Cathead

I'm going to have to order a replacement WOW button soon, mine is wearing out.

4 Years later, I just finished going through your entire build and wish I'd have found it earlier.  You did an amazing job and your ideas and techniques are now a learning experience for me as I'm building the same ship now.  Though I made a lot of terrible and rookie mistakes with the hull.  
 
Thanks for posting!!!

The longship is officially finished, just over a year from when I began it. It's spanned a rather intense period of my life, including the decline and death of my father-in-law, a lifelong scholar of Old English language and Anglo-Saxon history who was very important to me. In his final days, I stayed at his bedside night and day, at times reading Beowulf to him, including these lines:
 
You have fared in life so that far and near
Forever and ever, you will be honored…
Thus it is duly just
That one praise his prince in poem and story
And hold him in heart when he must head away
Forth from flesh elsewhere. 
 
This build is dedicated to him, as well as to my proudly Norwegian grandfather who was a mentor and role model to me, and who would have loved to see this model.
 
I can't express how much the support, advice, and discussion from all of you following this has meant in the past year. Life has been rough in many other ways beyond the above, that I don't need to go into here, but this model will always be tied to this period of life and I thank you all so much for helping me carry forward. With that being said, here are the twelve images I officially submitted to the NRG 2021 photo contest this morning (there's still time to enter your own models, the more the merrier). The first eight are required angles:
 







 
After this are four optional shots highlighting whatever details are desired. So I included this close view down the central hull:
 

 
This view of the chests, shields, and rope coils at the stern:

 
This overhead view that captures more of the cargo and deck detail:
 

 
And this shot of the crew ready for their next adventure:
 

 
 
I also took these additional shots that weren't submitted but that I also like. First, another of the crew, this time at the stern:
 

 
Then these two vertical views:
 

 
And finally, this one of the model's temporary home. I'm working on getting a full-size display cabinet for my models that will protect the large ones like this and my Arabia more efficiently than individual cases, but for now  this works pretty well:
 

 
To address the inevitable question, my next two projects won't be nearly as interesting to others. I purchased two NRG learning projects to work on my planking and scratchbuilding skills.
 
First, the half-hull planking kit, which I want to do in part or whole with wood I've cut and milled on my property:
 

 
Second, the capstan project, with the same goal for wood sourcing:
 

 
I'll do build logs for these, and am looking forward to working on something smaller for a change after this Viking behemoth!
 
Thanks, again, with all my heart for sticking with me on this voyage.

Finally reached the halfway mark in oar-making, so decided to go ahead and finish them. I've seen other models with multi-colored oars, and while I didn't want to paint mine fancily as it wouldn't quite fit what I was going for, I did like the way that different shading brought out the oars' structure and broke up what's otherwise a pretty bland linear feature. 
 
So I stained them with the same color I used for the mast and yards (to achieve a color that fits with the model overall), then lightly sanded them smooth again. I then further sanded the area gripped by rowers (not sure of the right terminology here) to remove most of the stain, as I figured the wood here would be discolored due to use and skin-oil patina. Finally I rubbed dark pastel onto the oars, focusing on the grip areas and blades (in the latter case, figuring these would be discolored by mud and such). I like the way they came out.
 

 
Broader view:
 

 
A couple full-ship views:
 

 

 
These are just set in place right now, so they're not even or consistent. Still trying to decide if I'm going to glue them in, somehow support them in an unobtrusive manner, or just let them be a little chaotic.
 
Time to get up the courage to face 30 more of these things. 
 
Finally, I believe this will be my 2,000th post here on MSW. It's become a valued part of my life and identity, and many thanks are owed to all who have helped me along the way.

Making the rudder was fairly straightforward. It comes in two pieces that need to be carved and sanded from their solid block shape into the rounded form necessary. Here's a look at this in progress:
 

 
I attached the handle by carving out a socket for it, then drilling a fine hole that let me set a brass nail into the joint:
 

 
And here's the finished product mounted on the hull after staining:

 
I'm slowly plugging away at oars; I can only handle making ~6 at a time before I get too cramped. Here are the oars so far, loosely mounted for display:
 

 
I also built four more chests, using a slightly different design but similar method. These are smaller, to add some visual diversity. So here's the cargo so far:
 

 
And a slightly broader view with the ship in the background:
 

 
Feels like progress. Really, the oars are the holdup now. But I keep thinking of other details to play with, like a good anchor, and bundles of weapons, and finishing the shields, and so on. This will probably drag on for a while. But it feels close!
 

I took a shot at some cargo based on the above ideas. I didn't take any photos during the process so you'll just have to imagine. I'm also featuring the final two figures here, which I actually painted months ago but can't remember if I ever posted. These are a "his & hers" pair representing Mrs. Cathead and myself. The blue color isn't as likely but is our favorite color. And as a birdwatcher I very much appreciate this guy's raven shield. He also has a proper axe, unlike the swordsman and spearman I already painted. I thought these would give some good scale for the cargo.
 

 

 
The crates are based on Steven's links. I assembled them from strip wood, painted them, then weathered them with pastels. The hinges are thin strips of styrene colored with a black marker. The barrels are dowels I sanded into a more barrel-like shape using a sanding disc on a Dremel. I then filed rough plank boundaries and darkened them with pencil. I also added some faint hoops with pencil. These were also pained and then weathered with pastel. Oh, I also used a carving tool on the Dremel to eat away a little bit of each barrel end to hint at the inset nature of a real barrel head and remove the shiny smooth dowel-end effect.
 
None of these necessarily would stand on their own, but in a cluster they look pretty good and when they're in the hull among the thwarts I think will be quite acceptable. The real question is how many more I make. It took me most of the afternoon do to this. Mrs. Cathead looked at my project and said "You're procrastinating on making oars, aren't you?". Yes. Yes, I was.

I'm going to have to order a replacement WOW button soon, mine is wearing out.

Hey, don't sell yourself short. I'm only 41 but more jaded than a Chinese emperor's statuary collection.

LOL, Glen, that meme is everywhere but rarely have I seen it used so perfectly.

That was my first thought, too. Given that it's a saltwater vessel, kinda makes sense to have a source of drinking water given that this seems to have made long runs (e.g. not a harbor tug).
 
Just to play devil's advocate, if you go back and look at the image collection in my Peerless build, that vessel went through some rather extraordinary revisions in her appearance over just ten years (including multiple configurations of railings and superstructure). Changes to things like railings, splashwall, masts, and even the cladding/windows of the engineroom, etc. wouldn't faze me. Your comment on the boiler stack distance to the pilot house is certainly something that would be harder to change, but I'm not immediately convinced it IS different? The difference in foreshortening between the two photos makes that, and the overall length, hard to judge but to my eye they look pretty similar.
 
I'm not insisting that it IS the same boat, but most of the differences in those two photos strike me as more aesthetic rather than structural and in line with what Peerless went through in even shorter service life. Bare minimum that second photo is a good reference for how things might have been from that stern angle, since if these aren't the same boat they're built along very similar lines.
 
You have an extraordinary knack for finding charismatic work boats; each project is unique yet all seem to follow a similar vibe that makes this series of projects flow together wonderfully. It's a real joy to follow and I'm thoroughly looking forward to this one.

Thank you for that most kind comment, Eric. 

I'm going to have to order a replacement WOW button soon, mine is wearing out.

I'm going to have to order a replacement WOW button soon, mine is wearing out.

I'm going to have to order a replacement WOW button soon, mine is wearing out.

I just love how a well-planked deck draws a model together.

The boiler deck has been planked.  My four piles (plus some more) of 1/8 by 1/32 by approximately 6-inch basswood boards were used.  

 
Time to get started on the superstructure: saloons, staterooms, galley, &c. 
 

Keith, the hog chains have made a huge difference in her look. Very nice!

Thank you for the likes and the kind comments.
 
 
 I'm inching ever closer to the finish as I got the hog chains (such as they are) made and attached. 

 
 Added some weathering 

 
 The post that the hog chain rod passes through are 0.20 inches high and the hole is 0.15 inches high from the deck. The post are a little wider than I wanted but I needed the extra gluing surface, 

 
That is one mighty turnbuckle but looking at the original photo below the arrow points to the turnbuckle end level with the water line. 

 

 
 Thank you for your support and for being part of the journey. 
 
    Keith

Attaching the prow adornments gives me another opportunity to have a quick moan about OcCre's dodgy instructions 😆
 
See below the attachment location for H13, as per the paper instructions.  
 

 
Then the same step in the YouTube tutorial:
 

 
The attachment location of that piece matters for the vertical supports.  Only a minor adjustment, but it means yet again having to detach and rework pieces I've already done!
 
That said...  I've found the wire bending at the prow to be quite enjoyable 🙂  It's much thicker wire than used at the stern, so it doesn't lose it's shape easily.
 
 

I'd say that these aren't just any figures, but figures of arguably two of the most beloved naval literature characters of all time. They're edging over into collector's items, not just obscure details of a given model. If they were just generic crew figures you wouldn't see this level of interest. But lots of people enjoy collectibles (baseball cards, action figures, *ahem* models) that recreate something beloved, and these certainly fit that niche. Personally I'm not in a position to take on a Surprise model, but I'd absolutely buy these on their own, paint them lovingly, and develop a little cabin diorama to display them in. I wouldn't do that for just any figurine.

Time to go back to some actual traditional model building! I need lots of buildings to fill out the town, which will be a mix of scratchbuilt and kit-built. First up is a simple scratchbuilt background building. I zoomed into the depot area In the historical photo below (from the State Historical Society of Missouri). See that row of small false-front buildings across the street from the depot? Those fall right on the line of my backdrop, so I need to make a few shallow-depth buildings to fill in that space and convey the feel of that district. I'm not worried about reproducing them exactly, I just want to capture the right feel.

I have a distinct visual theme in mind for Rocheport. This was a prosperous time, overall, with the railroad having recently come through. So I want my buildings looking reasonably well-kept and in some cases fairly new. I'm not going for the decay-gothic look so common in model railroads. I want this to feel like an old but prosperous town. That being said, there are different districts. The core business district off to the west should look especially prosperous, while these smaller buildings near the depot should be a bit rougher, and the riverfront area across the tracks (foreground) should be noticeably poorer if still not run-down. Keep all that in mind as I describe this and future buildings.
 
First I drew up a basic design and cut out the constituent walls from the scribed wood sheets I had on hand for just this purpose. These were given several light coats of grey primer, both to seal the wood somewhat and to simulate a coat of paint. Back wall at lower right is after one coat, front wall at lower left is after two coats. The primer color is almost exactly what I wanted (a faded grey-white) so I didn't bother with actual paint. Plus, this maintains a hint of wood grain that I like.

Next I did some gentle weathering of the walls using pastels applied with a thin brush. Working plank by plank, I subtly varied the colors help the planking stand out. In the photo below, the front wall at top hasn't been pasteled yet, while the back wall at bottom has.

I then painted the door and window fittings I dug out of my scrap back, and lettered the top of the false front using dry transfers. It's really hard to line up individual dry transfer letters perfectly, and if I could do it over again I'd use a little more space on either side of the ampersand. But the slight unevenness also brings to mind a small business's hand-painted lettering, which does fit the setting.
 
You can't easily tell here, but I gently distressed some of the wood to give a hint of peeling paint. Not too much, just enough for subtle visual effect in person.

Time to assemble the building. I used my magnetic square jig for this, which both holds walls square and uses strong magnets to lock pieces in place while glue dries.
 

I haven't mentioned it yet, but all the walls have interior bracing to make sure they don't warp. I did this early on, prior to priming.
 

Overhead view of the assembled walls and interior framing. I don't intend to show the interior of this so made no effort at detailing. This is a background structure that will be partly hidden behind the depot.
 

And the assembled walls from the most common viewing angle. Notice the slight bleeding of red paint into the planking, which I don't care about because a piece of trim is about to be installed there.

Time for the roof. I braced thin sheets of wood cut to size, then applied pre-made trips of paper shingles. Several manufacturers make versions of these. They're slow and fiddly to apply but I love the results. These also get some light pastel weathering to vary their appearance.

Rear view. This goes up against the backdrop.

Front view.

Not quite done, I wanted to add a lean-to overhang on the left side for added visual interest. This was pretty straightforward and I didn't photograph the process. I forgot to add earlier, the name comes from that railroad business directory I wrote about a while back. Inman was a real merchandise business in Rocheport with ties to the railroad. I made it Inman & Sons so the name would stretch more across the false front, and decided this is probably a small furniture maker or other such manufacturer, who might be getting small loads of hardware and supplies (nails, hinges, paint, glass, that sort of thing), which is why being located right behind the depot makes sense since that's where small loads like that would be delivered. This kind of business isn't big enough to have its own dedicated slot on a freight spur. It just gets crates from the depot.

And here's the final structure loosely in place on the layout. It and its future companions will help line the street behind the depot nicely, obscuring the backdrop transition and bringing a sense of busy-ness to the depot district. Go back and refer to the opening photo to remind yourself what this is representing.

So that was a fun little project. The building going next to it is a laser-cut kit, so that'll provide a fun comparison in methods and results.
 
Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoyed this return to actual model-building!
 
 
 
 

OK, last week I promised a different explanation of how that operating session worked, so here's a graphical approach. We start with the Rocheport track diagram. There's one siding (1) with five places for freight cars to be set out for loading or unloading. [1] is a team track used for unloading anything from coal to wagons to lumber. [2] serves the grain elevator. [3] is the depot's freight house. [4] and [5] serve the stockyard.

How do we know where to set out cars? Here are two examples of waybills. There's one per freight car, and they slide into a pocket on the car card so that you can only see the top half (we'll get to the bottom half later).

The first one tells us we have a car headed to Rocheport, on consignment to a wagon dealer named W.W. Scobbee (a real Rocheport dealer at the time). See that "1-1" after the receiver's name? That tells us the car needs to be delivered to Rocheport's siding (1), spot [1], as shown on the diagram above. That's because this dealer doesn't have his own trackside warehouse, just receives individual shipments now and then. So this needs to go to the team track, where this fellow can pick up his new wagon.
 
The second one tells us that this car has shipments for two different general merchandise dealers (again, real Rocheport businesses), and this one goes to spot [3] at the depot, which handles crated items like these (hand tools, canned groceries, clothes, whatever). 
 
Both cards also tell us that the cars came from St. Louis' Baden Yard, brought to nearby Franklin yard by a through freight, where they were sorted onto the local freight that brought them to Rocheport for final delivery. So what happens when it's time to pick up these cars? Between operating sessions, we flip the waybills over in their car card pockets.

Notice how the first ones had a big 1 in the upper right corner? That tells us this waybill brings the car onto the layout to its destination. When we flip these over, we get a 2, which tells us that now we're in the second part of this car's movement, sending it back off-layout to some other destination. For example, if we'd loaded an empty boxcar with grain at the elevator, it might be destined for a mill in Chicago or St. Louis. In the cards above, both cars delivered a product on their first run, so they're now empty (MTY) and are being sent back. The merchandise boxcar at the depot goes back to an MK&T freight house in St. Louis, and the empty flatcar goes back to a yard in St. Louis until needed for some other job. In both cases, the local freight takes these back to nearby Franklin yard, where an eastbound through freight will pick them up and take them to St. Louis.
 
So each waybill creates a realistic set of shipping/movement directions for each car on the layout, lasting for two operating sessions. Now let's summarize how this worked in practice.
 
Thinking back to the photo essay in an earlier post, here's how we started. The diagram below shows each car with its number and location or destination. Grey cars are being picked up, white ones are arriving on the local freight currently sitting on the main line. So 65-2 is car #65 currently in spot [2], while 25-2 is car #25 that needs to be placed at spot [2]. 74-T and 49-T are through cars going to a different town; here they're just in the way!

Notice that the arriving cars are all out of order; sometimes the Franklin Yard operator should deal with that, but today it's our problem. So the first order of business is to re-sort these cars into the proper order for delivery. Right now they're in order 3,1,5,4,2 but we need to end up with 1,2,3,4,5 on the siding.
 
Below, we've taken the caboose and the two through cars and stuck them up on the passing siding as out of the way as we can get them, since we don't need them here.

Then our locomotive does various sorting to get these in delivery order on the passing siding. Notice something odd? 

Why are they in order 4,5,1,2,3? Well, that's another fun operating quirk. Local railroad rules (e.g. mine) say you can't pull past the tunnel when switching here. So there's only room for the locomotive to pull three cars at a time past that left-hand switch just to the right of the bridge. So we placed the 4,5 cars first, so we can pull them past the switch, shove them into the far end of the siding first, then place 1,2,3 behind them. Just another part of the puzzle that makes operating interesting.
 
So now all we have to do is pull all the departing (grey) cars from the siding, in two pulses because of the length limit, and stick them on the main line. Then we're free to deliver 4,5 and then 1,2,3 into the siding. Then we just stick 74, 49, and the caboose back on the end of our outbound cars, and our train is ready to depart for the next town.

I hope that made sense. Please ask questions if not. This is a fairly simplistic version of operations; it can be made far more complex if desired. For example, a real railroad would do everything it could to avoid carrying empty cars. So instead of sending empty cars all the way back to St. Louis, it would be looking for a chance to send them somewhere closer to be re-loaded with something else. There are ways to simulate this more complex approach and I might implement those later, but for now this simple approach still makes for interesting railroading.
 
The beauty of this approach is that it's highly flexible and customizable. I can create as many waybills as I want, setting up different car movements for different reasons, and keep swapping them out. I could have a given car need to stay in Rocheport for several days, getting in the way! Not all sites have to have a car picked up or dropped off every day. And I could even swap out one waybill for another between sessions. And all this is for just one town; if the layout expands, the same situation happens in other places, and once you add a larger yard like Franklin, a lot more sorting happens when you're actually dealing with all cars passing over the railroad, not just ones for a little dinky town like this.
 
I realize this may seem esoteric to non-railroad-buffs. But think of it as a combination of historical re-enactment and mental/logic puzzle. Not only do you get to step back in time and experience live railroading in a given era, but you get a really fun mental challenge if you're the puzzle-solving type. My wife, who's a mild railfan, actually really enjoys these little operating sessions because she's a data scientist who gets easily drawn into logical puzzle solving. The railroad experience is just a bonus.
 
Thanks for reading (or skimming?) all that. Soonish I'll have more actual modeling to show, as I'm working on various buildings.
 
 
 
 

Fun news! I'm a member of the Katy Railroad Historical Society, which publishes a quarterly newsletter covering the railroad's history and various modeling projects related to it. The September 2025 issue publishes an article I wrote about the Peerless modeling project and its connection to the railroad. The newsletter is print-only, but they graciously sent me a PDF copy of the article with permission to distribute to people I know who aren't KRHS members (specifically including MSW members).
 
If you're interested in reading the article, send me a private message through MSW with your email address, and I'll send you the PDF. Here's a screenshot of the first page to whet your appetite. Also cross-posting this on my build log for the Peerless.
 
To send a private message on MSW, click a user's name to go to their profile, then look for the "message" button to the right of their username on the banner of that profile page.

OK, let's get to work. Our locomotive is going to start by sorting all the inbound cars into the right order for shoving into this siding. In some cases this pre-sorting might have been done in the yard to make the road crew's life easier, but that didn't seem to happen today, so they're all jumbled up (more busy work in the real world, more fun work for us). Below, we're using the near end of the siding as an extra place to stash a car while we sort things out. 

Keeping an eye on our MK&T timetable, we know we have to clear the main line for an express passenger train soon. So everything gets shoved out of the way while this passes through. One change I made from the real Rocheport is to designate the track nearest the depot as the passing siding, and have the main line be the track away from the depot (on the real thing the main line was in front of the depot). The actual reason for this is complicated and has to do with how best to arrange turnouts in this condensed scene, but there is real-world precedent for having a depot on a passing track. In my case, I can argue it makes sense because only slower locals stop at Rocheport so this lets faster expresses barrel right through on the outside track.

Once all the inbound cars were sorted, we pulled all the outbound cars and started spotting inbound cars. Here the locomotive is shoving two empty stock cars toward the stockyards. Cars 74 and 49 in the foreground are going to a different town than Rocheport, so will just be left out of the way with the caboose until we're done.

And another angle on that move, shoving the stock cars into the siding. 

And the final placement.

With those cars shoved into the far end of the siding, we can place the other three cars at the western end. Here the locomotive is shoving in a boxcar of small freight for the depot, an empty boxcar for the grain elevator, and a flatcar with a new wagon for one of the local implement dealers. You may recall from an earlier post that all the businesses listed on my waybills are real ones found in the railroad's business directory, adding to the sense of realism.

With all the inbound cars spotted, it's time to reassemble our train. Five outbound cars and two more to take to another town before returning west to Franklin. Let's grab that caboose and those two cars and stick them back on the end of our newly pulled five cars.

Tacking the caboose and two final cars onto the rest.

Our train is reassembled, but we can't leave yet, as there's a local passenger train due. We were smart enough to reassemble our train on the main this time, so the local can pull into the passing siding in front of the depot.

Another view of this meet, with the short local at the depot and the longer freight ready to depart eastbound.

Our freight heads east along the river bluffs...

and our passenger local heads west toward Franklin.

And that's what a simple one-town operating session looks like. The intellectual puzzle of sorting and spotting cars is quite fun, and it can be kept fresh time after time by simply altering the waybills for each card. Maybe next time there's a boxcar of apples to ship out instead of a wagon-loaded flatcar arriving. Maybe there aren't any livestock shipments. Maybe a boxcar has to stay at the elevator, meaning we have to move it out of the way, do our work, then put it back. So many iterations even in a small town. 
 
As the layout expands, operations get even more complex. As towns are added, trains have more places to actually go, and more work to do in those places. It gets more practical to run passenger and freight trains through, actually going places instead of just moving back and forth on a glorified diorama. Add in the larger yard at Franklin and suddenly you have a whole separate job dealing with all the long-distance freights as they stop to drop off and pick up local-destination cars. And so on.
 
Long-term the full layout I have planned will keep 4-6 people happily busy for several hours. As it is, Mrs. Cathead and I (or any other friend) can run a fun little operating session in half an hour or so, a quick break from life to travel back in time to 1900, when steam whistles still echoed off the bluffs here.
 
I hope you followed along on all that, and that it gave you a sense of what makes model railroading distinct from many other hobbies. Feel free to ask further questions, whether you're a model railroader with specific curiosity about something esoteric, or someone who wonders something more general about all this.
 
Thanks so much for reading! There's still a lot of scenery and building to do, but this project is now at the actively fun stage.
 
 

Apologies for ghosting this log. Summer has continued to push us hard, with relatively little persona time. I do have two updates to write up, the shorter of which I'll do here, the longer of which I'll need more time for.
 
I've moved forward with a bit more scenery work, mostly laying down base layers in the eastern part of town. Here's the current status:
 

This is trying to replicate the pattern clearly seen in historic photos, of the depot area having a much lighter layer of ground cover (some form of sand/gravel) than the rest of the area. The foreground area will become a rough farm field; much of the area south of the tracks was functionally in the river's floodplain and had small farm plots on it. You can also see that I've filled in the road east of the depot and added a rough version of the stock pens along the spur behind the depot. Here's a photo of this area in the early 1900s.

 
A couple closeups: here are some of the grade crossings, laser-cut wood castings that I weathered.
 

And here's the stockyard part of the spur.
 

Both the road and the spur's ballast are finished with sand from my local stream, sifted to a grain size I want. The stockyard is a cheap plastic modular kit; down the road I'll want to rebuild this from scratch using wood, but I had this sitting around, and adapted it to fill the space for now. At some point I'll use an airbrush to do some weathering on it.
 
This all continues to look like Montana until I get more vegetation on it, but that's down the road yet. But at least I'm slowly moving forward with filling in the blank surfaces with something at least resembling scenery. Thanks for sticking with me on this! Look for a longer post at some point on my first test runs of an operating scheme for this town.