mbp521

Beautiful job Keith! Never had any doubt whatsoever that you couldn’t pull it off. They are definitely tiny little buggers though. -Brian

Keith, there is no doubt that you prevail in this task. At times like this, it’s always good to leave the bench for a bit, take a nice walk to clear the noggin, then get back to it. We’re all here to cheer you on and can’t wait to see the results of dead eyes 3.0. Keep your head up my friend, victory is in sight. -Brian

Amazing work as always Eberhard! As a curiosity, how many of those tiny belaying pins were lost to the floor gods? I would guess it is a good thing they were made from steel instead of brass so they could be rescued with a magnet. As for your mast, if you wouldn’t have told us they were painted, I would have put a weeks wages on them being stained wood. Simply beautiful. -Brian

Very nice job Eric. Excellent way to adapt and overcome those obstacles. For some reason I was thinking that 1:24 scale was bigger than that, and I can now truly understand the struggles of the small bits. I’m thinking that I may go with 1:16 when I get to building this one. -Brian

That is excellent news! Glad to hear that it’s not serious enough to require surgery. -Brian

So sorry to hear Johann. Best wishes for a speedy recovery. We will patiently stand by while you get yourself better. -Brian

Eric, From what I can tell so far these hatches were just leaned up against the side wall of the wheel house, but I have considered adding a prop stick to them just for aesthetics. I still need to do a little more looking into these since I am not sure if they were one long cover or four individual ones. The skylights over the boilers are what is really troubling me. I am having a hard time finding any info on them to determine if they had glass panes in them or were solid covers. Since the HSR shows what looks to be window dividers on it I am seriously thinking of going with glass and propping a few of them open. All this research has seriously slowed me down a bit. -Brian

Keith, that would be a hilarious addition to this if I were to put figures on it. Maybe the door being opened was from all the pipe smoke. 😁 -Brian

Most definitely country-side carpenters. There were seven of the boats built in 100 days by the cheapest labor they could find in the area. -Brian

Hello again everyone, I just realized that I have not posted any updates on my build this month. Time just got away from me and I have been concentrating more on building than the build log. So here is what has happened since last time. I have finally started work on the Hurricane Deck features, mainly the wheel house and its additional attachments, such as the store rooms, showers and latrines. First in, was mounting the main wheel house structure that I had previously built in the last update. All of the remaining aft structures are built around this one. Next up were the side skylights over the paddlewheel cranks. I think these served a dual purpose. One was for lighting and the other to help cool the officers quarters, given their locations. I started off with a simple framework. Added the dividers. Installed some screen mesh and painted them up. Then the port side was temp installed. Overhead view showing the cranks below. I then completed the starboard side and both were then mounted in place. After they were installed, I marked off the area where the showers and other buildings were going to be located. Next up was the aft building. There is no real documentation on what these structures were used for, with the exception of some references that say there were showers located on the Hurricane Deck and that water from the paddle wheel was somehow collected and plumbed to be heated for crew showers as well as "flush" the latrines. I'm an not sure how all of this was done and I was not able to find any information on how this was plumbed up to work, so no details were put into the internal parts of these building. Another part of this build I struggled with was the curvature of the roof on the two main buildings on the fore and aft of the wheel house. The HSR plans for Cairo show the roof to be flat. I am not sure if these were drawn this way due to lack of information or what. From the only existing picture of the Cairo it is really hard to tell since it gets extremely grainy when you zoom in a good bit. It would stand to make sense that the roof would have a bow to it to shed rainwater. Also, in the pictures of this structure on the Mound City, Baron DeKalb (St. Louis), Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Carondelet, they all have bowed roofs on them. Majority rules, so this is the style that I went with. The main forms for the walls of the aft building. Temp installed in their location to get the curvature of the wheel house right. Framing of the doors. Rough forms for the doors and widow dividers. Side window dividers going in. Building up the doors. Completed doors and windows. Some of the outside planking going on, to give it a nice finish. Slather a coat of paint on the sides and a bit of weathering. Structure set in place. and a little more weathering. At this point I am just paying around with the weathering to see what technique I like. Once everything is completed, I'll go back and put more effort into it. I just like practicing up as I go along. The fore building was built in the same manner as the aft one, with the exception that there are side buildings that extend from the port and starboard side of this one. Construction of the starboard side building. The port side was built exactly like the starboard side. They were both painted up and glued in place. Next was the installation of the ladders to access the top of the wheel house. Starboard ladder complete. More important features on the starboard side, the latrine. I wanted to show a little detail on this part, since this area was described in documentation as being the latrines. My story goes that there was a sailor that ate something that didn't agree with him so he left the door open afterwards as a courtesy to the next occupant. Then it was time to tarpaper the roof of the structures. I did this in the same method as would have been done on most steamboats of the time. Silk span was cut to a scale 4' wide (scaled down to 1" in 1:48) and secured in place with watered down ModPodge. The overlapping tar seams were simulated as well. All trimmed up and ready for paint. And all painted. Port ladder going in. Building of the port side latrine. Since I detailed the starboard side, I left this one simplified with the door closed. All structures painted up and a bit of weathering. Here is another area that is hard to find info on. Research has turned up zero information detailing these hatch covers over the aft skylights. The HSR as well as the Bob Hill plans show this area as open which would leave everything below exposed to the elements. I have studied some of the pictures that show this area somewhat, but again zooming in makes things very grainy, so it is hard to tell if these covers are one long cover or several hatches. For the time being, I am going to go with separate hatch covers until I can uncover something that proves me wrong. Hatch covers completed and the base trim installed. Painting the trim. Then it was on to one of the more tedious jobs, marking the deck nails. When you look at the actual Cairo in Vicksburg, many of the deck nails are still embedded in the beams of the bow. From what it looks like, the deck boards were nailed to every beam, but at 1:48 scale I thought that this would look a tad bit cluttered and messy, so with my build I went with every-other beam. Simulated nails on the wheel house structure. Lastly, it was on to the funnels. These provided a way to direct fresh air to the gun deck below, to help clear out gun smoke, cooling during the summer months. They also helped remove some of the heat created from the boilers, cook stove as well as removing odors from the occasional smelly sailor. I made these from 12mm clear acrylic tubing. I had originally wanted to heat the tubing to form the bend, but after several failed attempts I decided on my second method. On my first attempts, when I would heat the tubing, I wasn't able to keep the plastic from bunching up on the inside of the turn. This seemed to be a little too tight of a turn so I decided to cut the tubing at a 45 degree angle, fill the bend with Milliput and sand the outer bend to for the curve. Once it was sanded down, I drilled out the center of the Milliput to where only a thin layer was left on the inside, enough to maintain the structure of the funnel, but not enough to block the opening. I used the last bit of copper sheets on the chimneys, so instead of using that material for the funnel flares, I used some heavy card stock. More simulated rivets with aluminum tape. Completed funnels. That is it for this update. I am currently working on the forward and center skylights, but I haven't downloaded those pictures as of yet, so they will be on my next update. Hopefully it won't be as long of a wait. I am still researching these a bit due to the fact that I am having trouble finding out how they were built. Until next time, thank you all for visiting, the likes and the kind words. Be safe and stay well. -Brian

Johann, I’ve heard that there is always room for improvement, but how do you top perfection? Your shipbuilding skills are masterful. Thank you for posting the video to, it just adds to the enjoyment of this build. -Brian

Nice work George. Great technique on building up the mast. This is one of the reasons I shelved my build because I could not figure out how to make these look right. I was all over the place with it, down to even trying to figure out how to carve the longitudinal groves in the round stock and piecing the wedges in their locations. This method seems to work just perfectly. Definitely filing this away for the future. Thanks for the tutorial. -Brian

Stunning work Vlad! You are really moving along. -Brian

Phil, I’m pulling up a chair and getting ready for the ride. Really looking forward to this build. A transitional era ship is on my list to build, just haven’t figured out which one yet. -Brian

I have to agree with Mark, your fix seems to have remedied your off-center capstan hole and looks great. Since I am a creature of habit and tend to go by the pictures when I run into situations like this, and I would have matched the drawings. This is a habit that I need to get out of, given that it has bitten me in the backside more than once. Thanks for pointing it out so that I don’t get bit when I get to this point. -Brian

Johnhoward, Thank you for the useful information on the anchors. I had purchased a couple of 19th century anchors with the wooden stocks for my build to modify as needed to get the correct style carried by the City Class ironclads. I haven't yet started any research on them, so this definitely helps a lot. Of the journals that have been made available from the sailors present at the time of the Cairo's sinking, almost all of the make reference of seeing the port anchor going airborne at the time of the torpedo explosion. This would explain the reason for it's absence. It's been about 7.5 years since I last visited Vicksburg NMP and my memory is a little fuzzy, but I want to remember that they had an anchor on display inside the museum. Not sure if this would have been one of the other anchors the Cairo carried or not, but if they were secured to the anchor chains that were recovered during the salvage operation, one would believe that they would have displayed this as well. I still have some digging to do on this one though. I have recently started work on the Hurricane deck structures on my Cairo build I am curious to see the status of your St. Louis build, especially the hammock racks. This is a feature that I am still researching and struggling to find any viable information on. Most of the pictures that I have found show different iterations of them and most likely modified from their original design, if they are even in place at all. I am wanting to do a wooden hard wall on the outboard side with a netting structure on the inboard side, but I want to research a little more to make sure. Thanks again for the info on the anchors. -Brian

Thanks Brian for the kind words. I have seen that picture before, it’s actually the one that I used to model my cannon rigging off of somewhat. It does give a good representation of what things might have look like aboard these boats, it’s just unfortunate that there is no way to validate its accuracy. But still, it’s a great drawing. -Brian

Beautiful job on the mast tops Vlad. I truly enjoy following your work! -Brian

Eric, Good things to watch for. I’ll definitely keep the differences of the model and the plans in mind when I get around to my build. Glad things are working out with the off center hole. By the way, beautiful job on the grating! Everything looks like it fit together perfectly. I guess we were posting at the same time and I missed that update. -Brian

Eric, glad that you are feeling better. I have not had a chance to read through the instructions on this project yet, but is the base supposed to completely cover the carlings? If so, you could cut the proposed amount off the left side enough to center the hole and be flush with the outside edge of the carping. Then you could add that same amount to the right side to cover the adjustment and I would think that everything would look symmetrical again. -Brian

Johann, beautiful work as always. I am always in awe of you workmanship. You may have mentioned this in a previous post and I have forgotten since then, but what type of material are you using for your rigging line? Not a single speck of fuzz not even on the closest shots. -Brian

Eric, hopefully it’s just a winter cold and not the ‘rona. We are a patient bunch and can wait for future updates. Best you can do is to take care of yourself. Get well soon. -Brian

Beautiful work as always Keith. I love the details that you are putting into this build. Especially at a small scale. Graduating the blocks smaller as you go up and the preventer chains. It’s always the small details like that, that add that special something to a build. -Brian

George, Great job for your first attempt on the mast. This is the point where I put my build on hold due to the lack of tools and experience. I’ll be watching closely as to how you proceed and maybe one day pull my “Fish” out of mothballs and finish her up. I sure hope we don’t have to resort to cannibalism this year. 2021 was bad enough.😁 Happy 2022 -Brian

Amazing detail work in miniature! .2mm door knobs, I would have had to make a dozen spares with maybe one or two left over. Sacrifices to the floor gods. Beautiful work as always Eberhard. -Brian