mbp521

Johnhoward, I just sent you a PM to discuss the process. I'll keep an eye out for your response. -Brian

@Keith Black @KeithAug @FriedClams Thank you all for the kind comments. I just realized from your comments that I haven't posted a picture of the entire ship in quite a while. I guess I get so involved in updating the log with all the small bits that I forget to show an overall progress. I'll definitely try to do better in the future. -Brian

Johnhoward, I am loving this! So much information to process, but so worth it. I have not seen those NPS drawings that you just posted, if you don't mind me asking, would they be a file that you would be willing to share? I can PM you my email address if you are willing to. They look like something that I would love to peruse on a larger scale. Seems like every time that I start looking at these old photographs I see something different. Last night I was doing a stare and compare whit the Cairo and St. Louis photos and noticed that there is definitely a difference in the placement of the aft funnels between the two ships. The ones on the St. Louis are located almost in the middle of the forward and aft hog chain posts and outboard of them, while the ones on Cairo are in front of the forward hog chain post and inboard of them. This is just one of the subtle differences that I have come across in the photos, but its hard to tell if these were alterations over time or just differences that were done between the two shipyards. I also wonder as the builds progressed that they didn't tweak certain features on the later ones to make building them easier. This is a topic that I am struggling with. There were several hatches along the gun deck recovered with the Cairo, and all seemed to be pretty much the same size, roughly 24" x 24". This wouldn't seem big enough to incorporate a stairway into, but a ladder would make perfect sense to gain access to the hold. However, I can't help but ask myself, could they be referring to a ladder as a stairway? This one goes back to our conversation on resupply. I had noticed in this picture of the Cincinnati that the three starboard guns are not in place. I didn't think too much of it at the time, I just thought that maybe they were doing some routine maintenance on them while they were tied up. It wasn't until this afternoon that I was looking at it that it occurred to me that they could have been moved out of the way to allow them to load supplies or coal through the gun ports. Although there is no ramp from the boat to the ship, and it does seem a long ways from the shoreline, I thought that maybe they used the ships boats to transfer the coal. But then I noticed the rope going from the shore to the third gun port and again my brain started to wonder if they didn't have some sort of transfer line they used to swing goods over to the ship from the shore, kind of like an old clothes line. They were known to bag the coal up for loading, so they could have done it that way. Just another random thought. -Brian

Keith, they are really neat machines and easy to use. She had been wanting one for a few years so I finally broke down and got it for her. Good decision on my part. I never figured that I would find a use for it. As for my tidy workspace, I try to make it a habit of clearing a small area when I take pictures and since they are such large files, I generally crop out some of the picture to get it to a size that will upload to MSW. If you truly want to see what my work space looks like while I work, here you go. Hopefully it doesn't scare you too much. -Brian

Mark, I would buy me one if the things weren't so dang expensive. I can tiptoe around her and use it when she's not looking. If I get caught, I'll just aske her about the many tools of mine she has laying around her room. Might not keep her quiet, but it may buy me some time to make my escape. 😁 -Brian

Keith, I bought the Cricut a couple of Christmas' ago for me.... I mean her, and it was a great investment. I just learned how to use it a couple of weeks ago, but I see lots of projects coming in the near future now that I know that it has the capability to cut thin basswood. 😜 Mark, I love watching the History Channel, and here lately they have had a lot of American Civil War shows on. I watched one the other day on Ulysses S. Grant that was fantastic, as well as the one on Abraham Lincoln. The research is really helping with the build, I really wish I had started a lot earlier, there are several interior features that I would have changed, but I was anxious to get started. So far I feel that I have a somewhat true representation of the ship, but going forward, since the exterior is the most exposed, I really want to make sure that I get this part right. As for the soldering the aluminum, that was a lesson learned. At first I was going to make the davits out of brass but I was having trouble finding 1/8" brass stock. Must have been a run on them, that is why I went with aluminum. I am getting to where I really like working with the styrene more and more though it just that the 1/8" styrene was a little too flimsy for the davits. Don, Thank you for the kind words and my pleasure. As a kid I remember hating to have to research things. I got over that in college, and started to enjoy it. College was a long time ago and not a lot of research was done after that, except for the occasional look up of something of interest, but nothing too in depth. Then with my last build I really started to get into it. Then came this build. I had no idea what I was getting into, but I love it. Kids today have it a lot easier with the internet at their disposal, but it's almost too much information and not all of it is correct. Thanks to people like you, they have mentors that can guide them in the right direction and let them know what and how to look for the correct info. Pat, Thank you for the kind words. When I first approached the Admiral about using her Cricut to make the window frames, she told me that was cheating and that there was nothing wrong with the way that I was doing them before. This was just her way of kindly telling me that she didn't want to show me how to use the machine for fear of me taking it over. But I explained to her that it wasn't really cheating, I mean the Cricut is basically a CNC machine and that is what the model kit companies use to make their kits. She finally caved and now I have my window frames and Cricut knowledge. Time to take over her machine. -Brian

Johnhoward, Thank you for sharing the sketch. This really opens up a ton of new questions. You are definitely correct when you said that the perspective is way off, without delving too deep into scaling and math, this representations would have the area between the casement and the boiler room wall at well over 25' which would only leave another 26' for the starboard side of the gun deck and the boiler room. It just doesn't add up. The quarters were much closer than that. Given that the 8" Smoothbore(?) in the second port was almost 10' long and about half of it is still sitting inside the casement, measuring that across the floor level would make it well over 25' (just rough math). The other thing that gets me about the sketch is the funnel imbedded in the wall. The Cairo plans and all photographs that I have seen of the sister ships, show the forward funnels directly forward of the chimneys. Given that the chimneys were at least twice as wide as the funnels, wouldn't they, along with the flume, protrude through the boiler room wall as well? I guess that this sketch could have been drawn after a modification where they moved the funnels outboard some, or they were damaged after a battle and adjusted for more efficiency. I'm just spit balling here. A few things that I really noticed from the sketch that stick in my brain are: 1) the drawing looks to show, in my opinion, what seems like hard walled Jr. officers quarters with doors and framing. This would coincide with other drawings, models and the HSR plans. But I am taking this sketch with a grain of salt due to the other irregularities, and they quite possibly could just be tent walled structures. 2) I noticed that in the back by the boiler wall where the sketch calls out a stairway, would this not actually be the engines? If the boiler walls were built around the boiler and with it's dimensions, if I remember correctly, the boiler was wide enough to where it sat between the outer two keels and the engines were mounted on the outboard sides of the outer keels. Placement of the "stairway" in this area would not really be feasible. 3) In the back, by the aft gun there seems to be a lot of daylight, especially over the gun itself. I am just wondering. I took another look at the photograph you sent of the backside of the Baron DeKalb and I noticed a structure on the starboard deck behind the crewman. At first glance I thought that it might just be a crate, but after staring at it for a bit, it almost looks as if there were windows on top that match that of the hatch and forward skylight that I found on the Cairo photograph. It also has the angles that would allow water to shed off, if it were indeed a hatch. That could explain the reason the sketch shows the lighting over the aft gun. Just speculation, and a may be trying put things there that don't actually exist. One other thought is that there were not actually stairwells down though these hatches but ladders that could be easily removed and stowed to keep the areas clear for the crew. There had to be some sort of this method for access to the pilot house, since the only way to get there was from the gun deck, so this would be a possible method, and this is how I incorporated access into my build. These are just some of the thoughts that popped into my head, so please forgive me if I am rambling, but this is definitely interesting to see new material and I'm sure it will spawn even more questions and thoughts. -Brian

Hello again everyone, I am back with a brief update. The past few weeks have been spent building and then rebuilding due to finding out more details on the high-res picture that I discovered. Starting off, I built up the forward skylight. I constructed the basic frames from 1/16" basswood strips. Then I installed some mesh underneath, which I assumed would provide some protection from drunk crew members falling through when the hatch windows were open. Actually was thinking that it was to somewhat protect the crew on the Gun Deck from flying shrapnel during battles. Once I had the basic frames built up, I painted it up and made the window hatches. These were made from .040 square styrene strips backed by clear plastic. This was definitely a tedious process, cutting all the tiny pieces and sanding them to fit just perfectly. Once they were completed, they were then temp installed in place. Once the forward skylight was done, I moved on to the center skylight. Again with the tedium, I measured out and started building the 16 windows that make up the central skylight, This area was used a ventilation for the boiler area below. The funnels on the Hurricane deck could be directed into the wind to force cooler air down below and these skylight hatches could be opened to allow the hot air from the boiler to vent out. 19th century air conditioning. One down 15 more to go. Needless to say, building up all these windows got old really fast. So, I put my little pea brain to work trying to come up with a better, more efficient way to do this. While I pondered a solution, I happened by the Admirals craft room where she was hard at work making stencils for T-shirt on her Cricut. Then it hit me! I wonder... So I inquired with the Admiral as to what types of material could that Cricut cut? Here response was, "pretty much anything you need". Well that really got the wheels to turning, and it just so happened that I had some white 0.020 styrene sheets laying around that I thought would work perfectly for the window frames. So I got a crash course in the Cricut canvass, which is a simplified CAD program and went to work. I measured out the the widow widths and entered everything into the program and away she went. The end result was perfect window frames. All built in the program and cut in less time that it took for me to put together one the other way. So I took the frames and sandwiched a piece of clear styrene between two of them and started making up the windows. It was at about this time that another idea hit me. I was going to have to paint the tops of these windows black to match the rest of the deck and not stand out like a sore thumb. So I commenced to painting the first one and found out real quick that this was going to take way too much work and not come out like I wanted them to. So it was on to Amazon for some black .020 styrene and back to the Cricut. This made thing so much easier. Putting in the hinges. In place on the deck. Before getting them fully installed I propped some of them open with prop-rods. Since I was not able to dig up any information on this area of the boat, I followed the HSR plans for this part as I did for the forward skylight. These windows worked out so well, I continued on with the hatches over the paddlewheel cranks. Same methods as before, I sandwiched a clear piece of styrene between a black and white frame and mounted them in place. First one tested for fit. Since I assumed that these would have been opened manually, none of the pictures show any rigging going to them otherwise, I installed a handle on each one to help open it for ventilation. Port side all installed, hinges added and a little weathering to see how it looks. It was at this point when I found the high-res picture of the Cairo and things slowed to a crawl. The Admiral and I were watching a Civil War documentary on the History Channel and they just so happened to have a segment on Iron Clad Gunboats. Well they also had the photograph of the Cairo on there and as they were showing it, I noticed a few details that I had not seen before. I hit the pause button, slow rewind and forward staring at the picture. There were details that I had not seen in the many version of this picture that I had downloaded from the internet. So I figured that there had to be a better version than the ones I had out there, so to the Web I went. Now I know that I said that I found the picture, but I really have to give the credit to the Admiral, she is actually the one that found the high-res version that I have been using lately. So when I mean things slowed to a crawl, the literally did. I spent endless hours staring at the new photo pouring over details I was not able to see before. One of those details was the forward skylight, I had totally gotten it wrong, and so did the HSR. From the below screen shot you can see the skylight is made up of only two panels on each side and not three. The port forward hatch looks to be fully open while the starboard and both aft hatches are only partially open. You can just make out the frame lines on the port aft hatch that show that they had long narrow panes in them and not a divided lite style like the HSR plans. So I decided to go about rebuilding my first version. I started with a frame much like version 1. Borrowed the Admirals Cricut once more to make the window frames. And constructed version 2. I have to say that a lot of work went into version 1, but I like version 2 much better. Next up was a newly discovered feature that I have been discussing at length with Johnhoward over on the St. Louis build. I mentioned this feature in an earlier post (#462) of what looks to be a deck access hatch from the Hurricane Deck to the Gun Deck below. Well I decided to go ahead and build these up, since it would make sense that there would be some sort of access the lower deck to aid in resupply, as well as add a easier way for the crew to scramble below deck during battles. I am still in the research phase of this part, but I wanted to see how they looked and if it made sense to have these. The side walls have been cut out. Structure complete, minus the hatch window. Hatches in their proposed location. Hatch window constructed the same as the others on the skylights. I am going to hold off on painting these until I can uncover more info on their actual existence. Seems like they would be, according to the picture, but we'll see. Last up was the construction of the davits and anchors. The anchors were pretty much straight forward. I purchased a couple of 38mm Corel anchors from Model Expo a while back and figured they would work perfectly for the scale of this build. They were standard, wooden stock anchors that I converted to iron stock ones, more like what was aboard these Iron Clads. Some of the mold seams have been filed away and the iron stock was made from brass wire and beads. The shackles I made out of brass wire as well, just hammered flat on the ends and bent to shape. The finished anchors, minus paint. Finally the davits were constructed. These were made from 1/8" aluminum rod. I started by drilling a pilot hole in one end of the rod to receive the eyebolt to form the ring for the blocks. I then tapered the end to almost a point by chucking the rod in my drill and using a fine file to the desired taper. Then I made up a jig to get all eight davits a consistent radius on their bend. Next up was the support brackets. I started off making these out of 1/16" aluminum tube for the supports and 1/8" ID tubing for the collars. I made up another jig to keep the angles consistent and then after several failed attempts to solder the support rods to the collars, I finally gave up. Version 2 of these, I decided to go with styrene rod and tubing. This method worked so much better and with a dab of CA I was well on my way with a solid joint between the collars and supports. All eight completed davits, ready for paint. Now it is on to getting the anchors and davits painted up. I still have more research to do on the access hatches and I will start working on the hammock nets. Hopefully I will have those completed by next update. As always, thank you all for stopping by and liking my work as well as all the kind comments and input. -Brian

Johnhoward, I agree 100% with that assessment. What I wouldn’t give to have a time machine to go back and have a look at these boats, not only in action, but to also see their construction. As stated before, I am a novice at best, at maritime research, and to be honest, I have relied heavily on the information that you and your group have found along the way and have presented in your build log. Needles to to say there is no way that I could thank you guys enough for putting that info out there for myself and others that decide to take on the challenge of building these unique boats. While my research is nowhere near as extensive as your group, I feel that given my lack of experience, I can still say that I have put forth my best effort to make as true a representation of this boat as I can, and I will always be more than happy to contribute in any way to help you guys (and others) as well. This is one of the things that I love most about the MSW community, the willingness to share all sorts of information, tips, tricks and other data that will help each modeler be successful in their builds. Not to mention, what my old boss used to call “learning opportunities “ to improve. I am anxious to see if you are able to uncover any additional information on the deck hatches. I think this will go a long way in uncovering the mystery of how they were resupplied efficiently. Over the weekend, after another couple of hours of staring at the Cairo photograph, I believe I have uncovered another discrepancy in the placement of the aft funnels. From the looks of it, I believe they were mounted a little more inboard than the plans are showing to put them more in line with the forward funnels. I also think that they may have had a little more forward placement to put them between the third and fourth guns. This may be a point of perspective, but given that the starboard aft funnel is actually showing to be in front of the aft starboard hog chain post, I believe my theory may hold water. I want to look into this a bit more before going in and cutting new holes I my deck. The good thing is that if I do have to move my funnels, the newly found hatches may be end up being located over the holes that I currently have for the aft funnel location. We’ll have to see. Thanks again for all of your groups efforts and for putting up with my endless questions. -Brian

All I can say is WOW Keith! You really nailed it. Beautiful job! I see nothing wrong with that. -Brian

Johnhoward, I can go back through some of the reading material to verify where I read about this picture being the Cairo. I’m pretty sure Edwin Bearss mentions it in his book Hardluck Ironclad. Also, it has been almost eight years since I visited the Cairo museum, but I am almost positive that they mention something about the photograph on a plaque by the huge mural they have on the wall of the museum with this same picture. Not to mention the Vicksburg NMP website also verifies it here. I know this doesn’t give very many details about the validity of the photograph or where they arrived at this claim, but one would hope the museum personnel would have done their research before posting this information. -Brian

Johnhoward, It was the similarities of the photos that first raised my suspicions on the the validity of the boat names. Since it has been well documented that the photo of the Cairo is the only known picture of this particular ship I took that one as gospel and the remaining pictures I have just been using as reference for different parts of the construction, since they were so similarly built. I had found the first picture you show a while back, but the version that I found was a lot more grainy, and looked more like a lithograph than an actual picture. Later on in my research I found a clearer copy that helped clear things up a bit. Especially the ship in the front. From my first picture it looked as though the aft deck had been extended, but the clearer picture identifies it as one of the ships boats in tow. I have never actually sought a professional photographer to look at the pictures to verify if they have been retouched or not, I’m kinda new at this research thing and it had never crossed my mind. I am however glad to know that at least there are a couple of unaltered pictures out there for reference. As for your comment on the HSR showing the deck house roof as flat, this was another area that stumped me in my build. The high-res photo of the Cairo is not clear enough to make out the roofline of this structure, and it seems that the majority of the other boats had the cambered roof, so I relied on the photos of the other boats to make the decision to go with the cambered roof instead of following the plans. There are a few other smaller areas that I made the same decision on as well. -Brian

Bdgiantman2, I appreciate your input on this. The technique you described I am not very familiar with, but it does sound interesting. It would make great use of old sails, and who knows, some old sails could have been used as the covers for the hammocks. I think that I have finally figured out how I am going to go about building my hammock nets. I believe that I will be following the model outlined in Chappelle’s book The American Sailing Navy. On page 476, Chappelle shows three versions from 1800 to 1865. The latest one, 1828-1865 will be what I am going to model mine after. This version has stanchions covered with wooden panels on the inside and wooden staves on the outsides along with a wooden top rail. I will have two stanchions placed between the stationaries, and the hammock net will run from the forwardmost stationary to the second to last one (9th Stationary) on both sides. I will not place a hammock net between the 9th and 10th stationary as a way to give the crew access to the ship’s boats. It's unclear if the Cairo was built this way since the ships boats are covering this area, but the pictures of the other City-Class Ironclads have different variations of access to them, so I used my builders liberties to go with the one I thought fit best. The stanchions will be elevated about 6” (1/8” scaled at 1:48) to allow for rain water run off and stowage of spare lumber and other items. (Thank you Roger P. for the info on that little detail). I will also add wooden runners down the middle of the stanchions with gaps between them to support the hammocks and provide air flow to help keep the hammocks dry. Once these are built out, I am going to simulate some of them being filled with a canvas cover, a couple I will leave uncovered to show the stowed hammocks and a couple more I will leave empty, to show the construction details. This is the plan anyway. I may dive off into and find that I have bitten off more than I can chew and have to reconsider my ideas. We’ll see how it goes. Stay tuned. The below drawing is my interpretation of how I will construct the nets. -Brian

Johnhoward, It is funny that you mention that. While researching the ironclads, I have pulled down many pictures off the internet for study, and I am sure you have probably seen these as well. One such photo was what looked like a newspaper clipping of the St. Louis. It's hard to tell for sure, but this one looks like an original, un-doctored photo. Without the color bands it make it hard to tell, but the heading and picture file both have it listed as the St. Louis. But it goes with what you were saying about the builder gifting the photos. However, a couple of other photographs that I found were of the St. Louis looking eerily familiar. The next photos are clearly the same picture as above, but one is titled Baron DeKalb and the other is titled Carondelet. Looks like some serious photoshopping has been done to doctor these up. The main difference on these two is that the crossbar symbols have been altered to reflect the two different ships. It's information like this that definitely make it challenging to distinguish the different boats. Baron DeKalb Carondelet -Brian

Johnhoward, I believe that this is definitely going to be one of those mysteries that will probably be next to impossible to solve. I have concluded that the photograph of the Cairo had to have been taken between the time of her commissioning in January 1862 and April 1862. This conclusion was made on the fact that Cairo was commissioned in January just after the completion of the armor plating on her port and starboard casemates, and the pilot house has not yet been upgraded with the forward three panels being reinforced. The extra protection on the pilot house was added after Flag Officer Foote was injured at the battle of Fort Donelson aboard the St. Louis and another pilot was killed aboard the Louisville in February 1862. According to research documents, Cairo was on patrol on the Cumberland & Tennessee rivers, taking part in the capture of Nashville, for the first part of her career. In early April 1862 she was ordered back to Cairo Naval Station due to the falling waters on the Tennessee river. During this time is when the pilot house was reinforced. There are no other details of other work done to her during the six days she was tied up at Cairo, IL. So the assumption is made that the wooden hammock racks were still in place. The photograph also shows that the railroad irons are not in place on the forward casemates. These were added in late April after the Mound City and Cincinnati were sunk by Confederate rams in a skirmish off Plum Point. Again, there is no mention of any other work performed other than the armor upgrade. Another modification documented on the Cairo took place in June 1862 after the surrender of Memphis. Cairo was ordered back to Fort Pillow for guard duty. During her time there the crews fortified the structures around the boilers and engines with timbers and railroad iron found in and around the fort. This was done in response to the Mound City boiler explosion from a well placed shot during a skirmish at St. Charles, AR. Other information on repairs that I was able to dig up were in late October 1862, the replacement of the fire linings after several small incidents of the old ones catching fire. The fire bricks, fire boxes and gratings were also replaced. In November 1862 many of the gun deck planks were replaced due to extreme wear from the gun carriage trucks. There are also writings of where cotton bales and other available materials were put in place as fortifications on the Hurricane deck as you mentioned above as well as extra protection on the pilot house. I would assume that hammock netting was a menial upgrade/task that most likely would not have warranted documenting, and so far I have not been able to locate any info on the ships logs from Lieutenant Bryant to find out if they contain any other information on repairs. Unfortunately, the ships logbook from Lt. Cdr. Selfridge and the ships official papers were lost when the Cairo sank, so we will most likely never know what was written in them. All in all this is a great discussion and has given me more inspiration to further my research. -Brian

Just discovered your build. Beautiful work so far. It’s great that you are breathing new life into these older kits. The Robert E. Lee is on my to build list some day. I’m definitely going to follow along intently. -Brian

Sorry to hear that. I hope you can get back to it soon. Wishing you a speedy recovery. -Brian

Beautiful job on the Capstan Project Eric! I love the way the grain stands out on the wood. I will be keeping an eye out for your next project. -Brian

Got your test message. -Brian

Wefalck, Simply amazing work. I still have a hard time believing that the deck is painted and not individual planking! -Brian

Thank you Roger for the info. I have to tell you, there are fewer things better than a good book. Especially ones that have plethora of useful information. I was able to locate a used copy of the U of M hardcover printing on Amazon for $20. Looking forward to perusing through the pages when it comes in. I have just about made my decision on on how I am going to build the hammock nets, and most likely it will be the wooden box style. In the pictures I posted earlier, you can definitely see that they are raised above the deck surface, but I was thinking this was just for rain water to flow under and help keep the hammocks dry. It never occurred to me that hey could be used for storage, but that makes perfect sense. Keith, I am right there with you when it comes to staring at an old photograph over and over. When I discovered the high-res picture of the Cairo the other day it was like getting a new tool. I was so excited to see certain parts of the ship that I was not able to make out before. I wasn’t even aware that at the time the picture was taken, that they still had the howitzer on the Hurricane deck. In all the previous pictures I had, it was difficult to discern what that section of the picture contained. I even had the Admiral laughing at me due to my excitement of discovering new details. She said I looked happier than a toddler with a lollipop. But after staring at this one for several hours, I started going cross eyed and had to step away for a while. -Brian

Johnhoward, In case you would like to download the pictures, I found them at the link below. The high res ones that I used are the .tif files. Sure hope they help. https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/NH-61000/NH-61568.html -Brian

Keith, Spacing cards are the way to go! I have never done a build without them and I have found that Bobby-pins work perfectly to hold them in place without getting in the way. Of course I’ve never done a build at that small of scale as you are doing, but I would think they would still work out fine. A test bed with a mock up is also the right way to go. As you said, the number three card is closest to scale and looks the best, while the number two card looks good as well. The attempt is to get the model as close to real as possible, but you also have to take into consideration your limitations. Either way you decide, you still have a fantastic build going on and we support whichever decision you make. You’ve got this! -Brian

Hello again everyone, I am not ready for an update just yet, the past few weeks have been spent researching and studying photographs of the Cairo and her sister ships to try and get a better understanding of how the Hurricane deck and its structures were built. I do have a few things completed, but nothing substantial enough to post. I have however posted this same information on the Gateway Model Shipcrafter's Guild build of the St. Louis, and I thought I would post it here in my build to see if I could get more feedback from the members that aren't following that build. I have been struggling to figure out how to build the hammock netting on the sides of the Hurricane deck. Johnhoward posted some great info on Civil War era hammock netting in their build log, but I am not sure if the all of the info applies to this type of boat. I was able to locate a high resolution .tif file of the Cairo, and In looking at several areas of this photo, I can see where it looks like one the crewman's legs are visible through the hammock netting in the forwardmost station between the first two stationaries (I'm not sure of the proper terminology for these). However, when I zoom in on them, there appears to me, to be several evenly spaced vertical lines that look to be individual boards along this space. Also, if you look further aft, closer to the workboats (between stationaries 5 & 6), these vertical lines are more defined especially at the bottom where is looks like either the paint is washed out or the sun is reflecting off the shiny surface. The counterpoint I came up with in this area, was that the tarp covering the hammocks was not pulled all the way down to the deck and that the lighter area showing is the hammocks themselves. But I don't see the horizontal lines of the net. The first picture that you have would make sense with the netting running horizontal and vertical, but the spacing of the grid on this net would seem to let a lot more show through if they were indeed empty. There are also two crew members sitting on these hammock nets in both of these areas and neither of the sections they are seated in are bowed. This looks like it would take into account what you stated above, that there could have been a temporary horizontal rail installed to support them or some other solid surface. I wouldn't think that given the size of the stationaries, that they could pull a rope taught enough between them to support a full grown man without bowing just a little bit. I am just struggling with the evenly spaced vertical lines that look like planks, being netting. Another thing that I discovered while going cross-eyed staring at this photograph, is it appears that there may have been a companionway located on the Hurricane deck just aft of the rear funnel and outboard of the forward hog chain support post. In the closeup snippit below, you can see what appears to be an open hatch cover with long windows. The reason I believe that this would be a hatchway is because of the white paint on the hatch itself as well as the inside walls. This seems to match the paint scheme of the open windows on the forward skylight (second picture below). Best I can tell, this companion way would come out just behind the aft most side guns and allow the crew to load supplies to the gun deck and hold without having to move the cannons out of the way and load everything through the gun ports. I truly could be off base with this theory, but it definitely looks like this is some sort of access way to the deck below. One final item that I found is what looks to be a skylight on the roof of the forward side structure built around the paddlewheel house. If you look at the snippit below, there appears to be a white rectangular shape on the roof of this structure. It would make sense that this could be a skylight, since the only other window in this area is located on the forward wall of the same structure, and it is pretty small. I just thought that I would throw this out there to possibly spur more discussion on what it could possibly be. Any thoughts or opinions on this are welcome. I am trying to get a different perspective on these areas to get my details as accurate as possible. Hopefully I'll have an update on the build soon. Thank you for stopping by. -Brian

Johnhoward, Thanks so much for the additional photos, they are extremely useful. Over the past few weeks, I have been researching and studying photographs of the Cairo and her sister ships and I was able to locate a high resolution .tif file of the Cairo. In looking at several areas of this photo, I can see where it looks like one the crewman's legs are visible through the hammock netting in the forwardmost station between the first two stationaries (I'm not sure of the proper terminology for these). However, when I zoom in on them, there appears to me, to be several evenly spaced vertical lines that look to be individual boards along this space. Also, if you look further aft, closer to the workboats (between stationaries 5 & 6), these vertical lines are more defined especially at the bottom where is looks like either the paint is washed out or the sun is reflecting off the shiny surface. The counterpoint I came up with in this area, was that the tarp covering the hammocks was not pulled all the way down to the deck and that the lighter area showing is the hammocks themselves. But I don't see the horizontal lines of the net. The first picture that you have would make sense with the netting running horizontal and vertical, but the spacing of the grid on this net would seem to let a lot more show through if they were indeed empty. It's an endless cycle. There are also two crew members sitting on these hammock nets in both of these areas and neither of the sections they are seated in are bowed. This looks like it would take into account what you stated above, that there could have been a temporary horizontal rail installed to support them or some other solid surface. I wouldn't think that given the size of the stationaries, that they could pull a rope taught enough between them to support a full grown man without bowing just a little bit. I am just struggling with the evenly spaced vertical lines that look like planks, being netting. Another thing that I discovered while going cross-eyed staring at this photograph, goes back to a discussion that your group had about how supplies were loaded onto the boats (post #74). In looking closely, it appears that there may have been a companionway located on the Hurricane deck just aft of the rear funnel and outboard of the forward hog chain support post. In the closeup snippit below, you can see what appears to be an open hatch cover with long windows. The reason I believe that this would be a hatchway is because of the white paint on the hatch itself as well as the inside walls. This seems to match the paint scheme of the open windows on the forward skylight (second picture below). Best I can tell, this companion way would come out just behind the aft most side guns and allow the crew to load supplies to the gun deck and hold without having to move the cannons out of the way and load everything through the gun ports. I truly could be off base with this theory, but it definitely looks like this is some sort of access way to the deck below. One final item that I found is what looks to be a skylight on the roof of the forward side structure built around the paddlewheel house. If you look at the snippit below, there appears to be a white rectangular shape on the roof of this structure. It would make sense that this could be a skylight, since the only other window in this area is located on the forward wall of the same structure. I just thought that I would throw this out there to possibly spur more discussion on what it could possibly be. I will also post these last two questions on my build as well to see what other feedback I can get. Please don't think that I am trying to debunk you and your teams extensive research on the hammock nets, and I do realize that we are building two different boats, I just want to offer up some thoughts of mine and give a different perspective of these boats. All of the research that you and your group have done has been a tremendous help in getting me to where I am now with my build, and is greatly appreciated. I just hope that some of my suggestions will help in some way with your build as well. -Brian