Gerhardvienna

I thought members from the Northern Hemisphere might be interested in a couple of photos of the Australian paddle steamer 'Ruby'.  'Ruby' was a typical passenger vessel of the Murray/Darling Rivers system and was built in 1907 and carried 30 passengers.  Although almost 133 feet long, her maximum draught when fully loaded with firewood and stores was never more than three feet.  After a long and varied career as a passenger steamer, she was laid up in 1938 and used as a houseboat for thirty years, but sadly neglected.  In 1968 she was purchased by the town of Wentworth, at the confluence of the Murray and Darling Rivers, and hauled up into a park to be displayed on dry land.  Her deterioration continued until 1996, when she was placed under the care of the local Shire Council.  A restoration committee, ably led by Captain Leon Wagner, a highly experienced river boat Captain, was formed and restoration began.  'Ruby' was fully restored to her configuration when first built and the work was completed in 2004.  'Ruby' once more proudly sails the Murray/Darling system, usually under the expert hand of Captain Wagner.
 
John
 

WOW!
That is superb!
 
Regards
Gerhard

Continuation.
 
 
 

 

 

 
 
The beginning of the relation is available at this address:
 
 
http://5500.forumact...ndre-1-24#66516
 
 
 
Regards, Pawel
 
 

Hi johnhoward
 
Even thos measures will help me out, thank you! I have the measurement for the decks cambers from your research outline script, so all that details will even help me and others to build accurate models of this ships!
 
Regards
Gerhard

Tony,
thank you very much,
have not had much time at the table this weekend, but the lifelines are on...
 
Nils
 

Rob,
excellent looking solution with the boat covers.....
 
Nils

Here I continue the photo documentation to build the mizzen-tops:




 

Gerhard,
I determined the deck house roof camber from measurements taken the stern view photograph of the USS DeKalb{USS St. Louis) that I posted earlier. When adjusting these measurements to our 1:24 scale model  beams [8" length, .35" camber], the radius of the roof beam calculates to be 22.8".  If you accept these measurements, for your 1:48 scale model the roof radius would be 11.4" for beams 4" long and .175" camber. I have never seen any specifications for the City Class Ironclad deck and roof cambers, however historical maritime vessel construction practice shows that the camber dimension increases and the  radii decreases as the deck level rises, which is consistent with the photo.
 
johnhoward

Hi johnhoward
 
Nice progress, this pattern for the deckhouse would be interesting for me, as I dont have the correct measures for the camber. All I have are the bob hill plans, nice but as we now know not correct in all parts......
 
Regards
Gerhard

Hi Grant
Did`nt hear much from your build, now we know why. Good progress with the paint and sanding job, waiting to see more!
 
Regards
Gerhard
PS.: Joined the woodworking forum today to see more from your stephenson model!

Thanks Eric,
I accidentally found your site from other communication with Gerhard(Vienna) and am glad I did. In a way you are experiencing a lot of the same problems that we are having in the research department. We have a lot more information on the USS Cairo/USS St. Louis but our problem is that a lot of it is incorrect or conflicting. We have a lot of new photos but only the metal parts have really survived and the old photos only show a pile of junk.. Most of the rest is from best guess reconstruction. Standard Western River Steamboat practices like yours  for the Arabia are a much more reliable resource and we track down every lead we find in this area. We have amassed a tremendous amount of information but are conflicted between finishing the model and documenting it as we go. Before we had realized the inconsistencies in the published USS Cairo data, we had estimated model completion in 24 months for the Missouri Civil War Museum (MCWM) at Jefferson Barracks, which has now already assigned a display room and built a case for it as the room showcase. At the last minute the Museum owner and curator also requested the model be built to twice the originally planned 1:48 scale and we accepted without fully realizing the resulting model volume increase and amount of additional detail this would entail!. We are now in our 33rd month and have at least another year to go.
We will gladly share any information we have acquired.
Please let me know if you are ever in St. Louis and desire to see the model or any of our data before we deliver it to the MCWM.
 
johnhoward
 
 

John, I just realized this log had been updated, and am so glad you found the pump portion of my Arabia design thread. Reading through the past material, I was starting to compose a reply in my head linking to and explaining my guess as to your mystery pump's function, only to find that you'd found that info already.
 
This is a really neat build and one I'm looking forward to visiting when it's complete (I live in central Missouri).

Construction update:
Mockup of the Hurricane Deck House structure for the USS St. Louis continues with the addition of the first cambered roof beams. These were made from .20" x .75" x 8" hard maple stock blanks using a two-piece sanding jig, which was previously sawn to the calculated radius of 23.75" to reproduce the roof camber for our 1:24 scale model. After removing waste wood from the convex side using a band saw. the blank is guided through the belt sander using the two piece jig to form the final convex contour. The second step is to use the concave half of the jig to back up the remaining contoured blank as it is progressively fed into a drum sander to form its concave side until  the desired beam depth of .17" is achieved. The general sanding sequence is depicted in these photos.
This basic method was also previously used to create the cambered gun deck and hurricane deck beams.
 
johnhoward

It has been a long time since I’ve been able to get back into the shipyard. Work and family commitments, as well as a new puppy in the house have all conspired against making progress with the build. While I've managed to stay in touch with others' builds, I haven't had anything to post in my own, until now...
 
Finally, this weekend I managed to find some shipyard time. Decided to use it to do the job I’ve been putting off for a while – polishing the hull. Not a particularly difficult job, though admittedly tedious. I worked my way through 9 grades of wet sanding, starting at 1,500 grit and going all the way through to 12,000 grit before finishing with some liquid polish (Micro-gloss liquid abrasive). (Special thanks to Keith (Amfibius) for putting me on to the Micro-mesh sandpaper).
 
The end result, while not perfect, is a huge improvement. I have managed to get rid of most (not all) of the “orange peel” effect and have achieved a nice high-gloss finish without going to the “boat-in-an-ice-cube” look.  It’s very difficult to take pictures to show the high gloss finish, but here’s what I got.
 


 


 
I wasn’t happy with the second attempt at my cutwater, so went back and re-sanded, re-polished, and re-chromed the original version. I'm happy with that now, so the next job will be to fit that to the hull. Hopefully, it won't be so long between posts now.

Hi Nils
 
That grade of detailing is simply marvelous!
RESPECT!!!
Regards
Gerhard

Hi johnhoward
 
Thank you for sharing! I must take a look how far away I am with my version of that carriage, maybe I`ll change it if mine is too different!
 
Regards
Gerhard

Thank you very much Gerhard,
 
Nils

Hi Nils
 
That grade of detailing is simply marvelous!
RESPECT!!!
Regards
Gerhard

Little update...
 
look of the open lifeboats, with floorplanking, seatings, hoist points, name and port of registration but still without lifelines
 
Nils
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

Hi Pawel
 
Think this will be the stove? Nice idea to use that kind of red wood for the clinkers!
 
Regards
Gerhard

Hi Pawel
Continuation.
That was the word I missed while my break. I`m speechless....................
 
Regards
Gerhard

Hi Nils
 
Well done! With a little amount of paint they will be perfect! I like the boats.
 
Regards
Gerhard

Hi Nils
 
As I know your skills, it WILL work!
 
Regards
Gerhard

Hi johnhoward
 
Thank you for sharing! I must take a look how far away I am with my version of that carriage, maybe I`ll change it if mine is too different!
 
Regards
Gerhard

Attached are a cfew of our the TurboCad drawing sheets for the 12-Pdr Boat Howitzer which we are modeling for our USS St. Louis ironclad.
Gerhard,
The most obvious differences on our version appear to be the lighter 12-spoke main wheels & the articulating trail wheel which permits the frame to rest on the ground to absorb recoil during firing.
 
johnhoward


Howitzer & Carriage- SH 15.pdf