rvchima

Steamboat Robert E Lee is Finished, 269 Hours, 102 Days
Since returning from a trip to Utah to visit five national parks, I've put in about 40 hours to complete the rigging, accessories, and deck furniture. Here are photos of the final model.


 



The masts and yards were fairly complicated, with the hinged joints between them made up from brass tube and sheet. The chain supplied for the gangways is tiny and required magnifiers to work with. The gangways would never hang in place by themselves so I glued small black wedges to keep them were I want them.

The kit includes two very nice metal and wood anchor kits and a really cute turned capstan. The instructions said to use 1 mm wood strips for the capstan bars, but the turned base had 1 mm round holes so I used brass rod. When I clipped the rod to length after assembly the ends were rough so I touched one gently to my disk sander, and the sander grabbed it and dragged the whole thing into the gap between the spinning disk and table. That really mangled the capstan. I sure wish I had taken a photo.

I ended up turning a new capstan on the end of a dowel. Here's the new one and what's left of the old one.
 

The ship has two tiny lifeboats for 240 or more passengers, and no davits for launching them.

There is one more lifeboat or ship's boat hanging from a boom at the stern. Like the gangways there is no way this would hang correctly by itself, so I pinned it to the stern.
 
Summary
You can't go wrong with a kit by Amati. They have excellent materials and detailed plans, and end up as beautiful models.
 
The illustrated instructions for the Robert E. Lee are in Italian. An English translation is included but you need to refer back to the Italian for illustrations. The build sequence was confusing. Instead of building cabins upward from the lower deck, they are built down from the deck above. That allows you to plank and paint the cabin walls, but it makes it quite confusing to see which parts all need to line up. The instructions recommended rounding the edges of the cabin wall planks. I regret doing that on the lower decks - the paint didn't get into the joints and it makes the work look sloppy. I did not round the planks on the upper decks. You can still see hints that the walls are planked but they look much cleaner. I also found that I could pre-glue several planks to a sheet of brown paper, glue that to the cabin walls, and trim the length later. That gave a much neater look.
 
This is not an easy model. All the planking, windows and doors, and a surprising amount of rigging add up to a lot of work. In the end, though, Amati's Robert E Lee builds into a beautiful model.

Steamboat Robert E Lee is Finished, 269 Hours, 102 Days
Since returning from a trip to Utah to visit five national parks, I've put in about 40 hours to complete the rigging, accessories, and deck furniture. Here are photos of the final model.


 



The masts and yards were fairly complicated, with the hinged joints between them made up from brass tube and sheet. The chain supplied for the gangways is tiny and required magnifiers to work with. The gangways would never hang in place by themselves so I glued small black wedges to keep them were I want them.

The kit includes two very nice metal and wood anchor kits and a really cute turned capstan. The instructions said to use 1 mm wood strips for the capstan bars, but the turned base had 1 mm round holes so I used brass rod. When I clipped the rod to length after assembly the ends were rough so I touched one gently to my disk sander, and the sander grabbed it and dragged the whole thing into the gap between the spinning disk and table. That really mangled the capstan. I sure wish I had taken a photo.

I ended up turning a new capstan on the end of a dowel. Here's the new one and what's left of the old one.
 

The ship has two tiny lifeboats for 240 or more passengers, and no davits for launching them.

There is one more lifeboat or ship's boat hanging from a boom at the stern. Like the gangways there is no way this would hang correctly by itself, so I pinned it to the stern.
 
Summary
You can't go wrong with a kit by Amati. They have excellent materials and detailed plans, and end up as beautiful models.
 
The illustrated instructions for the Robert E. Lee are in Italian. An English translation is included but you need to refer back to the Italian for illustrations. The build sequence was confusing. Instead of building cabins upward from the lower deck, they are built down from the deck above. That allows you to plank and paint the cabin walls, but it makes it quite confusing to see which parts all need to line up. The instructions recommended rounding the edges of the cabin wall planks. I regret doing that on the lower decks - the paint didn't get into the joints and it makes the work look sloppy. I did not round the planks on the upper decks. You can still see hints that the walls are planked but they look much cleaner. I also found that I could pre-glue several planks to a sheet of brown paper, glue that to the cabin walls, and trim the length later. That gave a much neater look.
 
This is not an easy model. All the planking, windows and doors, and a surprising amount of rigging add up to a lot of work. In the end, though, Amati's Robert E Lee builds into a beautiful model.

Smokestacks
The forward smokestacks came nicely turned from hardwood. I curved the photo etched trim pieces and attached them to the tops. The stacks are braced side-to-side with three tubes each surrounded by 3 rings supporting 4 wires. The kit did not include the brass tubes so I substituted aluminum that I had on hand. The kit came with extremely thin brass wire so I substituted black thread. Assembly was fiddly but not impossible. I can't imagine how the rings and wires could offer and structural support, so I suppose they were purely decorative.

Steamboat Robert E Lee is Finished, 269 Hours, 102 Days
Since returning from a trip to Utah to visit five national parks, I've put in about 40 hours to complete the rigging, accessories, and deck furniture. Here are photos of the final model.


 



The masts and yards were fairly complicated, with the hinged joints between them made up from brass tube and sheet. The chain supplied for the gangways is tiny and required magnifiers to work with. The gangways would never hang in place by themselves so I glued small black wedges to keep them were I want them.

The kit includes two very nice metal and wood anchor kits and a really cute turned capstan. The instructions said to use 1 mm wood strips for the capstan bars, but the turned base had 1 mm round holes so I used brass rod. When I clipped the rod to length after assembly the ends were rough so I touched one gently to my disk sander, and the sander grabbed it and dragged the whole thing into the gap between the spinning disk and table. That really mangled the capstan. I sure wish I had taken a photo.

I ended up turning a new capstan on the end of a dowel. Here's the new one and what's left of the old one.
 

The ship has two tiny lifeboats for 240 or more passengers, and no davits for launching them.

There is one more lifeboat or ship's boat hanging from a boom at the stern. Like the gangways there is no way this would hang correctly by itself, so I pinned it to the stern.
 
Summary
You can't go wrong with a kit by Amati. They have excellent materials and detailed plans, and end up as beautiful models.
 
The illustrated instructions for the Robert E. Lee are in Italian. An English translation is included but you need to refer back to the Italian for illustrations. The build sequence was confusing. Instead of building cabins upward from the lower deck, they are built down from the deck above. That allows you to plank and paint the cabin walls, but it makes it quite confusing to see which parts all need to line up. The instructions recommended rounding the edges of the cabin wall planks. I regret doing that on the lower decks - the paint didn't get into the joints and it makes the work look sloppy. I did not round the planks on the upper decks. You can still see hints that the walls are planked but they look much cleaner. I also found that I could pre-glue several planks to a sheet of brown paper, glue that to the cabin walls, and trim the length later. That gave a much neater look.
 
This is not an easy model. All the planking, windows and doors, and a surprising amount of rigging add up to a lot of work. In the end, though, Amati's Robert E Lee builds into a beautiful model.

Beautiful job Chris! I never paid much attention to card models - until now.

Eric,
Thank you for the explanation about the "chains". I didn't think they were actual chains but I wasn't sure. Anyway I was planning to use heavy black thread with tiny, hand-made turnbuckles. Photos to follow.

Eric,
Thank you for the explanation about the "chains". I didn't think they were actual chains but I wasn't sure. Anyway I was planning to use heavy black thread with tiny, hand-made turnbuckles. Photos to follow.

First Level Painted, Windows, Doors, and Paddle Wheels Installed - 112 hours over 36 days
 
I painted the cabins with 2 coats of Tamiya white primer and 2 coats of Krylon gloss white, all from rattle cans. Red trim was painted in full strips with Testor's red spray, cut to length, and touched up after installation. Window backgrounds were hand-painted with black acrylic, and windows installed with a touch of medium CA.

Paddle wheels installed and cabin placed back on the hull. The instructions recommended chamfering the edges of the hull planks. That leaves obvious gaps between the planks, and spray paint just doesn't get in there. The next couple of decks are natural walnut, and I think I'll leave the planks flat.

Colonnade and raised cabin installed in front of boiler room. The boiler room has 8 turned brass view windows (portholes) over 8 firebox doors. One of the portholes went flying in my shop, never to be seen again. After hours of searching I made a replacement out of nested pieces of brass tubing. It looked almost perfect, and you can't see it  back there anyway. I suppose firewood (or coal?) was stored under the raised cabin right in front of the firebox doors.

Rear cabins installed.

Everything completed so far.
 
 

Here are some plans I used for reference.  You might already have them.  The plans were by Bates I think.  I bought a set on Ebay and when my boat was finished I passed them along to another member who was building a Robt E Lee.  There are 9 pages,

Hog chains are an important things to add

Just to head off a potential and easy-to-make error, the hog chains you're working on were not literally chains, but solid iron rods tightened with turnbuckles. Modelers unfamiliar with steamboats can easily be misled by the terminology, so I thought I'd offer a heads-up just in case you hadn't recognized this.

Bcochran,
Thank you for the drawings of the R. E. Lee. I do wish that I had them earlier to avoid
 
A HUGE MISTAKE
The plans above show the stacks close to the cabins on the Texas deck. The kit had holes pre-drilled in the decks that I assumed were for screws for the stacks. I realized that I could never tighten screws in that location so I used short dowels to attach the stacks from above, and I built the stacks and braces to fit those holes. Turns out they are way too far apart.
This is where the stacks should be.

This is where my stacks are. I didn't realize my mistake until I started to attach supports for hull chains.

The hulls on river steamers were so long and shallow that they tended to flex, and had to be braced with chains like a suspension bridge. This image from The Western Rivers Steamboat Cyclopaedium by Bates shows typical supports and chains. The Amati kit has the supports, although most of them stop at the top deck. The front support does go through all of the decks, right next to the stack, probably through the pre-drilled hole that I centered the stack on. Fortunately there was just enough room to place the support next to the stack. But how to drill the hole?

Years ago I needed to thread an electrical wire through a wall, and made a very long 1/8" drill out of a piece of wire. It worked perfectly to drill through the decks for the support piece.

Here's the drill,

and the support piece in place. All the other support pieces are dummys, attached only to the upper deck. So my stacks are too far apart, but I can still squeeze the chains in place.

Bcochran,
Thank you for the drawings of the R. E. Lee. I do wish that I had them earlier to avoid
 
A HUGE MISTAKE
The plans above show the stacks close to the cabins on the Texas deck. The kit had holes pre-drilled in the decks that I assumed were for screws for the stacks. I realized that I could never tighten screws in that location so I used short dowels to attach the stacks from above, and I built the stacks and braces to fit those holes. Turns out they are way too far apart.
This is where the stacks should be.

This is where my stacks are. I didn't realize my mistake until I started to attach supports for hull chains.

The hulls on river steamers were so long and shallow that they tended to flex, and had to be braced with chains like a suspension bridge. This image from The Western Rivers Steamboat Cyclopaedium by Bates shows typical supports and chains. The Amati kit has the supports, although most of them stop at the top deck. The front support does go through all of the decks, right next to the stack, probably through the pre-drilled hole that I centered the stack on. Fortunately there was just enough room to place the support next to the stack. But how to drill the hole?

Years ago I needed to thread an electrical wire through a wall, and made a very long 1/8" drill out of a piece of wire. It worked perfectly to drill through the decks for the support piece.

Here's the drill,

and the support piece in place. All the other support pieces are dummys, attached only to the upper deck. So my stacks are too far apart, but I can still squeeze the chains in place.

Bcochran,
Thank you for the drawings of the R. E. Lee. I do wish that I had them earlier to avoid
 
A HUGE MISTAKE
The plans above show the stacks close to the cabins on the Texas deck. The kit had holes pre-drilled in the decks that I assumed were for screws for the stacks. I realized that I could never tighten screws in that location so I used short dowels to attach the stacks from above, and I built the stacks and braces to fit those holes. Turns out they are way too far apart.
This is where the stacks should be.

This is where my stacks are. I didn't realize my mistake until I started to attach supports for hull chains.

The hulls on river steamers were so long and shallow that they tended to flex, and had to be braced with chains like a suspension bridge. This image from The Western Rivers Steamboat Cyclopaedium by Bates shows typical supports and chains. The Amati kit has the supports, although most of them stop at the top deck. The front support does go through all of the decks, right next to the stack, probably through the pre-drilled hole that I centered the stack on. Fortunately there was just enough room to place the support next to the stack. But how to drill the hole?

Years ago I needed to thread an electrical wire through a wall, and made a very long 1/8" drill out of a piece of wire. It worked perfectly to drill through the decks for the support piece.

Here's the drill,

and the support piece in place. All the other support pieces are dummys, attached only to the upper deck. So my stacks are too far apart, but I can still squeeze the chains in place.

Bcochran,
Thank you for the drawings of the R. E. Lee. I do wish that I had them earlier to avoid
 
A HUGE MISTAKE
The plans above show the stacks close to the cabins on the Texas deck. The kit had holes pre-drilled in the decks that I assumed were for screws for the stacks. I realized that I could never tighten screws in that location so I used short dowels to attach the stacks from above, and I built the stacks and braces to fit those holes. Turns out they are way too far apart.
This is where the stacks should be.

This is where my stacks are. I didn't realize my mistake until I started to attach supports for hull chains.

The hulls on river steamers were so long and shallow that they tended to flex, and had to be braced with chains like a suspension bridge. This image from The Western Rivers Steamboat Cyclopaedium by Bates shows typical supports and chains. The Amati kit has the supports, although most of them stop at the top deck. The front support does go through all of the decks, right next to the stack, probably through the pre-drilled hole that I centered the stack on. Fortunately there was just enough room to place the support next to the stack. But how to drill the hole?

Years ago I needed to thread an electrical wire through a wall, and made a very long 1/8" drill out of a piece of wire. It worked perfectly to drill through the decks for the support piece.

Here's the drill,

and the support piece in place. All the other support pieces are dummys, attached only to the upper deck. So my stacks are too far apart, but I can still squeeze the chains in place.

Planking the Cabin Walls
The kit supplies 1x2 mm walnut strips for planking virtually every surface of every cabin. The planks have to be fit around approximately 130 cast metal windows and 22 doors. This often involves cutting strips 3-5 mm long for the spaces above and below the windows. Now I know why several people never completed this model!
 
Much of the model will have white walls and white windows, but the area behind the windows should be black. So I will have to spray paint the walls and windows white, but hand paint inside the window openings black before assembling. The upper cabins will have natural walnut walls which will have to be sanded, edges beveled, and stained before planking.
 
Here is my first go at cabin walls, with a door and some windows dropped in place.

I am getting better at planking using the following techniques:
Chisel a clean edge on a long plank to get a tight fit against one edge. Apply CA to the back of the plank, wipe excess, and lay in place. Cut the long end of the plank with flush cutters. Sand remaining edges towards the plywood backing to minimize splinters.  

Status - 225 hours, 68 days
The decks, railings, and smokestacks are all attached and the working base has been replaced with a beautiful cherry base from Bluejacket Shipcrafters. It may seem like there's not much left to do, but looking ahead in the instructions it's obvious that there is plenty. There are masts, gangways, lots of rigging, and support braces to build. There are 3 lifeboats, 2 anchors, and a capstan to build. There are flags, lanterns, a steam whistle, and other accessories to add.
 
My wife and I are getting ready for a trip to Utah to see 5 national parks, so I won't be posting for a few weeks. Don't worry, I will finish the model eventually.
 

Trim and Railings
The photo etched trim hangs down from the deck above and supports the tops of about 150 columns that go down to the deck below. The instructions say to use 1 mm square walnut strips, but they are hard to paint and keep smooth. I found some 1 mm square x 20" long styrene strips on Amazon that would be delivered the next day. I expected a 20" long package but received a small envelope with the strips rolled up inside. They straightened out some, and when cut to 18 mm lengths the bends didn't show. Everything got attached as follows:
Glue trim around the top Glue top of column to trim Glue bottom of column to deck Glue railings to bottom of columns Glue walnut trim to railings It only took a couple of afternoons.

The Texas deck got a little porch in front and railings around the top of 6 staircases.

 
 

Status - 225 hours, 68 days
The decks, railings, and smokestacks are all attached and the working base has been replaced with a beautiful cherry base from Bluejacket Shipcrafters. It may seem like there's not much left to do, but looking ahead in the instructions it's obvious that there is plenty. There are masts, gangways, lots of rigging, and support braces to build. There are 3 lifeboats, 2 anchors, and a capstan to build. There are flags, lanterns, a steam whistle, and other accessories to add.
 
My wife and I are getting ready for a trip to Utah to see 5 national parks, so I won't be posting for a few weeks. Don't worry, I will finish the model eventually.
 

Smokestacks
The forward smokestacks came nicely turned from hardwood. I curved the photo etched trim pieces and attached them to the tops. The stacks are braced side-to-side with three tubes each surrounded by 3 rings supporting 4 wires. The kit did not include the brass tubes so I substituted aluminum that I had on hand. The kit came with extremely thin brass wire so I substituted black thread. Assembly was fiddly but not impossible. I can't imagine how the rings and wires could offer and structural support, so I suppose they were purely decorative.

Trim and Railings
The photo etched trim hangs down from the deck above and supports the tops of about 150 columns that go down to the deck below. The instructions say to use 1 mm square walnut strips, but they are hard to paint and keep smooth. I found some 1 mm square x 20" long styrene strips on Amazon that would be delivered the next day. I expected a 20" long package but received a small envelope with the strips rolled up inside. They straightened out some, and when cut to 18 mm lengths the bends didn't show. Everything got attached as follows:
Glue trim around the top Glue top of column to trim Glue bottom of column to deck Glue railings to bottom of columns Glue walnut trim to railings It only took a couple of afternoons.

The Texas deck got a little porch in front and railings around the top of 6 staircases.

 
 

Status - 225 hours, 68 days
The decks, railings, and smokestacks are all attached and the working base has been replaced with a beautiful cherry base from Bluejacket Shipcrafters. It may seem like there's not much left to do, but looking ahead in the instructions it's obvious that there is plenty. There are masts, gangways, lots of rigging, and support braces to build. There are 3 lifeboats, 2 anchors, and a capstan to build. There are flags, lanterns, a steam whistle, and other accessories to add.
 
My wife and I are getting ready for a trip to Utah to see 5 national parks, so I won't be posting for a few weeks. Don't worry, I will finish the model eventually.
 

Smokestacks
The forward smokestacks came nicely turned from hardwood. I curved the photo etched trim pieces and attached them to the tops. The stacks are braced side-to-side with three tubes each surrounded by 3 rings supporting 4 wires. The kit did not include the brass tubes so I substituted aluminum that I had on hand. The kit came with extremely thin brass wire so I substituted black thread. Assembly was fiddly but not impossible. I can't imagine how the rings and wires could offer and structural support, so I suppose they were purely decorative.

Trim and Railings
The photo etched trim hangs down from the deck above and supports the tops of about 150 columns that go down to the deck below. The instructions say to use 1 mm square walnut strips, but they are hard to paint and keep smooth. I found some 1 mm square x 20" long styrene strips on Amazon that would be delivered the next day. I expected a 20" long package but received a small envelope with the strips rolled up inside. They straightened out some, and when cut to 18 mm lengths the bends didn't show. Everything got attached as follows:
Glue trim around the top Glue top of column to trim Glue bottom of column to deck Glue railings to bottom of columns Glue walnut trim to railings It only took a couple of afternoons.

The Texas deck got a little porch in front and railings around the top of 6 staircases.

 
 

Status - 225 hours, 68 days
The decks, railings, and smokestacks are all attached and the working base has been replaced with a beautiful cherry base from Bluejacket Shipcrafters. It may seem like there's not much left to do, but looking ahead in the instructions it's obvious that there is plenty. There are masts, gangways, lots of rigging, and support braces to build. There are 3 lifeboats, 2 anchors, and a capstan to build. There are flags, lanterns, a steam whistle, and other accessories to add.
 
My wife and I are getting ready for a trip to Utah to see 5 national parks, so I won't be posting for a few weeks. Don't worry, I will finish the model eventually.