mbp521

I have to agree with you. I personally think that those guys were smarter than the designers now days in the fact that they didn’t have the technology that designers now use. It was pure mental and mathematics on paper. They didn’t have that luxury of using the computer do their thinking for them. It did take guts and know how (along with some trial and error) to produce these beautiful ships. Total respect for those guys. -Brian

George, Looks like photos came in just fine. I love the sleek, graceful lines of these Clippers, it’s no wonder how they could just cut through the water like they did. Donald McKay was a true artisan and a master of the extreme clipper design. Even though you are still in the early stages of the build she is really coming along nicely. Good idea to paint the hull before planking the deck. It keeps from having to clean up any overspray and saves on the precious Tamiya tape. -Brian

Gerhard, Its been a while since your last update. Just checking to see if this project is still coming together. -Brian

gak1965, I received my copy of Hardluck Ironclad the other day and finished it in two days. What a wonderful read! There were a lot of great details in there that I had no idea had happened. It's a shame that the reconstruction process got mired down in political red tape for so long. After wasting away for nearly 13 years at Ingalls Shipyard it's amazing that there was enough of the wood fabric left to piece together for display. Who knows what it would have looked like had they started the restoration process right after her recovery. -Brian

Hello again everyone. Time for another quick update. More progress was made this week on the some of the machinery and other deck features. I started this week off with the bilge pump. First I turned down the pump body. Next I cut out the base and the brass features. These consisted of the pump tubes and flanges as well as the portion. Piecing the lower portions together. Next I cut out the center support and test fit it for alignment with the sucker rods. The sucker rods were then installed, the pump body was shaped to receive the pump handle assembly. Pump handle installed. Then everything was put into place and glued together. Finally a coat of black paint, some stain for the handle and the whole thing coated with satin varnish. Next assembly was the capstan. Again, I turned the main body of the assembly down on the lathe. Next I installed the drum "fins" of the capstan. I placed the assembly back in the lathe to shape the drum. Next I carved out the holes for the capstan bars, then assembled the bottom gear. This was done by using 1/16"x 1/16" styrene that I filed the grooves in. I then heated the gear then wrapped and glued it in place. The heating wasn't really necessary, I just didn't want to risk the plastic snapping and have to go back and refile all those teeth. Then came the small drive gear. Same concept on the gear teeth, only I used a wooden bead for the base, filed the teeth then capped it off with a thin piece of scrap wood. Then all the pieces painted black and varnished and temp installed in position. Next on the assembly list were the interior walls that close off the engine room and provide a sound barrier. There is no documentation on this partition other than some of the lateral section drawings in the HSR. Most of this section was destroyed during the recovery when the cable slings cut through the hull and casemates. This is also the area where the "Doctor" pump was located. I'm guessing that when the lifting cable cut through, it ripped the "Doctor" from its mounts, it fell through the opening, then settled to the bottom of the river where it was buried in the mud and silt, never to be found. I figured that I would again take my builders liberties and add them since there seems to be some resemblance of them in the HSR. The basic structures. Door and lighting installed. I didn't take too many pictures of these since they were pretty much straight forward. After creating a bunch of sawdust, I wanted to take a break from it and focus on more of the lighting and wiring. I didn't want to get too far ahead of myself and not have room enough to get my hands in the deck area to place the wiring and LED's. Just a few quick shots of the wires being installed. All of the LED's will be run with the red and white wiring and the supply wiring is the black and green. At first I was going to keep all of the wiring confined to the boat, but I couldn't come up with a good way to store the battery and actuate the lighting like I did on my Chaperon. So instead I decided that I would have the switch and battery installed in the base. This way once I build the display case I would have to keep removing the glass to show the lighting. So I ran the wiring down to where one of the pedestal mounts will be. I will then hollow out the support and run the wires to a location yet to be determined on the base. And here she is at night with a test of some of the lighting. There will be more lights installed, I just wanted to see what it looked like lit up at night. And finally here is how she sits as of today, Still a long way to go, but she's coming along. Now to a question for the experts. My next project is to work on getting some of the steam piping installed for the boilers, engines and "Doctor" pump. In the HSR there is a Propulsion System Schematic of how the steam lines are run, and I will do my best to somewhat replicate this (for what will be seen anyway). In the diagram it shows two pre-heaters in line with the "Doctor" pump and the engines. Since these were lost during the recovery as well, there is no documentation of these either, but I am going to represent them as best as I can. The crew building the St. Louis have a basic mock up of these in there build log photos and they show them mounted above the "Doctor" which is where I intend to place mine. The questions that I have are this: Were these pre-heaters basically "mini boilers", whos primary use was to make sure that the main boilers didn't have to work as hard to create steam, but instead of a fire box to heat the cold river water they used steam from the engine exhaust? and were they pretty much built similar to the main boilers? I have tried looking on the internet for info on them, but can't seem to find anything that helps. I have been diligently looking for a copy of Alan L. Bates: The Western Rivers Engineroom Cyclopedium, but so far no luck on that search either. Anyhow, thank you all for stopping by and for the kind words and likes. -Brian

Eric, Just finished watching the program. Thanks for taking the time for a great presentation. Very informative. Also great job on the Q&A as well. -Brian

Eric, Good recovery on the masthead. If you wouldn’t have shown us the error in the plan measurements I’d have never know you had to go back and redo it. I’m no expert in the matter but it seems the primitive technique used by the Vikings to secure the shrouds to the hull with the L-deadeye was to make easier to setup and take down of the mast, compared to more modern masted ships which used a more complex setup to secure the masts. Given your troubles with the setup on this model it seems that the more complex versions are easier to build than the easy ones. I do anxiously await to see your solution to this though. -Brian

Eric, Love the stand! Thor is one of my favorite heroes from mythology (and Avengers). Adding the shields between Mjolnir would be an added bonus. It would definitely tie the stand to the boat. -Brian

Mark - mission accomplished. That was definitely the look that I was going for. gak1965 - That is amazing. He definitely had a good run. I can only hope to last that long. Keith - there seem to be an over abundance if mini builds with this one. A lot more that I had initially expected, but well worth it. It definitely breaks the build up and gives me a chance to clear my workbench every now and then. Eric - Thanks. The photos definitely help keep track of the process. If it weren't for those, I would most likely lose track of what and how I did it. The build log certainly helps. MCB - I appreciate the compliment. It's almost a shame that most of these features will hidden inside and difficult to see. But, at least I'll have photographic evidence that they are there. vaddoc - Thank you and happy to have you along on the Journey. Still a long ways to go, so kick back and enjoy the ride. I'll try to keep it as entertaining as possible. -Brian

Darryl, Thank you for the kind words and not to worry bout being late, as long as you enjoyed the show. I only recently started building boats from the steam era (about 4 years now) but it has been a fantastic journey. Definitely a change from the fully rigged ships that I have been accustomed to. I have also had a fascination with steamboats, but just never took the plunge into building them. My current build is an even deeper dive into it as it is my first attempt at a scratch build. This build may be my last steam build for a while, I started the MS Flying Fish several years ago (unfortunately no build log on that one (yet)) that I need to finish up on, so I think that will be my next project. However, I would like to one day build a sidewheeler and if I can gather enough information on it, I'd like to scratch build the steam powered City of Baton Rouge which was a car ferry that shuttled passengers across the Mississippi river between my home town of Port Allen, LA and Baton Rouge before the Interstate 10 bridge was built. -Brian

Jens, My apologies for the late response, for some reason I didn't get the notification that a post was made. Thank you for the kind words and input and welcome to the forum. Your above description of the davit blocks are exactly the way that I built them. This definitely makes me feel better that I got it right. I must say that your website was a wonderful find and full of useful information that helped me make this build a success. I used it almost every time I needed some direction with a certain part that I would get stuck on. The old photos on the U of W website were helpful, but there is only some much time you can spend staring at a black and white photo before you go cross-eyed. Your 3D walkthrough put you right there, almost as if you were actually on board. I wanted to say how much I appreciate your extensive research as well as the time and effort you put in to make the most accurate description of this beautiful boat. -Brian

Greeting everyone, Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. I am back with another update on my build. I have not made much progress on the boat itself, but I have managed to get several interior pieces done in spite of not having electricity or water for four days due to the "Big Texas Freeze and Snow Storm". What an adventure that was. Starting off, I finally managed to tackle the engines. This was one of the builds that I was dreading due to the fact that I just couldn't get my head around how to make them look somewhat realistic. The more I pondered them the more I finally came to the conclusion that for the most part not much of them will be seen and did my best to replicate what I though would be visible through the viewport. So this is is what I came up with. Earlier in the build I had started the framework and pistons along with the pitman arm yoke. During the process if building them, I wasn't liking the scale and look of the yoke. That's when I sidelined them. I really didn't want to rebuild the entire thing, so I salvaged what I could and made some adjustments here and there. The beginnings of the frames and pistons as well as version 1.0 of the yoke. At this point is where started the revision. Unfortunately I didn't take very many pictures due to the fact that I wasn't really sure if I was going to use this version of them or not. But the more I worked on them, the better they started to look. More pieces and parts added. Forgive me, but I am not up on the nomenclature of all the parts that make up the engines so for now pieces and parts will have to do. Again my aluminum tape came in handy to make the rivets along the sides of the yoke guides. I made a visit to the local Hobby Lobby and found all kinds of neat little wooden parts that were useful in the construction of the engines (and other parts). Some of these included miniature spools, wooden beads, and wooden discs. The rocker arms (best guess at what they are called) are the same aluminum strips that I used to form the rings on my paddlewheel. Completed port engine, minus paint. The finished product, port side. ...and both engines completed. There are various linkages that still need to be fabricated, but I'll get to them when I am ready to install them and the paddle wheel Next up were the foot lockers and ammo crates. For the foot lockers, I just cut out a few blocks and trimmed them with some 1/8"x1/16" basswood strips around the tops and 1/32"x3/16" strips on the ends to hide the grain of the blocks. I used some thin 1/8" wide brass strips for the hasps, then aged the brass with Brass Black and the wood with a mini torch. A light sanding and a coat of satin varnish, then fitted the handles made from standard tan rigging line and viola. The ammo crates were constructed similarly to the foot lockers. I used some scrap Teak blocks that I had and trimmed the tops of these with 1/16"x1/16" basswood strips. Next I added a divider in the middle and painted the bottoms black for depth. Next was the fun part. There are four different types of cannons on board (not counting the deck Howitzer on the Hurricane deck). That means that there were four different sizes of cannon balls used. Well, it was easy to scale the 8" parrot rifle since the bore size is given in the name. 8" roughly converts to 4.2mm in 1:48th scale. However, how do you convert 42lbs, 32lbs and 30lbs into inches and then millimeters? Thank goodness for the internet. I'm not sure how I made it through High School and College without it, but is sure comes in handy nowadays. I found this most useful website in my research that all Civil War buffs should check out (if you don't already know about it). Civil War Artillery is a fascinating site, full of all sorts of facts and history on none other than Civil War Artillery. They even have a conversion table that converts the cannon ball poundage into its proper diameter (caliber). So according to their table the 42lb ammo is roughly 7" in diameter, converted to 1:48th is about 3.7mm. The 32lb ammo is roughly 6.4" and 3.4mm converted and the 30lb ammo is roughly 6.3" and 3.3mm converted. Now where I am going with this is I needed to fill the ammo boxes with, what else, ammo. During my Hobby Lobby adventure, I found the bead section and it is full of potential "cannon ball" material. So with that being said I managed to find some black plastic beads that measured 4mm and 3.5mm. I figured that the differences between 3.7mm and 3.3mm was so negligible that 4mm and 3.5mm would suffice for what I needed, and the fact that there were no intermediate sizes, I made do with what they had. And with that, I stocked up the ammo crates. Another thought that I had was did they use different size crate for the different size ammo or did they go to that much expense? I went with the thought that they kept it simple, and had a one size fits all for the crates. That is why some of my crates look a little more like they are overflowing than the others. Again this is another feature that will mostly be hidden, but I still wanted to get it as accurate looking as possible. Next piece was another one that I was somewhat dreading, but after I got started on it, it actually turned out to be a lot of fun to build. This was the "Doctor" pump or Auxiliary Engine. The original "Doctor" pump from the Cairo was lost during the salvage operation and there was no accurate documentation of it's actual construction. However there are tons of examples out there, I just stuck with the example given in the HSR. First step was the construction of the fly-wheel. Next was the construction of the base, supports and top frame. Then it was on to the various pump housings, push rods and linkage. The valves I simulated with some small beads and wooden discs cut from the end of 1/4" mahogany dowels. The pillow block oilers also made with small beads and brass nails. More linkages and the flywheel brake installed. Then everything was given a coat of black and clear satin for looks. I still have a few more valves to add as well as the piping for the preheaters mounted on top and a few other details, but I'll get to those later. Some of the valves will require the pump to be in place due to the fact that I will have to drill a hole in the hull (yikes) for the fresh water intake. So that is all for this update. I hope to have more next time. My plan is to work on the bilge pump and capstan, and hopefully of my cannon barrels come in soon, so I can get started installing them in the carriages and getting them rigged up. Until next time, thank you all for stopping in and the likes and kind words. -Brian

Thanks for the kind words. Better late to the party than never and always glad to have additional input. In my research I have run across many places that state the interior being whitewashed and exterior being black, and since all seven of these boats were nearly identical, the colored bands on the stacks served as an identifier as to which boat she was. Unfortunately there is no information at all (that I have been able to run down) on the hull coloring of the City Class boats. Even with the extensive research that the group in St. Louis has done on their build, they have not turned up any clarification of the color used, so I went with the color I though would be best for my build. So far, I am not disappointed. I did manage to find a used copy of the Hardluck Ironclad on Amazon, and I will definitely give that a read. The more info that I can cram into my head on this boat the better. -Brian

Beautiful job on your build so far. This is truly a nice kit from MS. I started this kit about seven years ago and stalled out after having completed the hull, decking and deck furniture. We moved in the process of the build and I haven't picked it back up since. I caught the steam era bug and have been there for the last several years. It is my plan to pull it out of mothballs once I've completed my current build. It'll be nice to get back to the age of sail for a bit. I'm sure following your build will provide me the motivation to pick it back up again. -Brian

Keith, She’s really starting to come together. I am one of those strange individuals that find the rigging portion of the build my favorite part. Don’t get me wrong, I love the rest of the build to, but the rigging seems to tie everything together (pun intended) and starts to show the intricacies of these magnificent ships. I’ve been away from full rigged ships for a few years (and will be for a couple of more at the rate I’m going on my current build), but I think next on the bench I will take a break from the steam era get back to a full rigged ship. -Brian

Welcome Desalgu, Beautiful job on your Syrene build. Please feel free to share more photos of her. You have definitely stumbled onto a goldmine of knowledge with this forum. If there is a kit out there, chances are someone in the forum has a build log for it (all legitimate kits of course). The best part is that no one judges you and everyone is willing to help with whatever issues you may have. Looking forward to see a build log from you soon. -Brian

Sounds very interesting. Count me in. Headed to register now. -Brian

Keith, I’m sure this is a common occurrence for you northern folks, but a 12 degree day with -5 windchill is unheard of here in Texas. But I have to agree with you, the Bahamas would be nice right about now. -Brian

What a beautiful day for model building. -Brian

Eric, Great job on the mast step. Very interesting on its placement. I would have never guessed that the builders would have chose the bench tops as a strategic place to mount it, but those guys were a master of their craft and knew what they were doing and from an engineering perspective it makes sense. As for the rigging, I am way out of my element on this one. My guess is that it would have been somewhat simplistic yet functional and sturdy given that there was only one sail (a rather large one) to deal with. I would think that it would be rigged where it could be set up and stowed with the minimal amount of effort so they could focus more time and effort on their conquests. I am just slightly disappointed that you aren’t going with the rivets, but totally understand the reason. Accuracy is one thing but there comes a time where you have to draw the line, do I build it the way I want to and get it finished, or do start something that will put me off of the model and shelve it. This unfortunately is what happened with my USS Constellation build. I wanted to portray it as accurate as possible, but the more I researched it the more faults I found with the kit until I finally gave up and now use it as a dust collector. I may dust it off one day and finish it, but right now I am having too much fun in the steam boat era. Overall she’s looking great. This has been a very interesting build and good info on an era I know nothing about. Keep those updates coming, I always look forward to them. -Brian

That she definitely is a beast. For some reason I was thinking it was smaller than that. I can see where she would take up a lot of space, especially if the oars were in set and ready to row. But you really want to at least put the mast in place, otherwise you’re going to miss out on all the fun rigging. 😜 -Brian

Excellent work as always. Out of curiosity, what is the overall length of the hull. Just trying to get an idea of how big this boat is. I briefly scanned through and couldn’t find anything on it. I was trying to figure it out in relation to the bench supports on your patio deck but figured it would be a lot easier just to ask. -Brian

Wefalck, Most definitely. Here is a picture of her forward ones as she sits today. The aft ones were either lost in the recovery or just not installed on the display. I am not able to find any reference to fate of the aft ones for the Cairo in the HSR or otherwise. However, they are visible in some of the old pictures of other City Class boats and they are also called out on the HSR plans. Cairo: Carondelet: HSR Plans: -Brian

Greetings again all, hope everyone had a great New Years. It's been a bit since my last update. Since Christmas things have been a little slow on the build and I have not had a whole lot of post worthy work to show. I did however get a few things accomplished recently. One of them being completion of the forward casemates. Also complete were the starboard side interior walls. Next I started work on some of the forward deck features. First were the bollards. Next were the forward bulwarks and fairleads. I have found that spare deadeyes make perfect rollers on the fairleads. Next up were the aft bollards. After extensive research and several info requests, I came up empty on my search for hull color. I finally made the decision that I am going to take my builders liberties with this and paint the hull something other than black. During my research I came across build after build and model after model of Ironclads that had some type of red color on the hull below the waterline. Unfortunately no info exists on whether or not the Cairo had a painted hull, so my choice is to paint it. I tried several different colors before deciding on a reddish-brown red oxide color. I wanted something that would break up the mostly black paint scheme of the casemates and armor plating, but something that would not stick out like a sore thumb. Many of the examples that I ran across the builders used a bright red paint, much like many of the modern day anti fouling reds that are used today. I just felt this would not have been the case and went with a more subdued color that will separate the black, but still maintain some of the boats stealthy-ness. Here is the color I came up with. As always, comments are definitely welcome. It may not look like much now, but as soon as I get the black paint on it, I think it will blend in nicely. Next was the completion of the cannon carriages. Here are the six large carriages. I had some leftover red from the hull, so I decided to use it on the carriages to. This way it transfers some of the color to the inside of the boat as well. Large carriages completed And all thirteen carriages completed. I had started turning down the cannons, but I was having trouble getting them to come out looking the same. After several attempts I finally conceded defeat and decided to take a different approach. I was speaking with one of my uncles who used to be a machinist and still has some connections at his old shop that could 'hook me up" with some turned brass ones. All I need to do was to send him the dimensions and plans for them and he would take care of them for me. So this is the route that I am taking. Hopefully the truest out there won't look down on me for cheating a bit, but I just don't think that my skills on the lathe are there yet. In the meantime, I built me a mockup of one of the gun ports for rigging the cannons and I set up my first attempted carriage and one of my failed turned wooden barrels in it. This will allow me to rig everything up with easy access and then all I have to do is transfer it to the model. Should provide me with a lot more room to work instead the close confines of the gun deck. Everything is ready to go for the rigging, I'm just waiting on my order of blocks and rope from Chuck over at Syren Ship Company to come in and I'll make my first attempt at getting the cannons rigged up. Well that is it for this update, hopefully it won't be so long before the next one. Thanks again for the likes and for stopping by. Everyone please stay safe. -Brian

Johnhoward, I appreciate the input on this very much and kinda figured that would be the answer. Coloring determination on many older ships, especially those that didn’t have much of a history before going down to the depths make it difficult on us builders that are doing our best to faithfully replicate the original ships. I see a lot of this issue on other builds where builder liberties have to be used when the information is just not there. One such example would be Vasa. She didn’t make it past her maiden voyage before being lost for 400 years. During my research on the coloring, I have run across model after model of ironclads, not just the City Class ones, where the builders have used the red color scheme for the hulls. There is even a life size replica of the Monitor that has the hull painted red. I agree that the bright red was most likely not used, but that a more muted red iron oxide could have been a possibility. However, since there is no documentation or information that can prove otherwise, and like you said, I will go with my own personal preference and color the hull to my liking. I have been playing with a few color schemes that I like and I believe I have settled on a reddish-brown rust color that is close to an iron oxide that I think will break up the otherwise all black paint on the casemates. I guess that if somewhere down the line a discovery is made the confirms the true hull color, I can pull my model out of its case and fix the error. Until then I think I’ll be happy with what I have now. Again, thank you so much for your input. Really looking forward to more updates on the St. Louis build. -Brian