USS CAIRO by Gerhardvienna - Live steam, Radio

[Gerhardvienna]

That sounds like a fine working system.  It will be fun watching it all go together.

 

Bob

 

Hi Bob

 

I just can hope, it wil work fine. But before that I have all the planning work, there is still not one drawing done for the engine! Next time will be busy with my homeworks, maybe in the evenings I have some time for drawings.

 

Regards

Gerhard

[dgbot]

I have a great a deal of faith in your machining skills Gerhard, from what I have seen so far.  Go for it.

David B

[Gerhardvienna]

I have a great a deal of faith in your machining skills Gerhard, from what I have seen so far.  Go for it.

David B

 

Hi David

 

Thank you!

 

 

And many thanks also to Glenn (ggrieco) who sent me a link to a very good book about this engines, I`ve downloaded it today page per page from HathiTrust because of its good infos. Took some hours to do this, but its worth every single minute!

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89071911150;view=1up;seq=1

 

And many thanks also to everyone for your interest

 

Regards

Gerhard

[Gerhardvienna]

Hello everyone

 

By searching for more infos to the engines I found again, what I believed to be lost, the videos from a guy named himself DealtaAPmech. He built an sternwheeler engine by himself, a beautiful piece of metal work.

You`ll find more at his Google+ site, think I`ll go close with his Engine, but even smaller than that......

 

Regards

Gerhard

Edited June 4, 2016 by Gerhardvienna

[ggrieco]

Beautiful! she's coming together nicely.

[Gerhardvienna]

Beautiful! she's coming together nicely.

 

And very slowly.............

Now that the system is known for me, there will come a lot of drawings to make, and then the machinery workings. I calculate with about two trials for every parts, maybe even more, until they are perfect! Less than that is not good enough for the Cairo!

 

Regards

Gerhard

[captainbob]

Gerhard, what is the website for DealtaAPmech?  I am also interested in a working engine.

 

Bob

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi Bob (& all other interestd!)

 

DeltaAPmech has his site at Google+, I hope the link works correct. He has built a complete river steamer to his engine, but had made no plans for the driving system. A lot of videos, I just had almost forgotten the name.

 

https://plus.google.com/102528091741765377564/posts

 

The report to his build is on HMEM http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/showthread.php?t=22191

 

Enjoy it!

 

Regards, thank you all for dropping in!

Gerhard

[captainbob]

Thanks for the website address.  Hope your engine works as well.  Lee wrote that it was hard to overcome the spring pressure of the poppet valve.  In Alan L. Bates book, "The Western Rivers Engineroom Cyclopedium",   He shows the design of the balanced poppet valve the riverboats used.  Hardly any force was needed to operate it.

 

Bob

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi Bob

 

Alan Bates`s book is nowhere to find, exept one example for over 1300 Euros, too expensive for a 64 page book.

The valva mechanism will be the most delicate part of the engine to make. I hope it will work fine, and there will not be too much force needed to move the valves. As I believe, it will depend on the length of the levers, and where to set their pivot pionts. I plan not to  need spring coils, the valves must be held down by the pressure of the delivered steam.

 

Regards

Gerhard

[captainbob]

I sent you a PM with the balanced valve.

 

Bob

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi Bob

 

Thank you for this good info! Saved it immiediatley for "later use", will not be easy to make

 

Regards

Gerhard

Edited June 7, 2016 by Gerhardvienna

[captainbob]

You might find more information on the web.

 

Bob

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi Bob

 

Had a good look in the internet, the best info about that valves are from the Bates book! Think this will be the best I have now, thank you for sending, again! Still no time for building or even make some drawings, home renovation must go on before all other things, as the admiral says

 

Regards

Gerhard

[johnhoward]

We, the St. Louis Gateway Model Shipcrafters are currently scratch building a 1:24 scale plank-on-frame model of the USS Cairo's City Class, sister ship USS St. Louis for the Missouri Civil War Museum (MCWM). We started this project in September 2014 using the Vicksburg 1981, 28 sheet set of plans by Ashley and their Historic Structural Report(HSR) which seemed to be the standard source for the  modeling community at that time and appeared to cover everything we needed to build an authentic model worthy of display at the MCWM. The attached photo represents our progress as of March 2017. The starboard side of this 7.5-foot long model will represent the ironclad's finished exterior while the port side will have substantial openings to reveal substructure and internal equipment.

Unfortunately, we immediately began to detect obvious errors in these plans such as a lack of deck camber and deck house roof camber which would be particularly noticeable at our large scale. Correspondence with NPS Vicksburg led us to NPS Denver, who actually managed the USS Cairo reconstruction project, confirmed these errors and our fears that others probably existed partly because of the poor condition of the USS Cairo's remains in 1981. We therefore began our own concurrent intensive research activity to verify everything we could before we fabricated it. This included referring to an earlier 1968 NPS Philadelphia survey drawing of the USS Cairo hull and a later 2005 Vicksburg subcontractor reconstruction of the gun carriages which were very useful. We also found drafting errors and inconsistencies in Ashley's 1981 drawings, some of which have been superseded by Vicksburg 2015 PDF drawings. Some other sets of plans, such as those by Meagher and Geoghegan(1970), appear to contain reconstructions which make sense.  Unfortunately other plans such as Bob Hill's simply relied solely on the accuracy of Ashley's drawings or introduced figments of their own imagination such as C. A. Raven's NRG Journal Article(Summer 2012) which is counterproductive. All existing plans appear to be flawed and the many USS Cairo models currently on public display reflect these errors.

Obviously some of the issues we are discovering would not necessarily apply to smaller scale or less detailed models. We are compiling a list of our findings and intend to submit it to the NRG Journal for use as a cautionary "heads up" to future City Class model makers.

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi Johnhoward

 

Thank you for that really new (to me) information. As there is a break in building my model of the Cairo, would be nice to keep us informed about newer results of research. I will build her as a floating model, most important will be if and what changes are to make on the outside of the ship, the inner structure will be more important to those who build the ship as a showcase model. Thank you four your hints to that differencies! Is there a linc to the Vicksburg 2015 drawings? Please post!

 

Best regards

Gerhard

[johnhoward]

 Hi Gerhard,

The Vicksburg PDF drawings (VICK-306-120514) represent the surviving portions of the USS Cairo as currently displayed today at the Vicksburg National Park and are therefore most useful fur the metal items such as the correct 17 spoke paddlewheel and rudder tillers but they do also help correctly locate the missing elements. These drawings were apparently released  in 2015 for their 150-year Civil War anniversary and used to be posted on the main Vicksburg National Park and USS Cairo Museum web site. I just accessed this site but was unable to quickly find the drawings.

I will keep searching and will advise if I find the current site.

 One of our Shipcrafter members started the scratch build log for our "USS St. Louis" model on this forum 2 years ago which identified some of the drawing issues we were uncovering, however it quickly became unmanageable since we have about 9 participant Shipcrafters working in parallel. Perhaps I can get him to summarize the errors we have identified so far via the USS St. Louis log.

 

Johnhoward

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi John

If you mean the 21 pages from the Vicksburg NPS, here they are. That was one of the first files I had for the build, seems that the outer lines are close to the Bob Hill plans.

 

Best regards

Gerhard

 

 

150 Years Civil War.pdf

[johnhoward]

Thanks, these are the correct drawings.

 

johnhoward

[Gerhardvienna]

2 hours ago, johnhoward said:

Thanks, these are the correct drawings.

 

johnhoward

They are not too far from the Bob Hill drawings I`m working with. As I HOPE, the errors will not appear too much in the 1:50 scale model, but if they do, would be nice to give us some more infos about them. Where have you figured out the differencies between the Hill plans and the remaining parts of the CAIRO, and how should it look like?  

 

Regards

Gerhard

[kees de mol]

Very nice ship and I can't wait to see her in the water

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi Kees

 

Glad to see you here! She will float, but it will take some time until then. Next I will make are the ships boats, material is ordered for them (and the SMS Danzig`s boats too). Should arrive this week, then I can start again with "real" work. In the meantime I can plan the guns barrels in my 3D program for printing.

 

Regards

Gerhard

[johnhoward]

Bob Hill did a very nice job of vectorizing and combining separate sheets of the original 1981 NPS drawings by Ashley to make them more usable for model makers. The biggest problem is that Ashleys drawings contained many errors, omissions and inconsistencies which Bob didn't attempt to correct. For a 1:50 scale exterior shape model, other than the lack of deck and deckhouse roof camber which is obvious from the contemporary Civil War era photos, most of these can probably be ignored. However, if you plan to include things such as accurate cannon and their carriages, the unusual 17 spoke paddlewheel, ventilation funnels, rudder & tiller configurations, and other internal features such as for our model, you probably will find our discoveries interesting. This is "a work in progress but I will attempt to include a preliminary version of this research report in our "Scratch Build Log for the ironclad USS St. Louis" on this forum.

 

Johnhoward

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi Johnhoward

 

Would be great to see what changes are to make for an accurate model. The guns and their carriages are important to me, but the most of "invisible" interior parts are not so important for a floating model. This will be more important for a showcase ship. I need most of the inner space for the engine and the RC-Stuff. As far as I am at the moment, I still can do some slight changes, as long as it is for the casemate, and the rudder/steering unit. The paddlewheel should too be as close as possible to the original thing for its visibility. I have signed in for your St.Louis building report, so I will not miss anything from that!

 

Hi to all interested too.

Some progress made this days, small portions for the floor are done. But still a long way to go!

 

All the cutouts in the frames will be done when the deck is finished and all the "boxes" for the engine and RC components are set in.

 

Best regards, thank you all for your interest

Gerhard

[Gerhardvienna]

By writing about making the Cairo as accurate as possible (for a RC-Model!), I learned on Wikipedia, there must have been a 12-pounder rifle aboard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cairo

BUT: There is no info where it was located on the ship! Can anybody help me in that reason? What kind of rifle was it, and where to place it! This item does not appear on any plans I know!

Thank you in advance!

Regards & many thanks for your nice likes!

Gerhard

[popeye the sailor]

good to see your back gerhard........a little at a time is better than nothing    

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi Popeye

 

Yes, it is. But I`ve been working on my 3D Program to get the first Gun barrel ready for printing, the parrot gun is done.

Not sure what kind of filament I will use for the barrels, but tending to Black PETG or ABS. Time will show, when the printer is built, maybe in about 4 to 5 weeks.

 

Regards

Gerhard

 

 

 

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi again, and many thanks for all of your nice likes!

 

While I was waiting for the wood delivery, I made another 3D Part, the barrel for the 8inch smoothbore guns. Three needed for the Cairo, will take some time to print them.

Best regards

Gerhard

[johnhoward]

Regarding the previous Wikipedia comment on "the 12 pounder rifle" for the USS Cairo; each of the City Class Ironclads were allocated one lightweight version of the 12 pounder boat howitzer (not rifled) & a portable wrought iron carriage while commanded by the US Army. (until October 1862) . These were the supposedly removed when the US Navy took command, however the carriage and a box of fused 12 pdr ball howitzer shells was reportedly recovered with the USS Cairo in 1963 while the barrel supposedly had been removed during a stop over in Cincinnati, Ohio just prior to its sinking in December 1862. These howitzers had two potential functions on ironclads: one was to repel possible enemy boarders and the other was to be either transported or mounted in the bow of the cutter for offensive or defensive action. We haven't found any record of the howitzer ever being used in action. A version of this howitzer is on display at the USS Cairo Museum in Vicksburg.

 

We plan to mount a model of this howitzer on the Hurricane deck of our 1:24 scale version of the "USS Cairo" sister ship, "USS St. Louis" in its "boarder repel mode" just prior to its renaming to "USS Baron DeKalb" and transfer to the US Navy in October 1862.

 

johnhoward

 

 

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi johnhoward

 

Great infos about that, thank you!

I`ve never watched this photo so close, but I think I found the 12 - pounder on the hurricane deck of the Cairo....

Source: https://www.nps.gov/vick/learn/historyculture/images/museum-entrance-mural.jpg

Now I have to look for better photos or drawings to make even that gun correct!

 

Best regards

gerhard