leclaire

Starboard rigging is done. This took quite a while, as there were so many details to work out regarding just how some of the lines should be run. I also had to make a lot of little rope coils.
 
Final arrangement of starboard yawl:

Final arrangement of starboard spar and grasshopper pole:
 

Below is a diagram showing how all the lines work. I thought this might be of interest since (a) they’re hard to follow in photos and (b) it might not be obvious to many folks. I can’t promise this arrangement is “right”, but it’s based on looking at lots of photos and working out for myself what might make sense operationally. Anyway, as already determined, there was no one way of doing almost anything on these boats, so there’s a lot of modeler’s discretion. Note that I added the capstan as well, which would be needed to operate many of these lines.
 

Green: Lines controlling the spar/boom. Adjusting these allows this to be raised, lowered, or swung. One line goes from the tip of the spar to each side of the superstructure, crossing in the middle. Note that the port spar isn’t fully rigged yet, so ignore the lines leading there as they’re not tightened or finalized. Red: Lines for a cargo hoist. Lower end is a dangling block with a cargo hook, currently hooked into a ring on the post closer to the central stairway. Took this idea from a drawing of the Far West and the previous discussion regarding having a way to move regular heavy loads around. This runs up to a block hung from the spar, then down to the cleat near the firewood pile. Can be run over to the capstan if needed. Yellow: Lines suspending the grasshopper pole from the regular spar. These let the grasshopper pole be raised or lowered while dangling from the spar. Runs from a cleat on the deck through several blocks. Should be used with the capstan. Blue: Lines allowing the boat to be hoisted over a bar using the grasshopper pole. Currently rigged from the capstan through a block on the deck, then up to the top of the grasshopper pole. When this is tightened, the whole boat can be lifted on that pole.  
I have this rigged with the grasshopper ready to deploy, hanging from the side. The lower end could be roped or chained in place; I liked the look of a chain. I found a note in Steamboats on the Western Rivers stating that the poles were "usually carried in an upright position on the main deck at either side just forward of the upper works", as done here.
 
Using the grasshopper system would involve the following steps. It's my impression that both grasshoppers were used simultaneously, presumably by wrapping both lines around the capstan, but I'm not 100% sure of this.
Swing the pole(s) over the side (green lines) if not already dangling there, as it is here Let pole(s) drop to river bottom (Ioosen yellow lines), presumably not very far if the bow is grounded on a sandbar Tighten blue lines using capstan. This hauls the whole bow upward since the pole(s) is(are) jammed into the river bottom Put engines on full forward, forcing the boat forward in a lurching up, sideways, down motion, like someone swinging over the top of crutches. Repeat as necessary until far enough over the bar that the engines can drive the boat forward. A given cycle might only move the boat forward a few feet and need to be repeated many times to get over a bar. Stow the pole(s) again by reversing steps 3-1.  
Steamboat hulls had to be very flexible for this to work; a hard keel like that on a sailing ship would snap during this operation, but the long steamboat hull could flex in multiple directions like a snake. This was one purpose of the iron hog chains running along and across the hull; these braced the hull and allowed for such flexing.
 
Steamboats on the Western Rivers also notes that one boat in 1867 had to set spars 132 times on a downriver voyage from Montana to Missouri, with the crew in a state of near-mutiny by the end. At least the Arabia had a steam capstan; before this development grasshoppering involved lots of crew turning the capstan by hand, rather dangerous given the huge tension on the lines.
 
 

Brian, a good start. If your craftsmanship on this project is anyway near as good as your Chaperon, it will turn out great.
 
Bob

Brian, a good start. If your craftsmanship on this project is anyway near as good as your Chaperon, it will turn out great.
 
Bob

Brian, a good start. If your craftsmanship on this project is anyway near as good as your Chaperon, it will turn out great.
 
Bob

Hello everyone,
 
…and so, it begins.
 
I am finally kicking things off on this build. First thing I did was scale up the Bob Hill plans to fit the 1:48 ratio and print them out. This put the overall length of the model at 43.75” with a beam of 13”. I managed to print out most of the plans to scale that I will be using. I wanted to take them to the local print shop and have them printed out, but unfortunately for me, the print shop wasn’t able to handle them on that large of a scale (drawbacks of living in a rural community). However, I did get them printed on my home printer. I think I came out cheaper, just a box of paper and a black ink cartridge. That, and a lot of tape to stick the pages together. Oh well, I now have scaled plans to work off of.
 
Here are the hull framing plans next to my Chaperon (same 1:48 scale) which is about 36” long.

 
Man this thing is going to be a big build. I am now beginning to wonder what I was thinking going with this scale. Eh, why not, it’ll all be worth it in the end.

 
As stated earlier, I am not going to bother with too many details on the interior of hull and hold of this model, since it is going to be a static display and fully enclosed. For the hull construction I am using the plank on bulkhead design, single planked in basswood. I used ¼” plywood for the bulkheads, cut to shape on my table saw. I notched each one out in three places for the three false keels to interlock with. These bulkheads were spaced about 1.75” apart, or approximately every fifth frame outlined on the plans. Right now, all are the same width, but I will cut them down to follow the taper of the bow and stern, but it was easier to cut them all the same size at first to get all the notches lined up.

 
Of the 22 bulkheads, 14 are the same width. I cut down the three stern and five bow bulkheads to follow the contour and taper of the hull.

 
 
Here are all of the bulkheads and false keels dry fit. I will go ahead and leave the bulkheads that extend across the paddle-wheel area between the aft pontoons until the hull planking is done. This way I won’t have to worry about keeping the aft end in line and even. Once the hull planking is on it should hold everything in place and I’ll remove the center of the bulkheads and install the cross-braces.

 
Everything seems to be pretty straight. Doesn’t look like I have any warping to contend with on the false keels. There are a few bulkheads that will need some adjusting, but all in all things look good so far.

 

 
So this is where I am at for now. I did place my order for the basswood planking and hopefully it should be here within the next few days. Right now, I am going to work on squaring up the bulkheads to the false keels and get them glued into place, then set the stringers to hold everything in line.
 
Oh, one last thing. As I do on all my builds, my signature. For no other reason other than I did it on my first build so I keep on doing it.

 
Thank you for looking.
-Brian

Hi all,
   It's been a while since any progress on the Philly, but the workshop is finally clean and organized... Mr. Snowball and The Nipster supervised, and then advised me to get back to work on the boat.


   I finished out the water as best I could, still have some delamination on the front but after sanding and polishing it's a lot less noticeable. Here's some pics as it stands now, and with the workshop revamp completed work on the boat will resume at a faster pace. Next will be re-attaching all the guns, deck stuff and other things removed to make the water pour easier. If I did it over again, I would have made the base much smaller and less complicated. Building it really set me back on the boat construction and made me lose my primal focus. As they say though, in for a penny, in for a pound...




 

Thank you all for the kind complements.  This was definitely one of the more fun builds that I have done. I know that the build is complete, but I wanted to put out a small update on the progress of my display. I haven't gotten around to making the case for it yet, but I have made some headway on the base. I wanted to go with an epoxy resin water base, but I just don't think that my talents are quite there yet. So I went with a base that would somewhat represent her in dry-dock on the ways. 
 
Right now the base is in the construction phase, but I'm getting there. Slow progress on it because I've been anxious to get started on my next build.

And here she is by the plans for my next build for size comparison (build log coming soon).

 
-Brian

Yes sir. About time I get my feet wet in the scratch build world.
 
City Class - USS Cairo. Coming soon. Just need to study up a little more on the plans and I'll start the build (and the build log).
 
-Brian

Hello All,
 
Well it's almost time to close the books on this build. I've just about done all that I can do to my Chaperon (aside from building her a case and installing those elusive stag horns on her bell). It's hard to believe that it has been 13 months and 24 days since I started this project. My how time has flown.
 
Before I do close this build log out, I wanted to throw out a real quick kit review. Please keep in mind that I am by no means a professional model builder, nor do I claim to be an expert on model kits or writing reviews. These are just my observations, opinions and views so please take all of this with a grain of salt.
 
 
All in all, Model Shipways has done a fantastic job with this kit. As with all model kits there are some areas of imperfection and room for improvement, but for the most part this one is a fantastic kit. I urge anyone that is into the steamboat era (or even those that are not) to check it out. It is a fun and rewarding build.
 
Pros:
First: Their packaging is minimal, no fancy boxes with graphics all over them, just a simple blue box with a picture of the completed model pasted to the top and one on the side for shelf identification. This helps keep the costs down and if you are like me, your're just going to toss the box once the model is complete anyway. All of the parts are packaged neatly for easy inventory and identification and the wood strips are individually wrapped according to their size (with the exception of the dowels, but those are easy to sort out). As for the materials and parts themselves, the kit was complete with no missing parts. Even if there were parts missing, Model Expo's customer service is spot on. A quick email to Ed and he'll have the parts on their way to you in no time.
 
Second: Right out of the box you can tell this is going to be a nice model. MS uses good quality wood for all of their kits. I built several kits that the supplied wood is just complete junk. It splinters easily or has to be sanded down to nothing to get a decent finish on it. MS uses good Basswod that requires minimal sanding to get a good finish on. Their laser cutting is precise and easy to remove the parts from their sheets and most of the char is minimal. A little light sanding cleans the parts up nicely and provides a good bonding surface.
 
Third: The instructions and plans were clear and easy to understand. These coupled with Kurt's build article (which I have to say is well worth the price) will help make this an almost effortless build, especially if you are going to build it straight out of the box. If you decide to go the route I took and "dress" it up a bit, well then that takes a little more effort. I only wish that the overall plan sheet was to scale. This would make it easier to get the correct placement of some of the features. This is only a minor thing and nothing that warrants putting in the Cons section.

Fourth: It's easy to tell that a lot of research went into the plans for this kit. During my build I studied numerous pictures of the actual Chaperon and many of the "out of the box" details are spot on (kudos to you Bob Crane). As with all my models, I put my own little spin on them to "personalize" them. And like Eric said in a previous post, I made this model my own. 
 
Fifth: As for the amount of material supplied with the kit, there is more than enough to complete everything with plenty left over to use on other builds. I don't believe that I ran short on anything. Many of the extra details that I added were built from leftover materials from previous builds. With the exception being the deck planking, but that was my choice, so thats on me.
 
Cons (I hope you don't find these too petty, I just want to present my opinion on these) :
First: I know I've said it many times throughout this build, I am not a fan of the brittania pieces. I know that it is a safer (lead free) alternative to pewter and it is probably used to keep the costs down for production and the consumer, but surely there is a better alternative out there (or at least update the molding process). The capstan was totally out of round, and no amount of adjustment could be made to make it look right without reducing the scale. The lifeboats will do for what they are.  With a little effort you can doctor these up and make them look fairly nice. And the steam whistle, pretty much useless.  Not realistic looking at all. However, nothing a little scratchbuilding on my part couldn't remedy.
 
Secondly: The finger joints on the Main and Boiler deck sections are one of the biggest distractions. I know this was done due to packaging limitations, but with the prescibed deck board lines this a drawback. One simple soultion could be to prescibe the individual deck board lengths so that the finger joints are not quite as obvious. Since I went ahead and planked mine, this wasn't a huge issue and if you paint the deck as was on the original boat then these are a little easier to hide. Fortunately MS did put the joints in somewhat inconspicuous places so they are not that easily seen.
 
Third: The PE turnbuckles were flat and not very realistic. No too much to say about these, other than these unused parts will sit in my parts box and maybe get used for some other project. Good thing was that I got to hone my metal working skills scratch building more realistic looking ones.
 
Fourth: The missing Hog Chain posts on the Main deck up by the boilers. This is a minor detail, but one that could be remedied easily by adding the parts to the kit. There is more than enough room on the parts sheets to add these without having to add additional plywood sets. This is just a small detail, and to be honest, if it were not for Kurt mentioning it in his build article, I might have completed the model without ever knowing they were missing.
 
 
For my build I decided to create several fetures to add to the detail and realism of the model. While my build is not museum quality, I am extremely happy with the end result. I can understand that no (affordable) kit can have every detail on it, and given the amount of chanages this boat went through over her career, it would be next to impossible to have a kit that fit every detail into it. So it is left up to the builder to add as much, or as little to it as they want, but that is what makes this hobby so enjoyable.  
 
I also want to thank everyone for their guidance, input and commnets. Eric, Kurt and Roger, I can only hope to one day be half as knowledgeable as you guys on steamboats. All of your contributions to my build are greatly appreciated. Thanks to everyone that followed and visited my build and gave me a "Thumbs-up" on my progress.  (Geez, I'm starting to sound like I'm accepting an Oscar or something).
 
 
Anyway, here are some final pictures of my build (again, minus the stag horns and case).  I hope you enjoyed my build log as much as I enjoyed writing it.
 










Oh yeah, and one for fun.

I didn't want to actually see if she would float, so I had my daughter take a picture of it in front of my pond and Photoshop my arm out of it.
 
I'll Post some of these in the completed gallery and once I get the case built I may add a few more pictures.
 
-Brian

Steve, good eye and good question. Yes, I want them rigged vertically as if she's navigating in the middle-upper Missouri and needs them at a moment's notice. I think you're referring to the jackstaff (tall pole on the bow), and I agree that the rigging lines I have there there would get in the way of resting the grasshopper poles on those jackstaff crosspieces. But it seems that different boats stored their poles in different ways. Based on past discussions in this thread, the Ben Campbell seems to have rested them horizontally on crosspieces on the jackstaff, like this:
 

In this approach, you're right that any rigging on the jackstaff would get in the way. But the Mary McDonald didn't have a cross-wise brace on the jackstaff and had rigging lines running along it. Instead, she seemed to simply tilt the grasshopper poles back a bit and rest their ends on the deck. See below:
 


I'm not sure what she did if/when she needed to use the spars as loading cranes, maybe just set the grasshopper poles on the deck or something, or maybe they just swung out with the spar. But as I'm using the Mary McDonald as my closest reference, and I want the grasshoppers displayed deployed, I went with this arrangement.
 
One difference between these arrangements might be the area of operations. The higher up the Missouri you go, the less likely you're going to be handling heavy cargo with the spars and the more likely you're going to need the grasshoppers. In addition, the higher winds and less cover mean you need more rigging to support things like the jackstaff. So to me, the Mary McDonald looks like she's set up to be an upper-river boat emphasizing regular use of the grasshoppers, while the Campbell looks like it's mostly operating on the lower river and has grasshoppers stowed for occasional use. I want my Arabia to look more like the former, so will emphasize grasshoppers at the ready. This is all just my theory, but it seems plausible to me.
 

Eric, I take it that the grasshopper poles are going to be rigged in the ready position? You have some line on the bow pole(term ?) that would make it difficult to stow them (grasshopper poles ) on that cross brace. You would have to poke the end of the grasshopper between the line and the bow pole. Just wondering, your model looks great.
Steve

The starboard rigging went a lot faster this morning, likely because I'd spent much of yesterday figuring out how to do it on the port side, whereas this time I just had to copy what I'd done before. I feel like photos really struggle to capture rigging because the lines are so thin and the three-dimensional framework doesn't translate well into a flat photo.
 
Overhead view of the spar rigging. Two lines lead to the tip of each spar, controlling how it moves around the deck:
 

Here's another view of this:
 

The loose blocks hanging off the spars are for rigging the grasshopper poles and for general cargo use. These will be rigged next.
 
Starboard boat rigging:
 

All of this is still loose (hence all the dangling weights). I think I have it the way I want it, meaning I can start gluing in knots, but likely not until tonight or later as I have other things to do this afternoon. So here's your chance to comment if something doesn't look right!
 

You all know she's not done yet, right? Lots of rigging still to go. Here's yesterday's progress on the port side:
 

I'm making all the rigging temporary until it's all done. Too much interaction between parts to trust myself to glue in knots until everything is balanced. Plus I've already found two cases where my original plan was wrong and needed to be amended. So there's going to be a forest of clothespins hanging off her for a while.


Sharp eyes might have noticed I added a bell to the front of the hurricane deck, with a line run back to the pilothouse.
 
Stick with me, we're getting there. Thanks for all the support, it means a great deal as this 2 year 8 month project rolls on.

Yes it worked very well, another idea to tuck away for later. She is looking very good.
 
On a different point - I assume these vessels needed to be reasonably manoeuvrable. But with a fairly shallow draught (and rudder) I wonder how they achieved it. Could the paddle wheels turn at different speeds? 
 

Keith, great question, and you're correct. Here's the engine layout from way back in this build:
 

Each wheel has its own engine, which could be controlled independently. For really sharp turns, one could even be reversed while the other stayed in forward, almost spinning the vessel in place.
 
This was a major advantage of sidewheelers over sternwheelers. On the other hand, the paddlewheels were a lot more exposed on sidewheelers, so took more damage from debris (sternwheeler hulls were more likely to deflect debris before it reached the paddles). Sidewheels were also less effective at backing the vessels off sandbars (when stern wheels were reversed, they sent a strong wash of water under the hull, helping free it). For these and other reasons, sternwheelers became more common on upper rivers or anywhere the channel was narrow and/or shallow. So it's especially impressive that Arabia made it deep into Montana since its design wasn't optimal for those conditions.

Well, the boats are done; you can read about that journey at the separate build log. Suffice it to say I'll never buy those kits again, but I got a workable result that looks good enough on the Arabia. They're not quite an authentic Ohio River yawl, but they're closer than a bluff-bowed ship's boat or a two-ended whaleboat. Here's one installed with its tie-downs; the davits will be added soon.
 

In order to letter the port wheel housing, I designed a stencil layout and had a friend's tech-savvy teenager make it on a 3D printer. This was a cool mini project and a fun way to involve someone else in the build. Here's the stencil taped on and ready for use:
 

I did some tests first on scrap wood. My initial plan was to use paint, but I couldn't get it to look right, so tried colored pencils and loved the result. So here's the hand-colored final version with red letters and black shading:
 

I think I could have made the lettering a bit larger, it looks too small on the final model although it seemed right during the design process. But I love the way the colored pencil gives an inherently weathered look.
 
Finally, I settled on a stand design after some experiementation. I liked the idea of a sediment-filled base to look like the river bottom, but none of my attempts at sieving natural sediment produced something that looked right to my picky geologist's eye. So I went back to the basic wooden stand idea, based on the one Kurt used for his Chaperon, and came up with what I think is a nice result. This is a Eastern Red Cedar base with Walnut trim, all wood harvested and milled here on-farm. She's now screwed onto the base, awaiting the final details, mostly rigging the davits and grasshopper spars. Really getting close now.
 



 

It floats - it's a nautical vessel.  An important one too.  I wonder just where it was used as most of the canal is cut through solid stone.  Looking at the drawing I think the vertical pole at the stern was a "spud" that could be lowered to hold the dredge in place and as you said it could pivot on the spud.  However spuds could only go up and down.  The piece of equipment that angles down off the stern (from what I can see of the photo) is probably part of the discharge tube for the material picked up by the dredge machinery and pumped to the stern and then deposited ashore or into hopper barges.  Sometimes dredges had discharge tubes that reached several hundred feet.
 
I will follow your build with great interest.   I am very interested in the canal and its history and have been on many tugs, towboats and barges on it.  I have done many models of tugs and towboats that operate on the canal.
 
I have 7 tons of stone from the building of the canal in my fireplace.  There were still piles of flagstone free for the taking n Lemont all the way to Lockport when my Father and uncle built this house in the early 50's.  Also have retaining landscaping walls of the flagstone.
 
Kurt

The first boat is finished. With the hull done, the rest was pretty straightforward. I sanded the outside to a reasonable finish, though the planks are too thin to completely remove the clinker-like artifacts, and painted it white. Inside, I added more ribs (also using the planking shears for a consistent, if not attractive, appearancew). I used the thin planking strips for this, as the 1/16" square stock is way too thick to look realistic and got crimped down to the narrower thickness during bending anyway. I then laid a new floor of three planks to hide the ugly braces they tell you to add along the keel for planking (unnecessary in my opinion), then added various seats and details. I then carved rails from the wider stock supplied in the kit. Internal coloration used careful washes of thinned paint and/or dry rubbed pastels. Final details involved making oarlocks and something for the boat to sit on. I didn't add the rudder or make oars as I'm going to say these were stored out of the weather. See four photos below of the finished boat, including one of its intended final location:




So that's done. But don't change the channel just yet! Coming up next, I build boat #2 using the various lessons I learned from boat #1, to see if I can get a better result and a smoother set of instructions for others. I've already identified several improvements that are working well as I get started on this. When it's done, I'll write up a concise and comprehensive set of suggestions for anyone who decides to tackle one of these despite the warnings.

Hello all! Thank you Bob and Dave for the kind words. This has obviously been a very strange year. Earlier, I was hard pressed to find much time for building, but with the current lockdown I have gotten the shipyard running yet again. Most recently I have just finished cleaning up the cap rails. From here, I'm not entirely sure what I will do next. I think it may finally be time to confront what I have been avoiding for a long time......... staining day . Wish me luck. I've got an airbrush to apply it with, so we'll see how it goes. In any case, I'm glad to be back and I look forward to building the rest of this ship alongside your much appreciated guidance! Here are a couple photos of the cap rail dry fit. It's going to be a challenge to glue it on while keeping the run looking right. Also, I've noticed that some of the holes for components above the cap rail overlap with some of the bulkheads. I hope that doesn't become a problem....

You did a great job, Eric.  I tip my had to you as I think you're one of a very tiny percentage to actually get one of these done and looking good.

Eric,  
 
I feel your pain on these. Several years ago I built these particular “lifeboats” for my Flying Fish. More than once I was ready to launch them into the never while trying to get the ribs formed around the formers. What I ended up doing was taking three strips of thin stock, soaking them in warm water for an hour or so and applying three layers around the former to “laminate” them. This worked perfectly to get the right shape. After making four of these for this build, I swore I wouldn’t make another one. For my Chaperon I built the MS  kits that have the stackable layers that you sand to shape. These worked better and with less frustration. The only drawback to these is the seats are thin and susceptible to breaking. That’s why I mounted mine keel up. The overall look is good, the layers give the look of planking. 
 
-Brian 

This is the kit that just keeps on giving. Here’s how I overcame the latest challenges

Build board assembly

This boat is meant to be built upside-down, with the tops of the formers glued to a build board to hold the ribs and keel stable while planking. This is sensible, and matches other small-boat kits I’ve built, but once again poor design and instructions get in the way.

The instructions tell you to glue four sets of square stock to the build board, 1” apart, between which the rib formers will sit. Problem is, they use the same instructions for all different size boats, so odds are 1” isn’t the right spacing. Luckily, I was forewarned by a previous build and probably would have checked that anyway, but it would be an easy mistake to make. This an example of poor design, because you need the formers to be spaced exactly as they are on the keel to keep the ribs straight, and any filing you might have done to widen the slots in the keel could change that spacing. Also, you're better off gluing on the formers first, then adding the stock, rather than the stock first and hoping the formers fit. This is especially true as the ribs change shape and width during bending, so they're not the same width as the formers by the time you're ready to do this. Therefore, I decided to glue on the #1 former, add stock around it, then measure the rest physically using the actual keel.

This let me discover another problem: the stem is too tall for the assembly! When you try to invert the keel and slide it down onto the rib, you find that the stem hits the build board well before the rib enters the notch! Also, the solid bow former that they told you to glue in place right away is also too high, and hits the square stock before the keel notch can settle onto the rib. Thank goodness I started with only #1 and didn't follow the instructions. Both problems can be seen below:


 
I gave up on the build board at this point and decided to put the rest of the rib formers in by eye. At that point, I found that I had to refile the slots in the keel, because the ribs had widened from soaking (and possible crimping while bending), so the slots were once again too narrow. Of course, despite being very careful and doing this with gentle pressure on a solid surface, I broke the keel at slot #2:


 

I decided that glue alone wouldn’t fit such a delicate break, so figured that maybe gluing it together with the rib would be better. So I set up a temporary “build board” on a metal square using clamps, and glued formers #2-4 into their slots (while regluing the broken keel). I aligned these by eye, which I think worked pretty well under the circumstances:

I decided to leave out former #1 (it should be where the foremost clamp is) because (a) it’s glued to the build board now and (b) it creates a really sharp turn in the planking at the bow, which I’m suspicious of. I want a narrower bow, both to avoid planking problems with delicate materials and because that would look a bit more like the boat I want (a riverboat yawl rather than a maritime ship’s boat). I then glued frames #2-4 to the original build board, leaving #1 in place on its own until I bother to chip it off:

This, at least, gives me a sensible place to start from. There's some really delicate fairing to do and I'll probably add more bracing between various formers. We'll see what new excitement comes in the next chapter.
 
Thanks for the various comments from folks who've tried these. I hope you'll stick around as I struggle through. I already have several ideas for how to adapt the second one to be easier and better and will log that too.

If there's one rule about Western River steamboats, it's probably "never say something didn't happen".
 
I also found a drawing in an old Time Life book of the Far West that shows her grasshopper spars being hooked onto the rigging from the poles (rather than actually rigged together), implying easy potential for removal if necessary. That's a detail I haven't seen anywhere else due to photo resolution, etc. I think I'm going to copy that for Arabia as it's a nice touch and also makes the rigging a little easier!

Roger, I assume you're referring to this post? I can see the spars on the main vessel but the others seem cut off. Is there a wider version of the photo? Certainly good evidence that the practice was used wherever necessary. 
 
As for the lock/dam building, thanks for looking that up. Very interesting and quite different from the situation on the Missouri, where the first dam wasn't completed until 1940 (primarily for flood control) and serious channel modifications commenced from there. However, prior to that, there was an ongoing effort to improve the channel by pulling snags and so on; do you know how early efforts like that happened on the Ohio? I would assume that things like dredging and channel modification started well before actual lock/dam construction, which would reduce the problems with bars to a certain extent. Just theorizing, though. I can easily believe that all upper tributaries along the Ohio remained shallow-water rivers requiring some use of sparring until navigation was either improved or abandoned (which I'd bet happened earlier than along the Missouri given the relative pace of development for competing things like railroads).
 
So much to know, so little time.

Eric,  
 
Very interesting information. I’m looking at the photos of your last post, they almost confirm my initial thoughts that the grasshopper rigs served a dual purpose.
 
I look at the riggings on the Far West and see that there are one set of blocks and tackle attached to the sparring poles for hopping sandbars and possibly assisting with pushing away from shore. Just down from that there is a second block and tackle rig that looks like it could be used to manipulate cargo as well as set the landing stage stretched across her bow. The Mary McDonald has a similar rig set up on her as well. Again, this is just my limited knowledge speaking. I love to delve into things that fascinate me but I know little about. 
 
What would really be interesting is to actually see these rigs in action. I’d love to take a short trip back in time to take a ride up/down river on one of these boats and see how they actually operated (hopping sandbars and all). I’ve ridden on several modern day steamboats (Natchez, Samuel Clemens and Delta Queen), but they are not much different than taking a River cruise in a regular boat with the exception of the thumping of the paddle wheel. Just the smell of the burning coal (or wood depending on the time and location) and the ruggedness of the expanding western frontier. Ahh to be born a hundred years earlier. 
 
-Brian