leclaire

In the beginning I swore that I would never start a new project until the current one was finished. I was able to complete my first build (Occre Albatros) alright but then things went off the rails in a hurry. Now in progress are Niagara (MSW), Chaperon (MSW) and the gunboat Philadelphia (also from MSW). I can't even begin to look at the various model manufacturers websites out there in fear that another "just have to have" will appear.
 
Bob

In the beginning I swore that I would never start a new project until the current one was finished. I was able to complete my first build (Occre Albatros) alright but then things went off the rails in a hurry. Now in progress are Niagara (MSW), Chaperon (MSW) and the gunboat Philadelphia (also from MSW). I can't even begin to look at the various model manufacturers websites out there in fear that another "just have to have" will appear.
 
Bob

In the beginning I swore that I would never start a new project until the current one was finished. I was able to complete my first build (Occre Albatros) alright but then things went off the rails in a hurry. Now in progress are Niagara (MSW), Chaperon (MSW) and the gunboat Philadelphia (also from MSW). I can't even begin to look at the various model manufacturers websites out there in fear that another "just have to have" will appear.
 
Bob

In the beginning I swore that I would never start a new project until the current one was finished. I was able to complete my first build (Occre Albatros) alright but then things went off the rails in a hurry. Now in progress are Niagara (MSW), Chaperon (MSW) and the gunboat Philadelphia (also from MSW). I can't even begin to look at the various model manufacturers websites out there in fear that another "just have to have" will appear.
 
Bob

In the beginning I swore that I would never start a new project until the current one was finished. I was able to complete my first build (Occre Albatros) alright but then things went off the rails in a hurry. Now in progress are Niagara (MSW), Chaperon (MSW) and the gunboat Philadelphia (also from MSW). I can't even begin to look at the various model manufacturers websites out there in fear that another "just have to have" will appear.
 
Bob

In the beginning I swore that I would never start a new project until the current one was finished. I was able to complete my first build (Occre Albatros) alright but then things went off the rails in a hurry. Now in progress are Niagara (MSW), Chaperon (MSW) and the gunboat Philadelphia (also from MSW). I can't even begin to look at the various model manufacturers websites out there in fear that another "just have to have" will appear.
 
Bob

In the beginning I swore that I would never start a new project until the current one was finished. I was able to complete my first build (Occre Albatros) alright but then things went off the rails in a hurry. Now in progress are Niagara (MSW), Chaperon (MSW) and the gunboat Philadelphia (also from MSW). I can't even begin to look at the various model manufacturers websites out there in fear that another "just have to have" will appear.
 
Bob

Thank you Keith, I am finding that this is the case with my bench as well. I am going to have to work on a little self discipline and put my tools back after I am done with them.
 
I mainly wanted them for the parts storage which has more than made them worth the while. It’s nice to have the pieces within arms reach instead of having to hunt for them in boxes on the floor or the shelf. 
 
-Brian

Happy Holidays everyone,
 
I wanted to get one more update in before the new year, so here goes.
 
Picking up where I left off on the last post. I finished up on the roof beams.

 

 
 
From there I built up the forward skylight.

 
Here is the basic frame.

 
With the remainder of the frames and the mesh installed.

 
Temp installed on the Hurricane Deck.

 
And finally all painted and temp installed.

 
Once the skylight was completed I started finishing up the rudders. The will not be mounted until I am almost done with the build. Knowing my luck I'll knock them off while moving this beast around and spend a couple of days sulking about it.
 
I started by making the tillers from strips of aluminum, the same material that I made the paddle wheel from, and brass rods.

 
Then I shaped the pintles and soldered the pins in place.

 
Next I installed the tiller on the starboard rudder to get the correct tiller arc. The arc was then drawn on the deck for the metal pieces that define the arc. Forgive my lack of knowledge of these parts, I did a little research on them, but couldn't seem to come up with a name for them.

 
Both tillers constructed and in place.

 
I then set the pintles aside for painting since they will not be needed until I place the rudders and then installed the metal tiller arc guides.

 
And the rudders are all done. They will now be put aside with the pintles for installation later.

 
Next up was construction of the paddle wheel house. I kept this build as simple as possible since the insides would not be seen at all. Just a basic piece of 1/4" poplar cut to follow the paddle wheel arc, a few scrap pieces to hold the width of the wheel house (the will be removed once the top pieces have been added) and then decking planks.

 

 
I added some thin basswood veneer strips to the sides to simulate the shiplap boards that were used for the walls.

 
Here it is temp installed in place to see how it looks and to make sure that I got my measurements right where everything lines up.

 
I think it will work.

 
 
Then it was time to move on to closing this thing up by adding the deck planks on the Hurricane Deck.

 
I wanted to make sure that the LED's that I had installed didn't bleed through the deck planks. This is the reason for the lights being on. For those areas that did tend to show through the boards, I took small pieces of aluminum tape and stuck them across the beams over each light to block it out. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of these.

 

 
All decking in place.

 
 
After the decking was installed I started work on the hammock racks. I needed to make sure that I got these properly scaled so I scaled me down a sailor from the original picture of the Cairo. I estimated him to be about 5' 10" (according my readings the average height of sailors in the 19th century) which placed him at about 3.7cm in 1:48 scale. This gave me a decent guide to go off of to get the height of the hammock rack walls. 

 
As I started building these, I kept going back to the old pictures of the City Class boats for reference. From the numerous pictures that are out there it is hard to tell which would be correct since over their short lifespan there were so many modifications done to them. Some pictures of the different boats show the hammock rack walls at different heights, some show them completely removed and others match the same makeup of Cairo. The one thing that I could not make out is what their construction was on Cairo itself. From what I can determine is that the outboard walls were made from planks with a top rail, but it is hard to tell how the insides were built. The other thing that I was having trouble determining was the presence of an opening between the ships boats to allow access to them. Since this part was going to require a little more research, I decided t place the hammock racks on hold for a while.
 
While I pondered my hammock rack quandary, I decided to move on to the pilot house interior features. 
 
The ships wheel was another item that was either lost during the salvage, or had rotted away over time, so what it looked like will be really hard to tell. I just used my builders liberties to make up my own version.
 
I started out by cutting two basswood rings and a small spool for the hub.

 
I cut slots in the rings for the spokes to go through and then glued the two pieces together.

 
Next I added the spokes. These were just made from brass wire I had leftover from the hog chains.

 
Then I used some more of my decorative toothpicks to make the handles.

 
The wheel was then glued to the hubs.

 
I also made up a simple speaking tube from brass wire and a small piece of copper sheet.

 
Then finished up the ships wheel with the bell stand and temp installed on the deck. I'll get these painted up and installed once I have the rest of the deck furniture in place. They'll go in, along with the tiller rope, just before I mount the pilot house. I am trying to decide what other details I want to add to this area. Since there are no details of the pilot houses, I'm not real sure of what to add. I had though about just using a standard steamboat setup with a bridle, foot controls and other features, but I am still not sure how far to take the details. I still have time to think on it though.

 
 
Next it was on to the chimneys. These I made from 3/4" rigid copper pipe and aluminum tape to simulate the rivets.
 
The pipe was cut to just under 7" to allow for the proper height above deck and the remainder to sit on top of the flume just below the Hurricane Deck surface.

 
I then added the horizontal rivets to simulate the individual joints. I estimated these to be about 4.5' for each section to give the chimney height of 27.5'. Per the picture of the Cairo, there looks to be a ring at the top of the stack that would most likely add some rigidity to the end. I simulated this with a thin piece of heat shrink tubing.

 
The lower heat shields were made from some thin walled 3/4" pvc pipe and then added at the bottom of the stacks.

 
The vertical rivets were added.

 
The rain cap I made from copper sheets. I first made the templates from cardstock, then glued these to the copper sheet and cut them out.

 
Then they were shaped around the stacks and then glued into place.

 
Finally everything painted up and temp installed. I will eventually paint these up with my gray paint, I just wanted to get a good basecoat with an enamel paint to adhere to the copper a little better.

 
Finally, while I played around some more with the weathering, I decided to install one of the upper gun port doors. I am not quite ready to install all of these, I just got impatient and wanted to see how they were going to look.

 
And some additional weathering pictures.

 

 

 

 
Before I go, I wanted to share one of my Christmas presents from the Admiral. I'm guessing that she felt sorry for me since I have not been able to get my shipyard built out in the barn for the past two years. I have been tying up one of the spare bedrooms (which also doubles as my work from home office thanks to COVID) and have never really gotten things organized the way that I would like to. I found these little gems on one of the Facebook groups that I am a member of, so the Admiral said to go ahead and get what I needed to help organize my workbench a little.
 
These desktop organizers from HobbyZone USA (they also have a dealer in Poland for our European builders) were a great addition to help organize my parts and tools. The polish website actually has a designer site where you can place the modules into whatever configuration you want and gives you a parts list. If you are in the US, you can then take that parts list over to the USA site and add the pieces to your cart from there. They can get a bit pricey (especially the shipping), depending on the modules you get, but imho they are money well spent. The only downside to them (if you want to call it that) is that you have to assemble them, but It's like building a side project.
 
So the for the past few days I have been converting this:

 
into this:

 
I am not done with these yet, there are still several modules that I want to get, but it's a good start, It also gave me a good excuse to clean up my workbench.
 
Well that is all I have for now. Thank you all for stopping by, the likes and the kind comments. Everyone have a safe and Happy New Year and we'll see you next time.
 
-Brian

Keep in mind we did moderate that that topic.   And what you cant see,   is that we did speak to those who treated the OP badly.  There is and will be no tolerance for belittling other members.   We have hundreds of members who may not be experts or they may even be beginners.   To call what they have posted as a tip or suggestion "trash"   is not something we want to condone at MSW.  We have many new builders who are proud of what they have done.  They want to share their methods and work.  It may not be perfect or masterful.  But they dont deserve to be treated badly.  And you wonder why new folks dont stick around.   Its because of people like those members who bashed the guy.  I counted six.  And I must say if those six experts suddenly vanished from the site...it would be less impactful then the scores of new builders alienated and poorly treated by them. 
 
These so called experts who love to pontificate (you know who they are)  will not be allowed to treat other members like dirt.   They have been formally warned.   If they continue...they will be banned.  The OP of that topic was NOT banned.   Nor was the topic removed.  It was being cleaned up and pruned of the nasty remarks other members were making.    Such as the one below.  Who would actually have the balls to to post THIS!!!   ...on another persons topic no less.   They should be ashamed of themselves.  As if they are so perfect.   
 
Pompous posters who love to pontificate on their wealth of knowledge be warned....do not treat folks this way.  There is a way to teach and educate without being a bully.  You guys are certainly NOT mentor material.  You get three strikes.....if the behavior continues...you are out.  The bully below says the member wasted his time.   You know what wasted my time...cleaning up the hate you decided to post all over someone elses topic.   That was a waste of my time.   Sending you a private message and issuing warnings to the folks who think they are "genius" masters who everyone should kiss up to....that was a waste of my time.
 
found the video a total waste of time. So what's to respect in the effort to make it and why do you care whether the poster "is getting pleasure in his task?" I know I may be criticized for being "insensitive," but I don't respect the efforts people put into posting useless, let alone erroneous, "how-to-do-it" videos on the internet and I could care less whether the people who post such drivel are getting pleasure from it. They waste everybody else's time. Who has the bandwidth to waste on junk content?
 
And here is the kicker.....non of the so -called MASTER builders in their INFINITE WISDOM of all things...posted a better method...or the correct historical reference.  They made ZERO attempt to politely state that there may be a better way or a more historically accurate way.   No attempt to teach or mentor.  They just bashed the guy and went on long Rants...like this one I am now forced to write about how so many people dont know as much as they do and yet post on You tube and the internet all this bad wrong information.....making society more stupid.
 
18 posts by expert bullies were pruned from that topic leaving just two replies.   All 18 had no value other than to belittle.   Shameful.   Talk about a waste of time reading those.   The replies of the bullies had no value what so ever.  Except of course maybe to allow the bullies to hear themselves claim omnipotent dominance of all things in the Universe. 

Hi Jim, Cathead & RevCol!
 
Thanks for your comments.  RevCol, there are not enough original paddle wheelers - I hope to see yours soon.  I agree paddle wheelers are so neat!
 
I built the boilers by using an appropriate diameter wooden dowel cut to length.  Same for the steam dome and the firebox. Wood filler smoothed the connections of the steam domes and fireboxes to the boilers. 
 
 I am not historically accurate as I did not cover the boilers in asbestos.  Both Moyie and photos of local (Oshkosh, Wisconsin) Shattuck Park shipyards showed Scotch boilers covered in asbestos. 
 
The breeching is balsa.  I made plans first, glued them onto the balsa and cut the breeching out.
 
Ah, the rivets.  I tried a few other methods, as built-up glue, and different sizes of pins and nails until I found one close to scale.  Ultimately, I used 4 mm copper nails for the rivets.  The nails were in a possible box (every possible thing known to mankind) and I have no idea where I acquired them from or when.  I used a ponce wheel for the consistent spacing. I drilled holes for every last rivet on the boilers.  These were the elements:

 
Not a quick process, but I liked the results.  What I have noticed is my modeling abilities are not what they once were but it is what it is. 
 
Back to the engines!
 
 

Great progress but most of all thank you for your comprehensive commentary as it brings the whole build to life.
 

I am back from attending to "other duties as assigned". The boilers took much longer than anticipated.
 
I did not have the exact measurements for the two Scotch boilers but comparable Ryan Brothers boats included 4' by 12' boilers, so that is what I used.  I used Marine Iron Works of Chicago advertisments as my guide. A scan from my original Catalog 18 follows.
 
My built boilers, located within the hull follow. The white markings on the deck are placements for the upcoming stationairies.

The steam lines from the steam drums to the main steam line will be added later.
 

I was not certain how the breeching connected between the two boilers as I was unable to find a photo.   Unlike the Western River boilers, Scotch boilers had flues beginning about halfway up the fireboxes. MIWC ads showed the lower part of the breeching was hinged for access.  I added the heat shields.
 
I will attempt the engines next.  

Hello again everyone,
 
I figured it was about time that I get another update out there since it has been a day or two since my last one.
 
I continued with work on the roof beams. I started with the area around the chimneys first, since there were so many pieces to fit together. The frames around the top of the flume were built first.

 
Then the frames for the funnels were built.

 
Once the whole section was assembled it was installed on the boat.

 
Next I built the hangers for the piping. These were made from 24ga wire for the hanger rods and some scrap 3/16" x 1/16" strips for the supports that I had. I used small beads to simulate the nuts on the ends of the rods and painted and stained everything up.

 
Then they were installed along the roof beams.

 
Next I moved on to the roof beams forward of the boilers. This area contained the access hatch for the pilot house. This was another area that was lost during the salvage, so I did the best that I could to truly represent the way that I though this might have been built up. The location of the hatch is shown on the HSR plans and I used one of the examples for the comings from one on the existing gun deck that survived.

 

 
Next it was on to constructing the skylight over the boiler. This was another area that did not survive the salvage. It was crushed when the mid-section of the ship collapsed in the cables when being moved to the barge so details are going to be pretty much left up to builders liberties. So what I did was follow the HSR plans that called for framing of 16 openings covered with a mesh screen that sat above the boilers, most likely to let out the excess heat and smoke. My take on this is that the funnels that sat just forward of the chimney could be turned into the wind to direct the airflow down into the boiler hold. The forced air from the funnels would flow through the boiler room, then up and out of the skylight. 
 
This is the template I used for the framing.

 
Frames constructed.

 
Mesh installed and then the whole assembly placed in the roof frames.

 
Then the remainder of the roof beams were installed.

 
 
 
Once I had the roof beams installed. I moved on the ships boats. These boat have taken on a life of their own and have been a very time consuming project. In one of my previous posts, I had shown that I had used the Model Shipways 5 3/16" lifeboat kits for these. Since these were the longest kits that I could find, they had to be modified and stretched to 6 3/16" to fit the proper scale of my build. I was having some difficulty trying to get the correct color schemes for these boats and I finally decided that I was going with a black hull with an off-white interior, to match the one shown in the only photo of the Cairo.
 
I had first started out with the plan to build all four boats covered, since there was very little detail on the boats. However the more I thought about it, the more I figured, I am going through all the trouble to try and get this build as accurate as possible, then why not show some of the detail in these boats. I then decided that I would do all of them uncovered with the interior details because I wasn't sure if I could get the look of the boat covers to look right. Finally, I went ahead and decided to go with two covered boats and two uncovered. My confidence level was not very high on simulating the tarps, but how am I ever going to learn how to do something if I don't try.
 
So here is my process for the boats.
 
I started with the covered boats first, since I was still researching the correct colors of the interior and of the oars. The boats were initially painted with the reddish-brown color, which I later on found to be incorrect, but since I was going to cover them, I figured there was no need to go back and paint them again.
Here is the construction of the covered boats.

 

 

 
To simulate the tarps, I first wrapped the boats in some press and seal I borrowed from the Admirals kitchen (with her permission of course). This would allow me to remove the tarp once it formed to the boat.

 
I then took an old pillowcase and wrapped that around the boat.

 
Then I applied several diluted coats of clear Elmer's glue to stiffen the fabric, then several coats of white acrylic paint.

 
Once the pain had dried, I removed the tarp from the boat, flattened it out and started installing the tie-down ropes. I also added some weathering to give a little bit of an aged look.

 
Back on the boat, I started securing the ropes and fitting the tarp back into place.
 

 

 
It was at this point, that I found that I was not happy with the way this was looking. Something seemed to be missing. When I was weathering the tarp, I tried simulating the seams of the canvas that would have been sewn together the make the cover and thought that this needed more. So I went back and tried it again.
 
Following the same procedure as before, this time I decided that the ropes needed to go completely around the boat.

 

 
 
This seemed to add a more realistic look to the way the covers fell over the sides of the boats and provided some separation of the cover sections.
So I tossed the original one and built two this way.

 
 
Then it was on to the open boats. I painted these with a white interior and gave them a bit of an aged, off-white look with some pastels.

 
I went ahead and stained the benches, since I had already built the floorboards and stained them and I wanted them to match.

 
Using all of the great input from everyone, I went ahead and finished out the oars. I used the same stain as the benches and floorboards to keep the colors consistent. I then used some small heat shrink to simulate the leather sleeves that protect the oars from wear in the oarlocks. 

 
I painted the handles black, only because I liked the look of the black with the stain.

 
Then the oars were bundled together.

 
Then lashed to the insides of the boats.

 
A shoring rope and tiller was added as well as some more weathering to the oarlocks.

 
And the second uncovered boat was completed.

 
All four boats complete.

 
All four boats on the ship, just to give an idea of what they will look like in place. They will actually rest in the davit supports slightly outboard of the current position now. Since the forward port boat will hang over the cutaway opening, I am thinking of showing this boat as in the process of being launched and sitting at the water level but still in the rigging. This will keep the boat from blocking the view of the interior and add a little action to the build. 

 
Lastly, I started playing around with the coloring and some of the weathering. I finally found a base color that I am happy with for the casemates. I mixed together black with a touch of white and raw umber. It gave me a nice looking dull gray that is not too light, yet not too dark either. I also played around with some weathering pastels, adding some rust to the railroad irons and armor plating. I also toned down the bright white of the port door interiors with pastels and added the inside straps and rivets. I cannot get the lighting right to do the pictures any justice, but from what I can see, I am liking the colors.

 

 
Well, that is all for this update. As always, thanks for stopping by and all the likes and kind comments.
 
-Brian

Well I have just taken delivery of a few different sizes of rope from the above mentioned firm and first impressions of it is that it looks superb.....far better than any other product I have used in the past....I live in good old blighty and within four to five days it had winged its way over the atlantic and landed on my doorstep.....awesome product, awesome service.....cheers ropes of scale...

Hi Lauren,
 
As another Navy vet from Iowa, welcome to MSW.
 
Bob

Hi Lauren,
 
As another Navy vet from Iowa, welcome to MSW.
 
Bob

A question Brian - how did you cut the slot in the toothpick to insert the paddle blade. Something that small would be a huge problem for my shaky hands.
 
Bob

I have nothing intelligent to add but feel the need to thank all the smarter people out loud for such a fascinating discussion. 

A question Brian - how did you cut the slot in the toothpick to insert the paddle blade. Something that small would be a huge problem for my shaky hands.
 
Bob

A question Brian - how did you cut the slot in the toothpick to insert the paddle blade. Something that small would be a huge problem for my shaky hands.
 
Bob

A question Brian - how did you cut the slot in the toothpick to insert the paddle blade. Something that small would be a huge problem for my shaky hands.
 
Bob

A question Brian - how did you cut the slot in the toothpick to insert the paddle blade. Something that small would be a huge problem for my shaky hands.
 
Bob

Just build a small bench to set behind the saw.  I'm constantly tipping my saw on edge to change blades.  I don't need more stuff attached to the unit.
Maury

Hi Pat,
 
Lighting issues aside, your model looks pretty darn good.
 
Bob