Heroine 1838 by ggrieco - FINISHED - Scale 1:24 - Western River Steamboat as she appeared before hitting a snag in the Red River

[Cathead]

Glenn, your port/starboard display idea sounds excellent to me. It fits with the rest of your plan for the model.

[druxey]

If I'm visualizing your description correctly, the display idea sounds very good. Do you have a sketch or rendering of this presentation for us to see?

[ggrieco]

Thanks Everyone,

 

I think I will go with the plinth idea but I'm still trying to put it together in my head. Luckily, the amount that I was going to cut off was less than two inches so there isn't much height to make up for. My big question is how to paint and texture the surface of the water. I have never done water before and I'm entirely in the dark about what technique I should use. I've seen textured glass, Magic Water, painted acrylic resin and several other methods. Whichever l use will probably require a different underlying structure. Can anyone suggest a technique that is both believable and doable for a first timer?

 

Thanks again for your comments and advice, now I'm off to do some work in the garden. 18 tomato plants and an irrigation system to put in.

 

Glenn

[druxey]

The simplest and most foolproof 'water' would be plain glass, as it's the least distracting and avoids a huge learning curve. Perhaps others may have other opinions. If you wish to try for realistic water, perhaps consult some of the model railway fraternity: they are very good at landscaping.

[Cathead]

Model railroad folks have spent a lot of time playing with getting water right. You might do some hunting in Model Railroader and other resources. I can't recall a specific article to recommend, but I know I've seen very good representations. I think the best I've seen is people who apply various acrylic surfaces to glass or other subsurfaces, which can be textured as they dry slowly to create small ripples and waves.

 

Color is really important, too. Way too many people go with a form of blue; even if water can sometimes look blue in real life, it almost never looks realistic on a model. The eye can tell the difference. A glossy, wet-looking surface on a subtle, dark green/black/brown looks much better. If the Red River was anything like other Western rivers, you couldn't go wrong with a good muddy chocolate color.

[ggrieco]

Thanks Cathead,

 

Great idea about the railroad modelers, I'll start looking around. You're correct as well about the muddy color of the Red River. When we were diving on the wreck, visibility was 8 inches or less and all our equipment would quickly fill with sand. There was so much sand suspended in the water that you could'nt see anything a few inches below the surface. It lets me off the hook a little about a deep transparent effect. A muddy chocolate color is definitely the way to go.

 

Glenn

[Jack12477]

Glenn, if you have a Barnes & Noble nearby, stop in and look in their magazine section - usually close to the main entrance to store - for Model Railroader, or Railroad Model Craftsman magazine. They usually have articles on scenery building - also Kalmbach the publisher of Model Railroader magazine also publishes a number of excellent "How To" paperback style magazines on various scenery topics. You can sometimes find these in Barnes & Noble alongside the Model Railroader magazine.

[ggrieco]

Thanks Jack,

 

I'll run by B&n tomorrow, sounds like it might be very helpful.

 

Glenn

[dvm27]

Take a look at Woodlands Scenery http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/ Glen. I've used their landscaping products before and they are excellent. They have a great video tutorial section. Check out the one on water. 

[dgbot]

There are several books out relating to dioramas.  However is watched a video that might give you some ideas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKNo22gVtpM

 

Hopefully this will do the trick.  Outsanding machining.

David B

[ggrieco]

I wanted to thank everyone for the suggestions on modeling the water surface.  I spent the week trying to come up with something and I think I'm leaning towards the woodland scenics  approach.  I have a lot of surface to cover - it could get expensive.

 

This week I tried to reproduce the damage done to the paddlewheels.  Every paddlewheel had some damage to it.  The channels that hold the spokes were broken off in several locations and repaired with custom made forged iron straps.  The inboard port flange was the worst with all the channels broken off.

 

 

Inboard port paddlewheel flange and straps.  Black outline shows the extent of the damage.

 

Strap layout for the mill.  Green outlines are for the inboard flange, black for outboard.

 

Straps milled in brass.

 

Fitting inboard paddlewheel spokes.

 

Flanges soldered to shaft and blackened.

 

 

 

Spokes and staps in place.

 

Wooden spreaders added between spokes.  36 down 252 more to go.

 

I rushed to take photos and forgot to clean up the timbers.  Looking a little hairy in this photo.

Edited March 12, 2016 by ggrieco

[Cathead]

Spreaders really are a tedious thing to model. I didn't enjoy that part of the Bertrand.

 

Really nice modelling of the damage. When do you shove a big piece of kindling through the bow to simulate the fatal snag?

[druxey]

Showing the mice-nibbled flanges is a nice touch! Well done, Glenn.

[Jack12477]

Very nice model Glenn - a real work of art.

[ggrieco]

Thanks Cathead, druxey and Jack,

 

The damage lets me off the hook for keeping everything lined up exactly. It all comes down to how much slop I should represent. Not enough and I don't represent the remains well, too much an the structures look unattractive or poorly modeled. I'm afraid that if I represent the remains in the condition they were actually in, no one would believe it.

 

 

Glenn

[kurtvd19]

Glen:

Post a photo or two of the wreck model - that shows the condition as found pretty darn good. 

Kurt

[Louie da fly]

Beautiful work, Glenn. A real work of art.

 

Steven

[AndrewNaylor]

Glenn

Fantastic work BUT surly could you not made some holes in the mounting base rather than cut the beautiful wheels up!!!

Best show in town 

Andy

[jbelwood]

Hi Glenn,

 

Been following your build from the beginning. Here's an idea I came up with for my water line hull

C.R.Lamb stern wheeler. As I wanted to picture her afloat in a water diorama this worked out

great. Most viewers don't realize what I did.

 

John 

[ggrieco]

Thanks Kurt, Steven, Andy and John,

 

John, great idea!  This is how I'll handle the rest of the wheels.  I think I will leave the base cutaway on the port side to see the entire wheel but the starboard paddlewheel on the first model and the flywheel and starboard paddlewheel on the second model will all be recessed like this.  Thanks for the photos.  Do you mind if I ask if you textured or painted the waters surface?

 

Kurt, I'm attaching a couple of photos of my first sectioned diorama to show the extent of the wreck.  I'm also including some photos of the original paddlewheel assembly and associated bearing to show how badly the shaft was moving around in the bearing.  I don't know how they trusted this to hold together!

 

Thanks again for your comments and ideas.

 

Glenn

 

 

My first diorama of the Heroines remains.  At this time the forward half of the vessel hadn't been excavated yet.

 

Close-up of the clutch mechanism.  I will be modeling this next.

 

 

Port paddlewheel before conservation.

 

Outboard port paddlewheel bearing.  Oddly, instead of having bronze sleeves, this was the only bearing cast entirely of iron without a separate bronze lining.  You can even see the part line where the iron should end and the bronze should start.  The shaft also wore away the after edge of the bearing surface.  The shaft must have moved in the bearing with any change of momentum or force on the shaft.  With over a ton of wood and metal bouncing around it must have made for a bouncy ride.

 

Associated bearing cap showing wear to aft side and matching wear on shaft.  All the caps were cast with a grease cup on  top.  This cap was the only one that wasn't bored with a hole in the bottom of the cap.  It appears that they felt no need to grease this bearing.

[druxey]

Kind of rough and ready! Thanks for these informative photos, Glenn. The 'aft part of the wreck' model is superb.

[jbelwood]

Glenn,

 

Here's the finished diorama. I first spray painted the base with Floquil Engine Black and then a light spray of

Floquil Coach Green. When dry I stippled on one coat of Mod-Podge. Tried to mimic the look and color of a local

river.

 

John

[ggrieco]

Beautiful job John!  That's the effect I'm looking for although I'll have to go a little more brown for the Red River.  Thanks so much for the tips and photos!

 

Glenn

[dvm27]

Your weathered wreck is truly fine craftsmanship, Glen. It's so convincing it's hard to believe it's not the real ship.

[ggrieco]

Thanks Greg,

 

I had a lot of fun building that one. I just wish we had the entire wreck at the time. I'll always look at it and think half of it is missing.

 

Glenn

[mtaylor]

That is an amazing diorama.   So, if I'm understanding this, the flywheel was damaged and repaired at some point before she hit the snag?   Given the grooving on the bearing and shaft, i'm gathering that no one ever did any maintenance on it.  Just color me surprised.

[druxey]

"Maintenance? It works, don't it?" I can see the engineer saying that.

[jbelwood]

Glenn,

 

Correction. After painting the base, I applied one coat of Envirotex Lite and then stippled the Mod-Podge. Ship

and utility barge are fastened on top with double sided tape making the removable.

 

John

[captainbob]

Your first diorama showing the wrecked Heroine in the sand is an amazing bit of artwork. 

 

Bob

[ggrieco]

Thanks Mark, druxey, John and Bob,

 

 

Mark, although the flywheel didn't seem to show much damage, just about every other aspect of the machinery had extensive pre-wreck repairs. The paddle wheels were a mess with patches and shims barely holding them to their shafts. In fact, the flanges had slipped off of their hexagonal bosses and the resulting gap between the flange and shaft was packed with both wood and iron shims. The crew was using just about anything they could find to hold the flanges in place. We also have a piece of bent copper that was used as a makeshift replacement for one of the bronze shoes on the cross head. The cams were also improperly seated and just made contact with the edge of the cam frames. They were about about 3/4 of a inch away from slipping out of the frames and binding the whole system. Another repair that I left our was a stack of timbers under the outboard bearing of the port paddle wheel. With all the bearings in line, the outboard end of the deck beams were 12 to 14 inches below where they should be. As the guard sagged over time three timbers were added one by one under the bearing timber to compensate. The outboard end of the deck beams supporting the paddle wheels were probably very close to dragging in the water.

 

John, thanks for the correction, I'll keep it in mind when I experiment with the water.