USS CAIRO by Gerhardvienna - Live steam, Radio

[Gerhardvienna]

Some more steps done for the small carriage, just the wheels, barrel and the frame for the ammo boxes missing.

 

Thank you for watching

 

Regards

Gerhard

 

 

[Gerhardvienna]

In addition to our discussion about the auxiliary engine I found some time to study the Cairo Historic Report. On page 34  (pdf page 44) I found some hints to the engines. The so called auxiliary engine was used for the capstan and steam driven pumps, as I understand that. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/vick/cairo_hsr.pdf

 

Best regards

Gerhard

[johnhoward]

Gerhard,

Yes, the HSR does refer to steam powered pumps in addition to the steam powered capstan but we're not sure this meant the the same "auxiliary engine". The "doctor" engine was a multi-purpose device and included several pumps and functions including use as a firehose. It could easily have been switched to use as a bilge pump whenever required. Other small leaver operated manual bilge pumps were recovered with the USS Cairo.

 

Nice work on your 12-pdr carriage.

 

In response to your comment on ammunition boxes:

We don't plan to include ammo boxes to our carriage for ship board use. Most contemporary photos of the lightweight carriage in shipboard use do not include the ammo boxes which would defeat the light weight concept. They would make more sense when the 12-pdr was used on land as an assault weapon. The howitzer ammunition recovered with the Cairo was packaged in a small wooden box with a 3 by 3 layer (9 rounds) already fused an ready to fire.

 

johnhoward

[Gerhardvienna]

6 hours ago, johnhoward said:

Gerhard,

Nice work on your 12-pdr carriage.

 

In response to your comment on ammunition boxes:

We don't plan to include ammo boxes to our carriage for ship board use. Most contemporary photos of the lightweight carriage in shipboard use do not include the ammo boxes which would defeat the light weight concept. They would make more sense when the 12-pdr was used on land as an assault weapon. The howitzer ammunition recovered with the Cairo was packaged in a small wooden box with a 3 by 3 layer (9 rounds) already fused an ready to fire.

 

johnhoward

Hi Johnhoward

Thank you, but the first version of that carriage is a but too wide, should only have 18mm instead of 24 I have now. This will be changed tomorrow, even the wooden boat carriage is in work now. When they had no ammunition frames on the carriages, I will make some wooden boxes for the rounds, makes work a little easier for me!

 

Best regards, thank you all for watching!

Gerhard

[johnhoward]

Gerhard,

As a follow-up to Gerald's great lead on use of the 1854 USS Constellation cutter and launch drawings for our ironclads, I found the attached drawings in Chapelle's "History of the American Sailing Navy, which provide additional details for their thwarts and oar lock slots in 1854. They also show a higher and narrower sternwale which seems to be borne out in some of the contemporary Civil War photos. Chapelle's book also provides the US Navy table-of-allowances (listings) of various length versions of these ship's boats for their "mother" ships just prior to the ironclad era.

If you assume that the USS Cairo drawings correctly depict the davit locations,  the cutter length would be about 26-feet to fit between them. The USS Cairo launch stowed at the aft port side set of davits  could be a few feet longer (we are using 28-feet) to account for additional oarsmen. I believe the launch was used for more official and ceremonial purposes while the cutters served as the work horses. A broader sternwale would most likely be required for transportation of the 12-pdr boat howitzer carriage. It is also possible that the USS Cairo carried more than one version of their cutters.

Knowing the military system, I think we will eventually be able to find comparable ship's boats information directly for the ironclads.

 

johnhoward

 

 

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi johnhoward

Thank you, again....

Would be great, if you could show both pics in higher resolution, so I could scale them to the correct measure for the Cairo. The cutter length has been around 26 feet, IF i have measured that correct from the plans, just the launch missing in its length and width. The plans dont show the boats correct, even the Bob Hill plans show 4 equal boats!

 

Beneath the searching for the correct boats I managed to redo the field carriage. This was too wide with 22 mm, should have been only 18 mm. So I opened some of the soldering spots, shortened the parts, and soldered them together again. Width is now at 18 mm, just the axles are longer. They will be cut to correct length, when the wheels are made. And I started with the boat carriage, most parts are done, have a look at that!

 

 

Thank you all for watching & your nice likes!

Regards

Gerhard

 

 

 

[Roger Pellett]

Cutter/Launch: In British and US Navy usage, a vessel's launch was a heavy workboat equipped with a windlass.  It was especially intended for handling anchors.  To do this British launches were equipped removable stern davits.  American launches of the Civil War were equipped with bow and stern rollers for handling heavy lines but they did not have stern davits.  US Navy launches of the period were equipped with a pair of pluggable openings near the windlass for passing lines through the bottom of the boat.  When in use, a copper funnel or "trunk" was screwed into the opening.  Launches typically were not fitted with wash strakes. The top two hull strakes on Civil War US Navy ships' boats employed a distinctive ship lap planking detail that shows up on period photographs.  This detail is described in Theodore Wilson's shipbuilding book.  Constellation's launch posted by Jerry Todd shows the characteristics of a typical launch.  Such a boat would have been useful on a gunboat operating on shallow river waters, for carrying out heavy hawsers and anchors.  

 

The launch pictured by Chapelle, is not typical and looks more like a cutter.  A cutter was a boat designed to be seaworthy enough to be used for boarding vessels at sea. Freeboard was increased by adding a wash strake above the normal hull planking, and lines were usually finer. They would have been useful aboard a gunboat for landing shore expeditions.  

 

Keep in in mind that these are "big" boats.  A 26ft launch or even a cutter was a heavy displacement boat that would have required a large crew to row against swift river currents.  Perhaps, a launch, two cutters, and a smaller handier boat might have been more practical.  

 

Roger

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi Roger

 

The plans just show 4 identical boats, so we can just guess what kind of boats they really had. I found Wilsons Book on Google https://archive.org/details/anoutlineshipbu00wilsgoog  and saved it immediatley. Even if the Chapelle drawings were not useful for the CAIRO, I would like to save them for "later use" in my archive. So, if you have some better drawings for the boats, I (and WE) would appreciate to see them too, so I could make the choice what boats I will use for the ship. I`m unluckily not that good in drawing my own plans, so I will need some good drawings for that.

Thanks in advance

Best regards

Gerhard

 

 

[Roger Pellett]

The whole subject of US Navy ships boats supplied to the fleet prior to 1900 is a bit of a black hole.  Prior to the late 1890's ships boats were not standardized, being designed by the boat shops at each navy yard.  The boats from Chapelle's book were designed at the Washington Navy Yard and those for Jerry Todd's Constellation at the Norfolk Navy Yard.  There are boat allowances that at least specify overall dimensions  for boats allowed to be carried by different classes.  See, for example, William Brady's Kedge Anchor.  A 26ft launch is to have a breadth of 7.4ft and a depth of 3.4ft.  A 26ft cutter a breadth of 6.6ft and a depth of 2.4ft (this dimension might not include the cutter's wash strake).  Complicating this fact is that we don't know where the boats for the river gunboats came from.  Were they built at St Louis or were they supplied by one of the Navy yards?  Additionally complicating things is the fact that the gunboat fleet was originally controlled by the Army, later transferred to the Navy.  Boats were subject to hard usage and were always being knocked about, so the lifetime of an individual boat might have been short.

 

I thought that you might enjoy photos of a 26ft cutter and a boat howitzer that I built for my 1:96 scale model of the monitor USS Catskills.

 

 

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi Roger

So this tells me, I`m relativley free in my decision what boats I use, as long as they stay in the measuring of that. Great job on your USS. Catskills, the Howitzer is a nice example of what can be done! Thanks for sharing!

 

Regards

Gerhard

[johnhoward]

Great work Roger on your USS Catskills model and thanks for the ship's boats technical information.

 

The source for USS Cairo's boats is not included in the list of suppliers in the NPS Historical Structural Report so I assume they were provided by the US Navy yards and not built locally by Eads in St. Louis. The Cairo was only under Navy control the short time between October 1862 until December 1862 when it was sunk by a mine so most of its combat action was when under Army management. It may have been refurbished upon switching commands.

My team is building the Cairo sister ship,  USS St. Louis at 1:24 scale as she appeared just prior to this October 1862 transfer. The only reliable ship's boats information we have found is the distance between the Cairo's boat support davits which were recovered from the Yazoo River in 1963. 

 

johnhoward

[Gerhardvienna]

2 hours ago, johnhoward said:

................... The only reliable ship's boats information we have found is the distance between the Cairo's boat support davits which were recovered from the Yazoo River in 1963.

johnhoward

So this is all I have too for the boats. Therefore I think i will go with the Constellatin`s "second cutter",  this is very close to the 26 ft cutter from the CAIRO. I have printed the plan, and will build a first test boat to get a clue how they would fit to the ship. At the moment I`m working on the drawings for the paddlewheel, their rims will be photoetched. As I have some parts more for the etching company, I`m trying to get them at once.

 

Best regards

Gerhard

[johnhoward]

Gerhard,

I think you are pretty safe using the Constellation's second cutter drawing sized for 26-feet OAL. I'm amazed at how fast you move from subject to subject on your model. 

 

Attached is a photo taken last week of our paddle wheel model in its assembly jig that  might be of interest. This is the third of the 4 identical rings we need. It is all brass, consisting of a machined pocketed hub and 2 axle collars, .032" thick sheet brass 6" diameter inner ring,  11" diameter outer ring, and 17 spokes , all riveted together with #18 brass escutcheon pins. We first prototyped this ring assembly, axle and bellcranks  using a laser printer as shown in the other photos before committing to brass parts. The tricky part of the paddlewheel will be its final assembly with its "birds nest" of thin rod cross bracing. We are experimenting with the use of continuous fine multi filament brass wire, stretched taut with tin solder wicked into the wire at each ring intersection to secure it in place.  We were planning to use an electric motor to demonstrate the paddlewheel in operation however the museum doesn't want any power in their display cabinets.

 

johnhoward

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi johnhoward

 

Nice wheel!

That "moving fast" is just for concentrating the orders. When I order only the small parts I need for the 12-pounder, I will have to make another order later for the wheels rims. Thius way I can order all at once, and work then (while waiting) on the boats. Even all the wood i need for the rest of the ship will be ordered this days, so in a few days I can go on with all. Later I will have to buy a lot of brass for the engines, even this will be made as an "at once" thing. But before I can do this I will have to construct the engine, there are no plans in such small scale to work with.

The wheel will be a bit simplyfied for my build, here is my decision "form follows function"! Still very detailed, but the rims in one piece etched, and some other parts turned on my lathe.

 

Regards

Gerhard

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi again& many thanks for your interest and so many likes!

 

Made some progress for the paddlewheel, just on the PC. First parts are ready drawn in 3D but must be transformed to 2D Drawings for photo etching.

 

BUT; could not stop myself and try to draw it as close as I can to the plans I have. The shaft and some other shims are not made at the moment, will be made later the day!

 

Regards

Gerhard

[Roger Pellett]

Gerhardt/ John, Thanks to each of you for your kind remarks regarding my Passaic Class monitor model.  It is interesting to watch two models of USS Cairo being built simultaneously to high standards.

 

Regarding authentic Civil War ship's boat details.  The best photo that I have found that shows a US Navy ship's boat up close is one taken by James Brady of USS Onondaga in the James River in 1864.  The photo shows a group of soldiers or marines in what appears to be a small cutter up close with the Onondaga in the background.  Google Onondaga and you will find it.

 

The photo shows the distinctive sheer strake design that I mentioned above, and the brass castings that formed the openings in the wash strake for the oars.  If you are ordering photo etched parts you might want to include a supply of these.

 

Also interesting is the variety of boats moored along side Onondaga.

 

The Civil War navy museum in Columbus, GA has a Ship's boat from USS Hartford and there is a photo on their website.  Hartford, however, had a very long life and photos of many of these Civil War Ship's that survived into the 1900's show them outfitted with standard 1900 pattern boats.  Additional research of this boat is in order.

 

Roger

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi Roger

 

Found the photo, SEEMS to be close to the boats I expect to build. If you meant this one.

Thank you for the hint! But I did not find the boat from the USS Hartford, maybe I search  later for it!

The brass parts are not too complicated to make, that`s what I can do myself. Just the paddlwheel parts are a bit too hard to make, for a showcase model I would print them in 3D , for a floating model I want to have them from brass.

Made the missing parts, the black parts will be photo etched, all yellow things I will turn on the lathe.

 

Best regards

Gerhard

 

PS.: I just can HOPE, my build will forfill the high standards..............................

 

 

[johnhoward]

Very nice CAD work Gerhard,

One comment that might make your paddlewheel assembly easier is that the 4 identical frames were actually all facing the same way with the pocketed side of the hubs on the port side for the spokes. This makes the 3 spaces between the rings identical as well as the cross bracing arrangement, rather than "handed". Some versions of the Cairo drawings show this incorrectly but Vicksburg reassembled their original crumpled wheel correctly as you can probably detect in their photographs.

 

johnhoward

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi johnhoward

All is drawn for the etching process, but I will have to make a slight change when soldering the parts. In the Bob Hill plans the hubs are in opposit position, but as I will make them one by one this would not be to hard to make. Even the other (now correct) way will be the same work to do, so there is not too much difference to make the wheel. The Bob Hill plans show the spaces between the rings different, the outer are a bit wider than the inner one. I`ve made a screenshot from my 3D Program, to take it to my lathe for turning, but in the "old" version. The drawing is in 1:50 scale, measurings are in 1/10mm!

Best regards& many thanks!

Gerhard

 

[johnhoward]

Gerhard,

I knew it wouldn't make any difference to your individual paddlewheel parts as is also the case with ours. For our scale, other than just being more accurate, the ring spacing significantly affects the wheel assembly. Unfortunately, Bob expected higher accuracy from Ashley's 1981 NPS plans, his primary source in making his set. We and many others have done the same for their Cairo drawings and models  over the years.  We are now very happy to be able to share our research findings in a timely manner with you and any other modelers so that they will at least be aware of them and can decide for themselves.

 

johnhoward

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi johnhoward

MY decision will be to make that small change in the wheel setup. It`s no big deal to do it, but had no time to do it right now. For the parts themselves it does not matter, just for the soldering work when all of the photo etched things are arrived. The screenshot above just shows the state of how it is at the moment, when it would be correct to have the same space between the discs, so I NEED to have it changed! Thank you for your really worthful hints to make a good model of the Cairo. She`s the last of her kind and deserves to be made correct.

 

Regards

Gerhard

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi All, again

 

Thanky so much for your nice likes!

Next thing was to "superimpose" the engine to the wheel, looks good for me. Cylinder length will be 50mm, with a stroke of 38mm and bore of 12mm.

 

Best regards

Gerhard

 

[johnhoward]

Gerhard,

I will be very interested in following the design of your live steam propulsion for your model. Will it have 2 engines?

You probably wouldn't need them for the model, but I'm sure you know that the original Cairo had balance "buckets" to offset the eccentricity from the heavy weight of the 2  iron engine input bellcrank arms  on the axle which were at 90-degrees to each other causing the wheel to vibrate. This was normally done  on stern-wheelers by doubling the thickness of the paddle planks (Buckets) opposite from the bellcranks. However, this wheel, having an odd number of spokes (17) doesn't have any paddle planks exactly opposite the bellcranks so it probably needed 4 spaced double planks to achieve real balance. All the other stern-wheelers I've studied had an even number of buckets but the City Class designers must have had some good reason for 17. Or perhaps, the Cairo wheel was just "borrowed" from a side-wheeler steamboat which only has a single engine bellcrank per wheel and therefore had the wholly different problem of maintaining power thru the end of its engine stroke.

 

johnhoward

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi Johnhoward

 

The Cairo NEEDS to have that two cylinder engine layout, a single cylinder would not start on his own. With the two cylinder setup I can stop on the lake, and restart again, as the real ship could. I will try to make the engine and wheel without the buckets, power will not be so much that I will need them. But IFthere is less balance, I still can make some. But thatis still a long way to go there, the next Things I do is the core for the cutters. Just have glued the printed sheet of the frames to 1,5mm linden wood, and marked the lines to 10mm wood for sawing them with the juwellers saw. Pics will come tomorrow, so real model building work goes on again1

 

Regards

Gerhard

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi again, and many thanks for you interest & likes!

 

madt the barrel for the boat howitzer today, turned a small piece of brass, drilled the barrel, and soldered some small parts for the visor and the holding parts. Barrel fits well to the carriage.

 

And I did cut out the frames for the cutters, and prepared the parts for the core of the boat. I will make the boats as Johann @archjofo  did, just hoping I get them done as well!

 

 

Best Regards

Gerhard

 

 

[Gerhardvienna]

Hello again, and so many thanks for your likes!

 

Before I continued with the cutters core, I had to finish another work I`ve started earlier. The big skylight had no window glasses and no hinges, so I decided to make them first. If the coluor would not be correct, please dont be shy and give some info about the paint of this parts!

 

 

After the skylight I made the core for the cutters, must be grinded to shape now. Then I can start with the frames and planking.

 

Regards

Gerhard

 

[johnhoward]

Hi Gerhard,

I don't think the skylight over the boilers was glazed or hinged as its main purpose was to vent heat overboard from the firebox and boilers. Pook's specifications for the City Class ironclads simply specifies a flat grate which has a coaming about 3-inches above the deck. They probably covered the grate with a tarp when moored with the fireboxes shut down. The forward skylight was most likely glazed and hinged as it provided light to the deck below and was probably also used as a hatch in the hurricane deck for loading foodstuff into the Commissary Room below the gun deck.

 

johnhoward

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi johnhoward

 

I will stay with hinges, too much work to break them out of the frames. Breaking out the "glass" would be easier, but as I will let the windows open for sailing, this will not be necessary. I need good ventilation for the boilers and engine as this ship will get life steam, and I like to close such skylights when the model is set in the showcase. Much interesting is the question for coluor of the skylights, I found nothing about that! Shall I keep them as they are, or would (flat) black be correct?

 

Regards, and thank you all for watching

Gerhard

[johnhoward]

Gerhard,

Your decisions on the glass and hinges sound reasonable.

I would make the whole exterior of the USS Cairo flat black or dark gray to minimize visibility on the rivers at night. You wouldn't want any bright contrasting trim which would attract attention.  However, I think  the interior surfaces should lighter gray or even "whitewash" to retain reflected light thereby providing the crew with maximum visibility in the dark spaces which were only lit with flickering candles or kerosene lamps.

This is the general color scheme we are using for our USS St. Louis. Blackout of interior lighting while on patrol would also be strictly enforced. These ironclads were always dangerously close to the river banks and enemy snipers or more powerful weapons.

 

johnhoward

[Gerhardvienna]

36 minutes ago, johnhoward said:

Gerhard,

Your decisions on the glass and hinges sound reasonable.

I would make the whole exterior of the USS Cairo flat black or dark gray to minimize visibility on the rivers at night. You wouldn't want any bright contrasting trim which would attract attention.  However, I think  the interior surfaces should lighter gray or even "whitewash" to retain reflected light thereby providing the crew with maximum visibility in the dark spaces which were only lit with flickering candles or kerosene lamps.

This is the general color scheme we are using for our USS St. Louis. Blackout of interior lighting while on patrol would also be strictly enforced. These ironclads were always dangerously close to the river banks and enemy snipers or more powerful weapons.

 

johnhoward

Hi johnhoward

 

Thank you, so I will change colour to flat black for the skylights, no big deal to make it. The ship will get LED lights in it, so all visible interior will be seen well, but I will have to search for flickering lights to get a real effect. The inside of the superstructure will be painted light grey or dark white, the way you mentioned as "whitewashed".

 

Regards

Gerhard