddly part of this build. I'm not entirely happy with how these came out, but they look fine from more than a foot away. I started by building the internal railing that keep passengers from falling down the main stairwell (left). Then I glued a long, painted strip wrapped around all the stanchions on the boiler deck, as the upper rail (center). Then I hand-cut a whole whoppin'  mess of little railing posts to line the railing with, and carefully levered each one into place with tweezers and a dab of glue. Once again, step back a foot and it looks great. Up close, it looks like the work of someone still developing his fine-woodworking skills.
 
(Almost) completed steamboat
 


 
And here she is, very close to done. This is the best view of the hog chain system, the longitudinal iron trusses that keep the bow and stern from sagging in a ong, thin boat with no keel and lots of stern-weight. These I simulated with fine rigging thread painted black, run through holes drilled in the decks and stretched tight. They should have turnbuckles on them for tensioning, which I haven't decided how to simulate yet.
 
All that remains is the "rigging", which in this case means a few support cables for the chimneys, and the various cables and tackles for the grasshopper spars, which I'll discuss when they're done. There are a few other details, such as hoists and tackles for two launches, and splitting some 1:87 firewood for the main deck. But she's close.
 
One question for you all: how would you go about lettering the name, which should go in large black letters on the engine-room wall just forward of the wheel? I've never done lettering before.
 
Hopefully within two weeks I'll post the absolutely completed Bertrand. In the meantime, just two days late, here's Dave Hum playing the Eighth of January, an old tune named for the British defeat at New Orleans that closed the War of 1812, just over 201 years ago:
 

Lots of progress lately. By the end of this post, Bertrand will be ready for the final bits of rigging and details. The end is in sight! Here we go:
 
Pilot house
 

 
Here I'm laying out pieces for the pilot house. Like the cabins, this uses pre-scribed wood, though I'm cutting & staining the window & door frames individually. I didn't have anything that small on hand, so split each piece manually from wider strips, using a hobby knife.
 

 
Here you see the pilot house partially assembled. You'll notice that I made the windows with two layers of wood, technically not accurate since a real window would have the panes and frames all in one plane. I decided that I didn't have the skill to make perfect square small-paned windows like these in 1:87, so went with the two-layer approach as a reasonable approximation. One reason I stained the windows dark, is to help hide their 2-D nature. The resulting shadow keeps the eye from seeing that, compared to if they were all white. And I think it looks nice. When you step back more than 6", it's hard to see the difference.
 

 
Here's the pilot house installed, with a beginning to the clerestory roof. I carved a series of roof braces with a gentle curve to support this area, instead of bothering with full rafters, as this can't be seen from any angle. Much easier. Then I just planked in both roof areas as I'd done the hurricane deck, using the same pre-coloring technique with pastels. If you look real close, you can see the wheel, which I made by cutting a hoop from the styrene tube soon to be used for the chimneys, and gluing thin styrene rods radially. I thought I took pictures of this process, but can't find them now. Oops.
 
Chimneys
 

 
Though the model railroader in me wants to call these smokestacks, apparently the steamboat world generally called them chimneys. In any case, these were built from two diameters of styrene tubing, one of which slides neatly into the other. I cut a series of hoops from the thicker diameter, and drilled holes in styrene sheet to create a kind of cover plate for where the chimneys cross the hurricane deck.
 
Middle photo shows the assembled chimneys. The thicker, lower section simulates the heat shields such chimneys used to protect passengers on the boiler deck from the hot chimney pipes. The various hoops simulate thicker iron bands on the chimneys, placed approximately where various plans and period illustrations suggest they should be. As styrene is too smooth and shiny to really simulate rough iron to my eye, I used a past trick of mine and wrapped the chimneys in layers of strong masking tape, making each seem a quarter turn from the layer below. These seams simulate the chimneys' construction from tubes of iron, and produce a nice rough texture. 
 
On the right, you see the painted and installed chimneys, weathered with rust-colored pastels. I think they look convincingly like frontier iron work.
 
Stairs
 

 
Three sets of stairs are needed to reach the pilot house from the boiler deck; one from boiler deck to hurricane deck (right), one from hurricane deck to clerestory roof (not shown), and one from clerestory to pilot house (left). I built these in the same manner as the main staircase from main deck to boiler deck, described before in this build. In the background, you see some hog chains, which I'll discuss soon.
 
Boiler deck railing
 

 
Probably the most fiddly part of this build. I'm not entirely happy with how these came out, but they look fine from more than a foot away. I started by building the internal railing that keep passengers from falling down the main stairwell (left). Then I glued a long, painted strip wrapped around all the stanchions on the boiler deck, as the upper rail (center). Then I hand-cut a whole whoppin'  mess of little railing posts to line the railing with, and carefully levered each one into place with tweezers and a dab of glue. Once again, step back a foot and it looks great. Up close, it looks like the work of someone still developing his fine-woodworking skills.
 
(Almost) completed steamboat
 


 
And here she is, very close to done. This is the best view of the hog chain system, the longitudinal iron trusses that keep the bow and stern from sagging in a ong, thin boat with no keel and lots of stern-weight. These I simulated with fine rigging thread painted black, run through holes drilled in the decks and stretched tight. They should have turnbuckles on them for tensioning, which I haven't decided how to simulate yet.
 
All that remains is the "rigging", which in this case means a few support cables for the chimneys, and the various cables and tackles for the grasshopper spars, which I'll discuss when they're done. There are a few other details, such as hoists and tackles for two launches, and splitting some 1:87 firewood for the main deck. But she's close.
 
One question for you all: how would you go about lettering the name, which should go in large black letters on the engine-room wall just forward of the wheel? I've never done lettering before.
 
Hopefully within two weeks I'll post the absolutely completed Bertrand. In the meantime, just two days late, here's Dave Hum playing the Eighth of January, an old tune named for the British defeat at New Orleans that closed the War of 1812, just over 201 years ago:
 

Nice work, CH !!
 
For the lettering, may I suggest either scribing the letters with a sharp carving chisel, and then painting the now-recessed characters.
OR you could try Nenad's patented "dot-matrix printer" ... as used mostly successfully by myself to label the flour sacks in my Launch build.

Lots of progress lately. By the end of this post, Bertrand will be ready for the final bits of rigging and details. The end is in sight! Here we go:
 
Pilot house
 

 
Here I'm laying out pieces for the pilot house. Like the cabins, this uses pre-scribed wood, though I'm cutting & staining the window & door frames individually. I didn't have anything that small on hand, so split each piece manually from wider strips, using a hobby knife.
 

 
Here you see the pilot house partially assembled. You'll notice that I made the windows with two layers of wood, technically not accurate since a real window would have the panes and frames all in one plane. I decided that I didn't have the skill to make perfect square small-paned windows like these in 1:87, so went with the two-layer approach as a reasonable approximation. One reason I stained the windows dark, is to help hide their 2-D nature. The resulting shadow keeps the eye from seeing that, compared to if they were all white. And I think it looks nice. When you step back more than 6", it's hard to see the difference.
 

 
Here's the pilot house installed, with a beginning to the clerestory roof. I carved a series of roof braces with a gentle curve to support this area, instead of bothering with full rafters, as this can't be seen from any angle. Much easier. Then I just planked in both roof areas as I'd done the hurricane deck, using the same pre-coloring technique with pastels. If you look real close, you can see the wheel, which I made by cutting a hoop from the styrene tube soon to be used for the chimneys, and gluing thin styrene rods radially. I thought I took pictures of this process, but can't find them now. Oops.
 
Chimneys
 

 
Though the model railroader in me wants to call these smokestacks, apparently the steamboat world generally called them chimneys. In any case, these were built from two diameters of styrene tubing, one of which slides neatly into the other. I cut a series of hoops from the thicker diameter, and drilled holes in styrene sheet to create a kind of cover plate for where the chimneys cross the hurricane deck.
 
Middle photo shows the assembled chimneys. The thicker, lower section simulates the heat shields such chimneys used to protect passengers on the boiler deck from the hot chimney pipes. The various hoops simulate thicker iron bands on the chimneys, placed approximately where various plans and period illustrations suggest they should be. As styrene is too smooth and shiny to really simulate rough iron to my eye, I used a past trick of mine and wrapped the chimneys in layers of strong masking tape, making each seem a quarter turn from the layer below. These seams simulate the chimneys' construction from tubes of iron, and produce a nice rough texture. 
 
On the right, you see the painted and installed chimneys, weathered with rust-colored pastels. I think they look convincingly like frontier iron work.
 
Stairs
 

 
Three sets of stairs are needed to reach the pilot house from the boiler deck; one from boiler deck to hurricane deck (right), one from hurricane deck to clerestory roof (not shown), and one from clerestory to pilot house (left). I built these in the same manner as the main staircase from main deck to boiler deck, described before in this build. In the background, you see some hog chains, which I'll discuss soon.
 
Boiler deck railing
 

 
Probably the most fiddly part of this build. I'm not entirely happy with how these came out, but they look fine from more than a foot away. I started by building the internal railing that keep passengers from falling down the main stairwell (left). Then I glued a long, painted strip wrapped around all the stanchions on the boiler deck, as the upper rail (center). Then I hand-cut a whole whoppin'  mess of little railing posts to line the railing with, and carefully levered each one into place with tweezers and a dab of glue. Once again, step back a foot and it looks great. Up close, it looks like the work of someone still developing his fine-woodworking skills.
 
(Almost) completed steamboat
 


 
And here she is, very close to done. This is the best view of the hog chain system, the longitudinal iron trusses that keep the bow and stern from sagging in a ong, thin boat with no keel and lots of stern-weight. These I simulated with fine rigging thread painted black, run through holes drilled in the decks and stretched tight. They should have turnbuckles on them for tensioning, which I haven't decided how to simulate yet.
 
All that remains is the "rigging", which in this case means a few support cables for the chimneys, and the various cables and tackles for the grasshopper spars, which I'll discuss when they're done. There are a few other details, such as hoists and tackles for two launches, and splitting some 1:87 firewood for the main deck. But she's close.
 
One question for you all: how would you go about lettering the name, which should go in large black letters on the engine-room wall just forward of the wheel? I've never done lettering before.
 
Hopefully within two weeks I'll post the absolutely completed Bertrand. In the meantime, just two days late, here's Dave Hum playing the Eighth of January, an old tune named for the British defeat at New Orleans that closed the War of 1812, just over 201 years ago:
 

Posted this on your build log, but figured I'd share it here too if anyone else wonders the same question: 
 
Based on my experience, go straight at it with carpentry clamps:
 

 
This issue scared me, too, until various nice folks on my log assured me that it was a common quirk and quite fixable. So I just tackled it head on and hoped for the best. I found that when the thwarts are glued in, they're enough to hold the hull in place without spreading, which made installing the gunwales easy as the hull was now stable and the proper shape.

Posted this on your build log, but figured I'd share it here too if anyone else wonders the same question: 
 
Based on my experience, go straight at it with carpentry clamps:
 

 
This issue scared me, too, until various nice folks on my log assured me that it was a common quirk and quite fixable. So I just tackled it head on and hoped for the best. I found that when the thwarts are glued in, they're enough to hold the hull in place without spreading, which made installing the gunwales easy as the hull was now stable and the proper shape.

Paul, go straight at it with carpentry clamps:
 

 
This issue scared me, too, until various nice folks on my log assured me that it was a common quirk and quite fixable. So I just tackled it head on and hoped for the best. I found that when the thwarts are glued in, they're enough to hold the hull in place without spreading, which made installing the gunwales easy as the hull was now stable and the proper shape.

I agree, with my kit I just compressed the hull back to the original/intended with and glued in the thwarts and such. Didn't cause any issue.

I love the crisp, professional style of both wood and metal work in this build. 
 
Question: How were the hull and deck planks attached, and do you plan to simulate that in any way?
 
As for the uneven planking widths, you see the same thing in drawings of Bertrand. Builders pretty clearly just used whatever they could find and afford.
 
Thanks for the update, I've been looking forward to your return. Happy New Year!

No, although that could be a nice detail to experiment with. Instead, it means I used a chisel to gently smooth some of the rougher joints. From my log, just above the section you quoted:
 
 In other words, I used a chisel as a plane, to gently plane down any rough spots or plank edges sticking up at a seam, moving the chisel blade parallel to the seams. This could be done with lots of sanding, but the chisel/plane goes much faster and produces a nice smooth surface. You can see a few of these rough spots in the original photo I posted here, especially between the planks below the stealer (toward the top of the boat), where their edges don't quite meet properly and leave a ridge.
 
From this build, I learned that wood filler absolves many sins!

When I built this last year, I ended up with a thin gap at the shutter plank. Rather than remake the plank, I just made a thin stealer to fit, as described in this post and shown in this image: