catopower

Thank you everyone for your great support. It's much appreciated and is helping to keep me on task. So, about a week ago I restarted the process to do some etching of some rings for the paddle wheel. I'd looked at various ways to make them, but at 1/8" scale, etching brass seemed to be the best option IF I could get it to work. I had made rings for one side of one wheel many months ago and recently looked at them again and they actually look okay. Anyway, I realized that about 60% of the work will be hidden by the wheel houses, and for that matter, you can only see about 1/2 of one wheel at a time, so I've come to realize that if they're not perfect, it probably won't be at all noticeable. Got the gumption up to get started and realized I didn't have enough photoresist material, so I went ahead and reordered that and some new etchant. I've been kind of winging it on keeping track of how much I've used, so I'm going to get very methodical about recording dates and uses from now on. The stuff is still a few days away via FedEx Ground, but I should have it by Friday. So, while I'm posting, I should mention that one of the problems I've been having with etching is trying to get a little more streamlined and greener. The chemicals, primarily the etchant, has to be disposed of properly and for me that means taking it to the hazardous waste facility. I haven't had to go there yet, but it should be a pretty straight forward visit and it's free. So, no complaints there about the service. Another Method of Etching Still, I wanted to make life simpler. So, I tried out another form of metal etching. There are basically two kinds of metal etching: Chemical etching and Electrolytic etching. Chemical etching is what I've been doing up 'til now. Electrolytic etching is the exact opposite as electrolytic metal plating. Or, in actuality, it's exactly the same as electrolytic plating, but instead of taking a source metal and plating your work, your effectively using your work as the source metal and plating a piece of waste metal. Seems like a good idea, but I didn't have the patience to try to work out all the kinks. You have to prep the metal pretty much the same way as with chemical etching. But, instead of putting it into an etchant bath of Ferric Chloride, you put it into a bath of Copper Sulfate solution, which is much safer to work with. You need a power source, like a car battery charger and piece of copper to deposit the "etched" metal onto. The problems I ran into were that the copper sulfate solution (Ferric Chloride seems thicker to me) seemed to work its way underneath the photoresist a little, so the etching didn't look very clean. Also, I think the process works best if you use a sheet of copper for the process to deposit to and to keep it as parallel to the work as possible as closer areas etch faster than farther ones. Lastly, the power source has to be attached to the metal plate in such a way that the wiring or the part of the copper it's attached to doesn't get eaten away. I'll have to revisit this in the future. And, since it is the same process as plating, I may have to give that a try too! Press 'n' Peel Blue Sometime after I gave up on that, I looked into another possibility to improve/simplify the process. It seems to me that the most difficult part of the etching process is basically getting the artwork onto the metal. The metal has to be really clean and the photoresist material has to be applied with no dirt or air trapped underneath. But, working with photoresist can be a bit of a pain as you also have to get the right exposure to transfer the image onto it and you have to process it in the developer solution just right so that all of the unexposed photoresist washed away and the exposed material is completely intact. Lately, I haven't been doing so well with this. Then I ran across an article on a modeling website about using a material called Press 'n' Peel Blue. Press 'n' Peel Blue is a material that you print directly onto and apply heat to transfer directly to metal. The idea seemed like a godsend. I mean, no UV exposure to worry about, no transferring an image of an image, no need for using nasty developer solution (NaCl). Seemed too good to be true. Well, for me, it was too good to be true. I had to invest in a laser printer to begin with because this method is specifically for transferring laser toner onto metal and it won't work with an inkjet printer. Laser printers can be had pretty cheaply, but toners cost a chunk of money. Since I wasn't planning heavy use, it seemed a reasonable investment. The one caveat is that, reportedly, Brother printer toners require too much heat to transfer so they aren't recommended. I didn't see any warnings about Canon printers, so that's what I ended up with. To make a long and painful story short and less painful, I just couldn't get the toner to stick to the metal well enough. From what I've read about this stuff though, it's used for prototyping circuit boards and it's not uncommon for part of the artwork to not stick. You just use a sharpie marker to draw in any missing lines by hand. When your only worried about making a circuit connection, that's probably okay. But, when you need something to look perfect, that's not a good solution. Just in case, I also tried using one of the copiers at FedEx Office to copy my artwork onto the Press 'n' Peel Blue sheet. But the results weren't any better when I tried transferring to the metal. I tried cleaning the metal with acetone before and after rubbing it down with very fine grit pads, I tried cleaning the metal with steel wool, scouring pads, nothing helped. The stuff just wouldn't transfer cleanly. At some point, maybe I'll try to find an HP laser printer as that is probably the most common brand and may work the best. But, that doesn't mean that this stuff is entirely useable for ship modeling. Other Etchants Finally, I started to experiment with other etchants. One seemed to be the best possibility and I was really trying it in conjunction with the Press 'n' Peel Blue testing. I didn't get very far with the test, but I decided to try out Sodium Persulfate. This stuff starts off clear and I'm told that you won't have the problems of undercuts in the etching (etching too much so that it cuts underneath your artwork). Because it's clear, you can see the process without removing and rinsing the work all the time. Also, I believe it's environmentally a bit better as you end up with (I think) mostly Copper Sulfate, though I haven't figured out what happens chemically to the sodium. Anyway, I only tried this once and it was with the Press 'n' Peel Blue and I could tell that using a Sharpie marker on the artwork wasn't working out too well, so I stopped the process midstream. I'll have to try it again in the future, but it is a much slower process than using FeCl. Back to the Start For now, I'm going back to the start and see if I can deal with the process and the chemicals and at least get some decent etching done! I'll let you know how it goes... Clare

Pivot Gun Tracks Back to catching up on the build log... On the pivot gun tracks, I began by using Adobe Illustrator to create the artwork. The tracks for the pivot guns are based on the National Archives plans. The two are identical and simply consist of three overlapping arcs. As I mentioned in the previous post, the trick in creating the artwork is to create the areas to be etched away. So, the black areas in the artwork will etch away, leaving the white areas as the brass parts. You don’t want to create unnecessary black areas as you end up wasting etchant on areas that don’t actually need to be etched. So, the bulk of the artwork is white. The fine white lines are small brass bridges that will keep the etched part from falling off the sheet during the etching process. I included too many of these in my early work and realized it just made for more clean-up. So, my later artwork has only as many as seemed necessary and reasonable. Once I had completed the art, I printed it out on regular paper and test fit it on deck. This was just an extra step to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I was getting uneven thickness in the widths of the track and It took me a few attempts at etching to get the tracks to come out well. I started to realize at some point that some of the unevenness I was getting in the etching came from the exposure process, where some portions of the art were being struck at an angle by the light I was using. So, some areas were receiving stronger exposure than others. I adjusted this by turning the artwork at regular intervals during the exposure process and that helped. I’ve since purchased a cheap little display turntable that is powered by a solar cell. I haven’t tried it yet, but the idea is that I’ll put the metal and artwork on the turntable, switch on the exposure lamp and that will power the turntable to rotate slowly, but enough to keep the light expose the artwork more evenly. Anyway, the etching process itself went well enough after that and the photo below shows the aft pivot track in place. Remember, this is back when the brass etching process was working okay for me... Clare

Thanks Tarbrush, Well, I've been trying different methods and now that's what's making me crazy. So, I'm going back to the original method that had worked before and trying again. Unfortunately, I ran out of photoresist material, so I just had to order some more. I'd made some new artwork and after the I transfer that to the metal, the only chemicals I need is the etchant itself. The stuff I have on hand is pretty new, but I just ordered some more since I needed to order the photo resist anyway. That gives me a week or so to think about something else before I start back in on the photo etching. Hi Popeye, Glad you found my experiences useful. I did use this successfully to make some decorative scroll work for my yacht America model, and some things did turn out okay. I just have to put together what I've learned and see if I can do better. As I mentioned to Tarbrush above, I've got about a week or so to put it out of my mind before I try again. But, I'm ready to give it a go. If failure is part of learning, then I must be learning an AWFUL lot! Clare

Thanks Mark, Cap'n'Bob, Thanks for your support. Before I try again, I set it aside for a moment and I just took a diversion to use the Sherline lathe I bought a couple months back and finally started trying my hand at turning cannon. In this case, one of the 30-pdr Parrot Rifles of the Saginaw's later days. It was quite fun and interesting and I have lots to learn. Hi Janet, Thank you for your nice comments. They are very inspiring to me and help keep me motivated when things aren't going so well on the project. Much appreciated! Clare

Hi Bill, Yeah, I measure and re-measure and still those alignment issues sometimes slip by me. Looks like you've got it under control. I've never seen a bow filler block like that – It looks like it extends up above the deck. Is it notched so that you can remove the upper portion later? Clare

Thanks Cap'n'Bob. I was very happy with the results on the fan design. I did have to make two separate attempts at it as I think I underexposed the first one and the fine parts of the design near the hub weren't making contact. I adjust the art a little bit and redid the etch and it came out perfect. But, I have to say that after this batch of etching of the fan and the pivot gun tracks, I started to notice some some unevenness in the final product. I started trying to make adjustments to the way I did the etching and then next thing you know I'm having a hard time getting anything to come out right. So, I experimented with other methods of etching. Then, I got tired of having nothing but failures and then burned out on it for a while. Every now and again I get the nerve up to try it again and then failure, failure, failure. It's about time to go back to the beginning now and see if I can repeat some of the early success. Clare

Brass Etching The next issue I dealt with was the tracks for the pivot guns. Having recently purchased a brass etching kit from Micromark, this was one of two perfect opportunities for making use of it, the other item being the wheel house fan decoration (My first test was actually to make some trailboard decorations for the Yacht America, but that’s another subject...). The Micromark kit contains pretty much everything you need to get started right away. It is a chemical etching process that uses a photo resistive material to transfer your artwork onto the metal. You begin by creating your artwork as a negative image printed onto clear transparency using an inkjet printer. By negative image, I mean that the metal will remain where the page is blank. The areas to be etched away are the areas where ink is printed onto the page. Of course, you will have to have software to create the artwork on your computer. I used Adobe Illustrator for this - a very old education edition that still works well on an old computer. Here, I made the fan pattern for the wheel houses The next step is to clean the metal you are going to etch really well to get the photoresist film to stick well to it. This is a critical step as any dirt or oxidation may cause bubbles in the photoresist film and the process will not be satisfactory. Note that the photoresist is light sensitive so all work with it must be done in very low light conditions. The kit includes a laminator to get the photoresist to adhere to the metal. If all goes well, the next thing to do is to sandwich the artwork and the photoresist-coated metal between two pieces of included acrylic and clamp them together using provided clips. Then one of the parts that takes some experimenting to get right. The photoresist must be exposed to a light source, like a 100watt lamp shining close to the work for about 10 minutes. When done, the metal is washed in a diluted solution of Sodium Hydroxide, otherwise known as Caustic Soda or Lye and it’s nasty stuff. It will burn your skin. Believe me, I know. Carefully, the unexposed parts of the photoresist are washed away, leaving bare metal exposed for the etchant to do its work. Next step is to actually immerse the metal into the etchant. This is the easy part as it’s mostly a matter of waiting and periodically checking progress. The kit uses Ferric Chloride as the etchant and includes a plastic tank for the etchant bath with an air pump used to keep the etchant circulating. The stuff is good for several uses, but takes longer with each use as the etchant is expended. The bad part of all of this is that the expended etchant has to be disposed of properly, and legally, taking it to a hazardous waste facility. A close up of the “Witches Brew” Rotating the work every 10 minutes, the metal will finally etch through Checking the progress of a project Once the etching is done, the piece is removed and the photoresist is removed using a full strength bath of Sodium Hydroxide solution, and it’s done. The completed etched fan decoration for the Saginaw’s wheel houses Next time, getting back to the pivot gun tracks. Clare

Hi Popeye, thanks for posting that - it's a neat painting that seems to capture the scene of the wreck well. Where did you find it? Any idea who the artist was or when it was painted? It looks fairly contemporary, but it's nice to see that if it is supposed to be the Saginaw, they seem to agree to some kind of hurricane deck structure, but it's kind of hard to tell from the image. I didn't see it on the link you posted, but I recognized the site as one connected with the NOAA office of Hans Van Tilburg, one of my main research resources. Anyway, I'd love to know more about the painting if you have any more details. Clare

Finishing the Bulwarks The next step in the build was to finish the bulwarks construction. I built the upper rail which is simply a thick basswood strip which I later planked over to match the rest of the hull. I installed the caprail everywhere except at the bow, which I had to leave until after the catheads were installed. I constructed a pair of catheads from boxwood and drilled out the sheave holes. Notches were cut in the bulwarks just forward of the gunports, which you can see in a previous image of the Saginaw model, and the catheads were installed. Deck Furniture and Paddle Wheel Axle At the same time, I started doing all the easier things, like making the hatch coamings, bitts, and shaping the bowsprit. I also spent some time on figuring out how I was going to fit the axle for the paddle wheels. The paddle wheels on the plans were centered just above the deck line, but I’d never actually seen a ship with an exposed axle. Models and plans of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Harriet Lane show a similar configuration, but it seemed odd to think of how this would affect movement of the crew on deck. Was the axle enclosed? Was there a box of some kind fitted with steps to make it easier to climb over it? Did one hop over the top of it or climb over it while it spun? In the previous incarnation of MSW, someone posted a pic of a British steamer where the axle was enclosed by a box and it might have had a couple steps on it. Don’t know what I’m going to do on this yet, but it’s interesting that I’ve found very little on this subject. One thing that added a bit of confusion was an arched beam right at the paddle wheel location. It almost seemed like the deck might have been arched over it. But, I discarded that idea, figuring it more likely that the arched beam was part of the wheel house design and maybe provided addition support strength for the wheel and the wheel house. Clare

Hi h2ogoaliekk, First, a name would be nice so I know how to address you. The member name you have is a bit slow to type and to remember. On the model, first on the cause of the problems, I'm guessing that you didn't soak and pre-bend the coaming? That would put extra strain on the deck and would also cause the leaning out of the coaming in the photo and leave you with a gap in the end. To fix, you probably will need to resort to wood filler and sanding. I just use Elmer's myself. The gap in the coaming might be a bit weak with just filler, I would think. So, you might consider gluing a scrap of wood into that opening to give the filler something to stick to. As for finish, for the Midwest kits, probably painting is more appropriate anyway. This is just my 2 cents. Maybe someone else here will reply with some better advice for you. In any case, welcome to MSW! Clare

Hi PPPilot, the CS2 idea would be good if you have an old Mac. I have CS2 running on an old G5 machine running OS 10.5.8. I think CS2 may work on 10.6, but if you have anything more recent than that then CS2 will not run at all. If you have a newer system, you can get the 30 day free trial of Photoshop for the Creative Cloud. That's the current version. It requires, OS 10.7 or later I believe. Of course, there is that Photoshop learning curve, but it's a good product to know. If you need to use it only on occasion, it's subscription based now, so you can just pay for a month when you really need it and be done with it after that. Clare

My take on the reason that, say the Harvey, is more profitable than an historic subject is that: 1. For one thing it doesn't really require much research 2. You can put features on it that are going to appeal to the buyer, even if it isn't historically accurate 3. You can use existing parts on it without having to redesign 4. You can use fancy wood and brass that seems to appeal to a larger % of buyers 5. Accurate subjects are often more complicated to build because the details have to be done "right" 6. You can make up a history that is more interesting and appealing to the masses than many real ships I think you'd probably find many other reasons if you think about it. Plus, one really good reason for not making a truly historical subject: All the people in the know will jump all over any inaccuracies they find in the product. So, if you're going to care about doing an historically accurate subject, you need to spend a lot of time and money doing research, making all the parts accurately, and still people will likely complain. OR, some other research will surface and next thing you know, your "accurate" kit is passé. Tom, regarding your comments about no Baltimore Clippers in 1847 and no enclosed heads, door sizes, etc., look up the Campbell-Class revenue cutters built from 1849. A couple examples are BlueJacket's Jefferson Davis and the old Marine Models Joe Lane kits. It's really not crazy at all. But, I agree that for many of us, particularly those who are invested enough in this hobby to be on a site like MSW, are going to be unhappy about finding out a kit they just bought is fictitious. It used to irk me a lot more than it does today, but still I understand how you feel. Clare

Popeye, thanks for the ideas on the gun ports. 'Tis a puzzlement! Cap'n' Bob, Bill, thanks for the nice comments on the stack. It sure beats the heck out of the first attempt at the stack, which I am too embarrassed to show. Anyway, I destroyed all copies of photos of the original for good measure As it is, I'm really happy with the second attempt. Now, if I can only get other parts of the model to come out as nicely... Clare

The Saginaw had a non-collapsing type of funnel that is quite tall. I think this is a feature that make the ship really stand out to me. Something about that look on a ship with sails I found very appealing to the eye. Luck had it that I the dimensions of the needed tubing was very simple. At 1/2” diameter, I could just pick up the brass tubing from the K&S stand at the local Ace Hardware. And, as it turned out, I could also get tubing 15/16” in diameter there which made a perfect fit inside the 1/2” tubing, making for a sleeve that could help me a little in construction. The funnel tubing was cut 3-5/8” long with a slight angle at the base to accommodate the rake of the funnel. The length was measured for the funnel to sit atop the deck house. I used a length of 15/16” tubing to serve as an inner sleeve that would extend up into the funnel part way and down through the deck house and seat into a shallow hole in the deck. The stack itself is supported by a pair of eye bands, one at the very top and one 15/16” below that. The top band has four eyebolts in it for support guys, the lower one has only three and are offset from the ones above and are centered aft. The diagram shows the two eyebands and the locations of the eyebolts. I went through two funnels trying to attach the eyebands nicely. The first attempt was done by soldering the eyebands into place. However, I did such a poor soldering job that I had to do a lot of filing, which just resulted in a bad looking funnel. On the second attempt, I ended up just using CA glue and that made a very clean attachment. Once in place I drilled out the eyebolt locations and ran the eyebolts into place. By running the eyebolts through the bands and into the funnel, it seems to help further secure the eyebands from pulling out of position. Finally, I sprayed the whole thing with primer and painted using a few coats of Testor’s semi-gloss black acrylic paint. Clare

Mark, by all means please muse. I still have a lot of issues to work out so discussions are extremely helpful. I've never built a model of a ship of this period and certainly not an early steamer. A lot of changes were going on in ship building around this time in history and it's hard to keep track of them. This project has been the most analysis and guesswork I've ever had to put in on a model, so it's a bit taxing at times and slows the whole build. I think I have some things worked out, but then some time later, I start rethinking things. Still, I really enjoy doing the research. I can't remember where I found that image of the Constellation, but it was a major find for me. It certainly helped me decide on the configuration of the stern gun ports. I think you're right about how heavy a single, wide gun port cover would have been – lifting it back into the closed position would have required an enormous effort. It would have made sense to have separate panels. Thanks for keeping me thinking Clare

Hi Mark, I had located this on the Internet at one point, but don't recall exactly where. This is what I was figuring on for the aft pivot gun. I'm still open to configuring the forward gun ports this way, but I'd like to not simply ignore the only known photo of the Saginaw. I think this is what you're referring to though, correct? The small inset photo shows one of the panels open horizontally flat (mostly flat). Not sure what's holding it up – it looks a little more like it's hung-up on something. I might assume this for the Saginaw and then use the panels. The only thing is that the panels on the Saginaw would be short, starting about a foot-and-a-half above the deck on bulkwarks that aren't all that high on this small ship. Clare

Hi Mark, I agree the carriages were double-pinned and it seems pretty clear on the plans I have (the ones I posted here are pretty low-res) that those small circles are pivots as you pointed out. I gathered several reference photos including the one below which I got courtesy of Bill Emerson who wrote a couple great articles for Ships in Scale on his Civil War era gunboat models which are very similar to the Saginaw. This is the USS Mississippi. Clearly, much larger than the Saginaw, but it does show the same double-pinned pivot carriage and also drop down panels for the forward gun ports. The next thing I'm looking at is whether the forward gun port was one large panel that possibly drops down so it's horizontal or if it drops all the way down. In the only photo of the Saginaw, the gun port opening is apparent, but the configuration of the gun port cover/panel(s) is not. As far as I can tell, the insides of panels would have been painted white, like the inside of the bulwarks. If the port covers were panels that dropped down all the way, then there should be a light colored area under the gun port opening. If we're looking at a single panel that hinges down until it's horizontal, then we may be looking at it edge-on, which is what I'm assuming unless I can find some good info to the contrary. From a photo I pulled off of Bluejacket's website some time ago. Bluejacket built this custom model for a client and went with the single hinged panel for the forward gun port. I'm considering going with this configuration, though the actual mechanics of hinging a slightly curved panel is a bit complicated and questionable. As long as I'm studying photos here, I might as well mention the boat gun broadside mounts. There were four 24-pounders at this time. These will look pretty much like those in the following photo pulled from the web. Porter shown aboard the USS Malvern next to the Dahlgren mount. The only issue I'll have is that the gun ports on the Saginaw are pretty low and I'm going to have to use a little creative modeling to make the guns fit. I'll also mention that I'm building the Saginaw with a Hurricane Deck, similar to that shown in the background of this photo. They are not shown on the plans, but I've found anecdotal references to one in George Reed's account of the loss of the Saginaw. Clare

More Hull Work At the time I was planking the deck, I took some time to build up the structure for the main deck house. When the Saginaw was originally built, this included a pilot house at the forward end. For some reason, this was removed at the time of the 1863 refit. Perhaps it wasn’t high enough to be useful. Without the pilot house, the design was pretty simple, just a long rectangle with a half-round forward end. I had shaped the structure from thin plywood and basswood and cut a 1/2” diameter opening for the funnel. The outside was planked with thin, narrow, vertical strips of boxwood. Six doors would be added at a later stage. About the same time, I also made a basic funnel from 1/2” brass tubing, about 3-1/2” long and cut a shallow hole in the deck to seat it in. I also drilled holes in the deck for the masts and cut to length the dowels I would need for the masts and spars. Something I forgot to mention in my last post relates to those last two photos of that post. You’ll note that I added the channels at the same time as the main rail. Since the channels are in line with the rail, I went ahead and built them into the rail itself for added strength. An upper rail or hammock rail will go on top of this, so the channels should be quite sturdy. I’ll post one of the photos again here to illustrate. At this stage, I also added scuppers, which were drilled through the bulwarks and then lined with thin walled brass tubing. I also added started work on the two large bits at the foremast. The plans show them to have what I assume to be iron rods run through them as cross-bitts. These bits might have actually been iron sheathed, but I chose to treat mine as wooden with a metal band that the rods are run through. The next photo shows the upper rail nearly complete. At the bow, notches were cut for the catheads and the rail is still in progress. Gunports were lined and I had started working on the hawse pipes which I made from brass tubing. A small piece of sheet brass was soldered onto the end of the tube and then was filed to shape for the lips. I did something similar for the inboard end of the hawse pipes, though they are completely separate pieces. Clare

Mark, You may very well be correct about those panels running all the way around the stern. One of the reasons I didn't was the configuration of the tracks in the plans. It appears that these support the rear wheels when pivoting the gun. Since there are no tracks to support the gun being trained directly astern, I figured that the panels wouldn't have extended all the way around. One of the more confusing aspects of researching a subject is when you hit things like this sketch done by the Saginaw's captain showing life of the castaways on Ocean Island after the ship ran aground. Maybe he just wasn't out to detail the ship as it was just a sketch, but the drawing shows no sign of a gun or tracks, but what looks like one small gunport. Could be one drop down panel open and the gun might have been hastily cast overboard in an effort to save the ship. Or, maybe he was just more focussed on the crew working to salvage what they could and survive. Clare

Wow, I guess I hadn't set my preferences to follow my own topic. I just showed up and found all these great comments. Thank you everyone. It's very motivating to see your great comments. Saginaw has been kind of on the back burner for many months, but I think it's time to push forward again. I'm still getting my build log caught up, so I'll try to put some more effort into that too. But, thanks Michael, Bill, Popeye, Grant, Mark, Druxey, for your nice comments! Okay, more soon... Clare

Chris, Good luck with your HMS Victory build! I'm following your build closely as I have a very old stock version of the same kit. I have other projects I work on and use this as my long-term background project, at least for now it's a background project. I'm curious as to how you're going to handle the transom and the counter. On my kit, somehow there doesn't seem to be enough distance where the arrow indicates. Not sure what to do about that other than sanding down the stern filler block more. Anyway, you have a great start to your build. Clare

Hull Details At this point, port holes were added. I wasn’t originally sure how these were built at this time, but since the detail is a small one, I decided to simply drill 1/8” holes for them and line them with thin-walled brass tubing. This was to make sure they were perfectly round. In actuality, on the wooden hull of the Saginaw, the metal frame would have been fastened to the inboard side of the planking, so on the outside all you would see is a hole with glass behind it. So, when the hull is painted, I’ll be painting the brass sleeves as well, so they won’t stand out too much. At this stage, I hadn’t decided on how to make the glass, but for the time being, all I needed to do was drill out the port holes. In addition to the port holes, I also cut openings for the pivot guns. The forward pivot ports were an easy call as they appear on the plans and the only photo of the Saginaw clearly shows them. However, the aft pivot gun ports was a bit of an issue. The plans give no clear distinction of how the stern gun ports were configured. My best guess was that they were simply drop down panels that allowed the aft pivot gun to fire broadside. One question was whether or not this ship would have had drop down panels all the way around the stern like the double-ended gunboats of the Civil War. My thinking was probably less clear that it is now, but I figured that since she was built for service accoss the Pacific, she might need to have stronger stern bulwarks to resist the waves of following seas. So, I decided to limit the drop down panels to the sides of the ship. The main rail was added next, made from boxwood, but a hammock rail would go on top of this later. Boxwood channels were attached and, finally, I fashioned trail boards, again out of boxwood, and drilled out the hawse pipes. Clare

More Research Researching a subject is really one of my very favorite aspects of ship modeling, or in particular, scratch modeling. It’s all about the quest for the facts, the sense of discovery, the feeling that you’re winding a path that few, if any, others may have taken. In this case, I know others have been on this path before and I’m happy to be tracing another’s footsteps. But the feeling of exploration is still there. When I visited the National Archives and talked to the archivists there or when I visited the Vallejo Museum and talked to the Director there, we talk about Mr. Van Tilburg and his visit. But, the information he was looking for wasn’t necessarily the kinds of details I need as a ship modeler. So, I continued to spend hours digging through what resources I could find. There were still a lot of questions about the Saginaw and a lot of confusion about conflicting information on things like her armament, location of the ship’s wheel, how her gun ports were arranged, the construction of round skylights, the question of a hurricane deck, etc. I’d found Conald Canney’s book The Old Steam Navy, Volume I: Frigates, Sloops, and Gunboats, 1815-1885. This was interesting and had some information about the Saginaw, but it kind of confused matters. In it, Canney lists the following armament: 1 50-pdr Dahlgren rifle 1 32-pdr gun 2 24-pdr rifles The original armament described in the building specifications, which were published in a Nautical Research Journal article by J.R. McCleary were: 1 32-pdr gun 2 24-pdr boat guns In an interview of William Halford published in the Naval Institute Proceedings in 1935, he specifically mention the main armament on the Saginaw was made up of two Parrot rifles. Van Tilburg also mentions this armament in his book. Then, in my research at the regional office of the National Archives in San Bruno, CA, I found an 1869 record of armaments of US Navy Vessels stationed at Mare Island. The Saginaw’s guns are listed as 2 30-pdr parrot rifles 4 24-pdr 1 12-pdr L It’s quite possible that these are all correct, showing the changes to the Saginaw’s armament over her short career. Summing up, then, Saginaw was originally built for the China Station, armed with a single 32-pdr pivot gun, forward, and two 24-pdr boat guns broadside, probably aft of the wheel houses. Upon her refit, which took place during the Civil War, she was up-gunned. Her 32-pdr gun was moved to a new pivot location at the stern and a new, larger, 50-pdr Dahlgren was added at the forward pivot mount. Sometime later, after the war perhaps, her pivot guns were replaced with 30-pdr Parrot Rifles. This effectively simplified the ammunition supply, though there is no evidence that this was the reason for the change. The 12-pdr L likely refers to a light version of the 12-pdr boat gun. Since there is no gun port for it, I am assuming it was probably on a land-based carriage mount for use on shore. This can be seen in some Civil War era photos of other ships, and ship modeler William Emerson did a good job of illustrating this on his model of the Civil War gunboat Water Witch that appeared in Seaways’ Ships in Scale in 2005. Since I have decided to build my model as depicting the Saginaw before her loss in 1870, this last configuration will appear on the model. Clare

Hull Planking The next step in the Saginaw’s construction was to plank the hull. The thing I like about building a solid hull first is that you can spend time getting the shape of the hull as accurate and as perfect as you can, before planking it. When planking, you don’t end up introducing flat spots or bumps since you have the fully supporting hull, you just focus and getting a nice smooth run to the planks. Getting a smooth run of planking is extremely easy when you’re working with a hull like that of the Saginaw. It’s long and narrow and has a nice sharp bow. Planks require only a small amount of shaping. Anyway, the hull is going to be coppered below the water line and as long as the upper hull planking is good, the lower planks can bear the brunt of mistakes since they’ll be covered. As I mentioned last time, for planking material, I used holly, most of which I milled myself from a board I bought from The Lumberyard a while back. I cut into sheets on my large table saw, thickness sanded them on my Micromark thickness sander, then cut strips off the boards on the an old Jarmac table saw. Since the Jarmac is pretty old and has a lot of vibration now, I had to then take the strips and run them through a thicknessing setup I made from an AcraMill (This was all during my pre-Byrnes Machines saw days). This is just to even out the thickness of the planks since some variation is introduced from cutting the old Jarmac saw. Again, before gluing planks on, I would give each a light sanding to round the edges slightly to make them stand well when painted over. Clare Note that the inner bulwarks have been planked and the broadside gun ports have been cut.