leclaire

Interesting shot. That's some kind of "reacher" car to pull cars from the ferry without getting the engine onto the ferry. Next car is a baggage mail combine. Then two or three coaches, maybe unairconditioned, since there are no extensions off the clerestory roof. next to last car could be a food service car aka diner. Last car is first class, since it does show airconditioning ducts. And the shot is probably mid 30s or later, since that was when Pullman first installed airconditioning systems into passenger cars. I'm another model railroader who wanders into other aspects of modeling.

I’ve always loved model railroading, I just never had the time or funds to really enjoy its offerings early on. Now I have way too many other hobbies to get into and still not enough time, so I live vicariously through those that do. Thanks for posting your article Eric, those are some beautiful models. 

My great-grandfather worked for Missouri Pacific way back when. He was In charge of loading and unloading the rail cars from the ferry that went between Baton Rouge and Port Allen, La. before the Huey P. Long/O.K. Allen bridge was built in 1937.
 
This is a picture that I have hanging in my house of his train and ferry. I wish I could find more information on it and other pictures, it would truly make an interesting build one day. 

 
-Brian

Sorry for lack of progress, haven't touched the model since my last update. But I did have a pretty cool model-viewing experience recently, getting to see a fantastic scratchbuilt Missouri River rail ferry from ~1870 at a model railroad convention. I wrote a full post about it in the Steamboats and Other Rivercraft General Discussion thread so as not to clog up this one, but here's a teaser image to encourage you to go over there and check the whole thing out. This is at the same scale as my Peerless (1:87).
 

 
Hoping to get back to Peerless soon, but other commitments have had to take priority lately. Thanks for your patience!

So I thought that I would give into peer pressure a bit and give the mirrors a try. I had bought a package of locker mirrors for my Cairo display and had a couple left over, so I used one here as a test. Since the hull is pretty hefty I didn't want to make it too top heavy, so I made up a base that is the length of the hull and slightly narrower and set the pedestals at 2" high. You have to get at the right angle to see the underside properly, and when viewing from the port side, only the starboard rudders and Korts can be seen and visa versa. However, when viewing from the stern, all the details are visible. With the black hull the lighting also has to be right to reflect upward and highlight the features. Apologies for the blurry mirror images, I could not get my camera to focus on the hull and the mirror at the same time.
 
Looking to get an opinion from everyone, should I go with the mirror or scrap the idea?
 

 
-Brian

Hardly Eric.
 
Each boat you build is beautiful tribute to some of the lesser known vessels of the Western rivers. I love the fact that the subject of each of your scratch builds are some of the more obscure boats rather than one that tends to be overbuilt. Add in the fact that you try your best to mill your own lumber sourced from your property whenever possible. I say nothing downhill about that. In my eyes they are all works of art. 
 
-Brian

Time for a big dump of progress photos!
 
I completely failed to take photos of building the roof for the pilot house and cabin, but it wasn't complicated. I just cut a thin sheet of wood to the shape I wanted, spread glue on the "rafters", and secured everything with rubber bands.
 
The photo story picks up again as I applied the simulated canvas. I used the same method as I did on Arabia: strips of masking tape held down with a thin layer of wood glue. When that's dried overnight, I trim the edges and paint it. It's held up perfectly on that last model, I really like the texture, and it's more forgiving to work with than tissue paper or silkspan or other options. Plus it's dirt cheap. Here's a sequence showing the progression of slightly overlapping layers on the gently arching cabin roof:



And the same for the pilot house:
 


I'll use some pastels to weather this a little, dull it down, and give it some subtle variation in tone.
 
In the meantime I worked on laying out the support posts for the hog chains, which needed to be carefully situated to run just along the outside edge of the cabin roof. So I marked the final location of the cabin and carefully laid out where I wanted the posts to go through the boiler deck. Then I drilled a series of small holes and used a sharp knife tip and then small files to make the final shape:
 

I then made a simple jig for the angle I wanted the posts to sit at, and used this to set them up. Here they've already been cut and painted. The black tips are meant to represent the iron caps that actually held the hog chains onto the wooden posts.

And here are a few shots of the fore and aft hog chain posts resting in place (not yet glued); you'll notice I temporarily removed the chimneys to avoid any possible damage as I worked on all this:
 



I also built the assembly that goes over the stern, which I'd left off until now since it rises above the boiler deck and I didn't want to bump or snap it while doing earlier work on the deck.
 


Finally it was time to start attaching things for good. Here I've glued down the cabin and pilot house (big step!):
 

And while that was drying I got started laying down the "canvas" on the boiler deck, working up to the aft part of the cabin. I'll let this all dry completely before proceeding up either side of the cabin.
 

A close look will also show that I built and attached the little L-shaped guard wall around the staircase up to the boiler deck.
 
Once all the boiler deck canvas is laid, I'll (re)cut the hog chain post holes, paint it carefully (trying to avoid the cabin walls), then attach the stern piece. At that point the model will really be coming together though a lot of detail work remains to be done (not to mention the paddle wheel, which I'm dreading).
 
Thanks for reading (or at least skimming) through that big dump of updates!

If I said this never happened to me and you believed it, we need to talk about some ocean front property in Arizona that I'd like to sell you  . It may not have happened on the tarpaper roof, but I have made this mistake in other areas on other builds. At least with the masking tape it's a little bit easier to repair. With silkspan and Modge Podge there is a lot more sanding involved.
 
Great job on the recovery though John.
 
-Brian

Got to working with the skylight...  Back when I was struggling with deciding on the type of roofing for the various decks (that simulate tar paper) I ended up gluing masking tape to the decks and painting over it.
Here is a little "fun fact".... If you use masking tape, or tissue,  silkspan to cover the roofs.... you need to  cut away some of the material where the skylight attaches to the roofing  Otherwise  you are gluing the skylight to the material and not solid wood.    After removing the weights holding down the sky light for gluing, guess what pops up?   Ask me how I know this?
 
Anyway had to remove what little of the skylight was still attached to the roofing, removed the roofing around where the skylight was to be attached to the roofing, and glued it down again.   While I am no expert model builder, that was a rookie mistake and I should have known better.   I bet that mistake will not happen again  🙂
 
Below show the 2nd attachment of the sky light
 

Texas housing complete and glued on.   The Texas roofing is in the background ready to be attached.   I have a feeling I will not forget to remove some of the masking tape where the wheelhouse attaches to the Texas roof  🙂

Well, I said I'd work on either the hog chains or the main cabin, and for once I stuck to the plan.
 
Building the rest of the cabin was mercifully straightforward, to the point that I didn't take many in-progress shots. I used some sheets of board-and-batten wood left over from past model railroad projects to lay out the walls, and scavenged close-enough windows from my scrap box. Here are the walls well underway, showing the bracing in the back and the carefully cut-and-fit holes for inserting the windows:

I painted everything white, then glassed in the windows the same way as the pilot house (CA plus scrap clear packaging), then added shades using some old sailcloth material from a past ship kit. When that was done, I assembled the structure using my magnetic squaring jig:
 

And here's the result:
 

Here's the cabin test-fit on the rest of the model, with relevant photos in the background:
 


It's been stressful around here lately and I needed a simple project that didn't require too much thought. This fit the bill perfectly. Doing the roof should be easy, too. Then I'll mark its location carefully and start laying out the hog chain braces.
 
Thanks as always for following along and giving feedback, whether through likes or comments. You all keep me going!

Cap strips and Hog Truss posts have been added
 

 
and Chicken Coop
 

 
Started looking into the smoke stacks and decided i wanted to use some sort of pipe instead of the dowel rods.   Looking at other logs, others seem to imply they used 1/2" PVC pipe saying the outside diameter is 5/8" (same as the supplied dowel rod).  I am not sure what 1/2" PVC dowel rods they were referring to, but the 1/2" PVC pipe I have has an outside diameter greater then 5/8".    I did find at the local box store that the 1/2" PEX pipe is the correct dimension as the supplied 5/8" dowel rod.   You can get a short rigid 1/2" PEX pipe about 3' long.
 

 
As you can see it fits exactly to to outside diameter of the supplied dowel rod.   This is what I will be using for the smoke stacks when I get to that stage in the build.
 

 
Here is an interesting "fun fact"....   With the 1/16" square vertical posts installed on the Hurricane deck, it is not possible to install the back stairs.   With the posts installed, there is not room to slide the stairs into place from the side.   Even inserting the stairs at the bow of the boat and sliding it all the way, back back, I was unable to right it into place.   Only option was to remove one of the posts, insert the stairs, and then replace the post.
 
Below shows post removed and stairs ready to be righted.
 

 
Once stairs were in place, post was replaced
 

 
Decorative support brackets have been installed...    I have a lot to learn about painting brass...  I am not sure what the story was....  I primed the brass and then followed up with at coat of paint, but as the decorative support brackets were glued in, some of the paint came off and had to be repainted.   I am not sure, maybe I should have sanded (scratched up) the brass before priming it as it is really smooth.   I can see why paint has a hard time sticking to it.   I need to look into that for the future..   Anyway, below shows the decorative support brackets installed
 

 
Sky light complete and ready for the Texas.  Masing tape was used here too to simulate the tar strips
 

 
Texas house almost complete.   As with the Hurricane deck the Texas has 1/32" squares battens.   And as with the Hurricane deck they are a real pain in the $#%@. 
Once all the battens were in place, just needs a another coat of paint and the doors.
 

 
And the top to the Texas.   Again masking tape was used to simulate tar strips
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Wefalck, I don't have any kind of lathe. In theory I know what you mean, but I wasn't up for trying the old electric drill lathe trick, at least not until all other options had been exhausted.
 
As it turned out, Brian's method of using cardstock worked like a charm. Much better than the styrene I was trying to use, which didn't want to bend properly and was too thick (the joint stood out like a sore thumb). First I figured out what outside radius I wanted and looked for something to use as a pattern. Turns out a spool of cheap rigging thread from a former kit was perfect. So I traced that outline onto some paper, then traced the inner outline around the right size of brass tubing. This is a basic index card.

Notice that I was sneaky here and folded the stock over to get two comparable discs. Some previous experimentation had convinced me that one layer wasn't stiff enough. So I used the kindergarten trick and cut two out together, making their boundaries more consistent than trying to cut them out separately.

I could have glued the two halves together before cutting, but intentionally didn't. I thought that would make the overlapping joint too thick (more noticeable) and also make the stock stiffer and harder to bend (why the styrene wasn't working). So I spread some glue on one end of the ring, then formed it around the brass tube until I had the angle I wanted:

When both were independently glued up, I smeared glue on one whole surface and sandwiched them together. This worked great, giving me a stiffer final result with the appearance of a single layer (finer joint). I then painted them with thick black paint, which when dry stiffened them even further.
 

And here they are test-fit on the model. Much better than anything I'd tried before. Lots of internet points for Brian! Any card modelers reading this are shaking their heads and thinking "we could have told you that!".
 



Thanks for the advice! Even when I don't take it or go a different way, it makes me think and helps me learn. Next I need to start laying out the rest of the main cabin, and/or laying out the support posts for the hog chains. We'll see what I feel like doing when I next have time to work on this. 
 
 

Looking good Eric,
 
For the rain shields (I have no idea what they are called either) I used thin copper sheeting. 


I took a sheet of card stock and cut a circle about 25% larger than the diameter of the stacks base. I slit the circle from the outside edge to the center and the folded it into a cone to get the desired slope of the shield. I taped it together then centered the point of the cone in the stack to get the inside diameter of the shield and marked it. I then unfolded the cone, cut the center circle out, trimmed the overlap and had the pattern I needed. I then transcribed the pattern to the copper sheet and cut that out. 
 
I used this same method form my Cairo funnels as well, but just used the card stock instead since I ran out of copper. The results came out the same. 


 
Apologies for hijacking your build with so many pictures, I’m a visual guy and pictures always seem to help me describe what I’m trying to convey. 😁
 
-Brian

So here's what the new stacks look like. Still not attached permanently so don't worry about their exact orientation.
 

I still have to figure out how to make the little rain shields (I assume that's what they are) that sit between the chimneys and the broader heat shields; you can see them clearly in this image:

I've tried a few things and none have looked good.
 
On to the pilot house. Here's a bit more progress, showing the ubiquitous wood stove in the corner, and the back wall added.
 


This had an unusual window pattern that you can see here:

 
And some rafters added:
 

Better late than never, I added some hardware to the bottom of the hull so the model could be bolted down to a base if desired. I should have done this much sooner, and now was the last chance while I could reasonably work on it upside down (before more delicate structures were added).

That's all for now, but it's progress. Thanks so much for sticking with me!

Woohoo! I love it when I get my way. 😆

The brass tubing looks great. If I may make a suggestion, Rustoleum, makes a self etching primer that works great to help paint adhere to bare metals such as brass, copper and aluminum. It’s what I use on my builds. It dries a little rough but with a quick sanding with 400grit sandpaper it finishes up nice and smooth and the topcoat lays down real nice. 
 
I also see nothing wrong with the pilothouse glass. Back in the day clear glass was not overly abundant. 
 
-Brian

All right, you lot got your way! I went to the hardware store and got some brass tubing to play with. Here's the resulting second draft of the chimneys. I scored them using a razor saw to simulate the joints. I shaved/sanded a wooden plug to fit tightly in the bottom of each so they'd sit and attach properly. Don't judge their exact angle, they're just sitting there as a test-fit.
 



I also moved forward on the pilot house; here's its current status. I used some clear plastic and CA formulated not to craze plastic. Not entirely happy with the outcome but it's too late now. Guess it looks like old glass. It'll certainly blend into the background of the finished model.
 



Sharp eyes will notice that I simulated the gap into which the lower half of the wheel vanishes by just putting down a thin dark piece of wood. It'll be barely visible in the finished pilot house and I didn't think building in the full gap and wheel was worth it. I still need to weather the steps to match the pilot house floor.
 
Next up I need to decide whether to try blackening the brass, or painting it with primer and then black paint. Also whether to try roughing it up with fine sandpaper or leaving it smooth. Will do some test pieces since there's tubing left over.
 
Thanks for pushing me to improve my work!

It has been about four months, but I am back..  Took a little break and worked on the Western Mountain Buckboard model.   It is what I call a "quick win" and just want I needed to re-energize myself.
Back to the shipyard (Buckboard is not a ship)..
 
Just about completed the boiler deck stationaries (ran out of painted posts) and started the cap strips.  They were previously bent and painted.  Just waiting for the boiler deck stationaries to be completed.
 

 
 

Well, I did it. I cut out a boiler deck from some thin scrap I had on hand and did some basic scribing with a knife and ruler. Messed up a couple places where the knife wandered but it really won't be noticeable when it's installed. I then used a pencil to darken the scribing lines, since a test-fit showed that just the cut lines couldn't be seen at all when on the model, then used some black pastel to weather the underside.

If you notice the messier pastel streaks at the stern, that was intentional (really!) to demonstrate that you have to be careful applying pastels. That area will be hidden over the engine room so it was a good demonstration zone for why not to smear pastels directly on from the stick. I used a brush to gently apply powder, working along the scribing lines, and rubbing it in with a finger once applied. Gives the surface some subtle texture.
 
Then I brushed wood glue across all the relevant surfaces of beams and so on, which took longer than I'd anticipated trying to keep the glue from leaking down onto the sides of all the narrow beams. Then I took the plunge and clamped the deck down. It's cut to be a little wide all the way around so I can do final exact edge trimming on the model.
 

Will let it dry overnight, then see how it turned out!

So I had a sort of epiphany that might really change how I move forward on this model, and I want to get some feedback on it. From the very beginning I was assuming I'd plank the boiler deck. Why did I assume that? Because on every other steamboat I've built, the boiler deck was planked, so of course this one would be too. 
 
But.
 
On all those other boats, the boiler deck wasn't the uppermost deck; it was partially or fully covered by the hurricane deck. See these two:
 

The uppermost deck (in these cases, the hurricane deck) wasn't left openly planked but instead covered in some form of waterproofing because they functioned primarily as roofs over the lower decks. This was based on my general understanding of steamboat practice.
 
But in the case of Peerless, the boiler deck fulfils that "roof" role. As previously argued for other reasons, I don't think passengers would have routinely been up there.
 
So why not model the boiler deck covered with something like tarpaper, rather than a nicely planked deck? Not only does this make a fair amount of sense from a realism point of view, it also vastly simplifies the job of completing that deck. Instead of another painstaking planking job, I can use a single thin sheet of scrap wood and lay "tarpaper" over it.
 
The other reason to plank the boiler deck was you can technically see it from below, through the open framing. At first I assumed that laying a thin sheet of wood on that would look silly, but I tested it and I don't think you can really tell. I could also scribe the bottom of the sheet or otherwise weather it to hide the "sheetness", but in practice there's almost no viewing angle where you're seeing the underside at more than a very shallow angle.
 
So this feels really exciting because it saves a ton of work, while actually potentially making the model more realistic as it seems logical that this uppermost deck was covered rather than openly planked, or at least that that's one logical option. Thoughts?

Made some nice progress this weekend. It helped that the outdoor temperature got down to -13ºF (-25ºC) last night and never went above -3ºF (-19ºC) during the day today. Good thing we have a nice stock of on-farm firewood on hand.
 
I made a momentous decision regarding the boiler deck. Having built all the framing off-model, I'd intended to also plank it off-model before installation. But I began to realize that installing a fully-planked deck would make it very difficult to do certain other tasks, and decided to go ahead and install the framing now. I had one shot at doing this right, because I had to glue the back of the framing onto the solid engine room structure, and clamp it down tight, while making sure the rest of the deck was as squarely aligned going forward as I could. Since I'd left holes in the deck planking for the support posts, there was little margin for error; I had to get this lined up exactly right. So I did a few test runs without glue, and convinced myself I could get the alignment right before the wood glue started to grab. So I went for it!


Once this was solid, I cut the first three support posts on either side and installed them, along with gluing down the boiler assembly.

Now for some of the details I decided were better done before the decking went down. First, the access to the boiler deck. Way back in this log, we'd had a discussion about where the staircase/ladder would have been between the main and boiler deck, and settled on a location near the engine room, just behind where the boiler deck cabin would be. I'd already framed out an opening for this. My original plan was to scratchbuild some kind of enclosed staircase, but while rummaging around in a scrapbox, I ran across a nice package of HO-scale plastic staircases that I decided would do quite nicely since I hate building stairs. So I cut one segment down to size, painted it white, and weathered it with gray pastel. I figured these should be pretty grimy since they'd be primarily used by the crew.

You'll see this installed in a minute. Next, I moved on to the steam lines connecting the boiler with the engine room (one line for each engine). These would have been suspended from beneath the boiler deck beams, and I'd realized would be very hard to install after the deck was planked. As it was, this was a very fiddly job that had my nerves all jangly by the time it was done. 
 
To hang these, I intended to use very small wire loops run through the deck beams to simulate some sort of bracket. I drilled very small holes in the beams, working very slowly so as not to crack a beam, then ran a longer loop of wire through. Getting these up through the bottom of the holes involved a very small tweezers, a lot of patience, and a diverse vocabulary. I intentionally left fingertips in these photos for scale.



I did two initial sets of these loops, one near the engine room and one near the boiler. Then I took two lengths of brass rod, which I'd already painted black, threaded them through the loops, and pulled the loops taut to hold the rods in place. Here's their "connection" to the engine room, where they presumably pass through the wall and then diverse to their destinations on either side.

Where these met the splitter I'd installed above the boiler, the connection wasn't perfect, so I used blobs of glue to "seal" the joint. Once this is painted black and in the shadow of the deck, it'll look fine. A bit of paint was scraped off the rods during handling, I'll go back through and touch all this up.

Here are wider views of the installed steam lines, ladder, and rear three posts.
 


And an overhead shot:

You might also notice in the previous photos that I gently weathered the whole boiler assembly using rust-colored pastels. Further details to install including a couple more support loops along the steam lines, and some form of railing or enclosure for the stairs. 
 
Sharp and knowledgeable eyes might detect two nit-picks: one detail that's not quite right, and one I intentionally left out, both for convenience and practicality. Can anyone find them?
 
From here I think I want to do more detailing of the main deck first, adding some cargo and so on, anything that would be easier to do while I can see or reach down through the boiler deck framing. There's no reason to suspect that I'm procrastinating on milling a lot more deck planking to careful tolerances. Nope.
 
Thanks for all the interested comments, questions, and likes that provide such useful inspiration to keep plugging away at this project!
 

The shots lots of passengers up on the boiler deck were almost certainly special daytime chartered excursions rather than regular packet service. By the early 1900s, boats like this had mostly been undercut by railroads in terms of general freight service, and such charters were a creative way to bring in money.
 
The lack of railings on her boiler deck probably relates to her not being built for regular (especially overnight) passenger service, such that passengers would normally not be up there. I don't think she had any (or more than maybe one or two) passenger cabins, the cabin is just too small. That photo was clearly staged with the vessel motionless; I'd bet they weren't up there while it was in motion, or if they were it was for a gentle day excursion.
 
Most steamboats had railings anywhere passengers were expected to be. Look at this image of Bertrand (foreground) and Arabia (background); both have full railings around their boiler deck, because both carried passengers and had cabins there. No railings on the hurricane deck (next one up) because passengers weren't supposed to be there. Both these vessels pre-date most safety regulations (mid-1800s), whereas Peerless was built ~50 years later when far more regulations were in place. So I don't think it relates to a safety culture (or lack thereof) but more just a different vessel in different service in a different era.
 

You make it sound very easy Brian. But I am sure I could screw it up. However I am very jealous. Now how to buy one secretly and convince the wife it's just a barbecue.😀

Here's some more progress on the boiler. I took a few of these overexposed to help the dark black be visible. Here I've added the steam vent into the breeching and a representative safety valve, a t-shaped pipe from which two steam lines will run to the engines, and a rough version of a "doctor" pump used to draw river water for the boiler. If you follow the piping you can see that the water runs from the pump around to the mud drum beneath the boiler, where the Missouri River's abundant sediment would settle out before getting into the boiler proper.

 
This is a more simplistic version of the same setup I built for Arabia (see last post), but that was (a) at a larger scale, (b) intended to be a more open model with internal visibility, and (c) I just plain held myself to a higher standard for that one. This will work fine for Peerless.
 
And here it is set in place on the main deck, with a brick-lined ash pan under the firebox doors (for hopefully obvious reasons). First photo without boiler deck, second photo with boiler deck loosely resting on top (but not bent to proper curve).
 


There is no other superstructure to build; unlike all the other vessels I've built (and also unlike Chaperon, one of the few accurate kits out there), Peerless has absolutely no support for the entire boiler deck forward of the engine room, other than two rows of supports posts. I'm repeating myself here, but that's why I chose to have the breechings directly support the boiler deck even though it's not quite accurate. Otherwise it's a long, delicate run of mostly empty space. Also I chose to build the deck framing separately. I've said all this before, but I thought these photos really made the point.

Eric - I find the older I get the quieter they get! Nice progress and a great way to see the old year out.

Yes, there would be a safety valve atop the boiler and the venting pathway runs through a pipe that connects to the chimney. Steam for the engines draws off the top, there's usually a cylindrical drum up there, from which piping runs back to the engines at the rear of the vessel. Here's a view of the full machinery setup on my Arabia. You can see the steam drum, the piping to the engines, safety valves on both sides, and the vent pipe leading to the right side of the breeching.
 
:
I'll be adding these features, though some of them can't happen until the boiler is installed (rather than ahead of time). What I meant when I said no more detailing was that I wasn't planning on subtle things like rivets (unlike Arabia above), sorry that wasn't clear. I'll also be adding the "doctor" pump you see right behind the boiler, which was used to draw river water up for the boiler. There's a mud drum suspended below the boilers that was used to settle out the river's high sediment load before entering the boiler. That drum is already installed on the Peerless boiler, you can see it if you look closely.
 
Arabia was at 1:64, whereas this is at 1:87, so I'm being a bit more simplistic with the smaller scale for sanity's sake. Thanks for the good questions!
 

Started working on the boiler today. I don't have any good photos from the side and only one from the front that can be zoomed in but is grainy. Way's Packet Directory says Peerless had only one boiler, which makes sense for such a small vessel. So I just started laying out a basic generic boiler design based on the larger ones I've built for bigger vessels, with a single boiler tube surrounded by a rectangular casing. Here I'm using a wooden dowel and some thin pieces of farm-milled basswood.


I then drew out a pattern for the complicated piece that connects the boiler to the chimneys (not actually sure what this is called; anyone know? @Roger Pellett? It took two pieces of basswood glued together to get the right thickness, though I then had to cut it down again.
 

Then I used a bandsaw and hand tools to rough out the shape I wanted:
 

And used scrap wood to build two basic round doors, which can be dimly seen in one original photo:
 

When I was reasonably happy and had sanded everything pretty smooth, I added legs.

Then glued the two main parts together. Here's the full assembly with a person for scale:
 



And here it is on the model, with the deck loosely held in place:
 

I think it's a bit too tall; I might try to carefully cut down the legs just a bit. The tops of the chimney-attachment-whatevers are slightly notched so that they fit into the square holes I framed within the overlying boiler deck (you can see this in the preceding photos). This not only helps them hold the deck in place, but also lets the deck rise at a slight angle to the boilers, as it should.
 
So that's the loose idea. If I decide to keep this version, I'll prime it and then give it a nice coat of black and then some pastel rust. I think it's good enough but want to sleep on it. It looks kind of rough in raw wood, but when painted black and hidden in the shadows below the deck, I'm not sure there's much point in trying to make it too perfect. It also needs a few more details, like a mud drum and so on. Thoughts? Specific concerns or improvements?