LJP

Hi John & Rick, Thanks for your support. Some days you really need it. I hope to have an update in the next day or two. Engine room is getting closer to finished. LJP

Hi Cathead! Thanks for the praise!. Currently working on the engine room - the steam and water pipes are really being a challenge. LJP

I have completed the crew quarters in the engine room. The forward two rooms are set up as double bunk bed crew quarters. The room to the right is set up as the engineer’s closet, and the one across is postal and regular storage. The panel on the back will eventually be used for the starboard engine room superstructure. I will leave the port side open for viewing. Another view but with the engine room work area & gauges. The crew quarters do not reach the full height of the boiler room stringers. This is by design. The space above was used for numerous cables, pipes, &c. Now I would like to finish the engine room: place the machinery, finish the starboard superstructure, add in some pipes and detail.

You are in my thoughts. Your health and your wife's welfare is what is really important. Take Care, LJP

Family duties took longer than expected. The false stern panel also took longer than expected. To get the false stern panel to fit within the sternwheel braces, I needed to deconstruct part of that assembly. I prepared a cardboard mockup of what the panel would look like and then built the panel. I used dry erase lettering for the boat name and home port. The interior panel was white for the boiler deck although the panel is only currently at partial height. The main deck interior panel is painted yellow at the top and with a grey bottom. This is the colour scheme that I noted at the Dawson City boat graveyard but also what was used on S S Moyie. My intent is to leave the main deck panels off on the port boiler and engine rooms so you can see the interior boat detail. I am not certain if I will also leave the port panels off on the boiler deck to allow visual access to the saloons and staterooms. I have lots of time before that needs to be decided. Next step is to build the crew quarters in the engine room.

It will be hard to see when completed, but this is what the pillow block looks like. Still needs a grease cup/oiler. I tried to leave the keys where you typically would find them as they were used to tighten and true up the sternwheel. This is a temporary setup of the sternwheel with the starboard pitman connected to the crosshead by the engine. Lots still needs to be done. On this side, the engine piston is all the way forward so the crank is horizontal. The other side, when completed, the engine piston will be at exactly 50% compression- so the crank will be vertical. Again, this arrangement was used to keep the engines from locking up the sternwheel. Keith Black, I used the ArcherTransfers.com transfers that you told me about on the pitmans. These are nearly impossible to see but the rivets (sorry wefalck, not nuts & bolts!) are resin but attach just like a decal. Tiny but easy to apply. I still need to complete the port side, add the oilers, trim parts, paint, &c. I will pull this entire assembly off so I can work on the rest of the engine room first. I wanted to get this out now, although incomplete, because I have family duties that will keep me from working on the model for the next few weeks.

wefalck, I do not know how to even begin to describe how incredible that is! Thank you for the two links, I encourage others to view the other photos. Small wonder Bavaria is headed off to a museum. LJP

wefalck, In re the German gentleman, I am not certain if I am more amazed that he made several feathered sidewheels in brass, or that he did in in 1:100. Incredible! Cathead, Thanks! In our model boat club, we had one member a few years ago who used CAD and a laser cutter to do the wheels. Recently, another member drew and 3-D printed the entire sternwheel for the Delta Queen. The 3-D is ridiculously detailed. LJP

Kurt, WOW! I cannot believe anyone would willingly make a feathered side wheel. I would love to have seen that in action! If you ever do attach it to an RC model, let me know. LJP

Source: WikiMedia Commons Hi Keith, Sorry that I was not clear in my definition. My concept of a feathered wheel is where the buckets would adjust as they went around. It was proposed that the buckets were more efficient in pushing the water. As you can see, this would be an absolute horror story to try and recreate in a model. LJP

KeithBlack, Thanks much. Like your built but the scale is something else! wefalck, I am very happy the buckets were not feathered, this was bad enough. I had seen those type buckets on sidewheelers but do not recall seeing them on sternwheelers. KeithAug, Thanks much. I have found that the research is easier than my building abilities. I have tried to make it as accurate as possible, but there is always room for interpretation and "creative license". John, I appreciate your support from Down Under. You have a beautiful country and love Sydney. LJP

The sternwheel was constructed the same as with the Thistle. I used the same template for the paddlewheel. I inserted the template in a plastic sleeve and then taped the arms down over the flange and the circle. This is what one of the paddlewheels looks like during construction. There are lots of parts and pieces in the sternwheel construction. It is hard to see, but the shaft is K&S hexagonal brass with a small round dowel insert. And the final construct looks like this. A considerable amount of time was spent in order to get to this point. Now I need to spend time on the cylinder timbers, braces, and pillow blocks before I can add the cranks to the pitman bar. After I complete that I will set it aside. I want to work on the engine room before I affix the cylinder timbers and sternwheel assembly.

In re stoves. Later steamboats , like S. S. Moyie, had radiators in the pilot house. Earlier versions had steam pipes that went back and forth to achieve the same result. You can also look for a chimney in the pilot house roof. Love your build, LJP

Keith, Thanks for your comments! Much easier at 1:64 versus your Lula scale. wefalck, Love your idea on boiler plating using aluminum and a ponce wheel. I will use on my next boat. That will really improve the skin on the boiler. You are correct on the boiler end. These were bolts and not rivets. I cheated on using what looked like rivets instead of trying to recreate bolts. The upper were bolted across the length of the boiler, while the lower were attached to the internal chimney. Not certain if that is the correct term but there was an internal open area and "chimney" at the back of a Scotch marine boiler. I used a generic Western steamboat poppet engine on JHC. These seemed simpler than the Corliss, even though the later Thistle my have had a Corliss. Again, Corliss may have been a generic name rathe than the manufacturer or the patent. Some Corliss' were really different from the Western engines. Two views of a type of Corliss is below. Thanks all. LJP

There are two differing sources for the J. H. Crawford engines. 1. Local 1894 newspaper accounts list the engines as being constructed by J. A. Barnes of Oshkosh. The cylinders were recorded as 13 by 50. 2. The Milwaukee Public Library, Great Lakes Marine Collection, listed the registered engines as Corliss condensing engines, with the cylinders noted as 20 by 42. Corliss was a local manufacturer located south of Milwaukee and close to Kenosha. The boat was listed on the sheet under Thistle and not J. H. Crawford. J. H. Crawford was never federally registered - as it was supposed to have been. The subsequent Thistle was registered finally in 1900. In fact, most Fox Wisconsin Waterway boats ignored registration until caught and threatened by the federal government. That being said, neither dimensions are really that different at 1:64 scale. Likewise, Corliss made poppet valve engines along with a myriad of other types. It is possible but unlikely that JHC/Thistle would have had its engines changed out in the 1899 hull extension and name change. As with the feed pumps, there are many, many examples of engines. Alan L. Bates’ The Western Rivers Engine Room Cyclopedium had numerous types and photos if you want a more in-depth discussion. I chose to use this Bates photo for my build, although I have seen this photo in several 1890s books and on internet feeds. Another useful engine graphic is both labeled and provides a quartering perspective. Source: Western Isles Photos/Graphics Note the following photo used a pendulum attached to the pitman to run the valves, unlike many other boats that used an eccentric attached to the sternwheel itself. Some boats actually used both the pendulum and the eccentric. Source: Steamboats.com JHC did have a pendulum based upon the cropped and enhanced photo below. I left the model’s engines with solely a pendulum for the steam cut-off control. I also used a simplified rocker assembly. Heavily cropped and enhanced. Note the pendulum. Source: University of Wisconsin LaCrosse Murphy Collection Dime time with the finished but unpainted engines. The left engine is fully extended while the right is exactly at mid cylinder. The final painted products. I needed to add the pendulum and slide for clarity. The entire unit will be removed from the model until later assembly. Makes life much easier. And this is sorta what it will look like with the feed and manual water pumps are added. But still lots of detail to be added. I need to make the sternwheel now. I will use the same process an I did on Thistle. The process, along with upcoming family duties may require some time before completion.