mbp521

George, Keith & Wefalck, I very much appreciate the condolences. I’m sure as time goes by things will get better. The pedestrian progress is the one thing I am trying to avoid. I know sometimes it’s hard to avoid, especially when the weather turns nice and you have an over abundance of outdoor projects that seem to take precedence over shipbuilding. Drawbacks of owning acreage, there is always work to be done. Hopefully the work won’t creep too much into my build time and I can keep everyone updated and interested. -Brian

Eric, it was definitely a challenge to get the brass rails to work. I even went so far as to try heating the brass to get the twist to hold its shape, but it was just too difficult. I usually try to go by the 10% rule (be 10% smarter than the thing you are working on) but in this case I just conceded defeat and moved on. All in all I am happy with the results. -Brian

Vaddoc, Thank you for the condolences and for stopping by. It is truly amazing at the lengths they went through during the Civil War to protect these boats a crews, yet wouldn’t hesitate one bit to go to extreme measures to take out the enemy, including ramming one another. I have read numerous stories where, gunboats designed as rams (which sometimes were converted packet steamers) would sacrifice themselves in a hail of gun and cannon fire to remove their foes from the battle. Some truly amazing stories. These particular gunboats were built for durability, yet didn’t have a long lifespan. Other than the Cairo the longest surviving City Class Ironclad was the was the Carondelet which survived until 1873. All others were sunk during the war or sold for scrap shortly after the war ended in 1865. As for the red oxide paint, I am definitely pleased with the way the color came out and works with the black. Once I have the casemates painted up, I’m sure it will really look good. -Brian

Eric, You are correct. The irons were just salvage railroad tracks that they used for additional armor plating. I appreciate the offer on the track. If I’d have known earlier I might have taken you up on it. I was struggling to get the pieces that I had on hand to lay down right since their location in the boat is in such a weird place where compound curves and twists are involved, so that was just one of the reasons I went with the styrene instead. The styrene was soooo much easier to work with, especially having to drill all the bolt holes, and I think once everything is painted I’ll have the desired look I was going for. I appreciate the condolences as well. It was a tough loss for the family. I took it harder than my wife did at first, but now she’s starting to really struggle with it. He’ll definitely be missed. -Brian

Johann, on a build like this, there will always be an interest. Marveling at a master at work never gets old. -Brian

Keith, Nice work on the blocks and dead eyes, I am filing away your technique for future builds. As for being all over the place, I am quickly finding out that seems to be the norm (at least for me) on scratch builds. Without a set plan, I just work on what part interests me at the time. But every little bit you get done is a step forward towards completion. -Brian

Thank you all for the kind words and condolences. I realized that today marks the one year anniversary since I started this build. I just wanted to show the overall progress after the first year. Day 1. Day 365. Coming along, and more to come. Thanks for sticking with me this past year. -Brian

MCB, Just stumbled across your build and I cannot get over the uniqueness of this boat. What a fascinating subject and excellent detail you have put into this. Looking forward to following along. -Brian

Hello again Everyone, I have returned with a brief update. We have been dealing with the loss of my father-in-law a couple of weeks ago and have been out of town getting funeral arrangements and other things straightened out so there has not been a whole lot done lately, but I wanted to get something out there to keep the build log rolling. For this update I was able to get the hull painted with another coat of red oxide and a touch of black. I needed a third or fourth (I forget how many coats I previously put on it) red to hide some minor blemishes that occurred moving the model around on my bench. No major damage, just a few nicks. Once the red was dry, I sprayed on three coats of satin clear to give it a good finish. The clear coat also allows for a cleaner, crisper line when taping and painting the overlapping color. Once all of that had dried, it was time to mark the waterline. Since there is no clear documentation on what color the hull actually was, I was also not able to determine where the actual waterline would have been. So once again, I took my builders liberties and decided that the waterline would be just below the armor plating that sits below the knuckle on the casemates. First coat of black applied. When I was uploading these, I realized once again that I forgot to take pictures of the progression. Sometimes I just get so involved with what I am doing that I totally space on the pictures. Three coats of black and another three of clear satin. Starboard side painted. Overview of the hull bottom. The two holes just aft of the center keel are the pickup tubes for the Doctor pump. A little detail that I thought would be neat to add. Bow bottom. Stern bottom. And finally the rudders painted in the same manner. These were a little trickier since I had to get the tape down in the plank grooves to prevent the black from bleeding over. Next up was the railroad iron armor plating. I wrestled around with this feature for a while. I wanted to portray the irons as accurately as possible and had first thought about using actual HO scale railroad pieces. I had a few pieces from way back when that I managed to scrounge up, but not nearly enough to complete the job. I made a couple of test runs with it but the brass was to rigid to get it to form with the contour of the casemate. I also figured that I would have a difficult time getting the glue to hold the brass rails in place. The final straw was when I went online to see what the cost would be to find someone selling old pieces of track and found out that this was not a cheap alternative. I know you can't put a price on a quality build, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. So finally I decided that I would use Styrene plastic strips for the railroad irons instead. I settled on the 2mm x 2mm strips which were the measurements of the brass HO scale railroad tracks. Since these would be placed side by side and only the flat end of the iron shown on top and the ends visible, I decided to just shape each end of each iron to give the appearance of the I-shaped irons. First row of irons going in on the port side. Starboard side irons in place and marked up for the bolts. Port side going in. Port side installed. This armor plating was done as an after thought, and a brief history of why is in my previous post #247. Since they were added later on and according to records, most of the work was done by the crew, then they would have been done quick and cheap to get the boats back into action as soon as possible. Since this was the case, I would venture to say that not a lot of effort was put into looks and more into functionality, so care would probably not been take to make sure that all of the irons were laid perfectly flat and even. I tried to replicate this when placing each strip so that they were not perfect. This can also be seen on the actual boat display, albeit the Irons could have been misshapen during the salvage operation. Either way, I wanted to make them look like they were done in a hurry. I'm sure that they won't be as obvious once they have been painted. The look that I was going for. Next up was placing the bolts to hold the irons in place. For these I used tiny brass nails with their heads clipped and filed square to simulate the square bolts and plates used on the actual boat. First few as a test run. The rest of the holes marked a drilling them out. All of the bolts in place on both sides. During the installation of the railroad irons I found a mistake that I made during the construction of the forward casemates. I didn't quite get the angle correct where the port and starboard sides meet up with the forward casemate at the top. According to the HSR plans, I do have the angle correct on the forward casemate, but somewhere I went wrong when I built out the sides. This caused me to have to trim some of the railroad irons at an angle instead of them being full runs from just forward of the first cannon on each side to the forward casemate. I do apologize now for my mistake, but I was not about to go and tear apart all of the work that has been done on this part for this minor detail. I figured that I would have to live with my mistake and learn from it. Please do not think lesser of me 🙄, but this would be a LOT of re-work, and I do think that I may be able to disguise some of this when the hurricane deck is installed and everything is painted. 😇 So that is all for now, I very much appreciate everyone stopping in and taking a look as well as all the likes and comments. -Brian

Well deserved award Eric. Congratulations. -Brian

Ras, Thank you for the kind words and welcome to my build. Glad to have you aboard! This is a learning experience for me, and over the past year I have definitely learned a lot! Not just about the Cairo itself, but Civil War history as well. There have been several people point me in the direction of fantastic books about the western theater of this war that have just fueled my interest in it. I am glad to see that some of my techniques will be of some use, that is one of the best things about this forum, is the willingness of everyone to pass along tidbits of information that make this hobby most enjoyable. I hope you find the rest of the build log as interesting as the first three pages. I should have more updates coming in the next week or so. -Brian

Keith, Its not the Tennessee, but I thought it was pretty ironic. I was perusing through Facebook when I ran across this post from the NRG showing the hoisting of the stuns’l on the Pride of Baltimore II. While it’s not identical, it kind of shows something similar to your drawing above. https://m.facebook.com/prideII/videos/897213800806335/?refsrc=https%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com%2F127406460658253%2Fposts%2F3889303477801847&_rdr -Brian

Simply beautiful Johann. -Brian

Vlad, glad to see another build from you. Looking forward to following along on another beautiful ship. -Brian

Dan, I was going back through my build log looking for something I had previously posted when I ran across this post. I know that it has been a while since you posted it, but I believe the info that you are referencing about the modifications to the armor plating was noted in the "Hardluck Ironclad: The Sinking and Salvage of the Cairo" by Edwin C. Bearss. I read this book a couple of months ago and I remembered that he writes about the testing of the plating at the Cairo, IL shipyard where the test fired cannon balls into the plating from across the river. Bearss also discusses where Lieutenant Bryant of the Cairo had the addition of another course of Oak planks and plating on the forward three surfaces of the pilot house for extra protection after Flag Officer Foote was injured when the Louisville and St. Louis pilothouses were damaged during battle at Fort Donelson. This is the reason for its odd shape. Originally designed as octagonal, the additional forward plating change its look. It was also at this time where the viewport flaps were added to the protect the pilots from sniper fire. As for the railroad iron being added to the forward casemates, this came about from the Cincinnati being rammed by the Confederate gunboat General Bragg by her starboard paddlewheel during action off Plumb Point. The General Braggs paddlewheel had sideswiped the Cincinnati and climbed the casemate ripping timbers above and below the waterline near her bow. This prompted the Federals to make serious adjustments to protect the boats during frontal assaults. Scrap and captured railroad irons were fashioned to the casemates just forward of the front port and starboard guns for this added protection. Bearss does not say whether all of the City Class boats received this upgrade, but does state that the Cincinnati received it during her repairs after she was raised, and the Cairo definitely had them since they were attached during her salvage. I am still not able to find any documentation on whether or not the aft casemate was armored. The designs called for it but there are no resources that say that it was installed. None of the pictures of any of the boats show this and there is no evidence of the Cairo having it either since this section of the boat was lost during the recovery efforts. So without having any info on it, I m not going to armor plated the aft casemate. -Brian

...and away we go! Great start. By the way, not sure if you previously mentioned it or not, but what is the color you are using for the coamings and waterways? I like it! -Brian

Eric, Beautiful job on the base. The chatter marks from the sawmill add a nice rustic touch to the whole ensemble. All of the boards on the ship would have been hand hewn so there would be plenty of them on the hull to fall right in line with the base. I think you are selling yourself short and don’t see why you don’t use that base for the permanent display. As for the workspace, I feel your pain. I’ve been dealing with the same issue for over a year now. Since the pandemic, we have been working from home and my shipyard has had to share room with my home office. I have stuff stashed in every corner of the room and since my build is so big, it takes up the majority of my work table. Not a lot of wiggle room. I sometimes have to resort to TV trays as extra work space. Also with the way lumber prices are right now, it may be some time before I get to build my permanent shipyard out in the barn. I guess we make do with what we have and soldier on. -Brian

Keith, It’s always worth it when the tedium pays off. Even more fun getting to do the happy dance. Beautiful job on the jack stays. -Brian

Brett, Thanks for stopping by. Good to see another fellow Texan on here. HSR stands for the Historic Structure Report. This is a document that the National Park Service made available on their website. It contains detailed information on the salvage and reconstruction of the Cairo, her permanent berth structure, and numerous detailed drawings of what she looked like after she was rebuilt. These drawings are what I am mostly basing this build off of. If you wan to take a look at them, the PDF can be downloaded from the NPS website: https://www.nps.gov/archeology/sites/subcul1.htm just scroll down to Mississippi and select the USS Cairo Historic Structure Report. -Brian

George, you’re a braver man than me. I always put the planking down then come back with the coamings because I don’t think I could ever get the planks to line up correctly if I didn’t. I’d have gaps all over the place. However it is a better method if you are painting them. It gives a cleaner look without the worry of getting (and cleaning) paint from the deck. Can’t wait to see what they look like installed. -Brian

Eric/Ken, I guess it was a poor choice of words. Just to me all the “fiddly bits” of this build don’t substantiate to much until they are actually placed on the boat. But I guess if I look back on it I was a little productive since my last update. I have a whole shelf with the cannon carriages, ammo crates, cannon implements and various other odds-n-ends just waiting to be installed, just getting a bit anxious to see them in place I suppose. -Brian

Thank you Gary. I guess that is one of the fun challenges of scratch builds, finding a way to get yourself out of that corner. As for the 1-2-3 blocks, I picked these up a couple of months ago and I can’t figure out how I ever got along without them. They are indeed handy tools to have around. -Brian

Thank you Keith. All the little bits add up after a while. It’s going to be nice when they are all in place and not scattered about my work bench. -Brian

Hello again Everyone, Once again slow going, but I figured I'd go ahead and throw out there what I completed this time around. Forward armor plating of the casemates and hawse pipes were completed. The armor plating similar to the port and starboard sides. This side was a little trickier as the rivets weren't all in line so it made it a little more complex to get them all placed correctly. Next up were the junior officer quarters. Again more research was done to determine how these rooms were constructed, and again my research turned up nothing. I consulted with the group building the St. Louis and their research was inconclusive as well. They did say that the area was possibly set up as a soft walled, "tent like" construction that could be easily taken down and stowed when needed, but there was still no hard evidence that this was the case. So once again I took my builders liberties and used the HSR drawings as my basis for their construction. The HSR show the outline of toe boards where the walls were made with wood construction. I did however deviate from the plans a bit. The drawings show four rooms on the starboard side and five on the port side. Since I didn't thoroughly think this out before putting the cutaway on the port side the extra room on the port side would block the view of the paddlewheel from the inside. So I decided to leave that room out to give a somewhat clearer view of the wheel. Very little of these rooms will be seen, but I wanted to add them just for the added detail. Here is the construction of the rooms before being installed. And here they are painted and installed. Next were some more of the interior walls. This particular one was for the port side of the paddlewheel house. I left it open, exposing the timbers so that it will be possible to see the paddlewheel through the viewport. Wall temp installed. Wall with the paddlewheel in place. The way these are constructed there is no way to put the wheel axle in from the sides, so I am going to have to build all four walls and install them and the paddlewheel in one assembly. Another part I didn't quite think through. It's all good though, I think I can manage. Up next was the construction of the cannon implements. This was just a standard set of Naval cannon tools used on most Navy vessels during the 19th century. So I built up 13 sets of ramrods, bore worms, barrel swabs and powder cups. For all of these, I made the handles from decorative toothpicks. The worms were made from brass wire coiled and cut. A small hole was drilled into the end of the toothpick and the wire inserted and glued into place. The ramrods were created using a filed down Xacto blade and turned on my lathe. These pieces were then glued to the toothpick. The barrel swabs were made from a brown pipe cleaner. Part of the fuzzy material was removed to expose the center wire. Again a small hole was drilled in then end of the toothpick and the pipe cleaner glued and inserted. Finally up were the powder cups. These were made from heat shrink material cut and shaped to form the cup. The complete set of implements. Next I stained all of the handles then painted each of the ends. All done. A while back I had started work on the rudders, but never finished them. So it was time to get them completed. I am glad that I waited for this step, since making my discovery on how to simulate the rivets. I used this method to simulate the rivets on the pintles or the gudgeons (I always get confused as to which one is which). Gudgeons/Pintles drilled. I drilled the holes completely through the rudders so that I could use the styrene rod to hold the brass straps in place. All rivets completed on both rudders. Finally a little red oxide paint and we are done. That is all for this update. Hopefully next time I will have more. I did get an email yesterday that my cannons should be ready sometime next week, so hopefully I can get those in and start rigging them to the carriages. Once those are done and the captains quarters and heads are built I will be getting pretty close to closing things up on the gun deck. Not trying to rush things, just getting excited about moving on to the next deck. Until then, thank you all very much for the kind words and likes as well as stopping by to visit my build. -Brian

Eric, For what it’s worth, I think you made the right choice going with the sail unfurled instead of stowed. The extra weathering added a nice touch to it. With the sails set and all oars locked in place, she’s going to be a beautiful display. As for your poor mans lathe, I still turn all my yards that way, or any piece that requires a taper. I feel that I have more control with the sandpaper than when it’s in my actual lathe. -Brian