Steamboat Bertrand by Cathead - 1:87, wooden Missouri River sternwheeler - Finished

[captainbob]

Cathead, she's looking great.

 

Bob

[Jim Lad]

Looking good, Cathead.  Because of the open nature of the build you should be able to get something in there to measure the missing stack position pretty accurately.

 

John

[Cathead]

Jim, yes, I actually went ahead and dealt with it just now. Stuck a long wooden stringer in through the open starboard side to the depth of the cut-off stack, marked the stringer on the outside edge of the boiler deck, then laid the stringer across the deck and marked its end on the deck. Having the steam line to follow made it really easy. Drilled a small pilot hole, widened it with a round file, and slipped a new section of stack down. Near-perfect match. Big exhale. I figured if I screwed up the first attempt, I could just place a figure or something over the "wrong" hole, but it's better to get it right the first time!

[kurtvd19]

Cathead:

Great work.  Between your build and Glenn's I spend too much time admiring your work - need to get some time in on my projects but you guys are distracting me.  Keep it up!

Kurt

[mattsayers148]

Great job CH! The research you've put into your build is really showing. Are you planning on having a smoke feature fo the stacks? That would be really cool(maybe even a whistle?)

[Cathead]

Matt,

 

Do you mean a static feature, like cotton balls, or a live feature, like some kind of generator?

 

As a long-time model railroader I've seen (and tried) lots of ways of making static smoke features, and have been convinced by none of them. Rather, some look fine in photography, but not in real life. I think the eye is too good at judging what should be moving and what shouldn't be. In a photo, the eye accepts that nothing's moving, but in real life it sees cotton balls or something as this weird stationary thing. At least mine do; I tend to find such things distracting instead of enhancing.

 

As for a live feature, I hadn't considered that, but I don't think there's anywhere to put it, given the open nature of the build. And I think I'm happy with the model "unenhanced". It's a good question, though.

[Canute]

You could include sounds via sound decoders. Several roads did have steamboat whistles on their locos. But sound decoders, speakers and a good enclosure aren't cheap. I just put sound in an Alco B unit and that was over $100.

Smoke, on the other hand, won't look too good. The wispy smoke these generators put out won't look even close.

[Cathead]

Ken, yeah, I just don't think sound would add enough to the model to be worth it. For locomotives, it is, because the combination of sound AND movement is really powerful. But for a static display model, I don't think sound would add anything. I can just call up a sound on a computer or phone if someone wants to know what a steamboat whistle sounded like.

 

And yes, live smoke would look terrible, and static "puffy" smoke would look fake outside a photograph. My rule on details is to leave them out if they can't be done right; the eye is much better at noticing things that are wrong than at missing thing that aren't there.

[Cathead]

With the boiler deck planked, apart from a section I left open for internal views, I moved on to building the cabin structures. 

 

 

Typical riverboats of this design had two lines of crew/passenger cabins (usually called staterooms), separated by an open main cabin (or parlor) down the centerline in which meals were served and folks could socialize. Only stateroom passengers were allowed in here; those paying for deck passage fended for themselves on the semi-open main deck. The forward-most staterooms would be used by the captain, pilot, clerk, and engineer, then a few mens' staterooms, then a larger room on each side used as galley & storage, then more staterooms aft. Generally the aft-most section of the main cabin was carpeted and reserved for ladies & families only, along with the aft-most staterooms, to save their exposure to cigars, spittoons, cursing, and other male tendencies of the period. 

 

 

The boiler deck has a slight, but clear, sheer both fore and aft (especially aft). So I couldn't just assemble nice, straight walls and set them down, I had to account for the curvature of the deck. The longitudinal walls were built in three sections, with notches to help each fit together. I filed slight angles into these joints, so that the sections fit together in a subtle curve, matching the deck. I cheated slightly with these, using sheets of pre-scribed wood rather than building frames for individual planks, as I did for the main deck structures. However, I did build all the doors and windows from scratch, as advised by the commentariat.

 

In the photo above, the top row are the two ends of the cabin structure (one turned over to show the bracing for the walls), the middle row are the outer walls of the port staterooms, and the lower row are the inner walls of the port staterooms. Lady for scale. I only build the port-side walls, leaving the starboard side open for views of the inner main cabin.

 

 

I started installing the walls by clamping squares across the deck to guide the fore end (not sure "bulkhead" is appropriate in this context). Then I glued guide strips of scrap wood along the deck, inside the runs of the port walls where they wouldn't be seen, and used these as gluing and clamping guides for the walls. Each 1/3 wall was glued in, then the next one sanded to fit and glued in, then the last one.

 

 

Above is the completed cabin structure. By not exposing the interior of the port staterooms, I was better able to support and straighten them with internal stringers. In return, I built two open-sided staterooms at the fore and aft end of the starboard side, to allow a view of the interiors, but left the rest open for better internal views and light. The main cabin should have tables, chairs, wood stoves, chandeliers, and so on, but I'm not up for building all that right now. I'll always have access to this area if I choose to detail it later on.

 

 

A closeup view showing how small these staterooms were, just two bunk beds at most 6' long and perhaps a small cubby for hanging clothes. These were rough frontier boats, not the floating palaces of the lower Mississippi River. Toilets and laundry facilities were at the stern, and will be built and explained in a later post. In this photo you can also see that I managed to install the forgotten engine vent stacks just fine (note: the main smokestacks were actually called "chimneys" on riverboats; I don't know if this terminology extends to smaller stacks).

 

 

Main cabins had a raised clerestory with skylights along the length, allowing light into this central area. Thus I needed to build two of these long, narrow structures complete with regular windows, but strong enough to span the open, unsupported stretch on the starboard side. I did this by laying out two parallel beams on double-sided tape, then setting my cutter to the inside dimension and cutting lots of filler pieces. Using spacers, I laid out the window pattern along the whole structure, then glued in the spacers. When the whole assembly had dried, I peeled it off the tape, sanded it smooth, and painted it. I built two of these one right above the other, so I could visually line up the spacers and ensure the two pieces were identical.

 

 

And here's the result, along with a good start on the beams supporting the hurricane deck (supposedly named for the constant breeze up there).

 

 

And here's a better overall view from an angle, giving a sense of the cabin's overall structure and placement. 

 

Next tasks:

• Frame in the rest of the hurricane deck (also serving as the cabins' roof), which extends forward as far as the boiler deck does, but aft only to the end of the cabins. In other words, the forward boiler deck is covered but the after boiler deck is open.
• Build the aft-most structure, housing the pit toilets (opening into the wheel) and laundry.
• Lay out and install the hog chains, iron rods which extend longitudinally through multiple decks and support the fore and aft weight of the boat, preventing it from hogging (particularly from the weight of the sternwheel).

When I started this project, I had hoped to complete it by the end of the year. That seems unlikely now, but the end is nevertheless in sight. It's exciting to see the Bertrand really taking on its full form, beyond the barge-like appearance it's had for so long. No music this time, too busy to come up with something interesting. Thanks for reading, and Merry Christmas or whatever seasonal salutation warms your cockles. 

[mtaylor]

Nicely done, Cathead.  That's a great idea on the prescribed wood.  It'll save a bunch of time and look good as well.

[Jim Lad]

She's really looking first class, mate!

 

John

[AnobiumPunctatum]

Really nice work.

[gjdale]

Nicely done Cathead, she's really taking shape now.

[Canute]

Nice work with the scribed wood for your cabins. Also like the layout for the clerestory.

[mattsayers148]

Very nicely done CH! I'm a big fan of open viewing plans to see into the heart of a ship/boat. It's looking spectacular!

[Cathead]

A clarification: pre-scribed wood is just what the doctor ordered for a situation like this cabin structure, but I didn't do the scribing myself. You can buy sheets of pre-scribed wood in various thicknesses, dimensions, and styles. For example, you can get plank-style like I used, or board-and-batten. I've built a fair amount of structures with it for my model railroad (based on a Missouri River port town during the steamboat era), and have a variety of scrap left over that was easy to repurpose for this project.

 

I used it here because building a frame and planking both sides would have made the walls far too thick at this scale (1:87), and I don't have any wood thin enough to do that in scale (and I'd be afraid it'd be too fragile anyway). These boats were built cheap and fast, and these stateroom walls were knocked together from thin pine. Actual framing worked fine on the main deck, because those walls weren't finished on the inside and so it's necessary to show the framing, and doesn't look too thick because you can't easily see the ends. But having stateroom walls well over a scale foot thick would have looked ridiculous; if nothing else the windows would have looked wrong, either too thick or too recessed. I couldn't see another way to show cabin interiors without using solid sheets of wood at this scale. If I'd built the cabin whole, I probably would have framed and planked it, because I wouldn't have cared about the interior look or depth, but saw this as a compromise to allow the interior view.

 

avsjerome, thanks for that snippet. I've read about the steamboats on the Columbia and such, including the famous first trip down the rapids showing that it was possible, but I never knew that Idaho itself was named after a steamboat.

[captainbob]

You're doing a beautiful job.  I read in Alan Bate's book that the thickness of the walls got thinner on each higher deck so that on some boats the pilot house walls were only 1/4" thick.

 

Bob

[Cathead]

Well, I'm definitely going to miss my personal goal of finishing this by the New Year, but it sure does feel like I'm getting there. In the quiet time around the holidays, I was able to finish framing and planking the hurricane deck, along with building the outhouse/laundry structure. 

 

 

This framing was difficult, and I'm not entirely pleased with the results. It really tested my skill level to create a delicate web of beams, curving both with the port-starboard camber and the fore-after sheer, while resulting in a smooth support for the uppermost deck (which will be very visible on the finished model). I didn't always succeed; a close look in person will reveal some strange twists and angles in the framing. The aft end also took some creative fiddling to get right; a close look in subsequent photos will show that I had to graft another support beam onto the existing structure to support the deck properly. The good news is, as it always is for most models, is that such details tend to blend into the background of a finished model, and most viewers will never notice. But I do, and despite some un-Christmas-like language at the time, also consider such things part of the process of developing my skills. The end result will look good enough.

 

 

Here's the outhouse structure, which hangs over the stern so that the paddlewheel helps with disposal. There are separate mens' and womens' chambers, separated by a laundry room in the middle. Two plans show two different ways to arrange these: one has the doors all at the front, the other has the outhouse doors on each side of the structure. I went with the latter, as I figured it provided a bit more privacy for the occupants of these public multi-holers. As it was, these weren't always good for dignity: one book notes that sometimes when repair work needed to be done on the paddlewheel during voyages, lookouts were stationed at the outhouses to prevent a mutual loss of dignity to those below and above. It wasn't clear to me which side the mens' and women's chambers should go, so I followed old practice and placed the womens' on the left and the mens' on the right.

 

And here are a few views of the current status, showing the planked-in hurricane deck and the paddle-wheel support braces. I haven't installed the hog chains yet, as I think they'll be in the way of other work, but I do have the holes drilled in the decks to accommodate them.

 

 

You'll also notice that the hurricane deck is a different color. There's no one clear answer on what color steamboat decks tended to be; some sources say they were painted or stained various shades of red, others that they remained natural wood. I suspect it varied quite a bit between builder, owner, and such. I went with red for the main & boiler decks because I like the visual contrast with the white hull & superstructure, but changed to grey/black for the hurricane deck and outhouse roof. In this case, I remember reading somewhere that these uppermost surfaces were sometimes tarred or otherwise sealed differently, and I think the different color helps establish that these areas are different than the lower two decks, serving primarily as a roof rather than a surface. And I think it adds a little more visual interest to the model. Without a clear answer, builder's choice takes precedence.

 

If you're wondering, the main & boiler decks were stained with thinned Model Shipways paint, while the hurricane deck is rubbed with grey pastel. This is my favorite way to color wooden models, one I use a lot in model railroad buildings, as it keeps the grain of the wood rough and realistic and tends to naturally look faded in a way that paint & stain don't always do. 

 

Next up: building the pilot house atop the clerestory and roofing/decking in that area, and adding the chimneys. Then I need to build the delicate railings that line most of the boiler deck; I'm not looking forward to that. But once that hurdle is past, the physical model is about done, and it's on to rigging the various hog chains, spars, and other lines around the boat. I'm certain I'll have this done by the end of January. In the meantime, here's the April Verch Band with A Riverboat's Gone:

 

Edited December 30, 2015 by Cathead

[CaptainSteve]

Nice work, CH !! She's looking better and better every time I check-in on you.

[mtaylor]

There's a lot of progress in those last pictures, Cathead.  I think you've managed to not only capture the design but also her soul.  Looking great.

[Canute]

Two thumbs up on your stern wheeler, Carhead.

[mattsayers148]

Excellent, excellent, excellent!

[chborgm]

I am building a stern wheeler and would like to get the weathered look on the deck which will be planked in Mahogany. Can you give a little more detail on what you did. I also could do them in basswood. 

[Cathead]

chborgm, for the main & boiler decks I pre-stained each plank, using diluted Model Shipways gun-carriage red paint cedar cherry stain. I mixed very small batches at a time, and stained sets of 24" long planks together. Then I would remix a batch and do another set, and so on. The result is a bunch of planks that are subtly different colors and shading. Then, when I planked the decks, I cut each individual plank to length, from a different 24" piece, so that they changed shade end-to-end as well as side-to-side. The result was a nice gentle variation in color across the deck. This image from early in the build (way back in April) shows what this looks like from above:

 

 

For the hurricane deck, I did exactly the same thing, except I rubbed a dark grey pastel stick across each 24" length first, and rubbed the result in with my fingers. I find that finger oil does a really nice job of fixing pastel to wood; I never bother to seal wood I've handled this way unless it's an area that will be handled routinely. Again, doing each strip separately ensures a variation in the darkness of the pastel, so that when you cut the individual planks you get a nice variation. It sound very fussy but really isn't; I just work ahead at a time when I'm too tired to think about the actual model and just want a mindless job for 1/2 hour before bed. Then I have a nice big stock of planks to work with when I'm ready. All the wood in this model is basic basswood strips, by the way.

 

Ken, I have to say that the one mode of transportation I've never developed any interest in is cars. 

 

Thanks, everyone, for the likes and praise. Photography can hide many faults in a model!

Edited January 1, 2016 by Cathead

[chborgm]

what was the basic material

[Canute]

Cathead, I am a spastic typing on a tablet. Sorry bout that.

[Cathead]

No worries, Ken, just giving you flak. Or is that the wrong thing to tell a fighter pilot?

 

chborgm, all the wood in this model is basswood strips from Model Expo.

[Canute]

Cathead, no, it's not. I just don't fly in straight lines for longer than a few seconds and I keep the speed high. It will take a golden BB to hit me.   :D

 

I do enjoy your build; that time period had a lot of experimentation and one off designs. I've been a student of the classes and operations of both brown water navies for years. The steamboats were a part of all that.

[Cathead]

Despite harassing Ken about his typing, I've now twice mis-stated the coloring agent used on my deck. Just to be clear, it's Model Expo cherry stain. Not gun carriage red, as initially stated, and not cedar stain, as I "corrected" it to say. I've been chainsawing cedar trees all week, and apparently they're in my head.

[Cathead]

So, first of all, ALL wheels weren't red, I've read of some boats with white or green or other color wheels. But red clearly was a common standard. I'd say it relates to the availability of cheap red paint during that era. In my understanding, before modern paint chemistry, paint/preservative was based on linseed oil, with something added for pigment. Iron oxide was a very common and cheap substance you could use, which gave the paint a dark reddish-brown tint (surprise!). This is why red became a standard color for barns in Europe and the US. So I assume many steamboat builders used it for the same reasons. I believe that the bright fire-engine red we see on modern steamboats is inaccurate, as the early paints couldn't achieve that brilliance, but would have been duller and rustier. That's one reason I chose to use muted colors on the Bertrand, as opposed to the bright red I see on some models.

 

As for why the wheel alone was red, and not the hull and superstructure, I'd guess that whitewash or whatever else they used was even cheaper. Given that appearance was a big factor in the intensely competitive riverboat market, the wheel color may have been because they wanted it to stand out, or because someone realized that a white wheel would look awful all caked in mud and gunk as it revolved up from the river. The underside of the white hull would have been nasty, too, but few would ever see it unless the boat capsized, and which point your marketability just went down the tubes, anyway. A nice dark red color would have hidden the gunk nicely, like brown kitchen tile. I suspect this is also why many boats had their stern paneling (facing the wheel) painted red as well, hiding the gunk thrown onto it by the wheel, as well as worse coming down from the outhouses above.

 

If anyone else can correct or add to the above, please do!