Cathead

I think the idea of a Shannon expressed by several others has merit, as well as being a ship of note in its own right (and would also like to see a Chesapeake) it has some extension possibilities.
 
The cost of development and manufacture has to be a consideration for Chuck as a developer. The Shannon was a Leda class frigate of which there were some 46 produced for the Royal Navy, including the Trincomalee (my current scratch build) and the Unicorn as mentioned by Beef Wellington. Therefore the ability to adapt the base research at say 1:64 scale and produce a multitude of variants may be worth considering as a means of leveraging the initial investment. We have seen this to some extent with the Victory Models Vanguard / Elephant / Bellerepharon or Caldercrafts Cruiser / Snake.
 
I wouldn't advocate providing a multiplicity of options in a single kit as that would make it too expensive, but perhaps a common starting point with options to take up for different ships may work. With something of a large class like a Leda you can go from the classic early ship with open rails of the Revolutionary Wars through to the Unicorn with its built up barricades and austere black and white paint scheme of the early 19th century, all which rests with the builder, not the developer.
 
POB to keep the costs down.
 
Perhaps an option on materials - if your going to paint the hull then keep the materials simple, if you want the classic look then a premium for box, pear, or whatever.
 
Price - for the kit I want to build I don't have an issue with circa £500 \ $700, but possibly variable as above as I realise this is too steep for many
 
Just my views, but ultimately it must come down to a concencus on demand from all of us and that we buy in to that consensus, otherwise Chuck may as well take up painting elephants white!
 
Gary

Thanks CH, Sam, Mark and for all the likes.
 
Sam, the poplar is pretty decent to work with. It helps that this boat has fairly smooth lines. Also cutting the planks to scale helped quite a bit.

I believe the boats used by the British on the Tigris and Euphrates were the Insect class gunboats as well as barges and other local craft that were available.  I can't remember where I saw it but there was a book on the the first world war in Mesopotamia that has several pictures of the British boats on the rivers.

Back again from a short search, here comes a bit more. The Oscar Huber, a big river tugboat, he is still alive, located in Duisburg as a museum ship https://www.google.at/search?q=raddampfer+oscar+huber&client=firefox-b&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj7gcmXlZbNAhWMIMAKHZ7-BY4QsAQIKA&biw=1272&bih=902#imgrc=_
 
And there was the "Le Rhone" an even large tugboat, she had a turbine instead of a usual steam engine, and side wheels, her general plan is on digipeer http://www.digipeer.de/index.php?id=648324079
I cant show the photos, I am not sure if they are copyrighted.
 
Regards
Gerhard

Most of the austrian wheelers are gone, just the Schönbrunn is in use for public or for charter tours. http://www.oegeg.at/schifffahrt/
Switzerland has a lot more of this old ships still at the lakes, even the worldwide oldest existing ship, the RIGI is still alive but not floating. She is at restoration on front of the "Verkehrshaus" in Zürich, I build (beneath my others) a 1:50 scale model of her in her first appearance from  1848 https://www.verkehrshaus.ch/de/museum/schifffahrt/ds-rigi. She was a postship in her early days, used for goods and personal transport.
The photos show the RIGI in her first appearance.

 

 
I will try to find more about the european steamers but lots of infos were lost during WW2!
Regards
Gerhard

Wow,
how was it working with that poplar? All that squirrely grain on curves looks daunting.
Sam

That is gorgeous.

That is gorgeous.

That is gorgeous.

That is gorgeous.

Thanks Buck, Nils and for all the likes.
 
I finished up with the planking above the waterline as well as the planksheer on the fore and aft decks. Now comes the process of planking the decks. I took a bit of time also on getting the transom fine tuned a little better, it looked a little wonky.
 

Thanks for the website address.  Hope your engine works as well.  Lee wrote that it was hard to overcome the spring pressure of the poppet valve.  In Alan L. Bates book, "The Western Rivers Engineroom Cyclopedium",   He shows the design of the balanced poppet valve the riverboats used.  Hardly any force was needed to operate it.
 
Bob

Yeah, hog chains didn't come along until later.

Yeah, hog chains didn't come along until later.

Yeah, hog chains didn't come along until later.

I love the raw wood. That cherry almost looks like copper. Beautifully done.

Thanks Patrick and Pat,
 
Cathead, yes the trusses and camber would have made things a lot more difficult. I wonder how much problem Heroine would have had with water on deck with the flat beams. Although, we have evidence that her beam ends were sagging outboard -- would have shed a little water. I'm also amazed at how her upper structure was supported only by rows of 5 or 6 inch square posts. I can't wait to put them in place. It is going to look like it is supported with toothpicks. Thanks for the good luck wishes!

Wow, I'm jealous. Bertrand had hog trusses, sheer, AND camber to her main & boiler decks. I eliminated the camber on the boiler deck for sanity's sake, but still felt I had to build it in place. I cannot wait to see how your deck drops in. Having the CAD skills is a really nice piece of your toolkit. Good luck, if that's the right phrase!

Wow, I'm jealous. Bertrand had hog trusses, sheer, AND camber to her main & boiler decks. I eliminated the camber on the boiler deck for sanity's sake, but still felt I had to build it in place. I cannot wait to see how your deck drops in. Having the CAD skills is a really nice piece of your toolkit. Good luck, if that's the right phrase!

Wow, I'm jealous. Bertrand had hog trusses, sheer, AND camber to her main & boiler decks. I eliminated the camber on the boiler deck for sanity's sake, but still felt I had to build it in place. I cannot wait to see how your deck drops in. Having the CAD skills is a really nice piece of your toolkit. Good luck, if that's the right phrase!

Wow, I'm jealous. Bertrand had hog trusses, sheer, AND camber to her main & boiler decks. I eliminated the camber on the boiler deck for sanity's sake, but still felt I had to build it in place. I cannot wait to see how your deck drops in. Having the CAD skills is a really nice piece of your toolkit. Good luck, if that's the right phrase!

Wow, I'm jealous. Bertrand had hog trusses, sheer, AND camber to her main & boiler decks. I eliminated the camber on the boiler deck for sanity's sake, but still felt I had to build it in place. I cannot wait to see how your deck drops in. Having the CAD skills is a really nice piece of your toolkit. Good luck, if that's the right phrase!

Thanks everybody,
 
Greg, I've never tried this before and hope it works. It helps that I don't have any crown to the deck to deal with and Heroine had no hogging trusses that would have made alignment very difficult. The shear is minimal and the two decks run parallel with a nine foot separation. I have selected a couple of post locations that I consider crucial and have worked in a slight fore and aft allowance for the rest to adjust them as needed. It all seems to work well in AutoCAD, I just hope there are no surprises.

I'm not sure about the initial aspects of the procedure, but as far as removing the hot material safely from the boat, many boats had a special ash trough that allowed the hot coals & such to be swept/washed away from the boilers, either over the side or through an opening in the guards. Here is a picture of the brick-lined ash trough from my Bertrand build.
 

 
As for boiler explosions, they were quite common on western riverboats, due to a combination of high-pressure boilers, limited or no safety equipment (such as dial pressure gauges), limited knowledge/training of the engineers running the boilers, and a commercial (and passenger) culture which favored speed and power over safety and caution.
 
For a long time, the only safety valve on riverboat boilers was a simple weighted lever, which was very easy for an ambitious engineer to over-weight or even tie down, increasing the pressure in the boilers. With no clear testing or standards, no one really knew what pressure boilers could hold, and there was no calibrated way to measure pressure. Water levels in the boiler also couldn't be measured easily (again, no gauges), so this too was guesswork and instinct. Thus, if water levels got too low, or levels fluctuated as suggested for Sultana, boom with no warning.
 
All of this was made much more likely by the river culture of the time, in which the fastest boats received premium rates and reputations, regardless of safety concerns. In addition, river conditions could lead to explosions, as when boats attempted to force a bar or round a bend under high-water conditions, needing every ounce of steam in the attempt. One particularly deadly explosion in central Missouri happened after a boat repeatedly tried to round a bend in front of a towns-worth of onlooker, failing over and over and being swept back downstream in embarrassment, before the engineer apparently tied down the pressure valve and went for it all. The boat blew up mid-bend, sending debris into the onlookers on the bluff and killing many passengers.
 
Glenn, I'm curious how you know the Heroine had four boilers. The number varied from boat to boat; I was surprised to learn that Bertrand only had two. Also, do you know what kind of pump the water supply used?

Another interesting question is how to judge responses. Does a post with X likes show the same level of interest as X different people saying the same thing? I know I agree with several other suggestions here and have "liked" them, without wanting to clutter up the thread by saying so out loud (so to speak). If the thread is read in a linear fashion, lots of similar posts will feel like they have more weight as opposed to an older post that piles up likes that aren't noticed unless one goes back and looks.
 
For example, I love the idea of more exploration ships (especially Beagle and Endurance) but felt that liking the initial suggestion was sufficient. Is that how it's read by those who want the input?