Cathead

Quick update:
 

 
The boatyard is hosting a special visit from the owner's wife and other important ladies. Pretty hard to climb around all that framing in corsets and hoop skirts.
 
Progress made, all the guards (extensions of the deck beyond the hull) are in place. Really starting to show the boat's final shape now.
 

 
Next up, installing bulkheads along the centerline (on top the keelson), slightly higher than the guards to support the deck's camber. Then deck stringers to complete the hull framing.

I've mooted that idea before in this build, and am still rolling it around in my head. If I had ever intended to cover all of it, I would have just built bulkheads and been MUCH further along by now. The initial concept was, and still is, to leave one side unplanked including hull and superstructure. I had wanted to be able to pose it from one angle and have it look complete and realistic, while from another angle you could see inside.
 
But I keep reconsidering. As this takes shape, the idea keeps flitting around to do something drastic like not plank at all and just build the whole thing as an open framework including all the cabins and such. In that case I would do just enough decking to support necessary machinery. Of course that decisions puts me on the hook to build some really detailed machinery and that scares me a bit.
 
I've also joked to Mrs Cathead about displaying the hull as a under-construction diorama, but I really want to build the superstructure, too, one way or another.
 
Thanks to all of you. This is a really, really fun build and I'm glad there's some interest in it. While you wait for the next addition, here's another good river song, Big Scioty: 
 

 

Quick update:
 

 
The boatyard is hosting a special visit from the owner's wife and other important ladies. Pretty hard to climb around all that framing in corsets and hoop skirts.
 
Progress made, all the guards (extensions of the deck beyond the hull) are in place. Really starting to show the boat's final shape now.
 

 
Next up, installing bulkheads along the centerline (on top the keelson), slightly higher than the guards to support the deck's camber. Then deck stringers to complete the hull framing.

Hi Carhead
 
Fantastic job so far. I especially like the framework. It'd almost be a shame to cover it, but cover it, you must, I'm sure,
 
I'm looking forward to your next update.
 
Cheers
 
Patrick

Quick update:
 

 
The boatyard is hosting a special visit from the owner's wife and other important ladies. Pretty hard to climb around all that framing in corsets and hoop skirts.
 
Progress made, all the guards (extensions of the deck beyond the hull) are in place. Really starting to show the boat's final shape now.
 

 
Next up, installing bulkheads along the centerline (on top the keelson), slightly higher than the guards to support the deck's camber. Then deck stringers to complete the hull framing.

Quick update:
 

 
The boatyard is hosting a special visit from the owner's wife and other important ladies. Pretty hard to climb around all that framing in corsets and hoop skirts.
 
Progress made, all the guards (extensions of the deck beyond the hull) are in place. Really starting to show the boat's final shape now.
 

 
Next up, installing bulkheads along the centerline (on top the keelson), slightly higher than the guards to support the deck's camber. Then deck stringers to complete the hull framing.

Quick update:
 

 
The boatyard is hosting a special visit from the owner's wife and other important ladies. Pretty hard to climb around all that framing in corsets and hoop skirts.
 
Progress made, all the guards (extensions of the deck beyond the hull) are in place. Really starting to show the boat's final shape now.
 

 
Next up, installing bulkheads along the centerline (on top the keelson), slightly higher than the guards to support the deck's camber. Then deck stringers to complete the hull framing.

Quick update:
 

 
The boatyard is hosting a special visit from the owner's wife and other important ladies. Pretty hard to climb around all that framing in corsets and hoop skirts.
 
Progress made, all the guards (extensions of the deck beyond the hull) are in place. Really starting to show the boat's final shape now.
 

 
Next up, installing bulkheads along the centerline (on top the keelson), slightly higher than the guards to support the deck's camber. Then deck stringers to complete the hull framing.

Quick update:
 

 
The boatyard is hosting a special visit from the owner's wife and other important ladies. Pretty hard to climb around all that framing in corsets and hoop skirts.
 
Progress made, all the guards (extensions of the deck beyond the hull) are in place. Really starting to show the boat's final shape now.
 

 
Next up, installing bulkheads along the centerline (on top the keelson), slightly higher than the guards to support the deck's camber. Then deck stringers to complete the hull framing.

Quick update:
 

 
The boatyard is hosting a special visit from the owner's wife and other important ladies. Pretty hard to climb around all that framing in corsets and hoop skirts.
 
Progress made, all the guards (extensions of the deck beyond the hull) are in place. Really starting to show the boat's final shape now.
 

 
Next up, installing bulkheads along the centerline (on top the keelson), slightly higher than the guards to support the deck's camber. Then deck stringers to complete the hull framing.

I have made it through some very tedious work on the Bertrand, getting the hull framing virtually done. Here is how she looks now, though you will have to look closely to see changes from the last photos:
 

 
What has happened since:
Finished framing bow & stern, including inserting lots of little futtock braces into all the bilge corners. A very fiddly task I am glad to be done with. Finished interior bracing with various stringers along sides and bottom of hull. This includes the reinforced keelson, built from multiple layers of wood. Sanded and shaped frames, including the tight turn of the bilge. Will likely need to do a bit more touch-up before planking, once I start testing the lie of planks. Doesn't sound like much, but it was a lot of detail work without major visual progress. All projects have this sort of task. But the hull is now solid and sound. What's really neat is, it's just as flexible and strong as the real thing. You can take it in your hands and flex, bend, and twist it like a snake's skeleton, which is just how the prototype boats needed to be to navigate the sandbars and shoals of the shallow Western rivers. I may have to take a short video of this to share; it's a very different architecture from the rigid hulls of ocean-going vessels.
 
Here are closeups of the bow and stern:
 

 
I haven't yet trimmed the upper ends of the futtocks, so they look very ragged. I won't do so until all the decking beams are in place and I'm sure of the final geometry.
 

 
I closed in the final part of the sterm with a piece of scrap wood on each side, to provide a better surface for planking. This area won't be seen in any angle, so I decided to make it easier on myself.
 
I'm not a master craftsman, and it shows in certain areas. For example, here are two less-than-ideal results along the hull:
 

 
At top, you see the upper internal stringers. The deck beams are supposed to rest on this. But I didn't get it installed perfectly level on both sides, it wavers up and down a wee bit in places. So I filed notches into it where necessary to get the deck beams to sit evenly across the hull. It won't be noticeable in the final product, unless a real craftsman is looking really closely, but I was annoyed to discover my error.
 
At bottom, you see an example of futtocks that didn't come out straight. Trying to clamp all of these perfectly onto the stringers was difficult, and in places I didn't succeed. More annoying sloppiness, but only noticeable close up. Once the model moves back from the eyes, it all blends into the whole. Still, were I to do a hull like this again, I would be more careful somehow. At least, I'd like to think so.
 
What comes next? Before any planking begins, I'd like to install the interior framing and the deck beams. This will strengthen the hull more for planking, and the planking also depends to an extent on where the deck beams are. This is because Bertrand has guards, extensions of the deck that reach beyond the hull, so the guard support beams need to penetrate the planking. I've decided it will be easier to install the deck beams first and plank around them, than plank first and cut a bunch of holes/slots for the guard supports.
 
The decks beams themselves will be a bit fiddly, as the deck has a slight camber that I'd like to recreate. This will mean some very careful installation of internal framing to get the camber right, and produce a deck surface that doesn't look like a wavy fun-house floor or skateboarding rink.
 
Working on this will likely take me a few more weeks before any update comes; this continues to be a very busy time of year in the real world. It's been strawberry season here on the farm, and all that picking does a number on my back, making the idea of bending over a model workbench for fun just a bit less attractive.
 
In other news, the weather lately has been good for wrecking steamboats. Tons of rain in the Missouri River basin, the river rising rapidly, carrying lots of fresh woody debris into the channel. Were this 150 years ago, it'd be a deadly time for boats like the Bertrand. Not to mention, almost impossible to work their way upriver into the flood currents.

I've been working to fix a major goof, which came about through ill-advised efforts to fix a minor goof. Apparently I would make a good politician. Unlike most politicians, my final fix has produced a better result than where I started. Perhaps this makes me unelectable.
 
You may recall that I had begun bending the stern stringers, as Bertrand has a rounded but squared-off stern. I had made individual forms for the stringers, assuming they would retain a reasonably similar shape after bending and I could install them one-by-one. Things looked like this, as in the last update:
 

Subsequently, I glued each stringer carefully in place, aligned with its mate along the inner hull. Unfortunately, I did not realize until all were in place, that their curves really didn't line up well. The stern had a clearly odd warp to it, and any attempt to fix it by attaching cross-braces didn't work.
 
So I conceived the brilliant idea of soaking the whole stern assembly, such that I could bend all these stringers back into place and clamp them in a consistent curve. At this point, I had removed the hull from its taped-down security on the build board. So I boiled a pan of water and propped the hull stern-first into it, with the water at a depth just below the first (last?) hull frame. 
 
This did not work. I had even rebuilt my forms to fit exactly on top of each hull stringers, but to no avail. The stringers did not re-bend well; rather they straightened out 90% of their original curve, while kinking badly when I attempted to re-bend them. Clamping did not work and I was in danger of damaging the hull itself. I played Sailor Scrabble with my vocabulary and took a break for a few days to think the problem over.
 
Here's the drastic but effective solution, which at first glance looks quite like the last one:

Yet in this case, I rebuilt the forms AGAIN to exactly match the pattern of the stringers, and recut the curve on my bandsaw with the whole thing assembled, to ensure the curve was consistent. In the meantime, I delicately cut out all the stern-most stringers back to where they'd been before, to allow grafting the new assembly on. This was painstaking work so as not to damage the lower frames. I made sure, after initial inattention, to stagger the scarf joints so the hull wouldn't have any weak points (I had done the whole hull this way, anyway, and somehow momentarily forgot this obvious point when cutting out the old stringers).
 
I soaked new stringers and bent them onto the frame with copious clamping, as seen above. When dry, I removed clamps from the curve (but not either end), and glued a series of frames along the stringers to ensure the assembly retained its proper geometry when removed from the forms. This was key to my success this time. When I did finally pop the whole thing off, it held its shape beautifully. I then, very carefully, cut all the stringers to match the scarf joints on the hull, and glued the whole thing in place, propping it up with scrap wood to ensure I got the curve and elevation I wanted:


Next I installed the rest of the upper longitudinal stringer (already in place from midships to bow), the first stage in shaping and holding the stern in place. Other supports will come soon. But now I have a proper stern with proper curvature. The price of all this was a few less than perfect joints between the stern and other stringers, as they inevitably didn't dry in exactly the right orientation. I don't think it'll be terribly visible in the finished model, and the overall result is much better.
 
Since the last update, I had also mostly finished framing up the bow. I did this by installing the upper stringer, clamped to the midships futtocks and bent to the proper curve, and glued to a brace on the stempost. Then it was a basic matter of cutting each individual futtock to fit and gluing it from frame to stringer. As far as I know, such boats eschewed curved frames for simplicity of construction:

 
Here's an overhead view of the mostly-completed hull framing, set next to the plans:

 
Next on the to-do list:
 
- Finish installing stringers along bottom and sides of hull.
- Finish installing futtocks at bow & stern.
- Cut & install lots of little angle braces along the turn of the bilge, everywhere I couldn't prefabricate a frame.
- Trim the futtocks to final length.
 
At that point the hull will be strong and easily handled, and I can begin interal framing and/or planking. I'm very relieved to have fixed and improved the stern assembly, and looking forward to handling a completed hull. If only real crises could be solved with knives, profanity, and glue (actually, maybe we've tried the first two enough already).
 

Another option which hasn't been mentioned: try a model with planks that are pre-cut for you. The Model Shipways Bounty Launch worked very well for me in my first attempt at building a planked kit. Having pre-cut planks helps you understand the geometry of planking and you really can't make many mistakes if you're methodical and sensible. Doing this will help you practice bending, shaping, and gluing.
 
Another benefit of the MS kit: if you mess up a plank, you have two easy ways to replace it. One, trace a new one from the laser-cut outline left by the original one. Two, trace a new one from the included plans, which have all the planks drawn on them. Look at the build log in my signature to see how it went for me.
 
I have to consider the MS Bounty Launch pretty close to foolproof as a teaching tool. The only drawback is that it's an open boat, so you see both sides of the planks and can't use filler blocks, but I never felt I needed them, the kit was designed so well.

Another option which hasn't been mentioned: try a model with planks that are pre-cut for you. The Model Shipways Bounty Launch worked very well for me in my first attempt at building a planked kit. Having pre-cut planks helps you understand the geometry of planking and you really can't make many mistakes if you're methodical and sensible. Doing this will help you practice bending, shaping, and gluing.
 
Another benefit of the MS kit: if you mess up a plank, you have two easy ways to replace it. One, trace a new one from the laser-cut outline left by the original one. Two, trace a new one from the included plans, which have all the planks drawn on them. Look at the build log in my signature to see how it went for me.
 
I have to consider the MS Bounty Launch pretty close to foolproof as a teaching tool. The only drawback is that it's an open boat, so you see both sides of the planks and can't use filler blocks, but I never felt I needed them, the kit was designed so well.

Harry, Woodie and Red decided that after a long week, the Nutz and Bawlz deserved a break. Tensions seemed to be rising towards the end of the week so they're being proactive to avoid any conflicts. I can assure everyone, you don't want to be around when the Nutz and Bawlz decide to start wailing on each other!
 
I had every intention of playing Dragon Age Inquisition all day today, however, I ended up finding some drawings of an elm tree pump on Harry's desk. Since I was set up to work on cannons later in the day, I figured what the heck? This'll give me more practice soldering smaller parts.

First off I converted everything to 1:64. I sent Tiny over to the metal heap and had him bring me a bunch of different sizes and shapes. He did a nice job so I decided to start teaching him how to solder. I thought this would help him rise in rank and not be one of the little Bawlz, getting kicked around all the time. It's time for him to become one of the Big Bawlz.
 
While I started cutting parts to size, Tiny got everything set up for soldering. After a couple of hours, he was doing exceptional work. As he finished each task, I would take it and shape it for the next piece. This went on all day until the final piece was fitted and soldered.
Together we carefully sanded and polished every piece...

...and then set out to assemble the parts.

At this point we made sure that all the moving parts functioned. We had to tweak a couple parts and now it's fit to be installed.

I think I'll use Tiny more often now that see how well he works.

Finished the Hull today - a real landmark.
Further work will have to wait.
Closing the shipyard due to numerous responsibilities which have been piling up. Need to wrap up several projects before retiring, and have to prepare for an take a subspecialty exam in Clinical Informatics in October.
Probably will open back up after I take the exam in October, beginning with deadeyes, chainplate, etc.
Here are summary pictures of where things are now.

Thanks, folks. You all have a higher opinion of the framing than I do, but I reckon that's better than the other way around.
 
In the meantime, while you wait for the decking to take shape, here's a nice period tune. Waiting for the Federals, also known as Shelby's Mule, in honor of Confederate Jo Shelby's raid through Missouri about a year before Bertrand began operations on the river.
 
https://youtu.be/Ij4iN79Vm88

Thanks, folks. You all have a higher opinion of the framing than I do, but I reckon that's better than the other way around.
 
In the meantime, while you wait for the decking to take shape, here's a nice period tune. Waiting for the Federals, also known as Shelby's Mule, in honor of Confederate Jo Shelby's raid through Missouri about a year before Bertrand began operations on the river.
 
https://youtu.be/Ij4iN79Vm88

American western river steamboats represent a unique form of shipbuilding. Designed and built on the American frontier during the core of the 19th century, such boats rapidly evolved to fit the specific needs of the great inland river systems that drained inland North America. In this build I will replicate a typical specimen of this design, the steamboat Bertrand, trying to accurately duplicate the features of these fascinating vessels. I hope you’ll follow along, both to enjoy the construction, and to learn about this obscure but fascinating (to me, at least) part of maritime transportation history. These boats are almost, but not entirely, unlike an ocean-going vessel of the same period, in large part due to the demands of their specific riverine habitat. Below, my updated workbench with Bertrand profile on the wall for inspiration.
 

 
The “western” in western river steamboat refers to the landscape between the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains. Over the course of the 19th century, this area went from the mostly unknown wilderness of Lewis & Clark’s 1804 expedition up the Missouri River, to a land mostly settled and integrated into the United States by the dawn of the 20th century. Most of this landscape centers on the Mississippi River basin, including its major tributaries such as the Ohio and Missouri Rivers. This system drains over 1 million square miles (almost 3 million square km), covering parts of 31 American states and 2 Canadian provinces. Almost all the rivers in the system were navigable in the 19th century for most of their lengths, creating a vast trade and transportation network across the continent’s interior long before railroads appeared on the scene, when roads were all but non-existent (map below from National Park Service).
 

 
The Bertand, built in 1864 and sunk in 1865, was a wholly typical and unremarkable western river steamer, except for its rediscovery beneath a US Wildlife Refuge along the Iowa/Nebraska border in 1968. The boat and its cargo were remarkably well-preserved, due to quick burial beneath river sediment by the quickly changing channel of the Missouri River, and the anoxic environment thus produced. The Bertrand’s mint-condition cargo is now on display at a fascinating museum at the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge, which also hosts a detailed large-scale model of the craft (shown below). The archeological excavation of the craft resulted in a plethora of information about period steamboat construction. In pairing with the later, but similar, discovery of the sunken steamboat Arabia along the Kansas/Missouri border and subsequent founding of a similar museum in Kansas City, the two wrecks represent a spectacular repository of historical and maritime knowledge and preservation. Below, the gorgeous large-scale model of Bertrand at DeSoto (FWS photo).
 

 
I live and farm near the Missouri River, and have long been fascinated by the history of its steamboats. My first-ever attempt at wooden ship modeling was a scratchbuilt version of the Far West, perhaps the most famous of its class, a sternwheeler which ascended the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers to extraordinary distances, and carried General Custer’s troops to and from the infamous Battle of Little Big Horn. The Bertrand is a similar craft to the Far West, which was built to ascent the shallow, treacherous river to Montana, while the Arabia was a sidewheeler more typical  of the lower Missouri River below Omaha, Nebraska (and the Ohio and Mississippi). I had initially intended to build the Arabia next, but due to a lack of available plans, and my inability to make it to Kansas City to do research at her eponymous museum, I changed my focus to the Bertrand. Below, my model of the Far West for context:
 

 
I’ve had plans for the Bertrand for several years, having purchased them at the same time as my Far West plans, and consulted them on that project. Now, the goal is a similar boat but at much greater detail: I would like to build the Bertrand frame-by-frame, just as initially constructed in the riverside yards at Wheeling, West Virginia. I have a shelf of texts on western steamboat history and construction, and several more detailed references on the excavation of the Bertrand on order through inter-library loan. I intend to leave one side of the hull unplanked, and possibly the same side of the superstructure, to show full detail throughout. Below, longitudinal internal section of the Bertrand from the plans I'll be using.
 

 
I hope you’ll join me on this (likely) wordy trek through a relatively unknown period of American maritime history and design. Few other steamboats grace this site, so I'd like to fill the gap a little with this project. I’ll try to interweave build details with explanations and demonstrations of why the boat was designed and built the way it was, to give context to this project and help share my love of these steamboats and their (my) home. This project is a significant undertaking for me, a serious step up from my previous Bounty launch kit and various smaller and less-detailed scratchbuilding efforts. I hope to be open to suggestion and advice, and I hope readers will be patient with the slow progress I'll likely make as I juggle this project with the summertime demands on my time, as well as the budget necessary to do this with my uncertain income as a self-employed farmer and writer. Welcome aboard, and unlike most boats of this type, we'll hope this one doesn't sink or blow up on the journey! 
 
UPDATE: Build completed and index available.
I finished this project in January 2016, and compiled an index of the general steps involved, with links to each one. You can review the build index here, in a post at the end of this log.

Nice job on the framing.

A masterful job on that hull framing.
 
John

I have made it through some very tedious work on the Bertrand, getting the hull framing virtually done. Here is how she looks now, though you will have to look closely to see changes from the last photos:
 

 
What has happened since:
Finished framing bow & stern, including inserting lots of little futtock braces into all the bilge corners. A very fiddly task I am glad to be done with. Finished interior bracing with various stringers along sides and bottom of hull. This includes the reinforced keelson, built from multiple layers of wood. Sanded and shaped frames, including the tight turn of the bilge. Will likely need to do a bit more touch-up before planking, once I start testing the lie of planks. Doesn't sound like much, but it was a lot of detail work without major visual progress. All projects have this sort of task. But the hull is now solid and sound. What's really neat is, it's just as flexible and strong as the real thing. You can take it in your hands and flex, bend, and twist it like a snake's skeleton, which is just how the prototype boats needed to be to navigate the sandbars and shoals of the shallow Western rivers. I may have to take a short video of this to share; it's a very different architecture from the rigid hulls of ocean-going vessels.
 
Here are closeups of the bow and stern:
 

 
I haven't yet trimmed the upper ends of the futtocks, so they look very ragged. I won't do so until all the decking beams are in place and I'm sure of the final geometry.
 

 
I closed in the final part of the sterm with a piece of scrap wood on each side, to provide a better surface for planking. This area won't be seen in any angle, so I decided to make it easier on myself.
 
I'm not a master craftsman, and it shows in certain areas. For example, here are two less-than-ideal results along the hull:
 

 
At top, you see the upper internal stringers. The deck beams are supposed to rest on this. But I didn't get it installed perfectly level on both sides, it wavers up and down a wee bit in places. So I filed notches into it where necessary to get the deck beams to sit evenly across the hull. It won't be noticeable in the final product, unless a real craftsman is looking really closely, but I was annoyed to discover my error.
 
At bottom, you see an example of futtocks that didn't come out straight. Trying to clamp all of these perfectly onto the stringers was difficult, and in places I didn't succeed. More annoying sloppiness, but only noticeable close up. Once the model moves back from the eyes, it all blends into the whole. Still, were I to do a hull like this again, I would be more careful somehow. At least, I'd like to think so.
 
What comes next? Before any planking begins, I'd like to install the interior framing and the deck beams. This will strengthen the hull more for planking, and the planking also depends to an extent on where the deck beams are. This is because Bertrand has guards, extensions of the deck that reach beyond the hull, so the guard support beams need to penetrate the planking. I've decided it will be easier to install the deck beams first and plank around them, than plank first and cut a bunch of holes/slots for the guard supports.
 
The decks beams themselves will be a bit fiddly, as the deck has a slight camber that I'd like to recreate. This will mean some very careful installation of internal framing to get the camber right, and produce a deck surface that doesn't look like a wavy fun-house floor or skateboarding rink.
 
Working on this will likely take me a few more weeks before any update comes; this continues to be a very busy time of year in the real world. It's been strawberry season here on the farm, and all that picking does a number on my back, making the idea of bending over a model workbench for fun just a bit less attractive.
 
In other news, the weather lately has been good for wrecking steamboats. Tons of rain in the Missouri River basin, the river rising rapidly, carrying lots of fresh woody debris into the channel. Were this 150 years ago, it'd be a deadly time for boats like the Bertrand. Not to mention, almost impossible to work their way upriver into the flood currents.

I have made it through some very tedious work on the Bertrand, getting the hull framing virtually done. Here is how she looks now, though you will have to look closely to see changes from the last photos:
 

 
What has happened since:
Finished framing bow & stern, including inserting lots of little futtock braces into all the bilge corners. A very fiddly task I am glad to be done with. Finished interior bracing with various stringers along sides and bottom of hull. This includes the reinforced keelson, built from multiple layers of wood. Sanded and shaped frames, including the tight turn of the bilge. Will likely need to do a bit more touch-up before planking, once I start testing the lie of planks. Doesn't sound like much, but it was a lot of detail work without major visual progress. All projects have this sort of task. But the hull is now solid and sound. What's really neat is, it's just as flexible and strong as the real thing. You can take it in your hands and flex, bend, and twist it like a snake's skeleton, which is just how the prototype boats needed to be to navigate the sandbars and shoals of the shallow Western rivers. I may have to take a short video of this to share; it's a very different architecture from the rigid hulls of ocean-going vessels.
 
Here are closeups of the bow and stern:
 

 
I haven't yet trimmed the upper ends of the futtocks, so they look very ragged. I won't do so until all the decking beams are in place and I'm sure of the final geometry.
 

 
I closed in the final part of the sterm with a piece of scrap wood on each side, to provide a better surface for planking. This area won't be seen in any angle, so I decided to make it easier on myself.
 
I'm not a master craftsman, and it shows in certain areas. For example, here are two less-than-ideal results along the hull:
 

 
At top, you see the upper internal stringers. The deck beams are supposed to rest on this. But I didn't get it installed perfectly level on both sides, it wavers up and down a wee bit in places. So I filed notches into it where necessary to get the deck beams to sit evenly across the hull. It won't be noticeable in the final product, unless a real craftsman is looking really closely, but I was annoyed to discover my error.
 
At bottom, you see an example of futtocks that didn't come out straight. Trying to clamp all of these perfectly onto the stringers was difficult, and in places I didn't succeed. More annoying sloppiness, but only noticeable close up. Once the model moves back from the eyes, it all blends into the whole. Still, were I to do a hull like this again, I would be more careful somehow. At least, I'd like to think so.
 
What comes next? Before any planking begins, I'd like to install the interior framing and the deck beams. This will strengthen the hull more for planking, and the planking also depends to an extent on where the deck beams are. This is because Bertrand has guards, extensions of the deck that reach beyond the hull, so the guard support beams need to penetrate the planking. I've decided it will be easier to install the deck beams first and plank around them, than plank first and cut a bunch of holes/slots for the guard supports.
 
The decks beams themselves will be a bit fiddly, as the deck has a slight camber that I'd like to recreate. This will mean some very careful installation of internal framing to get the camber right, and produce a deck surface that doesn't look like a wavy fun-house floor or skateboarding rink.
 
Working on this will likely take me a few more weeks before any update comes; this continues to be a very busy time of year in the real world. It's been strawberry season here on the farm, and all that picking does a number on my back, making the idea of bending over a model workbench for fun just a bit less attractive.
 
In other news, the weather lately has been good for wrecking steamboats. Tons of rain in the Missouri River basin, the river rising rapidly, carrying lots of fresh woody debris into the channel. Were this 150 years ago, it'd be a deadly time for boats like the Bertrand. Not to mention, almost impossible to work their way upriver into the flood currents.

I've been working to fix a major goof, which came about through ill-advised efforts to fix a minor goof. Apparently I would make a good politician. Unlike most politicians, my final fix has produced a better result than where I started. Perhaps this makes me unelectable.
 
You may recall that I had begun bending the stern stringers, as Bertrand has a rounded but squared-off stern. I had made individual forms for the stringers, assuming they would retain a reasonably similar shape after bending and I could install them one-by-one. Things looked like this, as in the last update:
 

Subsequently, I glued each stringer carefully in place, aligned with its mate along the inner hull. Unfortunately, I did not realize until all were in place, that their curves really didn't line up well. The stern had a clearly odd warp to it, and any attempt to fix it by attaching cross-braces didn't work.
 
So I conceived the brilliant idea of soaking the whole stern assembly, such that I could bend all these stringers back into place and clamp them in a consistent curve. At this point, I had removed the hull from its taped-down security on the build board. So I boiled a pan of water and propped the hull stern-first into it, with the water at a depth just below the first (last?) hull frame. 
 
This did not work. I had even rebuilt my forms to fit exactly on top of each hull stringers, but to no avail. The stringers did not re-bend well; rather they straightened out 90% of their original curve, while kinking badly when I attempted to re-bend them. Clamping did not work and I was in danger of damaging the hull itself. I played Sailor Scrabble with my vocabulary and took a break for a few days to think the problem over.
 
Here's the drastic but effective solution, which at first glance looks quite like the last one:

Yet in this case, I rebuilt the forms AGAIN to exactly match the pattern of the stringers, and recut the curve on my bandsaw with the whole thing assembled, to ensure the curve was consistent. In the meantime, I delicately cut out all the stern-most stringers back to where they'd been before, to allow grafting the new assembly on. This was painstaking work so as not to damage the lower frames. I made sure, after initial inattention, to stagger the scarf joints so the hull wouldn't have any weak points (I had done the whole hull this way, anyway, and somehow momentarily forgot this obvious point when cutting out the old stringers).
 
I soaked new stringers and bent them onto the frame with copious clamping, as seen above. When dry, I removed clamps from the curve (but not either end), and glued a series of frames along the stringers to ensure the assembly retained its proper geometry when removed from the forms. This was key to my success this time. When I did finally pop the whole thing off, it held its shape beautifully. I then, very carefully, cut all the stringers to match the scarf joints on the hull, and glued the whole thing in place, propping it up with scrap wood to ensure I got the curve and elevation I wanted:


Next I installed the rest of the upper longitudinal stringer (already in place from midships to bow), the first stage in shaping and holding the stern in place. Other supports will come soon. But now I have a proper stern with proper curvature. The price of all this was a few less than perfect joints between the stern and other stringers, as they inevitably didn't dry in exactly the right orientation. I don't think it'll be terribly visible in the finished model, and the overall result is much better.
 
Since the last update, I had also mostly finished framing up the bow. I did this by installing the upper stringer, clamped to the midships futtocks and bent to the proper curve, and glued to a brace on the stempost. Then it was a basic matter of cutting each individual futtock to fit and gluing it from frame to stringer. As far as I know, such boats eschewed curved frames for simplicity of construction:

 
Here's an overhead view of the mostly-completed hull framing, set next to the plans:

 
Next on the to-do list:
 
- Finish installing stringers along bottom and sides of hull.
- Finish installing futtocks at bow & stern.
- Cut & install lots of little angle braces along the turn of the bilge, everywhere I couldn't prefabricate a frame.
- Trim the futtocks to final length.
 
At that point the hull will be strong and easily handled, and I can begin interal framing and/or planking. I'm very relieved to have fixed and improved the stern assembly, and looking forward to handling a completed hull. If only real crises could be solved with knives, profanity, and glue (actually, maybe we've tried the first two enough already).
 

I have made it through some very tedious work on the Bertrand, getting the hull framing virtually done. Here is how she looks now, though you will have to look closely to see changes from the last photos:
 

 
What has happened since:
Finished framing bow & stern, including inserting lots of little futtock braces into all the bilge corners. A very fiddly task I am glad to be done with. Finished interior bracing with various stringers along sides and bottom of hull. This includes the reinforced keelson, built from multiple layers of wood. Sanded and shaped frames, including the tight turn of the bilge. Will likely need to do a bit more touch-up before planking, once I start testing the lie of planks. Doesn't sound like much, but it was a lot of detail work without major visual progress. All projects have this sort of task. But the hull is now solid and sound. What's really neat is, it's just as flexible and strong as the real thing. You can take it in your hands and flex, bend, and twist it like a snake's skeleton, which is just how the prototype boats needed to be to navigate the sandbars and shoals of the shallow Western rivers. I may have to take a short video of this to share; it's a very different architecture from the rigid hulls of ocean-going vessels.
 
Here are closeups of the bow and stern:
 

 
I haven't yet trimmed the upper ends of the futtocks, so they look very ragged. I won't do so until all the decking beams are in place and I'm sure of the final geometry.
 

 
I closed in the final part of the sterm with a piece of scrap wood on each side, to provide a better surface for planking. This area won't be seen in any angle, so I decided to make it easier on myself.
 
I'm not a master craftsman, and it shows in certain areas. For example, here are two less-than-ideal results along the hull:
 

 
At top, you see the upper internal stringers. The deck beams are supposed to rest on this. But I didn't get it installed perfectly level on both sides, it wavers up and down a wee bit in places. So I filed notches into it where necessary to get the deck beams to sit evenly across the hull. It won't be noticeable in the final product, unless a real craftsman is looking really closely, but I was annoyed to discover my error.
 
At bottom, you see an example of futtocks that didn't come out straight. Trying to clamp all of these perfectly onto the stringers was difficult, and in places I didn't succeed. More annoying sloppiness, but only noticeable close up. Once the model moves back from the eyes, it all blends into the whole. Still, were I to do a hull like this again, I would be more careful somehow. At least, I'd like to think so.
 
What comes next? Before any planking begins, I'd like to install the interior framing and the deck beams. This will strengthen the hull more for planking, and the planking also depends to an extent on where the deck beams are. This is because Bertrand has guards, extensions of the deck that reach beyond the hull, so the guard support beams need to penetrate the planking. I've decided it will be easier to install the deck beams first and plank around them, than plank first and cut a bunch of holes/slots for the guard supports.
 
The decks beams themselves will be a bit fiddly, as the deck has a slight camber that I'd like to recreate. This will mean some very careful installation of internal framing to get the camber right, and produce a deck surface that doesn't look like a wavy fun-house floor or skateboarding rink.
 
Working on this will likely take me a few more weeks before any update comes; this continues to be a very busy time of year in the real world. It's been strawberry season here on the farm, and all that picking does a number on my back, making the idea of bending over a model workbench for fun just a bit less attractive.
 
In other news, the weather lately has been good for wrecking steamboats. Tons of rain in the Missouri River basin, the river rising rapidly, carrying lots of fresh woody debris into the channel. Were this 150 years ago, it'd be a deadly time for boats like the Bertrand. Not to mention, almost impossible to work their way upriver into the flood currents.