bcochran

Time to stop and take an assessment of where she stands before the railings, smoke stacks and the stages with their lifting, and moving gear.  Also, all the rigging, those are things that make it look like a steam boat to me.  I am at step 44.

I like to photograph while I build because you can see things in the pics that you don't see otherwise.  She looks a little rough in places, but that is somewhat the fault of the kit and a fault of mine.  Again, when all the parts and rigging is complete, the confusion blends everything together and all is forgiven.

A funny thing I found while going over the build so far, taking a line down the center from bow to stern, the cabin sits about 1/16 off center to starboard. I noticed this also when adding the side chains.  The port side chains are a bit longer than the starboard.  I guessing it is the kit and not me.

I used Micro Soft Word to make the name boards on the pilot house.  I wanted to add people behind the railings before I glued the railings on, but they are not here today.  They are coming from China and are a mail stop away.

Well, when she is finished and in her case she will look good I think.  I am mostly pleased at my Robt. E. Lee so far.

Port and starboard side chains.

The pilot house, texas and hurricane deck are temporarily placed together to see how things will look later.  The skylights above the hurricane deck were colored in black. Doing temporary set-ups helps to get a feel of how things are going, and is inspiration to keep plugging away.

These are the turnbuckles for the side chains.  A paper guide was used for uniform positioning.

The starboard side chains are in place.   At this point I ran into a bit more warpage and fit issues, but taken as a whole the boat still looks ok.

The hurricane deck, the roof of the texas and pilot house are blue. (Tamiya AS-19 intermediate blue spray) The roof of the pilot house was described by a reporter, during the race, as "beautiful sky blue" in Benton Rain Patterson's book.  The hurricane deck was the roof of the boiler deck.

Brass side chains shaped and chemically blackened.  Turnbuckles coming today.

Pyro's big pad eyes replace by filling holes and inserting smaller hand made ones.

Added some bull rails along the main deck.

The  remainder of the boiler deck, and its wood deck in place.  I used a plastic deck from my Lindberg parts.  The Pyro plastic deck was warped and more stiff than the Lindberg deck.

The rear of the boiler deck is in place with its wood deck.  (The decks from the bottom up are the main deck, the boiler deck, the hurricane deck, the texas and the pilot house. The boilers are on the main deck, the cabins on the boiler deck. ) This model is a series of parts stacked on or leaning against each other.  The fit is reasonably good, some places difficult, and there is warpage, sink holes, flash, and ejection pin marks to deal with. This kit is 61 years old. Since the fit of one piece depends on another's location, get the first out of place and the next is out of place.   Taken as a whole it looks ok so far I think. Not perfect. Also, you need to paint a piece, let it cure then glue it in place. A bit time-consuming when you can build another type model as a unit, then paint it.

This is coming along one step at a time.

I used a tooth pic and some acrylic yellow paint to color the lettering on the side boards. I also used a small black felt tip to outline the lettering.   I believe John Fryant mentioned that that Robert E Lee's lettering my have been yellow.  I didn't want the garish red lettering on my boat, so I went with yellow.

Using the white paint sharpie to paint the edges of part of the boiler deck, preparing to mount wood deck to plastic.

Paddle wheels mounted.

For the little windows that are not open, I use this black Gelly Roll pen to darken the blank opening, then go over the frame with the white sharpie paint pen. I did this to the little window I added so that resembles the windows in the little cabin.

A pair of dark red (Tamiya Dark Red Spray) paddle wheels an some critters to be added later.

Making a jig to rough bend the side chains.  I don't have the turnbuckles yet, they will be here this week some time.

The boiler area has been assembled.

Canopy glue is used to glue parts to the wood deck.  The wood piles were painted Testors dark gray tops and flat zinc chromate sides, and washed with burnt sienna artist oils. Edges painted with Sharpie paint pen.  Painted parts held with zap super glue.

Parts painted ready for more assembly.

Preparing parts for assembly.

Pyro did not put doors where they show on my plans. They look to be doors to the engine room.  I added them by sanding off some doors and windows from spare parts I had.

I glued the wood deck on.  I did not get it lined up right before the glue grabbed.  I am not too good with adding extra purchased detail like photo etch and decks. 

It's not too noticeable when more of the parts are on. But it is a disappointment. It could have been better. It's one of those errors you make and live with, move on or quit.  Moving on.

I tested out gluing the wood deck to the plastic deck using Testors liquid cement using a scrap of the wood.  It works fine. as soon as the white paint cures, I'll glue the wood deck down.

I started building the sub assemblies that go around the boilers. I don't know what the white cabin is yet.  I read where someone called it a luggage room.  The Lee had two guarded luggage rooms so that passengers would not have to keep luggage in their state rooms.

I am going with this rust-oleum satin warm caramel for the natural wood colors.  Later the satin will be covered with dull lacquer.

I don't intend to "weather" or create  a wood grain effect.  I do that for dioramas and my model railroad equipment, but not on models like this.

Another thing I do is to use very few different colors.  You can see this if you check out my Cutty Sark Log.

The colors for this boat will be white, tan, black, light blue, and red, and they compliment each other.  I can't see any reason for anything else. Maybe the people and animals will be more colorful if I add them.