gieb8688

A bit unrelated, but the case for my US Brig Niagara arrived from BlueJacket.  I need to find a glazier to buy and install the glass, but it will be nice to protect the ship (photo below).
 
You don't realize how big these things are until you get a case the case. The ships are so delicate, but the cases aren't.

Thank you all for the good wishes. A bit of delay because I've been working on repainting part of the house, but here's an update. 
 
I've since installed the waterway. The instructions suggest carving it from a piece of 3/16 by 1/2 by 24, with the inner edge 3/16 in from the edge of the bulkheads, and leaving sufficient material to shape the outer edge to follow the curves of the bulkheads as if they were continuing upwards. Forward of bulkhead 3, it needed to be carved to fit around the bulkheads themselves. 
 
As a practical matter, it was necessary to construct this in 3 sections, the first running from bulkhead 15 to 7, the second from bulkhead 7 to 3 and the final one from bulkhead 3 forward. The last piece was so short because of the necessity of matching the outward flow of the bulkheads where the forecastle will be. Once installed, I filled some gaps where I carved around bulkheads 2, 1, and B with Elmer's Wood Filler.
 
Next step is to install the planksheer and the knightheads.

Step 1 more or less complete. Main keel cut out and assembled. Rabbet cut. Bulkheads cut, cleaned and faired. Mast supports cut and in place. Lower keel ready to be glued in place.
 
On the whole pretty painless. I added extra stiffeners (scrap wood) over the keel joints for strength and to help ensure that it remains straight. I needed four shims - two on each side on bulkheads 13 and 14, otherwise it was fair and true.
 
Two things I've been thinking about lately. First, the ship was 'coppered' with Muntz metal and it appears that it is possible to get brass tape in the same basic sizes as copper. While shiny, it may look more like Muntz, so I'm going to try to get some. It isn't as common as brass tape, but there is a glass studio near here and they may be able to get it. Second, I've been reading Steven Ujifusa's "Barons of the Sea: and their race to build the world's fastest clipper ship". In it, we learn that Donald McKay wanted to paint the Flying Fish green rather than black.  This pleases me, and I am thinking about painting her a dark, almost British Racing Green to comport with McKay's original vision. I'll probably change my mind before  I start painting, but that green with black highlights would make a really lovely vessel.
 
George

Rob, Richard, folks,
i rely on your measures for sure, but i work differently  as i dont have knowledge of your caliber... by comparing distances.
 
i measured mold  to mold and it gives roughly 2x distance to copperline at 25ft for sure. photo is black but we can see approx  tip of rudder going to rudder hole,,, tjhat is mold to mold plus a bit i had measured it but forgot the numbers....
I can tell you folks, this is only inches discrepancies you play here....I looked at the draw again......there is no place to labor excessively as main  numbers doesnt allow to.....as LBP is provided and LOA is provided....you can either literary CUT OFF tip of bow if you want longer sleeker stern, or you can do vice versa if you want agressive bow and shorter stern. nothing else can be moved.......
 
yes can.....instead of 84 degrees stem angle we can go 86.....
 
or at back stern stem we can go from vertical to little leaning downwards....as we excluded these un Mckayish things.....i believe shape is pretty much established.....and I can quite comfortly have bulkheads cut....
 
i measured all over thoroughly and tried to update stern  and again measured bulwark heights and sheers watterway, depyth of hold......according last number provided.  I included planking exceeding behind sheer line mold as welll....I will now post pics with numbers... speaks for itself......
 
i measured bulwark again which gave me 6.12 FT....
 
to obtain 250 ft between perpendiculars....
and 265 overall, I shortened a tiny bit of forward tip to be less aggressive and used comparing distances measures so stern is now again different than before.....
 
what you say about stern shape now   folks ?
there is final pic as last one.....
@ Rob, I can send you folks bulkheads templates for the boat, but first i want to check them myself in hand to check  i drew them correctly...as I suppose this is testing phase for me
 
please underthand that I will never match your precision, truth be told im quite  thankfull that  Richard is kicking me into more precision...
 
as it helps it to shape it better but I would say at this point. I dont think it someone  would shape her differently placing all the shapes and measures at this point.....
 
 first  picture shows new more shallow angle of bottom of stern and original Michaels stern....
 
i can redone tip to more agressiveness forward as we had it before but i have to go back to more dull stern it makes.... 2 FT at the back or at the tip of forward rail....quite a lot to consider....
 
hope make sense
 
thanks
V.
 
 
 

As seen on the Glory...you can identify the main rail and pin rail and the monkey rail....18" above.
Notice the waterway below and the deck.

Vladimir,
I expressed your appreciation to Mike who's being so generous with these fantastic images which likely haven't been seen in decades. I was so impressed that I sent Mike a request for the rest of the vessel in this scene.
Meanwhile, the stern shows that the turned rails aren't verticle. They cant outwards almost imperceptibly around the stern, appear to be most verticle along the Wheelhouse section and then cant inwards around the large Stern house. The monkeyrail below also appears to do the same. The main rail drop almost appears to Bow inward but it looks to me like it's an affect of the short shelf like area combined with double planksheer moldings. Most fascinating is the 3' - 4' area below which ends in a slight ridge. While it gave an initial appearance of being solely around her Stern, I now suspect it encircles the entire vessel but is far less noticable. In fact, it looks like it aligns perfectly with the lower end of the Naval Hoods. What surprised me was that this same feature can be seen on McKay's illustration of sister Packet ships "Star of Empire" & "Chariot of Fame" as seen here. Finally as first suspected, the graceful drop below this line curves slightly inwards as it drops to the rudder. In totality, this area of Glory is far more complex than first suspected.

Rob,
I borrowed your idea and matched 2 of your images to make a final one that shows "Glory of the Seas" completely from Bow to Stern.

Rob & Vladimir,
I asked Mike for a better look at Glory's stern from the scene of her being towed to Alaska. Here's his original, facing down and a cropped version facing up. As I first noticed, her Stern is far more elegant and complex than earlier suspected. Her turned Rail stanchions, while appearing almost verticle seem to cant just slightly outward, as does the monkeyrail below, then her main rail looks like it bows slightly inward but I suspect it's due to the effect of her moldings. The area below that appears to bow out slightly. Rob can measure it. My best guess is about a 3 - 4 drop. Finally the rest of the Stern curves again just slightly inward as it drops gracefully to the rudder below. Far more complex than at first glance.
 

Here's the 1854 Black Ball Clipper "Champion of the Seas" at the time she was launched, she was the largest Merchant ship in the world. She was 2,447 tons, 238' keel. 252' on deck between perpendiculars. Since her stern post was verticle, her stem projected out 14'. From this contemporary daguerrotype, you'd be hard pressed to believe that. While Glory's sheer was 7' this vessel's was a much more modest 4 1/2'. Glory was very similar in dimensions, being 250' between perpendiculars on deck but was significantly smaller at 2102 tons.  There's a very detailed description of Champion from the May 20, 1854 Boston Daily Atlas, on Lars Bruzelius' site. 
As for Glory's Bow I'm now much more inclined to believe she looked very similar to the "Henry B Hyde" but with less dramatic sheer. 

yeeee.... well almost dunn (98%)  som paint here and there, decals , some wheatering , fix the flag (no wind in here😉)
i used black rope from syren on the model.
and am waiting for the schnellboot crew , so i have some painting to do here also.
this is photo taking from the shop, when finish i wil take som nice photo with some background.
 

Thank you for the kind words George, this one will be for my own personal viewing. Not quite sure it would be up to museum standards. Not to mention the Cairo museum already has a couple of scale models on display.
 
One is a model of how she sits in her permanent full size display and the other is a cutaway version. Both beautiful models. 
 

 

 
-Brian

Hello again everyone,
 
Time for another update. Things have slowed down a bit since the weather has turned nice. Lot's of projects around the the property that need tending to before the Texas summer heat sets in.
 
With this update I was able to finish work on the aft bulwarks. I fashioned these out of one piece of poplar and carved out the fairleads in pretty much the same way that I did the forward ones.
 
Roughed out shape and pinned to a board to make it easier to work with.

 
Fairleads starting to take shape.

 
Final shaping and sanding.

 
Bulwarks installed on the hull and rollers in place (I did go back and set that right pin flush. I just didn't notice it until after the picture was taken).

 
and the finished install.

 
 
 
 
Next it was on to the preheaters and some of the plumbing.
 
I built the preheaters the same way that I did the boilers. These were made from a 3/4" dowel that I wrapped with aluminum tape with imprinted rivets. These did not survive the salvage so it was pretty much guesswork as to how they actually looked. I used the example from Adam L. Kane's The Western River Steamboat book as my template for these features along with the plumbing diagram in the HSR.
 
The finished preheaters.

 
For the plumbing I used different size styrene rods. To shape them I held the rods over a soldering iron to soften them up. Then I just bent them to shape. I used small rings of heat shrink to simulate the fitting collars to give it a little extra detail.

 

 

 

 
Once these were all built up, they were installed. I temporarily installed a roof beam to line up the pipes where I will eventually place the pipe hangers.

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
Then it was on to the armor casemate plating on the port and starboard sides.
 
According to the HSR, the armor plating was not only on the side casemates, but also extended 55" down the hull to protect it below the waterline. I'm not sure why, but this lower armor did not make to the display in Vicksburg.
 
Marking the 55" line on the hull (this equated to 29mm)  below the knuckle.

 
Since the actual plates were shiplap, they did not butt up against each other and there was a slight gap in between each plate. I made up a little jig with a .5mm shim to give it the equal spacing.

 
Next it was on to the upper armor plates.

 
On the actual boat, the armor plates did not line up exactly with the gun ports so they placed a small filler piece on the sides of the gun port frame to give it full protection.

 

 
Once the plates were installed, I made up another jig to line up all of the bolt/rivet holes that held the plates in place.

 
Then it was time to experiment. I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to simulate the bolts/rivets until I got to playing around with the styrene on the plumbing. Before I used the soldering gun to soften the plastic I tried my heat gun. This spread the heat over too big of an area, but on my attempt I noticed that the heat gun made a nice mushroomed head on the end of the styrene rod. The light then came on and I though, hey what a perfect way to make rivet heads. So I proceeded to experiment with some smaller styrene rod. The bolts/rivets holding the plates in place were approximately 3/4" which translated to .040". So I drilled a piece of scrap wood with a .040" bit, placed a piece of styrene rod in the hole and heated the end of it. I experimented with several lengths extending out of the wood in order to get the right size head on the bolt/rivet and finally settled on the 1mm length. I think this worked perfectly.

 

 
Once I had found the length that I liked, it was on to filling all the holes.

 
Once the holes were all filled, I went back a trimmed them all to equal lengths. I glued a 1mm strip of scrap to each jaw of my flush cut pliers and trimmed the excess off of each rod.

 

 
 
Once they were all trimmed, next came the heat.

 
And viola, 540 bolts/rivets installed.

 
Once the starboard side was complete, it was on to the port side. This side was a little more challenging, since I had to cut out around the viewport.

 
Still no big deal, just a little extra patience and that side was done to.

 
Now all I have left is to mark and drill all the holes and finish this side.
 
 
 
Well, that is all for now. I'm going to finish up on the armor plating on the port side and start on the forward plates. 
 
Until next time, thank you all for looking, the kind comments and likes.
 
Stay safe and well.
 
-Brian

Hello again everyone.
 
Time for another quick update.
 
More progress was made this week on the some of the machinery and other deck features. I started this week off with the bilge pump. 
 
First I turned down the pump body.

 
Next I cut out the base and the brass features. These consisted of the pump tubes and flanges as well as the portion.

 
Piecing the lower portions together.

 
Next I cut out the center support and test fit it for alignment with the sucker rods.

 
The sucker rods were then installed, the pump body was shaped to receive the pump handle assembly.

 
Pump handle installed.

 
Then everything was put into place and glued together.

 
Finally a coat of black paint, some stain for the handle and the whole thing coated with satin varnish.

 
 
Next assembly was the capstan. Again, I turned the main body of the assembly down on the lathe.

 
Next I installed the drum "fins" of the capstan.

 

 
I placed the assembly back in the lathe to shape the drum.

 
Next I carved out the holes for the capstan bars, then assembled the bottom gear. This was done by using 1/16"x 1/16" styrene that I filed the grooves in. I then heated the gear then wrapped and glued it in place. The heating wasn't really necessary, I just didn't want to risk the plastic snapping and have to go back and refile all those teeth.

 
Then came the small drive gear. Same concept on the gear teeth, only I used a wooden bead for the base, filed the teeth then capped it off with a thin piece of scrap wood.

 

 
Then all the pieces painted black and varnished and temp installed in position.

 
Next on the assembly list were the interior walls that close off the engine room and provide a sound barrier. There is no documentation on this partition other than some of the lateral section drawings in the HSR. Most of this section was destroyed during the recovery when the cable slings cut through the hull and casemates. This is also the area where the "Doctor" pump was located. I'm guessing that when the lifting cable cut through, it ripped the "Doctor" from its mounts, it fell through the opening, then settled to the bottom of the river where it was buried in the mud and silt, never to be found. I figured that I would again take my builders liberties and add them since there seems to be some resemblance of them in the HSR.
 
The basic structures.

 

 
Door and lighting installed. I didn't take too many pictures of these since they were pretty much straight forward.

 
After creating a bunch of sawdust, I wanted to take a break from it and focus on more of the lighting and wiring. I didn't want to get too far ahead of myself and not have room enough to get my hands in the deck area to place the wiring and LED's.
 
Just a few quick shots of the wires being installed.

 
All of the LED's will be run with the red and white wiring and the supply wiring is the black and green.

 
At first I was going to keep all of the wiring confined to the boat, but I couldn't come up with a good way to store the battery and actuate the lighting like I did on my Chaperon. So instead I decided that I would have the switch and battery installed in the base. This way once I build the display case I would have to keep removing the glass to show the lighting. So I ran the wiring down to where one of the pedestal mounts will be. I will then hollow out the support and run the wires to a location yet to be determined on the base.

 
And here she is at night with a test of some of the lighting. There will be more lights installed, I just wanted to see what it looked like lit up at night.

 
 
And finally here is how she sits as of today, Still a long way to go, but she's coming along.

 
 
Now to a question for the experts. My next project is to work on getting some of the steam piping installed for the boilers, engines and "Doctor" pump. In the HSR there is a Propulsion System Schematic of how the steam lines are run, and I will do my best to somewhat replicate this (for what will be seen anyway). In the diagram it shows two pre-heaters in line with the "Doctor" pump and the engines. Since these were lost during the recovery as well, there is no documentation of these either, but I am going to represent them as best as I can. The crew building the St. Louis have a basic mock up of these in there build log photos and they show them mounted above the "Doctor" which is where I intend to place mine.

 
The questions that I have are this: Were these pre-heaters basically "mini boilers", whos primary use was to make sure that the main boilers didn't have to work as hard to create steam, but instead of a fire box to heat the cold river water they used steam from the engine exhaust? and were they pretty much built similar to the main boilers?
 
I have tried looking on the internet for info on them, but can't seem to find anything that helps. I have been diligently looking for a copy of Alan L. Bates: The Western Rivers Engineroom Cyclopedium, but so far no luck on that search either.
 
Anyhow, thank you all for stopping by and for the kind words and likes.
 
-Brian
 

thanks for the likes and coments 😊
 
its almost finish , i got all the parts painted , so the nex thing to do is to glue them on etc
and i almost forgot... i did order the schnellboot crew  and i have to make a displey case also..
it seems to me i do have alot to go ..LOL
new photos of some parts etc (not glued yet)
 
 

thanks for the like... 
 
still not finish yet...  the parts never ends😅 but soon am there, 
the rails are not glued on yet , the bot needs to be painted etc and last i will weathering a bit
 
svein erik

thanks for the likes,
am moving along to the end.... and here is my updates on the S38 schnellboot
 
svein erik

hi again.. 
some update on my schnellboot s.38 ....   after i got my new aibrush i can move forward on this build , 
startad to paint all the parts and dry fitt then on the boat ,all the detail paint wil come after all is glued on .
am not happy with some of the paint fore the wood dekk , so this has to be re painted in the right wood paints .
i wil do some weathering also before i can say its finish😊.
 
svein erik

some update of the schnellboot s.38
 
the hull is now painted and my next step is to aply some washes and weahtering so
it looks used . befor that i need to do some clean up and add some paint here and there!
this is fore me the fun parts😉
 

2nd Planking Complete!!!  Warts and All.
One of my takeaways from the Amati video LN build log series https://www.facebook.com/amatimodel/videos/1702831086404935 that I started following, before finding MSW, was to keep an eye out for when the last plank you added results in a non-straight, or wavy, edge that your next plank will butt up against.  Repeatedly use a batten to see how straight the edge is.  If it isn’t, it’s time to spile the last plank you added.
Here are photos of the first plank I spiled (Note that I am planning to paint the hull white below the waterline, so I’m not concerned with the shades of the planks that I use below it.):  Also note that most of the wood cut off of this plank is at the stern and little at the bow end.
  
 

 
Here’s how I prepared to mark the spile line:
 

 
I did a pretty lousy cut of the line.  In fact, my skill with the knife needs a lot of practice.  I’m much better with using a wood plane.
Anyway, after I did this the next planks at the stern went down much straighter.
 

 

 
To get the clean effect on the port side of the planked bulkhead #10 above, I did the following:
With a jeweler’s saw (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PJYDFVV/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) for $13 US, I trimmed off the bulk of the waste, leaving about 1/4-inch left With the smaller sanding drum for my rotary tool, grit 120, carefully zipped off the remaining stock Here’s a photo where the last plank went in.  It had the same taper as the one before it.  I just needed to sand the edge until it fit.  Went very slowly and went: sand little, fit, repeat.
 

 
In general, I’m pretty satisfied with the job.  Did have some nicks and breaks that I have to clean up.  In the shots below, the starboard side has not had any sanding and the port has had some preliminary sanding.  I’ll be interested to see how my sanding mouse cleans this up.  I used it for the 1st planking and it worked pretty well, so we’ll see.
 
  
 

 
  
 

 

 

 
I’m also going to test drive using Elmer’s Carpenter’s Wood Filler for the gaps between planks and some gouges.    I have the Clear, Walnut and Golden Oak.  I saw one of Chuck’s posts that you can mix these to different shades.  I’m going to try that also.  Lastly, I have gathered enough plank dust to try that technique (mix with 50% diluted PVA to get a paste-type substance).  Will report on that when I finish it.
 
.John

Hello again to all –
 
Thanks for the likes and compliments, and especially from you, Michael, whose own restoration work is so exceptional.
 
Eric – passing along some of the tips and techniques that I have learned over the years is one of my greatest pleasures in this activity.  There are lots more in my earlier build logs if you go through them.
 
As for the model, it was now time to finish off the rigging repairs.  With the mizzen topmast shrouds done I reattached the topmast stay.  It is a smaller diameter than it should be, but the main t’gallant yard braces are tied to it, so I used it in place.  Then the topmast backstays were created from new line and secured to the final deadeyes on the mizzen channels.  You can see the head of the backstays here and the deadeyes in a later photo.  I strung the t’gallant shrouds through the topmast crosstrees and tied them to the shrouds, then ran the t’gallant stay from the tip of the mizzen mast to the topmast doubling of the main mast.
 

 
I ran the t’gallant backstays from the tip of the mast to eyebolts on the mizzen channels.  Although the eyebolts were new, I found holes in the correct locations on the channels which had originally held eyebolts, confirming that my rigging layout was correct. 
 

 
The mizzen t’gallant yard was lifted and clipped to the mast.  This let me easily string and tension the yard lifts, which was done just after the photo was taken.  The lifts for the mizzen lower yard were also later tensioned by taking the slack through the blocks and down to the belaying pins at the deck.
 

 
Now the rigging to the driver gaff and boom were restrung, including the topmast yard braces, the topping lift, the vangs, and the rest of the lines that had been detached so I could work on the mast.
 

 
After final balancing and tensioning of any slack lines the rigging was done.   At the aft end of the mizzen channel you can see the deadeyes for the mizzen topmast backstay and the eyebolt for the t'gallant backstay.
 

 
From dead ahead this photo reveals that while I was able to reset the masts and yards to a great extent, there is still a bit of unwelcome variation in the angles of the yards relative to each other.  The largest issue is the main topmast yard which was unfortunately glued in place by an earlier restorer and which I could not adjust.  Nonetheless, I think the overall look is acceptable.
 

 
So here are two photos of the fully rigged model, taken from the stern quarter and bow quarter.  I believe the client will be pleased.
 

 

 
The final tasks will be to replace the unsatisfactory rudder, the cannon carriages, and the flags.  I will post that soon.
 
PS – I have been having some issues, as you can tell, with getting the lighting right for taking the photographs.  The bright white of the ivory does not show up well unless the color saturation is turned down so far that the blue background turns grey.  I just bought some additional lights and I am playing around with the flash settings on the camera, so I hope that the balance of the photos will come out better.
 
Stay safe
 
Dan

Canvas spray shield attached to the aft gun tub. Tub not attached yet so it’s placed at an angle  for photo purpose
  The “Canvas” process --Took a piece of old cotton tee shirt, stretched it out very tight tacked it down, several coats of spray primer was applied to both sides, followed by several coats of tan/ OD green  regular can  spray paint   The drying, spraying process made the cotton stiff. Glued a plastic rod to the top to hold its shape, then made holes 5 mm apart in the top, sewed to the rail with rigging line treated with wax and white glue solution.  Ship rigging experience came in handy here.
Added the hull drain & bilge ports ready for clean-up & weathering

Fabricated the throttle control bars, the mufflers are molded from resin.
I think its time to paint the hull and deck next.
 
Thanks guys  for your kind comments,  not so sure about one of the most detailed PTs , that’s more in the realm of a master builder , not a simple boat builder, trying to be accurate is important to me on this build , the real test comes from the experts at ptboatforum .com  again thank you.

Torpedo tubes complete , test fit went  ok ,   now they go back in drydock until  there needed 

Twin 50s completed , superstructure  coming along

The  50’s  & mounts started life  as a kit , both were  then heavily modified ,  on the 50’s I only kept the weapons body, everything else scratch built , with the mounts  I kept the site post & the mount carriage bracket.
Rudders, shafts & screws , three engines  three screws  on a PT ,  for me I have the parts for 3, however still not sure if they will be used, depends on the final  display,   
The pictures are from master builder Gene Burgers 107 build
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