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

[ggrieco]

With the end of the semester approaching, I wasn't able to get a lot done this week. 

i was able to do a little more work on the engine.  I rebuilt the rockers to the simpler configuration and finished the packing for the valves and almost finished the supports for the poppet levers.  I started to blacken the engine but  it didn't take in some spots so next week I'll go over it once again.

 

 

 

[Dimitris71]

Marvelous job on the engine Glenn!!! :)

 

Cheers

Dimitris

[albert]

Fantastic work.

[ggrieco]

Thanks Dimitris and Albert.

[ggrieco]

I was almost able to complete the engine this week.  All that remains are the throttle handle and feewater preheater on the exhaust.  I fitted the flywheel bearings and the cam frame supports.  The next step will be position the remaining six bearings in-line with the flywheel bearings.  I'm planning on using a round beam from a beam compass and sleeves turned to the proper journal diameters to guarentee alignment.

 

Valve levers fresh from the mill and before and after soldering.

 

Valve levers and risers.

 

 

Assembled valve levers before blackening.

 

 

After blackening.

 

 

Cam frame supports and flywheel bearings after blackening.

 

 

 

 

 

Port view of nearly completed engine.

 

 

Starboard view.

[wyz]

Your metal work is really something to behold .... quality to the nth degree!  I'm really enjoying this build.  Thanks for sharing.

 

Tom

[druxey]

Bee-ootiful, Glenn!

[michael mott]

Glenn really interesting following this build, I am enjoying seeing the way you are approaching the building of the engine.

 

michael

[dvm27]

Holy crap you're good! What secret blackening recipe do you use? It's a source of never-ending frustration for most of us mere mortals.

[Jim Lad]

Looks fairly reasonable to me, too!

 

John

[S.Coleman]

It would of been a dangerous job emptying the fire box on these wooden paddle steamers. Did they ever (drop the fire) as they do with railway locomotives? How was this done?

[mtaylor]

The engine alone is a masterpiece... just Wow....

[Mirabell61]

Super work Glenn,

 

engine parts made with love to Detail 

 

Nils

[captainbob]

As everyone has said your metal work is beautiful.  But the mounting of the metal parts on the wood is also fantastic.  Just like the real boat.

 

Bob

[ggrieco]

Thanks so much to everyone for your kind words. I'm sorry for not being able to respond more quickly. I have a six year old and a nine year old that demand my attention as soon as I get home from work and when they are not demanding my attention they are hogging my iPad to play my little pony.

 

Thanks Greg, for the engine I used five dips in Birchwood casey's brass black. I let it sit for about twenty seconds and then rinse and swab with a q-tip between dips. I let it dry over night and then rub it all down with a rag slightly dampened with oil. The oil does a nice job of evening everything out.

 

Hello S. Coleman, good question about dropping the fire. I had never heard of it being done on a western river steamboat. I'm had to look up the process for locomotives. If I understand correctly, the gratings were removed and the coal in the firebox is dropped directly onto the tracks to reduce the heat. On heroine, the gratings were removable but only a couple would be accessible with fire in the firebox. They would have only been able to drop the fire into the ash pit but I'm not sure if it would have provided much reduction in heat. Coal provided a much more intense heat than the wood that heroine was using and quickly dumping the fuel would have provided a greater degree of heat reduction. Now I'm really curious if steamboats had a comparable process. Maybe someone else out there has an idea.

[michael mott]

 

coal in the firebox is dropped directly onto the tracks to reduce the heat.

My own understanding of this was not to reduce heat but to clear the ash and clinker formed so as not the reduce the efficiency of the fire.

 

Michael

[ggrieco]

Thanks Michael,

 

I'm learning a lot from this build.  I have already changed a couple of details on the model thanks to previous comments and questions.  It nice to have access to the broader knowledge base that this site provides. 

 

Building the boilers is coming up soon and we only have a handful of pieces from Heroine's boilers.  Three pieces of the firefront, a few gratings the steam exhaust from the safety valve, one standpipe and a checkvalve just before the standpipe.  I've done a preliminary reconstruction showing the surviving features in blue but, many details are still missing.  I look forward to any comments or criticisms.

 

[druxey]

Not much extant evidence to go on, is there, Glenn? Nice reconstruction there.

[Cathead]

I'm not sure about the initial aspects of the procedure, but as far as removing the hot material safely from the boat, many boats had a special ash trough that allowed the hot coals & such to be swept/washed away from the boilers, either over the side or through an opening in the guards. Here is a picture of the brick-lined ash trough from my Bertrand build.

 

 

As for boiler explosions, they were quite common on western riverboats, due to a combination of high-pressure boilers, limited or no safety equipment (such as dial pressure gauges), limited knowledge/training of the engineers running the boilers, and a commercial (and passenger) culture which favored speed and power over safety and caution.

 

For a long time, the only safety valve on riverboat boilers was a simple weighted lever, which was very easy for an ambitious engineer to over-weight or even tie down, increasing the pressure in the boilers. With no clear testing or standards, no one really knew what pressure boilers could hold, and there was no calibrated way to measure pressure. Water levels in the boiler also couldn't be measured easily (again, no gauges), so this too was guesswork and instinct. Thus, if water levels got too low, or levels fluctuated as suggested for Sultana, boom with no warning.

 

All of this was made much more likely by the river culture of the time, in which the fastest boats received premium rates and reputations, regardless of safety concerns. In addition, river conditions could lead to explosions, as when boats attempted to force a bar or round a bend under high-water conditions, needing every ounce of steam in the attempt. One particularly deadly explosion in central Missouri happened after a boat repeatedly tried to round a bend in front of a towns-worth of onlooker, failing over and over and being swept back downstream in embarrassment, before the engineer apparently tied down the pressure valve and went for it all. The boat blew up mid-bend, sending debris into the onlookers on the bluff and killing many passengers.

 

Glenn, I'm curious how you know the Heroine had four boilers. The number varied from boat to boat; I was surprised to learn that Bertrand only had two. Also, do you know what kind of pump the water supply used?

[ggrieco]

You got that right druxey! We're pretty sure about the diameter of the boilers from the radii on the top of the standpipes and one opening in the firefront. The length of the gratings give us an idea about the firebox. We have a radius for the top of the firebox doors. Everything else is pulled together from bits and pieces of the remains of contemporary boilers. I think it is a reasonable reconstruction but I'm open to new ideas.

[ggrieco]

Hello Cathead,

 

Thank you for the information. We are not sure if she did have four boilers. It was an early assumption that Kevin made and I'm don't remember what the justification for it was. Comparing the vessel to Bertrand, l'm wondering if we might have had only two. I will see Kevin this next week and discuss it with him. I sure would be happier building only 2. As for the water pump, there is a 9 inch wide notch cut in the cylinder timbers at the forward end of the cross head slide. We are certain that this supported the lever for the feed water pump. Working off of a linkage to the cross head, the lever would have operated a low pressure pump that pumped water to the preheated shroud around the steam exhaust and a second high pressure pump that transferred the water from the shroud to the boiler. I have drawings of the arrangement but unfortunately they are at the office. I'll try to post them early next week.

[mtaylor]

Were the boilers salvaged pretty soon after the wreck?   I'd assume same for the engine?

[Cathead]

In return, it's not clear (at least to me) how Jerome Petsche's reconstructions decided Bertrand had two boilers (they were salvaged shortly after the wreck, as I assume Heroine's were, iron being so fantastically valuable on the frontier). His drawings show them as such, but he doesn't discuss that aspect of the reconstruction in his book. It may have something to do with the dimensions and layout of the supporting structures for the boilers, which were preserved in the main deck of Bertrand and (I assume?) also on Heroine. A given width of support timbers may strongly suggest X number of boilers, given that most were made to similar plans/dimensions. Just to show the uncertainties involved, a privately-drawn set of Bertrand plans I initially started working with, before setting them aside as too inaccurate compared to Petsche's data, have Bertrand with three boilers. 

 

It's all very confusing.

 

Thanks for the pump info! I'm loving learning more about this boat through your work, and again apologize if I ever over-step my bounds.

[ggrieco]

Cathead, this was just the exchange I was hoping for! As you know, there is so little info out there on the actual construction on these structures. We have almost the whole drive train of the heroine's engine and have enough dimensions to put together a convincing reconstruction of the engine itself but after that we're tying to make accurate guesses. If you don't mind, I could really use your input. I hope you don't mind me stealing some ideas from you on the upper works.

 

Mark, yes the boilers and engine were probably salvaged shortly after running onto the snag. Fortunately, we have one sole plate from the engine giving us the footprint And maximum diameter of the engine. From the flywheel, we know the stroke was exactly 57 inches. The one recovered full stroke cam tells us it used poppet valves and had a valve stroke of 6 inches. we also have the height of the cross head slide in relation to the footprint of the cylinder. Working out the geometry was pretty straightforward. I just wish we had more on the boilers.

Edited December 20, 2015 by ggrieco

[druxey]

These gaping holes in the evidence are sooo tantalizing! This way madness lies....

[ggrieco]

Hello avsjerome2003,

 

The boilers in this photo are from the Arabia of 1856.  I think the Bertand museum may have used the photo to show a typical steamboat engine. 

[EdT]

Glenn, your modeling of the machinery is extraordinary.  My hat - and I'm sure many other hats - is off to you.  You did not mention cleaning and pickling in describing your blackening process, but it is clear from the results that you are doing a great job with that as well as the blackening process itself.  The steps you mention make a lot of sense to me and I have done similar things with success.  Trouble is, I often take short cuts that impair results and have not had the discipline to note what works well and consistently follow that process.  Great job - and a very interesting project.

 

Ed

[Cathead]

Glenn is right, that's the boiler from Arabia. The "flywheel" is part of the water pump, commonly called the Doctor, which is labeled in the image. I included one in my build but it's buried mostly out of view.

I'll go read through Petsche again to see if I recover forgotten hints on boiler layout assumptions. I appreciate your kind words, Glenn, it's an honor to be of any service to a master craftsman.

Edited December 20, 2015 by Cathead

[captainbob]

What a great thread this is.  Being a riverboat buff myself I'm really enjoying it.  My first model so long ago was the Shawnee, a pool boat working the locks at Pittsburg.  From what I have learned here I may have to rebuild her.

 

Bob

[Tadeusz43]

Hi,

I think that the boilers and machinery may have been lifted out for later reuse.

Example of such action is described in a novel Toilers of the Sea (French: Les Travailleurs de la mer) by Victor Hugo published in 1866.

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Tadeusz