leclaire

Straight, strong and FREE. Doesn't get much better than that. Nice job, Eric.
 
Bob

Straight, strong and FREE. Doesn't get much better than that. Nice job, Eric.
 
Bob

Straight, strong and FREE. Doesn't get much better than that. Nice job, Eric.
 
Bob

Straight, strong and FREE. Doesn't get much better than that. Nice job, Eric.
 
Bob

Straight, strong and FREE. Doesn't get much better than that. Nice job, Eric.
 
Bob

I worked on the main cabin walls this week. Here's a small bit I made to test out my intended method:
 

It's pretty straightforward, just panels of scribed wood spaced below the upper window assembly, which keeps the whole thing straight. I made the doors the same way as before, by drilling holes and then finishing with knife and file. I have to make lots of these and they're pretty fiddly, but I listen to an audiobook and it goes pretty smoothly. Close-up, you can see some rough edges that I've been having a hard time fully smoothing down, but they seem to blend into the background when viewed beyond a camera lens.
 
Here's the rest of the starboard outer wall:

All the doors are made and painted but I haven't installed them yet. The backing strips holding this together and straight are scrap from past wooden kits (the stuff around laser-cut parts); I have a whole box of this stuff because I hate throwing things away, and it comes in really handy here as it's straight and strong but doesn't cost me anything.
 
Here's the wall loosely placed on the model for visual inspection:
 

Certainly gives the right idea. I think this came out well and the next one will go faster now that I have the method down. Thanks for reading.
 
 

I took a break from planking to work on the boiler deck structures (i.e, the main cabin). This is complicated as it contains multiple curved deck levels above and a raised central skylight running along most of its length. I started by drawing out the shapes of the fore- and aft-most walls, since they define the curve of the hurricane deck (the third one up, after main and boiler). 
 
I decided to use pre-scribed wood for the cabin walls at this level for three reasons. First, they need to be especially structurally solid given their complexity and I can get their shapes more similar using solid pieces. Second, they won't be as visible as the main superstructure walls because they'll be more hidden under overhanging decks. Third, I've been underestimating my strip wood use and this gets expensive to keep reordering, whereas I have plenty of scribed stock sitting around. So that's how it is.

Fore (left) and aft (right) main cabin walls with handmade doors. The ribs along the top provide extra support for the next deck up. I put the worse of the two doors on the fore cabin wall as this will be especially well-hidden under a deep and long overhang, where as the aft one will be a lot more visible.

I made the doors by tracing the oval windows (using a dowel for the curve), drilling out their outlines, then cutting and sanding the hole. I then attached thin strips of wood to make the framing, as seen in the first photo.
 

Here they are painted and installed in the walls. The third piece (upper right) sits a bit forward of the aft wall because the skylight doesn't run all the way back. This will be clearer when I get further along in the build. Next step on these is glassing the windows and adding some curtains to block the view, as I don't want to show any interior. These are the doors that access the main dining/social cabin that runs the length of this structure; the lower portions to either side house the individual cabins, kitchen, and other areas that are accessed from doors on the outer and inner walls. Here's a cross-section of a typical sidewheeler from Wikimedia Commons in case it helps clarify what I'm working on here (the area above the boilers):
 


As a preview, here's the aft-most wall propped up in its intended location. I like how these came out; they were a good test for the even more complicated task of building the long side walls full of cabin doors and other details, which is next. Thanks for reading!

Boiler deck planking is mostly done:

The blank spot in the center is where the cabins will go, I'm not showing the interior of these so there's no need to plank this carefully. As the underside of the deck is vaguely visible if you look from just the right angle, I used sheets of pre-scribed wood for this to mimic just enough planking in the shadows.
 
For the visible planking, I stained the individual strips using the same vinegar/rust mixture I've used before on this model, then rubbed each plank with subtly different shades of pastels. This produced a nice variation effect and was a lot faster than painting. I'll sand the whole surface down when it's done, blending them together a bit more.
 
If you were wondering why this deck isn't red, too, there are three reasons. First, this is the only other deck that will be visibly planked (everything above this will be covered with tar paper), and I thought it would look interesting in a more raw wood state, a bit of visual variability. Second, as this deck is mostly covered by the decks above and doesn't get as much use as the main deck (for things like cargo handling), I decided it didn't need the extra coat of red paint. Third, I'm out of red paint and don't want to buy another whole bottle when I might not use the rest for a year or more.

Here's a closer look at the foremost part of the boiler deck, showing where the chimneys and main stairwell come through. You may notice that the former look a bit off-kilter. That's because they are. I didn't get the boilers lined up perfectly and these were not quite aligned the way I wanted them, so I built up the area around them to make them parallel again. This will be entirely invisible once the chimneys are sitting on top.
 
You can also see some places where glue leaked through the planking. I was trying to be careful, but using unpainted thin wood makes it super-sensitive to glue spills. I don't think it'll be very noticeable once the next deck is covering this and all the railings are one. I was still annoyed by this, though, no matter how hard I tried the occasional bead came seeping up through and trying to wipe it off just made the area bigger.
 
Along with this, I'm starting to lay out the main cabin superstructure. It's quite complicated and will take me a while to get right, along with probably some annoying mistakes and do-overs. I'll try to take more photos; I didn't take many of the planking process because it's so straightforward.
 
Thanks for reading. We're heading for the first real heat wave of summer here, so maybe some extra focus on modelling for a bit.

That's a great idea Eric. I would get behind that venue 100%
 
Bob

That's a great idea Eric. I would get behind that venue 100%
 
Bob

That's a great idea Eric. I would get behind that venue 100%
 
Bob

That's a great idea Eric. I would get behind that venue 100%
 
Bob

Hey Eric, you better hurry up and finish your Arabia. Looks like you might just have a new boat to model. I wonder if the Malta was a stern or side wheeler.
 
Bob

Hey Eric, you better hurry up and finish your Arabia. Looks like you might just have a new boat to model. I wonder if the Malta was a stern or side wheeler.
 
Bob

Hey Eric, you better hurry up and finish your Arabia. Looks like you might just have a new boat to model. I wonder if the Malta was a stern or side wheeler.
 
Bob

Hey Eric, you better hurry up and finish your Arabia. Looks like you might just have a new boat to model. I wonder if the Malta was a stern or side wheeler.
 
Bob

Hey Eric, you better hurry up and finish your Arabia. Looks like you might just have a new boat to model. I wonder if the Malta was a stern or side wheeler.
 
Bob

Dave Hawley found another MO River wreck buried in a farmers field..
https://www.kcur.org/post/second-sunken-steamboat-raises-questions-kansas-citys-arabia-museum?fbclid=IwAR0yYp5zui1_dmw1_hbdTD4rK9O9hU1K-tyBrDScfn_n3asXpF_KBbnNglU#stream/0

This is simply stunning work you are doing here Eric! As a community here, we are very fortunate to have people like yourself who possess not only the skill to produce such works, but also the knowledge behind the vessels they create. Congratulations!
 
Cheers
 
Chris
 

More progress! Here are the two forward transverse chains on the starboard side. These cross to the port side (as that's visible from the outside) but don't descend back down to the deck on that side (as they'll be hidden from view in the superstructure. Again, the starboard side is remaining open to view so I can show off details like this.

Next, I began filling in the aft superstructure. First, I built two more cargo doors (one for each side, built the same as the aft one described earlier in this log) and installed them with some extra vertical braces. Then I started filling in walls. I've gotten as far as finishing the port side so far. This work is pretty basic stuff so I don't know that much detailed description is needed.

You can see one transverse brace just behind the wheel. There will be another one further aft at the same spacing as the forward two, but I won't add that until the walls are built. The one by the wheel won't be seen on the port side as it comes down within the paddlewheel well. But the aft-most one will be visible on both sides.

 
In this photo, it's more obvious than I expected that I used pre-scribed panels for the walls in some places and individual planks in others. Stuff like that really jumps out on screen. I hope the difference won't be so obvious once there's other detail in the way, like all the support posts between the two decks, various cargo, shadow from the boiler deck, and so on. Following up on the last comment, the forward of the two aft chains would be just behind the wall of the wheel well (and thus hidden in the final model), while the after one will come out just forward of the cargo door.
 
Other responses:
 
I really like understanding the context of a model or a subject, it's just so much more interesting when you understand how, why, and where a vessel was designed and used. Thanks for being interested.
 
 
Yeah, I've been through that area, visited the Atchafalaya control structure, and so on. As a geologist with a particular interest in river and landscapes, that area is like catnip. Interesting to hear your personal perspective.
On 5/26 I wrote that the river at St. Louis was forecast to crest at 43'. After another week of storms in the basin (including one that spawned a huge tornado near Kansas City), it's now forecast to crest at 46' this coming Thursday (1993 record is 49.58'). And it's just entering June, in 1993 the river didn't peak until August.
 
The Missouri continues to surge. Multiple levees have now broken and there are countless roads and bridges closed. If you don't know the area, it's hard to explain how difficult it is to get around. The river is so high that it's backing many miles up every tributary, closing all sorts of routes that normally wouldn't be affected. And levee breaks are closing fairly major roads across the state. Here are a couple more photos I took the other day of the Missouri River near its current peak.
 
Here's the river at Glasgow, Missouri. It's hard to tell from the photo, but the far bank is a levee that's at least ten feet above the bottomland beyond, and the river is about a foot from the top. The road and rail line crossing the river here are closed because they cross the floodplain for a mile after this and are underwater further back where it's not protected by the levee seen here. These bridges are a major corridor across this part of the state and you have to go a really long way around to find another way across.
 

Here's the Missouri River at Boonville, MO. The bridge in the background is a historic railroad bridge that's partly open to pedestrians; the water is really close to the actual bridge structure. In the foreground you can see the river overtopping the bank and coming up the hill into the lower parts of town. The corridor stretching straight back is another busy railroad line that I'd estimate is 5-8 feet underwater based on my knowledge of the area and what's left of the signals poking out. There isn't much to flood here other than the rail line, the rest of town is on higher ground. The building in the background is a casino and I could care less if that floods. However, just across the river from here, a major levee just broke and is now flooding a section of bottomland that's at least ten miles long, inundating another major road through the region.

Pretty wild times here in the American Midwest. I haven't even mentioned the Arkansas River, which has surged past its record level.
 
Thanks for reading, as always.
 

And, as promised, an actual model update. After permanently attaching the boiler deck, I started installing the main support posts under the forward area (that has no other superstructure under it other than the main stairwell). I cut posts to length, then drilled a hole in the base of each and inserted a short length of wire. I drilled another hole in the deck where the post needed to go. This helped me align them properly and hold them in place while the glue dried, while providing more strength.
 
I did the same for the posts supporting the two longitudinal hog chains (one line on each side, just inside the width of the hull as these would be extended down to the hull's framing). The photo below shows two hog chain posts ready to go, with slots filed in their tops to hold the chains and the tips painted black to simulate a metal cap. Bates describes a variety of ways for chains to interact with posts, including holes through the post, metal caps, and slots in the post, so I chose a hybrid of the last two. This also shows how I made turnbuckles for the chains by filing portions of a hollow styrene tube flat before painting the tube and cutting each turnbuckle out. Sorry for the poor image quality, I took this at night, but I think you can see sufficient detail to understand the method.

Once these posts were installed, I used lengths of steel piano wire for the chains as this is stiff and strong. I'd tried other wire but it wouldn't lie straight. I used pewter blacking to partly blacken the steel wire, then installed it and carefully painted it black afterward. For the actual installation, I laid the wire into the slots on each post and used clamps extending from the deck beams above to hold it down. Then I just added drops of CA to each post. At the stern, the hog chains run into the superstructure and vanish. In reality, they'd descend into the after hull just like they do forward, but as this area will be out of view on the finished model, I didn't bother extending them back down to the deck. Here are two views of the starboard hog chain (with turnbuckles); the port one looks exactly the same as you can see in the blurry background.
 


And here's an overall shot as of this evening.
 

Next up are the transverse cross chains that support the wheels, and possibly one further forward. Thanks for reading.

Today is Memorial Day in the US, when we remember fallen veterans. I was fortunate that both my grandfathers survived WWII. One made it through North Africa and Sicily before taking a severe leg wound in central Italy. The other spent the war in a sub in the Pacific, despite being well over 6' tall.
 
It wasn't just the men in my family directly affected; my father's family had lived in the Philippines since the early 20th century and some still do (both my grandfather and father were born there), having come over for business following the Spanish-American war. My grandfather was in college in the US when the war broke out, and joined the Navy. Meanwhile, his whole family were trapped in the Philippines as the Japanese approached. I've read a series of letters from my great-grandmother to her son as the noose gradually tightened; the last few mention things like the first sightings of Japanese bombers overhead, then the mail abruptly stopped. The whole family went into Japanese internment camps; we were lucky that everyone came back out again at the other end, despite severe suffering; many families were less fortunate, both Filipino and American (especially the former). My grandfather spent the whole war having no idea if his family was dead or alive, while serving close to the Philippines but never able to do anything directly about it until the liberation. If you've read the book Unbroken (and you should), you've read a parallel story to my family's. They don't appear by name in the book, but were part of the community it describes and almost certainly knew many of the main characters.
 
Although my specific line all survived that war (and all those that have followed), knowing their story helps me remember all those who didn't, both veterans and civilians, and how what they suffered contributed, in the end, to the world being a better place than it was then.

Looking good Eric. Glad to see you back at the build.
 
FYI - I got my copy of the Chaperon CD from Kurt the other day and it is great. Really wish I had it from the beginning of my build. I agree, it would be a terrific resource for anyone building not only the Chaperon kit but any other river boat where a bit of authenticity is desired. Some of the other kits out there are pretty far off when it comes to accuracy.
 
Bob

Eric,
 
It is times like these that everything I try to say comes out sounding rather like a worn out cliche of some kind. My best to you and your family. As Canute noted earlier, this is a great support group so don't feel like you were dumping on us at all.  
 
Bob

Eric,
 
Without evidence that is specific to the Arabia, go with what you think is most pleasing to the eye. My vote is for plan "B". I never have like the straight back design anyway.
 
Bob