FriedClams

Magnificent!

Thank you to everyone for the kind comments and for the likes. 
 
 
 I got the railing around the pilothouse installed. The balusters are 0.03125 (1/32) inches and the top rail is 0.9375 (3/32) inches. I drilled 0.031 holes in the top rail for the balusters. The top rail is about twice the width it should be but I needed the extra width for drilling the holes because the wood has a tendency to split if too narrow. The railing is pretty robust now that everything is glued together so I may try sanding the top rail width a tad narrower but I don't want to mess it up and have a redo. 
 
 I still need to add stairway handrails, some railing (very little) on the boiler deck, and make a mount for the stern lantern and hang it and that's it for construction.  

 

 

 
 Thank you to all for your support and for following along. 
 
  Keith

Once again, I go away for a few days and come back to see more AWESOME work you've done on Lula.  It's looking really great (and i'm so happy there's a cat onboad!)
Good luck on the handrails!  Your attention to detail is fantastic!

I've lived with a cat/cats in our homes continuously for over 45 years. Of my 78 years I dare say I've spent at least 60 of those years living with a cat.  Some have been so so, others have been totally awesome animals but I've shed bitter tears for each when they made their final  journey. At this point nothing a cat does surprises me and the laughter and love they provide is one of the treasured moments of my life......... stupid cats.   

As you can tell from my username and photo, I heartily approve of this addition to the crew.

Thank you to everyone for the kind comments and for the likes. 
 
 
 I got the dinghy weathered and glued down, I still need to add a coil of rope around that sprue. You can barley see that sprue in normal viewing. I used a brown pastel to weather the inside of the dinghy but it's got a pinkish tint to it. I know not why and I'm not sure how to fix it other use a little black? 
 
 I received a box of three cats today from an Etsy supplier. They're supposed to be HO scale but they seem smaller which is okay. The one sitting on the fire bucket box is 0.115 inches high. To see any detail it must be viewed under magnification. 

 
 It snuck aboard and I'm really not in favor of it sticking around as I think it's bad luck to have a black cat onboard. I've temporally named the cat, D1. 

 
 This cat sharpening it's claws on topping lift line I named Stump Grinder. It's more or less the lead deckhand's cat. It's a little bigger than D1.

 
I couldn't get a good in focus photo of the cat laying on its belly beside the Derrick crane mast. This cat doesn't have a name yet. It's larger in girth than Stump Grinder. I may name it D8. 
 
 
 If you think I'm procrastinating doing the handrails you are correct. 
 
  Thank you to everyone for the support and for following along.
 
   Keith
 
 

Kurt and Eric, I am honored that both of you have taken the time to offer sage advise and answer my many beginner's questions. Your willingness to do so time and again is humbling and I am forever grateful. 

I agree that a steel hull would be less likely to require full length hog chains as longitudinal stiffening can be incorporated into the hull structure.  Also a lake boat with the ability to have a deeper draft could be more heavily built eliminating the need for hog chains.  However, as show with the Verity some additional support is required for the stern wheel.  I have been aboard the Verity many times but until I can find old 35mm negatives of the interior I can't positively rule out internal hog chains, though I doubt it was so equipped.  I have seen many photographs of hog chains run through interior spaces; even in palatial riverboats.
 
In general terms I am pretty sure your statements are accurate.
 
I wish I could call a couple of old friends to ask as they would have the answers at hand.  Thinking of Ralph DuPae, Jim Swift and Alan Bates.  I have been trying to contact another old friend that unlike the three I just mentioned was alive the last time I was able to check.  Jack Custer was the Editor and Publisher of the Egregious Steamboat Journal and knew an awful lot about steamboat history and construction, especially for a professor of Latin!  He was working on some drawings showing internal hog chain use, both longitudinal and cross ways.  Most don't know that many boats had cross wise hog chains in addition to longitudinal.  Jack was preparing a paper for the NRG's Journal.  My phone calls go unanswered and the it gives me hope as the number is operating not disconnected.

Kurt, do you agree with my assessment above? You're the true expert here, you and Roger, and I'm happy to be corrected if I misstated something.

Learning from each other is what makes MSW so valuable.
Kurt
 

I've learned plenty from your work, believe me.

Eric, thank you for taking the time to teach me. I can't tell how much I truly appreciate it.
 
 I was seeing sternwheelers without full hull length support not knowing or understanding the why of it. Now that I'm more educated I can view and appreciate what I'm seeing when observing sternwheeler images. For that, I again, thank you.
 
 Thank you, Gary. I hope I'm allowed the opportunity to work on that sternwheeler from the Hard Coal Navy days. She is truly an ugly duck. 

Keith, most of those appear to be steel-hull vessels. For one thing, the super-long hulls and short stacks imply they're late-era vessels that are more likely to overlap with early metal hulls.
 
#1 is, as you suggest, a harbor vessel and not representative.
 
#2 is the Monongehela, a steel-hull built in 1927 (https://www.waterwaysjournal.net/2021/01/24/the-towboat-monongahela/)
 
#3 I can't identify but looks like a lake steamer design, and a post-1900 one at that given the more modern davits and lifeboats as well as the thin metal paddlewheel, so very well may be a steel hull. Even if not, if she's a lake steamer, she can have a heavier, more rigid hull than a riverboat so may have more muted support structures above deck. Or if she does have a full set of hog chains, they may well be hidden within the superstructure and since we can't see a bow view we can't tell for sure.
 
#4 is the George Verity, another 1927 steel-hull vessel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_M._Verity_(towboat)). And though your view is from astern, the photo from Wikipedia is forward and shows the same long hull, short stack design of that era.
 
#5 is the Orco, built in 1936 according to the UW LaCross library (https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/ACNQC2XXRJ4USX8G), so again very likely a steel-hull vessel.
 
#6 is definitely a steel hull, and the 1935 date of the photo helps confirm this. 
 
These are all fun photos to look at, and thank you for sharing, but I'll maintain that any wooden-hulled riverboat had to have hog chains for structural integrity, until the development of steel hulls or unless it was designed to operate in deeper water (e.g. the Hudson) where shallow draft and/or light weight wasn't a consideration. If I recall correctly, the original Lula was up in Montana, so absolutely fit those constraints. Your version is meant to be a Hudson River / port boat, right? So you can get away with fudging it a bit.

Well if you don't, Phil, I doubt there are many out there that do!

vaddoc and Mark,
 
Thanks for the comments.
 
I think the sheathing would have been applied with minimal shaping since it plays no part in watertight integrity or structural strength.
 
In hind sight I suspect it would have been applied in a simpler way than I did. I used the herringbone pattern because I didn't want a lot of plank ends to align in neighboring planks. Reading through the blueprints yet again for clues how the sheathing was to be applied I did come across a brief note on one blueprint sheet that said there were to be three full planks between adjacent plank ends - a 1 in 4 planking pattern. Unfortunately I had already started a 1 in 3 pattern above the bilge keels.
 
So plank ends on neighboring planks should not be aligned. However it would have been much simpler installing the sheathing if all the planks below the bilge keel were parallel to the garboard strake or keel, with the front ends cut and tapered to fit at an angle against a single plank of the sheathing above the bilge keels that fit at an angle against the front of the garboard strake. The after ends would also have been fit against one of the planks angling down from the aft end of the bilge keel. But this would align all of the tapered ends of the planks below the bilge keel.
 
Who knows how the boat yard actually did it?

You really did make a grand job of that sheathing, Phil. The end result here looks quite elegant. I enjoyed reading your comments on what the different areas of sheathing are actually for, a nice insight into a "working boat" design.

This was very interesting Phill (and very well done!). I also had never heard of sacrificial sheathing before.
Somehow though, I kind of think that, even though the expertise existed to properly spill and bend planks, it would be unlikely to spend time and effort in a military vessel, especially for a sacrificial layer that would not contribute to hull strength or water tightness. I think they just screwed the timber in, any way it seemed more time and material efficient, not far of what you ve done.
 
Vaddoc

Steve,
 
It was a learning experience! I was unaware that a sacrificial layer of sheathing was added to wooden boats to protect the hull planking.
 
I am really glad that Gary (FriedClams) posted the photos and information about the sacrificial sheathing on fishing boats!

Well worth the effort Phil!  Very nice work and a very unique feature.  Nice.

The sheathing layer is finished!
 

 
The port side has three places where the sheathing extended above the boot topping. At the bow the sheathing protected the hull planking from the anchor. The stern sheathing protected from damage caused by lowering and raising one of the minesweeping "pigs" (floats). The sheathing just aft of midships protected from damage when handling the ship's boat and when deploying buoys.
 

 
The bottom sheathing protected from damage due to grounding. The odd herringbone pattern is not visible when the model is resting upright. It was an interesting exercise in parquetry.
 

 
The brass stem bands are back in place at the bow. Now I am back to where I was in January, before the fuss over the sheathing came up!
 
I used a two part 15 minute epoxy from Bob Smith Industries to glue the metal to wood. It was messy, sticky, and required some clean-up on the model and the tools (and my fingers) but epoxy is the best way to bond metal to wood (or metal, glass, and any non-porous surface).
 
This was some epoxy I bought at my local hobby store - back when it was still in business. I have had it for many years now and it is still good.
 
 
 
The planking at the stern faired very nicely onto the skeg/dead wood. I was concerned about covering the swelling around the propeller shaft, but the thin planks formed around it smoothly.
 
The sheathing on the garboard strake blended smoothly with the other planks. I think this outer layer of planking may even be better in this region than the original hull planking that was painstakingly carved, filed and sanded to get a smoothly curved hull!
 
The new sheathing has been filed, scraped and sanded to get a smooth surface. I will go over the gaps between the sheathing planks once more and then paint the new wood with a thin coating of sealer. Then I can get on with installing the deck house framing and the deck planks.

tmj,
 
That is likely true. Shipyards/boatyards have their own "right way" to do things that doesn't have to be explained.
 
When researching the Cleveland class cruisers (27 built) I discovered I sometimes could tell from photos which of the four shipyards each ship was built in. Although they were all built from the same blueprints each yard had a "better idea" and created their own unique designs and builds, often significantly different from the Navy blueprints. Some of these changes were adopted by the Navy and sent out to all the yards as revisions. I suspect no two ships were built the same, not even when laid down side by side in the same yard.
 
Wooden ships, old and modern, were built the way the shipwrights thought they should be built. Since the MSIs were designed and constructed in yards that made fishing boats, I am sure a lot of the things the yards normally applied to fishing boats also went into the MSIs. So the blueprints left many things open for the boat builder to do as they had always done. And of course, everyone who built fishing boats knew how to apply the protective sheathing, so why bother to spell it out? However, the 300+ pages of MSI blueprints do specify a LOT of nit-picking details, like how long the threads on bolts should be, how different timbers should be joined, and how many coats of a specific type sealant should be applied.
 
I found this same approach to design and building applied to topsail schooners (Baltimore clippers) when I researched my schooner build. Every builder and shipyard had their own way of doing things. And there were no blueprints, just a specification saying "this is what I want." And it was up to the yards to build it.

Perhaps this 'clause' is 'someones' way of leaving the options for planking and caulking open, in the contract, without holding things up at the shipyard? 

I have almost completed the sheathing on the starboard side. I am waiting to see if this works out before continuing on the port side.
 

 
CAUTION! This planking pattern is speculative. The blueprints say the entire hull below the boot topping had an extra planking of 3/4 inch red oak planks that were spaced 1/4 inch apart, with nothing in the gap between them. Other than that there are no instructions how this sheathing was to be installed. As noted above these planks were not tapered at the ends. So this is my best guess (and only a guess) as to how to apply these planks!
 
In the photo above you can see that when the planking parallel to the top of the boot topping is extended below the bilge keels it comes together at an angle. And there is planking parallel to the keel and garboard strake that also intersects the upper planking at an angle.
 
You can see in this photo the sheathing does angle downward at the bow, just like in the photos of the modern day Cape. The lower planking has a bit of an upward curve as it comes to the bow. It was apparent that something had to give, and some of the planks must be cut at an angle to join with the others.
 
But how? After thinking about this for a while I came up with the idea of joining them in a herringbone pattern, alternating between the upper an lower planking.
 
 
Here you can see the junctions between the planking (left) with red lines to outline the herringbone pattern (right).
 

 
 
If you look closely in the photos above you can also see I have planked the garboard strake and the keel with sheathing. But as instructed in the blueprints I didn't sheath the worm shoe at the bottom of the keel.
 
This section of a blueprint shows how the sheathing fit around the garboard strake and keel. The more or less horizontal planks were installed first, and the vertical side trim was applied next.  Cutting and fitting these pieces was tedious and tricky!
 
 
 
 
The real problem is shaping up at the stern along the skeg/deadwood and stern frame (propeller and rudder frame).
 
The blueprints show clearly that the sheathing planks on the skeg were parallel to the bottom of the keel. It was easy to fair the sheathing on the garboard strake into the sheathing above and below it, carrying the planks straight out to the stern frame. But as these planks come out onto the body of the hull they develop a significant curve (requiring wet heat for bending).
 
The planks laid parallel to the boot topping are bending inward toward the center line near the stern. But the curvature is not as great as the planking meeting the skeg. The gap at the narrowest point (arrows) is three planks wide, so the upper and lower planking will come together nicely, except for a triangular space that will require a filler/stealer.
 
The upper and lower planks come together at an angle, so they will have to be trimmed in a herringbone pattern like I have done at the bow. But it is a very narrow angle, requiring the planks to be cut to a sharp point. And as we all know, this is supposed to be a no-no! But I really don't know what else to do given the constraints on the sheathing planks.
 
Is this a perfect solution? How can it be when I don't even know what it was supposed to be!? Is it a good solution? Maybe, maybe not. But it does allow me to move on past this part of the build and get on with all the complex deck houses and minesweeping gear. I have already started on the CAD drawings!

Not exactly my subject of choice, but I recognise a professional at work!
I'll simply follow along with great admiration because of your professional approach, workmanship and tricks. 
Great and very sharp construction! 

Very nice work, Paul.
 
John