mbp521

Looks like Vicksburg is a good meet between place. It’s right at 300 miles from me as well. I love the nostalgia of the town, and you are correct, the battlefield and the Cairo are the main attractions. When I was there back in May, I had a lengthy conversation with the Cairo supervisor, he had mentioned that the Cairo exhibit is the main draw to the park and that if had been located closer to the park entrance, there would be hardly any traffic through the rest of the park. And I highly recommend Tony’s Seafood for lunch or dinner the next time you make it there. As for Norfolk, that would be quite the haul from Texas, but I might touch base with Ryland to see what it takes to get a model on exhibit in a maritime museum. That’s too funny Keith. It would take all of two days for the entire towns population of 800 people to see it and get bored with it. 😁 However, the 25 mile trip from my house would be better than the 300 miler to Vicksburg. -Brian

Thank you Don for the kind words. As of right now I don't have any plans to show it and to be honest I haven't really checked to see if there are any shows locally. I'm kind of stuck between two major metropolitan areas that I think would host any kind of model show, DFW & OKC, which are both 80-120 miles away. If I could find one a little closer, I might consider entering it. My dream would be for it to be shown in the Cairo museum. But that will probably remain just that, a dream. Keith, now there is a good idea. I could place a binder next to the boat display with some of the interior pictures in it. I am proud of the way my boiler and engines came out, but so far my favorite piece has to be the paddlewheel. This was one of the hardest parts of the build, covering that piece up. When I get to building the display case, I am going to mount the boat up on pedestals high enough to place a mirror under the hull so you can see the paddlewheel. I even put lights in the wheel house to make sure it could be seen. -Brian

Mr. Bean, Keith, Pat, Steven, thank you all for the great comments. They truly mean a lot. Keith, like you said, there are a lot of hidden details, and it's almost a shame that I covered them up. Thank goodness I have this build log to go back and look at some of them. When I started this build, I didn't really have a clear picture as to what I was going to do other than build the boat from the plans that I found on the NPS website. As I went along, the more conversations I had with fellow shipbuilders and the more research I did on the subject, helped provide me with the inspiration to do more. It seems like every time I look at the old photos of the City-Class boats, or read something else about them, I find an interesting new detail about them that I want to add. The only problem with this, that I can see, is when do I stop? I want to make the model as historically accurate as possible so I'll need to draw the line somewhere but it is just so much fun adding each piece to the build. Guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there, but until then I'll just keep on keeping on. -Brian

Hello again everyone, I'm back with another update. This is truly a brief one. Lot's of pictures, but not a lot of work over the past month. We have been caught in the midst of a major drought here, no rain locally for over 50 days, and coupled with triple degree temps for over 30+ days has made our area a veritable tinder box outside, I am on our towns volunteer fire department and we have been up to our ears with grass fires. So, needless to say, between the grass fires and work life, not a lot of time has been spent in the shipyard. So, picking up where I left off last time. I managed to finish up work on the mess kits. I found a simple solution to making the padlocks for them. I had a bunch of #8 lead bird shot that I used for cannon balls on a previous build. I took these and flattened them out and used a nail punch to form the shackle. I drilled out a hole in the shackle and looped it through a small eyebolt and I think the results look pretty convincing. Once these were all completed, I staged them up for placement on the deck. All glued together. Glued into place on the deck. Next up, I finally gave up on trying to find information on how the ships bell was mounted and went with my intuition. I know that salvage divers place the bell in front of the wheelhouse structure, but there is no documentation on what it was mounted on. It was too big to just hang on the wall, so I went with the flag locker theory. Simple construction of the locker. I used some leftover grating for the dividers and made up a small box to form the locker. I then painted the locker up, printed out a set of signal flags to stuff in the cubbies and mounted the bell to the top of the locker. All flags in place Flag locker in place. After the flag locker was completed, I wanted to add some more details to the deck, so I made up a stack of crates that are covered by a tarp. I built up a bunch of scrap blocks and added some trim to them to give the tarp some shape and detail. Next, I used the same method of soaking a tissue with some 50/50 water and clear Elmer's glue that I used on the hammocks. Once it was all dry, it was time to add some weathering. Here we have a nice dingy tarp. This looks like a good location to store these crates. More deck details. I installed a couple of the forward mooring ropes. First, I soaked the ropes in a 50/50 water/glue solution to help hold the ropes shape. Soaked ropes were then installed on the deck and laid out and left to dry. I used some Press-n-Seal to keep the glue from getting all over the deck. Starboard side was then installed. The Press-n-Seal was then removed and the ropes were then glued into place. Finally, a little weathering was added to the ropes to give them that '"muddy, used" look. The contemporary photo of the Cairo has what looks to be a longer mooring rope attached to one of the bitts and thrown up over the forward casemate where it would have been stored along the hammock nets. My guess is that there wasn't much room on the foredeck to store a lot of rope, so they made use of the space on the hurricane deck and stored the longer, bulkier rope there. I am going to add this feature as well, just because. I also, finally trimmed up the anchor chains and attached the anchors to them. Still haven't decided exactly how I am going to display these. I may have one in place on the deck and the other just hanging overboard. I'll figure it out eventually. Next was the installation of the center, forward and aft masts. Aft mast being secured to the stanchion. Center mast. I didn't have any black scale rope on hand, so I used tan and dyed it black. Center mast complete. Now the challenge is to see if I can finish up working around these masts without breaking them off. Next up was the smokestack for the cookstove. Just some brass tubing for the pipe, the hood was made from copper sheeting and brass strips for the hood supports. Smokestack installed. Finally. I finished up the port side hammock and tarps and added some more deck details. I built up the hammock net walls that would have been installed between the last set of stanchions, but were removed to provide easier access to the ships boats. On one of the contemporary photos of the St Louis (Baron DeKalb) you can see these walls stored on top of the aft roof of the wheelhouse structure, so that is where I placed mine. I also threw on some additional crates and tarps scattered about and weathered them up. I think I need a few more details on the deck, so I'll give it some more thought and see what else I can come up with. Lastly, as she sits right now. Please pardon the messy workbench, I forgot to tidy things up before taking the as-is picture. Well that is all for this update, I hope to have more next time around. Thank you so much for stopping by. As always, I do appreciate all of the nice comments and likes. -Brian

Thank you Gary for the kind words and the pointers. I to am no expert on photography. I stick to the simpler things when it comes to picture taking. If my iPhone had more than two buttons required to take a picture, I would be lost. I look at my daughters digital SLR and I might as well be trying to solve the answers to the universe and world peace. I'm sure it's pretty easy to use once you use it a few times, just never really had the ambition to learn it, and I never thought that model shipbuilding would lead to photography. Kinda missed that one. I do like the idea of the snakeskin slippers. 😁 However, he was a bit small. I'll need a few more of his cousins to make a good pair. He might have made a nice hat band though. -Brian

This is most likely the reason for them pulling kids chemistry sets off the shelves, too many young ones blowing up their parents garages. I for one know that I killed off more than a few brain cells back in the day experimenting with the different chemicals provided in my set. -Brian

Glad to help out. -Brian

Looking good John. Have you tried Northeastern Scale lumber? I use them all the time and they have a great selection of wood strips. https://www.northeasternscalelumber.com/ -Brian

Funny, both of my granddaughters love to help out when they come over and I’m in the shipyard. I’ll give them a piece of wood and some sandpaper and let hem go to town. Tickles them pink and warms my heart. -Brian

Amazing work as always Kieth. I’m still baffled at how you can keep hold of such tiny parts. You must have sticky hands, or is there something you’re not telling us. Personally, if I were working on pieces that small, the floor gods would be rich from all the parts I would have sacrificed.😁 -Brian

Truer words have never been spoken. I bought my first wooden ship kit ten years ago and have not built a plastic one since. -Brian

I would have swore that was taken aboard the real Germania if you wouldn’t have said anything. Great shot! -Brian

Great idea for the sheets Keith, I need to file this method away for my canopies. Sorry to hear of the record breaking heat over in the UK, and most of Europe for that matter. Hope you all can stay cool over there. We’ve been in a heat wave and drought for over a month now here. Yesterday it was 111f here. Good Time to soak up the AC and work on the boat. -Brian

Beautiful work on the Cutter Eberhard. I have been playing around with simulating tarps as well. I don't have any Japanese silk paper on hand, but so far I have found that two-ply Kleenex saturated with a 50/50 water and Elmer's glue solution has been working great. Glad to see that you are healthy and back at it. -Brian

Looking good John. If I recall (I'd have to go back and look at my build) I put a very thin piece of veneer over the stern to cover up the ends of the hull planks. After sanding and filling you cannot even tell it's there and hides the planking quite nicely. For the filler, I have never used powdered filler before, but it looks like I may have to try it next time. -Brian

Eberhard, Sorry to hear the virus has caught up with you and hopefully you and your wife will fully recover soon, Good to see that it hasn't had any effect on your micro-modelling skills. -Brian

The details on these steps alone are jaw dropping! Lots of tiny bits to contribute to the floor gods. Hold on to them carefully. 😁 -Brian

Eric, thank you for the very useful information. This opens up a whole lot of questions and discussions. I am now curious as to what these gunboat pilots would have been paid given that they were prime targets for enemy snipers. This was one of the reasons for the port flap modifications to the pilot house on the Cairo. Snipers were picking the pilots off though the original port openings, which were roughly 12"x12". Iron flaps were fashioned to cover the ports during patrols in hostile waters. The pilots view was diminished considerably since now they were only able to peer through a hole in the flaps roughly the size of a half dollar. Talk about having to know the waters you were in. Other thoughts that come to mind on this are, where did the pilots loyalties lay? Would they pilot boats for whatever side paid the most, or whichever side they felt has the best cause? Also, given that they were working for the military, were they conscripted into service and fall under the command of the ships captain? I'm not sure of how much military strategy these pilots had, so some direction would have to had been under the Captains orders in times of battle. And don't get me started on the Rams. What experienced riverboat pilot would purposefully want to drive his boat into another. I'm sure this goes against all of their training and natural instincts to dodge oncoming craft. I can just hear the first pilot that was ordered to ram another vessel. "You want me to do WHAT!" 😁 Looks like I have some more research to do. -Brian

Roger, I am thinking that your second paragraph is correct. The plaque on the bell in the Cairo Museum states the same information. The only difference being that this bell was mounted to a bracket with a pivot. However, where it was mounted was pretty tight quarters so I would assume that the pivot feature was not used and that there was a rope tied to the clapper that was rung every half hour by the watch. Funny thing is, I am not sure that these bells were originally for these gunboats. I can't remember where I read it, but I do recall seeing something about the bells being requisitioned from somewhere when the boats were completed. Generally Naval boats have the names of the ship cast on the bells (please correct me if I am wrong about this statement) but the bell on the Cairo just had the name of the foundry, date and the manufacturing company. Also, the bell was cast in 1860, a tad bit before the ACW, so that kind of confirms that they bell was not initially intended for the gunboats. I'm going to keep researching a bit more on this, but if I run into a dead end, I think I'll just mount the bell on a pedestal, maybe incorporate it into a flag locker or something and install a rope on the clapper. -Brian

No apology needed. It is typical of the military to take a normal term and make it their own by giving it a totally new definition. 😁 If they can’t come up with a new definition they’ll just give an acronym to confuse the civilian population. I definitely know this from experience. I had no idea of this fact. I always thought that the riverboat captains and the pilots were one and the same. It totally makes sense though. You would want someone competent steering the boat while the Captain schmoozes with the passengers. -Brian

Thank you Pat for the kind words. The added little details to me are one of my favorite things to build. They really start to pull things together and add that touch of realism to the model. As for my little visitor, next time he can just peek in the window if he wants to take a look. I'll be more than happy to show it to him with a couple of panes of glass between us. 😁 -Brian

Eric, I would have been more than willing to let you haul him off. To me, something that slithers across the ground without legs is just unnatural. When I am out walking the property, I am always carrying, just on the off chance that I run into a snake (or something worse). We have an over abundance of Copperheads, Water Moccasins, and Rattlers out here and I am not going to take the time or get close enough to check whether or not is is venomous. Shoot first, look later 😁. I don't deliberately go out in search of them, they have just as much right to be out there as I do. But if one is in my path or where I'm working (i.e. the chicken coop, barns, etc...), then it's toast. As for the bell placement on the Ironclads, the "wheelhouse" in the case of these boats is the structure that covers the paddlewheel. The "pilothouse" refers to the where the ships wheel is up front. Since patrolling the Western Rivers was somewhat new territory for the U.S. military, the Brown Water Navy hired civilian pilots who were very familiar with the waterways to pilot these boats. My guess is this is why they called it the "Pilot House". A little bit different than a standard riverboat and it took me a bit to get used to the terminology differences. According to the divers that salvaged the Cairo, on one of their dives, they slipped down over the forward wall of the structure and found the bell. Unfortunately they didn't mention anything about whether it was mounted on a pedestal or not, so I am not sure how to place it. This bell was used to keep time on crew watches, and would be tolled once every half hour, so it seems to me that it would have been too low to the deck to ring if it wasn't mounted a little higher up. I'm still looking into it though. The bell was located in this area. -Brian

Thank you Keith, I look at your Germania build and the metal work that you have done on that, and think to myself, maybe one day in about 100 years I'll be able to do that. 😁 Actually I would love to have done the bell out of brass as I did my cannons, it's just at this time I don't have the equipment or the skills (yet) to successfully make one that way, and I didn't want to pester the guy who made my cannons for something so small. A milling machine is on my list of tools to get one day, and would have definitely come in handy on this build for several parts, unfortunately the budget hasn't provided enough fundage for one yet. For now my little cheapo mini-lathe will have to work. -Brian

Hello again everyone, Time for another update on the Cairo build. Picking up where I left off last time, I started work on the bow guard. I made this from a strip of flexible aluminum, the same material that I made the paddlewheel from. I drilled holes in alternating sides matching the original. Then the strip was bent to match the contour of the bow. I was not able to determine the length of how far this guard ran back along the center keel, so I guesstimated it at about 18' which put it at approximately the length of the foredeck. After it was drilled and bent I simulated the rivets in it, the same as I did for the iron casement plating. I left a couple of them empty to allow for me to drill into the keel and put some of the styrene rod into the wood. This will give it a better bond than just gluing it to the keel. All that is left to do is paint it up and install it. I am holding off on installing it until later. Occasionally I pull the boat down off the bench and place the bow on the floor to work on it, so I don't want to mess up the paint on the guard. Next up was construction of the ships bell. The bell was made from Milliput that I turned on the lathe. My first version was going along great, but I didn't think the process through enough. I formed a rod out of the Milliput and chucked it in the lathe. By the time I got to forming the top of the bell, the Milliput was too thin and broke off the headstock before I could finish it. Round two, I formed the Milliput around a small dowel for reinforcement. This one worked a lot better and I was able to get the bell shaped. However, after I got it painted up, I realized that the shape wasn't quite right and it was a tad bit too tall. Round three. Turning again. I think I got it right this time. Build up of the frame and scrollwork, Mounted in the frame. and all painted up. During the salvage when divers discovered the bell, they placed it's location in front of the wheelhouse structure. I have seen a few models, including the one in the Cairo museum where the builder has it located on top of the wheelhouse structure. If this were correct, the scaling would be off if it were indeed located here. Given that the recovered bell assembly is roughly 48” tall, including the mount, and the clearance between the wheelhouse structure roof and the centerline beam is less than 36” it doesn’t seem to fit. The bell also weighing in at 400+ lbs., seems like a heavy object to set on top of the thin roof of the wheelhouse, so I am not sure these models are correct. I am going to go with the information provided from the divers in that it should be located in front of the structure, my only piece of missing information is, was it mounted on a pedestal, or directly on the deck? I'm still researching this, so the bell will sit in the drawer until I can come up with an answer. Next it was on to the aft skylights. This is another item that is not shown on any of the plans or existing models, but contemporary pictures of the City Class boats show their existence. The picture of the Cairo does not give a clear indication of them, since the ships boats cover the area of where they are located, but several other photos of the other City Class boats clearly show them to be located just above the aft two cannons. So this is what I am going with since the Cairo, Cincinnati and Mound City were all constructed at the same shipyard in Mound City and contemporary photos of the Cincinnati, St. Louis and Mound City all clearly show the skylights in place, my Cairo is going to have them located there as well. Location templates in place. Frames built up and temp located. I stared having a bit of an anxiety attack at this point, cutting holes in the deck again. During the cutting process, I forgot to take pictures "again". There are some pictures of other completed items that will show the finished product, and I'll point them out as I go. I still have to make the panels for them, which means that I will have to borrow the Admirals Cricut again. That will be on a future update. Then it was on to finishing up the Starboard hammock rack. Next was the center beam that runs the length of the Hurricane Deck. I have still not been able to turn up any information on what the proper name for this beam, it seems to be pretty unique to the City Class boats. Its general purpose seems to be the center support for the canopies. On the bottom right of the next picture, you can see the completed and installed aft skylight frames. Once the center beam was installed I started work on the rope stanchions that run along the outboard side of the hammock racks. I have been having trouble with my Brass Black retaining it's color. For some reason it tends to rub off with a lot of handling. So I tried a different method. I had some black plastic coated wire from a previous build that I took a torch to to melt the plastic off. When I heated the steel wire up to cherry red and cooled it in water, it left a perfect blackened patina on the wire that doesn't rub off. After heating and cooling. Stanchions in place, Port side. Stanchions and rope installed, Starboard side. Now it was time to test a new skill. Simulating tarps. I have watched numerous YouTube videos on how to make a model tarp and properly weather it, making it look as realistic as possible. I made me up some simulated hammocks for my mockup out of Milliput. I then placed them in the hammock rack, covered it with some tissue, soaked the tissue down with 50/50 clear Elmer's Glue and water, let that dry and then weathered it with some pastels. My first attempt. I was pretty pleased with the results, so it was on to the real thing. I liked the way the Milliput looked under the tarp on my mockup, so I made up 150 more of them. I loaded up the Starboard side racks. and started covering them with the tissue. All of the tissue in place and dry. Now for the weathering. First few coats of weathering on. I am having trouble getting the lighting right on these pictures. For some reason they are not picking up all of the colors and tend to look a little light. I am going to play around with taking pictures at different times of the day to see if I can get better results. They actually look pretty good in real life, just not in the pictures. I do welcome any comments or tips on how to improve the look. While I was working on the weathering. I heard a weird noise coming from under my work bench. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was so I started looking around and moving some of the junk I have stored under there. That was when I found a very unwanted visitor. Somehow or another this three foot rat snake found it's way into my house and made his way into my shipyard/spare bedroom. Needless to say the Admiral, along with myself were pretty freaked out. Two critters I hate most in life are snakes and spider, and to find one inches from my feet, well I didn't get much sleep that night. My first thought was to shoot it, but I really didn't want to put a hole in my floor, not to mention deafening myself discharging a firearm in the house, so I trapped it in a storage tub and set the little fellow free in the back pasture. I'm sure all he was trying to do was escape the Texas heat and soak up some of my AC. Sorry pal, not in my house. 😁 After recuperating from the slithery house guest, it was back to work. I turned my focus to the elm tree pumps used to remove water from the forward and aft holds. The City Class boats had three of these. One located on the forward deck and two mounted on the fantail, one over each pontoon forming the aft hull. None of these survived the salvage, not sure if they were lost during the recovery efforts or they just rotted away over time, but the holes where they were placed in were visible on the deck when the ship was raised and there is documentation of three octagonal holes that fit the profile of this style of pump. So I researched several pictures of these pumps and found a good version of what they could have looked like on other period ships, and modeled mine after those pictures. I started off by turning a dowel into an octagon, to for the shape of the pump housing. Then I cut them down to size, making an extra one, "just in case". Holes for the outflow pipe and the core drilled out. Outflow pipes installed and handles made. Completed assembly. All three completed. Just needs paint. Forward pump installed with my crewmember standup for reference. Aft Starboard pump installed. Along the tops of the stanchions on the Port and Starboard sides there is a rope that runs from the stern to the second stanchion. This looks to serve as an anchor point for the canopy ropes as well as some support for the stanchions themselves. I went ahead and installed this as well. I completed the aft anchor, but left the forward side undone until I finish all the work on the Hurricane Deck. I wanted to be able to remove it if it got in the way. The eyebolt sticking through is for the rope handrails that run along the backside/frontside to keep crewmembers from falling down the casements. I had just not trimmed it off when I snapped this shot. More deck features that I worked on were adding some boat hooks/boarding pikes. I couldn't find any pictures of these, and there are none on display in the museum, but there is mention of one of the divers coming up with one during the salvage, so I figured I would add those as well. I just carved these out of some decorative toothpicks. Added a hook. Painted them up. Made a rack for them to stand in. And installed there in a location that seem like it would be the most useful. Along the wall of the wheelhouse structure, by the ships boats. I also made up a couple of the masts. These won't be installed until later, I was just looking for something easy to build up. I still need to make up one more of the shorter ones and finish painting these. Finally I started building up some of the crews mess kits. I just laminated a pine block with thin basswood strips, to simulated the planks, added some trim for the top and weathered them up. One complete, nine more to go. I need to figure out how to make up tiny padlocks to go on them. Not sure of how I am going todo that, I'll just have to do what I can and see if I can get it right. One last thing. 1-2-3 blocks are heavy. If you use them, please don't drop them on you model. 😪 Thankfully it didn't dent the cannon, only chipped the paint. Some minor repairs that I will have to take care of. And finally, one last shot of how she is sitting today. I'm getting there. I might just be able to get her completed by the 160th anniversary of her sinking coming up this December. Thank you all for stopping by and having a look. As always, I appreciate the likes, comments and kind words. -Brian

Keith, So glad you made it through the rough patch and were able to close that chapter. God has a plan for us all, and he doesn’t task us with anything that he doesn’t feel we can t handle. Funny, I was just going to through some of my old junk the other day and saying to myself why in the world was I keeping this. One example of the useless stuff that I had was an old receipt from Model Expo back in 1984 for a model purchase. Not sure why I was hanging on to it, but I had it. The Madawaska tag will be an excellent addition to the build, and glad the seller was willing to negotiate. I’ve had several instances of Ebay auctions where the seller had OBO on it, but wouldn’t budge on the price. Seriously what’s the point in putting OBO if you aren’t willing to work on the price? Hopefully this one didn’t take too much of a bite out of the budget. Stay strong my friend, we got your back if you need anything. -Brian