leclaire

Brian - I admire your idea of "slow progress" and "not getting much done". It sure looks to me like you made a whole bunch of progress.
 
Regarding your decision to paint the inside edges of the viewing ports red, you might want to consider painting them more of a maroon color rather than bright red. I agree the red would tend to detract from the overall look and using a maroon would make it more of a weathered presentation. Just a thought.
 
Bob

Hello everyone,
 
Looking for an opinion here. I painted up the cutaway edge with the reddish-brown I used for the hull. I’m liking the color and think it provides a nice separation from the black paint and the natural wood color of the frames. I just thought I’d throw this out there to see what everyone else’s thought. 
 

 
 
 

 
Please feel free to chime in, I always welcome constructive criticism. 
 
-Brian

Brian - I admire your idea of "slow progress" and "not getting much done". It sure looks to me like you made a whole bunch of progress.
 
Regarding your decision to paint the inside edges of the viewing ports red, you might want to consider painting them more of a maroon color rather than bright red. I agree the red would tend to detract from the overall look and using a maroon would make it more of a weathered presentation. Just a thought.
 
Bob

Brian - I admire your idea of "slow progress" and "not getting much done". It sure looks to me like you made a whole bunch of progress.
 
Regarding your decision to paint the inside edges of the viewing ports red, you might want to consider painting them more of a maroon color rather than bright red. I agree the red would tend to detract from the overall look and using a maroon would make it more of a weathered presentation. Just a thought.
 
Bob

Wow, that looks great. You're definitely right about the paint bringing out the realistic look. Nice job on the texturing. I like the idea of a dark/rusty maroon, something that sets off the edge a little but doesn't highlight it.
 
I found a detailed painting of the Cairo's interior on another modeling forum in a log for the BlueJacket kit. Not going to directly post it here as I'm not sure about copyright issues (not even sure if it's from the kit or some other source), but here's a link. It's a bit grainy, but appears to show gun rigging that looks fairly standard for naval cannons. If it is from the kit, I wonder if you could source a good copy directly from BlueJacket? If nothing else, I bet they'd be willing to discuss their own research used to develop that kit and maybe help you find new information?

Brian - I admire your idea of "slow progress" and "not getting much done". It sure looks to me like you made a whole bunch of progress.
 
Regarding your decision to paint the inside edges of the viewing ports red, you might want to consider painting them more of a maroon color rather than bright red. I agree the red would tend to detract from the overall look and using a maroon would make it more of a weathered presentation. Just a thought.
 
Bob

Brian - I admire your idea of "slow progress" and "not getting much done". It sure looks to me like you made a whole bunch of progress.
 
Regarding your decision to paint the inside edges of the viewing ports red, you might want to consider painting them more of a maroon color rather than bright red. I agree the red would tend to detract from the overall look and using a maroon would make it more of a weathered presentation. Just a thought.
 
Bob

Brian - I admire your idea of "slow progress" and "not getting much done". It sure looks to me like you made a whole bunch of progress.
 
Regarding your decision to paint the inside edges of the viewing ports red, you might want to consider painting them more of a maroon color rather than bright red. I agree the red would tend to detract from the overall look and using a maroon would make it more of a weathered presentation. Just a thought.
 
Bob

Very happy for you, Eric. All the thought, research, hard work, and attention to detail you put into the Arabia certainly paid off. In addition, along the way you provided an entertaining education not only on scratch building but the history of steamboats in general. I know I certainly came away the better for following your build log.
 
Bob

Brian - thanks for showing the screw up with your drill. I was beginning to believe you never made a mistake like us mere mortals who follow your magnificent work.
 
Bob

Brian - thanks for showing the screw up with your drill. I was beginning to believe you never made a mistake like us mere mortals who follow your magnificent work.
 
Bob

Brian - thanks for showing the screw up with your drill. I was beginning to believe you never made a mistake like us mere mortals who follow your magnificent work.
 
Bob

Brian - thanks for showing the screw up with your drill. I was beginning to believe you never made a mistake like us mere mortals who follow your magnificent work.
 
Bob

Brian - thanks for showing the screw up with your drill. I was beginning to believe you never made a mistake like us mere mortals who follow your magnificent work.
 
Bob

Brian - thanks for showing the screw up with your drill. I was beginning to believe you never made a mistake like us mere mortals who follow your magnificent work.
 
Bob

Hello everyone,
 
Finally back at it after a well needed summer vacation. Took a nice little stroll along the Bourbon Trail in Kentucky viewing some beautiful country and giving my liver a good workout. Picked up several bottles of tasty adult beverages and I am now ready to get back at it.
 
This past week I wasn't able to get too much done, but I did take a lot of pictures. So this go-round I started working on the cannon ports and doors. This was a fairly simple task, and I wanted to get them done so that I could start work on painting the casemates. I wanted to paint the casemates and the doors all at once so the color stayed uniform.
 
First task up was to install the sleeves for the upper door ropes (not sure of the proper terminology of these).
 
For the sleeves I used some small aluminum tubing inserted into a small hole that I drilled above the cannon ports.

 

 
I traced the angle on the tubing then cut and filed it to shape.

 
Then inserted the tube and glued it into place.

 
...One down, twelve more to go.
 
 
Then it was on to the port doors.
First thing I did was to make up a simple jig to make sure the doors stayed square and uniform.

 
Next I cut the strips for for the individual door planks.

 
After the strips were cut I used a piece of paper for the backing to help hold things together.

 

 
Once the planks were glued into place, I then drilled the cannon port out.

 
Oooops. Got a little careless with drill.

 
Front port doors in place.

 
Port doors in place. For the hinge straps I used thin styrene strips that I will cover with aluminum tape with the rivet pattern punched into it.

 
 
Finally, upon my return from our trip I was extremely happy to see that my cannons had finally come in. There is still some work to be done on them, they need to be polished up to remove the milling marks, the bores drilled to the correct diameter and the necks and knobs will need to be filed to shape, but I am definitely please with the way they came out. They are a definite improvement over the wooden ones I attempted to make a few months ago.

 

 
 
One cannon mocked up in its carriage.

 
...and finally one set in the gun port. Looks like there will need to be some adjustments made to get the height right, but I'll get there.
 
Well that is it for now, thanks again for all the likes and kind comments and also for stopping by.
 
-Brian

So after a chaotic few months of school (let’s be realistic, they were all chaotic this year) and graduating and getting a job, along with a bunch of other stuff, I have finally made some progress on the Philadelphia!
 
The first order of business was finally finishing rigging the cannons. I got the tackles rigged, but I haven’t done the final assembly because I’ll be installing them a little bit later, but at least the rigging portion is done. I still haven’t figured out how exactly I’ll mount them, but now I’m leaning towards Kurt’s dowel idea.
 

 
 
After that, I decided I was tired of looking at the broken shot rail, so I added the cannonballs which resolved the issue.
 

 
 
At that point I was in the mood to finish things, so I finished the hawse pipes. I’d been avoiding them for ages because I had been nervous about the glue joint, but it really was nothing to worry about. I painted the photo etch parts before adding them to the model, but I left the underside bare so as not to have a glue-on-paint joint.
 

 
 
I then added the catheads and mooring bits, which really changed the character of the bow. 
 

 
 
Finally, I made the thole pins. These were a bit tricky because I had to maintain them at an even height above the rail, but there are several obstacles inside the hull which forced me to cut some of them shorter than others. I used a small piece of wood as reference for all the heights, and when I needed to shorten a piece I just placed it upside down and marked the amount of wood above the reference height as a way to know exactly how much to cut off. 
 

 
Anyway, that’s where I’m at now. I’m very eager to try to finish this before I leave in the fall, but we’ll see if I can do it. I’ve spent most of this build preparing parts to go on without actually adding them, so for the most part, the rest of this should pretty much be a matter of rigging. I have to be extra sparing with my line now because Chuck is no longer making it, so I may reconsider my plans for having sails, but we shall see. Alright, that’s all for now!
 

All finished. Forgot to post. 

Yes it will be.  I already have the post it note with "START THE RECORDING" ready to stick in the middle of my screen so I can't miss it.

Thank you all for the kind words and condolences. 
 
I realized that today marks the one year anniversary since I started this build. I just wanted to show the overall progress after the first year.
 
Day 1.

 
 
Day 365.

 
Coming along, and more to come. Thanks for sticking with me this past year.
 
-Brian

Very happy for you, Eric. All the thought, research, hard work, and attention to detail you put into the Arabia certainly paid off. In addition, along the way you provided an entertaining education not only on scratch building but the history of steamboats in general. I know I certainly came away the better for following your build log.
 
Bob

Very happy for you, Eric. All the thought, research, hard work, and attention to detail you put into the Arabia certainly paid off. In addition, along the way you provided an entertaining education not only on scratch building but the history of steamboats in general. I know I certainly came away the better for following your build log.
 
Bob

Very happy for you, Eric. All the thought, research, hard work, and attention to detail you put into the Arabia certainly paid off. In addition, along the way you provided an entertaining education not only on scratch building but the history of steamboats in general. I know I certainly came away the better for following your build log.
 
Bob

Very happy for you, Eric. All the thought, research, hard work, and attention to detail you put into the Arabia certainly paid off. In addition, along the way you provided an entertaining education not only on scratch building but the history of steamboats in general. I know I certainly came away the better for following your build log.
 
Bob

Thanks for posting that, Kurt. I was pretty shocked; I had settled in on the couch to watch the program with no expectation whatsoever of needing to have my camera or mic on, and had to scramble when that came up! I couldn't have gotten anywhere on this project without the support and mentorship of so many people here.