jarero

Greeting Edwin and by all means follow along and feel free to comment/help where you can since I am a steamboat novice.

Time to break out the moonshine and go a little crazy!

Afterwards Sarah assured me it would be ok and with a gentle smile suggested that we display the model with that side facing the wall .

At this stage I attempted to destroy Bob. I had two clamps that were mounted about two thirds of the way down the hull on either side that protruded below the bottom of the hull. I had the weights on as seen in the pictures. Putting these clamps on essentially created a fulcrum point. So clearly you would want to remove the weights first from the "short" end first. Well I guess I should have paid more attention in my physics class because I in all my infinite wisdom did just the opposite which caused the entire thing to summersault onto the floor and break a chunk out of the main deck. Unfortunately my first reaction was to assess the damage and not reach for the camera to document the calamity. I managed to cut out the broken section of the deck to make it square and I grafted in a patch piece. All things considered I think I got pretty lucky here!

I figured that some weight on top of the main deck would help insure that the pieces fully adhered. Gluing the deck pieces down on the hull:

Time to start cutting out the main deck and getting ready to glue it in place. It is made up of 4 main pieces that had to be cut out:

This picture shows a little more of the material to be removed at the bow: And here are some pictures after sanding and shaping:

Without a doubt we are both crazy. Ooh, I like it, I think I will change the name on the side to "The Bob" or "Bobby" Only the bow and stern needed significant material removed to get to the final shape. The bit in the middle was pretty darn close out of the box.

Thanks John and welcome!

Keith, I love it, a safety guy driving a car that was crashed more times than I can count! Irony at it's finest. I agree that the navigation was on the captain. It would be interesting though it the boats had been similarly weighted. No plans to paint it like the infamous Mopar but I do wear a pair of Daisy Dukes just to get in the spirit when I am working on her!

Yep, looks like cross posting to me ! The stairs should work out ok once I clean up the casting on them. I can't imagine trying to build them at this scale. I haven't got to the pilot house yet but I believe it is made up of four wooden sides with clear plastic windows and card stock as a roof "decoration". I have spend countless hours studying the pictures in your build and it has helped immensely. It is really cool to see and hear the differences between your kit and this one!

Thanks! Thanks Jim! Not sure if the two kits are related or not? The instructions appear to have been written in English initially for this kit though. The cargo posts are complete and are cast metal pieces: You can see a cargo post in the lower left hand corner of this picture: Were your railings photo etch? The fibre at least seems nice and flexible. I am still struggling with a solution to the doors and window as the instructions say to used the included card stock with windows and doors printed on. Kinda cheesy. I have plans to replace most of the items you see on this flimsy piece of card stock with either wood, metal or plastic.

No laser cut parts here, heck they weren't even punched. It seems I will have to cut out every piece. The hull prior to shaping: The plans came with a great profile guide to help shape the hull. I made a photo copy of these, cut them out and glued to some scrap wood. I cut out the shapes to create a negative to use as a template.

Inside the box:

I have procrastinated long enough on putting up this log so I have a little catching up to do. My wife got this model for me a birthday present while I was still finishing up my Swift build. I'm sure most of you know that this model company is no longer in business and that there is at least one other company (Amati) that currently makes a version of this same boat. I knew nothing of the history of this boat prior to this build so the first step was to learn about the history behind the Robert E Lee.... Just a few interesting points: Built in 1866. She was named after the famous American Civil War general Robert E. Lee who was probably most famous for his participation at Gettysburg. I thought it was interesting that at first Lee did not support the south in their plan to secede from the union, that is until his home state of Virginia seceded. It seems that the vast majority of the river steamboats of this era were destroyed by either boiler explosions or fire (or both) and the the Robert E Lee was no exception when it burned near New Orleans in 1882 killing 21 people. The exact source and cause of the fire is unknown. The boat was made famous in 1870 by participating in the "great steamboat race" from St Louis to New Orleans where she beat the Natchez by nearly 4 hours. It seems that the race didn't have many rules because the Robert wasn't carrying any cargo and had a skeleton crew where as the Natchez had a full load of passengers and cargo. The Natchez also got stuck on a sand bar for 6 hours during the race. Doesn't seem fair does it? Ok, on to some pictures..... Note the comment about the "precision" metal components. I'm afraid that is stretching the truth a bit. Though the metal casting seem of particularly low quality the instructions and drawings at first glance appear to be pretty decent!

Looking good so far. Keep going and enjoy the build. I'll be happy to watch your progress!

No problem. I got your PM and emailed some pictures to you with dimensions. If you can't decipher my scribble let me know and I will try to clarify.

I just finished my Swift build and I did use the sails however I kept the 1:1 sail plan that is ideal to recreate them from. If you want I can put a few dimension on it and snap a few pictures or you can PM me your mailing address and I will send it to you. Let me know. Jared

While watching Sarah steep the tea for the sails last night I joked with myself that she is building a "scratch and sniff" model .

Do you have any brand names or a link? I'm not familiar with any Russian kits which makes me wonder if they are like some of the Chinese copycat kits?

Really clean and impressive work. I will be watching the rest of this one for sure. My wife and I picked up two of these kits a couple of months ago at a model fair and this is the first I have seen anyone build it. Jared

I measured some wood matches and they are the same size as the basswood I used in my original attempt. Maybe if I was a little more talented I could have made it look better. The matches did temp me to light it on fire and pick a larger scale model though. Thanks Brian! I attempted to make them from some folders as well and it was worse than my original window so I decided to try a more structured approach using the polystyrene. Here is what my latest attempt looks like: Compared to my previous attempt: My crude jig (Henry Ford would be horrified): I'm still not satisfied with the final product but I think I am much closer and I have a couple ideas now that should get me there. Thanks to all for the advise. Jared

Thanks, another good suggestion. I will attempt this approach as well and see how it looks.

Sure, I will try anything once. I can try a prototype and see what it looks like. Do you have any pictures or an example? To give you a better idea of the directions in the kit basically said to use a template (provided), mark the corners and use a pen to draw the lines of the windows and doors. Can't do it, to cheesy.

I am just starting to work on my second model which is an old Scientific Robert E Lee SS. I got to the point this weekend of making my first set of windows and I am not happy with the outcome. If anyone can help or share how they have made similar items please let me know! I used 1/16" x 1/16" basswood around a jig to make the frame. The cross bars between window panes are polystyrene. After I build the frame I sand it down to about half its thickness (this was the smallest wood in the hobby store). This is the result: