mbp521

Keith, in my opinion lining up the deadeyes and getting them to stay even is one of the most difficult tasks in the rigging process. Looks like you nailed it though. Beautiful work! -Brian

The miniature details of this build just keep getting better and better Eberhard. -Brian

I am my own worst critic when it comes to pictures of my builds. My only saving grace is that I see other builders with the same concerns about their photos as well. So I trudge diligently on. Beautiful work Roger, I’m taking it all in to help learn the metalwork craft. -Brian

Absolutely stunning work Keith! -Brian

Roger, that is actually what I have been doing to research this subject. I found a nice video on YouTube that shows a walk thru of the MV Mississippi IV and then a walk around of the hull. The video does show some good detail. In some of the shots you can see the weld lines, especially where the bottom of the hull meets the side of the hull. There are also some shots that show the sides of the hull and you can make out the welded panels, but they are fairly flat to avoid drag. I do take this walk thru with a grain of salt since this vessel was built in 1961 and the Caroline N was built in 1973, so the building methods might have been different. -Brian

Now that is impressive, thank you for the link. What is even more impressive is that there is a building big enough to house a 345m (1132ft) cruise ship! The Admiral and I are going on a cruise in a couple of weeks so I will definitely be looking to see how the ship was put together and taking notes. 😁 -Brian

Thank you Eberhard & Roger for the useful information. I have seen videos of some of the modern day military ships going together, i.e. the Aircraft Carriers Gerald Ford & John F. Kennedy where the hulls are assembled with the modular concept. It is very impressive to watch and even more impressive that they can get all these modules lined up perfectly. I was a welder for several years, 25+ years ago, albeit on semi trailers and not ships, and I am all too familiar with the skip welding technique. This method is a prime example of less is more, where as at certain areas a solid line weld can actually cause more stress and breakage on the steel where the skip method allows for some flex removing the stress and minimizing breakage. I am not much on up on the engineering of ship hulls, but I would guess that even with the stiffening bulkheads there is always some flex. But I could be wrong. -Brian

I’m going to have to experiment with this method as well. Thank you. Roger, so do I understand this correctly, through this process there were no welded seams on the outside of the hull. The plates were butted up against each other and welded from the inside? Just curious, and want to get this right and if this was the case, what prevents water from entering the seams? I can see the benefit of the welds being on the inside of the hull, in that it would make it more streamline with no drag on the welds. -Brian

Keith, MDF is a fairly stable wood for forming the frame. It is a tad bit heavier than plywood, but makes a nice solid, sturdy base. As Eberhard stated above, as long as it’s is kept dry there should be no issues with it. Eberhard, I have a couple of experiments I am working on to simulate the welded hull. One of them uses aluminum foil tape over fine tread to show the weld lines. I am currently working on covering the bulkheads with basswood panels. Once the basswood is in place I’ll see which experiment works best. I hope to have some pictures posted soon of the progress. Work has been crazy busy, so my time at the bench has been limited. -Brian

Eric, apologies for missing your last update (#96), not sure how I didn’t see the post, but thank you for the mention. The ridge beam looks great! To help ease some the pain on the vent funnels, these were used to direct fresh air down to the gun deck for cooling and clearing smoke from the boilers. They could be rotated 360 degrees and could also be raised and lowered, or completely removed from their positions if needed. So in reality, there really is no right or wrong way to face them. As for the davits, I think you got this. I say go for it. -Brian

Happy to help out John, glad to see that you were able to find some local and avoid that international shipping. It definitely can get pricey. If you are looking for my construction of the paddlewheel, take a look at post #129 on page 5 of this build. That is where it starts and runs for a few posts. As for the dimension of the paddlewheel, in 1:48 scale the outer (larger) rings have an outside diameter of 139mm while the inside (smaller) rings have an outside diameter of 91mm. If you also take a look at post #490 on page 17 of this build,, I have some close up pictures of the paddlewheel frame on the Cairo display that I took last year, you can use for a reference of it's construction. -Brian

I will definitely following along on that beauty! Looks like fun, can't wait. 1:24 *cough *cough....😁 -Brian

Absolutely amazing details Keith! What a fantastic journey it has been following along. Can’t wait to see what the future holds for your next project. -Brian

Glad to see you were able to avoid a major disaster with that decking. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t shed a tear or two while narrowly avoiding disaster on any of my builds. But you learn from experience. Fantastic recovery though, deck is looking great. -Brian

Hi John, glad to finally be back at it and that you like the lights and led's. I used 4mm double sheaved blocks for the gun carriages, and for the ropes I used .025 (.63mm) rope for the training tackle and .045 (1.14mm) rope for the breaching ropes. I ordered these from Chuck at syrenshipmodelcompany.com and I do believe he ships to the UK, but you may be able to find somewhere more local, like Cornwall Model Boats to avoid international shipping fees. Hope this helps you out. -Brian

Hello again everyone. Made some progress this past weekend, not a lot, but some. I managed to get the main deck cut out and sized to the plans. I built up a table saw slide to cut the rabbets for the bulkheads. Next, I glued all the bulkhead templates to the 1/4" MDF and got them all cut out. Here are all the bulkheads lined up on the deck template. First bulkhead getting glued in place. More bulkheads going in. Not sure why, but I couldn't get this particular picture to insert right side up. And more bulkheads getting glued down. Slow tedious process. And all of the bulkheads in place. That is as far as I have been able to get this week. Hopefully more progress next time. I'm going to work finish up with the #1 bulkhead then on to getting the bulkheads shaped and faired, then start working on the hull plate templates. Thank you all for the like and stopping by. -Brian

Beautiful micro details Eberhard! Glad to see you back at it. -Brian

Not a bad idea. We’ve had some company before that belonged in a barn. 😁 That is somewhat the role of the current MV Mississippi V. Going off the stats, she is the biggest towboat on the Mississippi and is use by the Corps of Engineers as their flagship. I wouldn’t mind touring that one as well. Too funny Keith. We’ve been together for 34 years, I’ve got a feeling if she hasn’t got rid of me by now I’m in good shape. Either she a glutton for punishment or she’s just keeping me to protect other women from having to deal with me. 😁 -Brian

Zetec, great start! Nice work on cutting all those bulkheads and keels by hand. -Brian

Thank you Eric. My workspace isn't a whole lot to brag about. I just have a yard sale geek desk in the corner of one of our spare bedrooms with the Hobby Zone storage units. I share the room with my other desk I use for my home office. My plan is still to build out one corner of our barn to incorporate my office, shipyard and reloading room, some day (hopefully soon). I have been taking up the spare bedroom for the past few years and I am surprised the Admiral has not told me to pack it up and remove myself from the premises. I have a feeling it will be coming soon. Thankfully we have not had any company that would require the use of the room during this time. -Brian

Something just for fun. I ran across this website while researching the Caroline N. It shows and tracks marine vessels by their ship ID. In this case, the Caroline N is currently on the Ohio River in Louisville, KY. https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:3566996/zoom:10 -Brian

Give me a couple of days, I'll take care of that. 😁 One of the reasons I joined the Air Force was the main areas of industry back home were either work at the refineries or work the port docks. Neither sounded very appealing to me. Looking back though, it might have been interesting to work on these boats. Just the scenery alone would have been worth the hard work. -Brian

Thank you Roger for the vote of confidence. You bring up a good point and I might just have to give it a try. What's the worse that can happen, I have to rebuild the piece if I mess it up? Been there before and managed to muddle my way through it. -Brian

Excellent info Keith, thank you. While I was reading the article I noticed that they discussed the M/V Mississippi and all of the previous boats to carry the name. When the Admiral and I took our trip to Vicksburg last year, we visited the Lower Mississippi River Museum. They have on display the fourth M/V Mississippi (the first diesel powered vessel to carry the name) and of course, we took a tour of it. Beautiful museum boat. These guys had very nice accommodations. -Brian

Alrighty, I figure it's time to get this thing started. So I managed to get the bench cleaned off and ready to go. The plans have been scaled and marked up. I went through and got my measurements, divided up the hull bulkheads and made a few adjustments to the plans to reflect the differences between the actual boat and the drawings. Not too many adjustments were needed, just a few structure details that didn't match up. The plans are on the wall. When I was at the printshop the first attempt at printing didn't come out to the right scale (they came out a bit too small). The clerk was nice enough to give me those drawings free of charge, so I will be using those as my wall reference and I can use the correct scale ones for my templates and other measurements. This worked out better since the smaller scaled ones fit better on the wall. I got as far as printing out most of the bulkhead templates. These will be glued to some 1/4" MDF then cut out and shaped. No hold details will be done on this build, so the hull will be the basic POB. Still trying to decide on if I will plank the hull with basswood strips, then smooth out the lines with body filler, or just go ahead and cut out the hull shapes from 1/16" basswood boards and shape it from there. I would like to try and simulate some of the steel plates on the hull If possible, to give it a little more detail. I've got some time to figure it out. Not too much more to report on this update. I have the main deck printout cut and ready to build, just need to make a run to the lumber yard for supplies. I thought I had enough MDF to get a good start, but I seem to have come up a bit short. In the mean time I am going to get the bulkhead templated glued down and cut out and hopefully next time I will have more progress. Thanks for stopping by. -Brian