USS Saginaw 1859 by catopower - FINISHED - 1/8" scale - paddlewheel gunboat - first ship built at Mare Island

[gjdale]

Looks like you've cracked the "repeatability" challenge Clare. Well done.

[captainbob]

Congratulations, looks like you have a winner.

 

Bob

[Jim Lad]

Glad to hear that your process seems to be repeatable, Clare!

 

I wouldn't worry about the skylights - it would be natural for them to be painted white inside.

 

John

[Elia]

Clare,

 

Your brass etchings look great. You've clearly got a good, repeatable process worked out. Have you given any thought to etching those paddle wheel parts you aren't happy with?

 

Cheers,

 

Elia

[popeye the sailor]

nicely done on the skylight.   I made one to look just like that on in my AmericA build {but I used the plastic supplied parts}   P.E.  is some very fine stuff to work with 

[catopower]

Happy Holidays and thank you Grant, Bob, John, Elia, and Popeye for kind words of support. 

 

Now that I've gotten past that little brass etching snag, I have no excuses for lack of progress anymore. So, I guess I'd better get a move on!

 

Clare

[Jim Lad]

Yeah, Clare, get with the program!

 

John

[captainbob]

Clare,

 

 I don’t know about you, but I can come up with all kinds of excuses for me.

 

Bob

[mtaylor]

Either come up with an excuse that's a doozie, or make some progress.  No pressure.

[catopower]

Excuses?  Hang on... I'm thinkin', I'm thinkin'...

[catopower]

I couldn't come up with a good enough excuse to not work on the Saginaw, so I went ahead and made a little bit of progress...

 

I finished up one of the round (octagonal) skylights and added the paneled doors to the deck house structure. I still need to do a little more cleanup and detailing, but this is what I have now.

 

I haven't glued this into place yet, but will do that shortly. I had the darnedest time getting the windows into place. I tried cutting little pie sections, but they were small and impossible for me to control. So, I ended making a circular piece with a section cut out. 

 

This is the only way I could get the windows into the skylight. It doesn't lay flush with the frames, but at this scale, you really can't tell. I did have a little problem with a tiny amount of overlap at the ends, but it's pretty well hidden after I added the bars over the windows. Oh, yes, and those bars were so small and required so much care to affix that it was a very painful process. Give me ratlines instead any day!

 

 

Next, I dealt with the paneled doors. I needed to add knobs to the doors and just chucked brass nails into a dremel and filed the heads down to a more reasonable size. Interesting to note that the ground away areas are steel colored since these are apparently not brass nails, but brass plated nails. Not so noticeable at this scale. 

 

I attached the doors, leaving a couple of the doors ajar. Obviously someone aboard was careless and didn't close them properly, and either the seas are very calm or the roll of the ship will slam them shut. These still need a little clean up and they aren't perfect. But, these will be mostly hidden by the wheel houses and the hurricane deck.

 

The deck house is just temporarily put in place. I will need to get the wheel houses built before I can put this in place permanently.

 

Clare

Edited January 7, 2014 by catopower

[Elia]

Clare,

 

It is good to see you at the Saginaw again. The deck light looks great, and the deck house quite the part.

 

Cheers,

 

Elia

[catopower]

Contrary to available evidence, this project is not dead!

 

I do have a lot of work that I need to deal with that's in the way, but this past weekend, I revived the old paddle wheels issue. As well as that last photo etching session worked out, to make the paddlewheel rims the way I want requires 4 rings in 2 sizes. That's 4 photo etching sessions assuming I don't screw up any of them, which is a bad assumption to make. So, say 5 - 6 photo etch sessions. That's a lot of time and a materials.

 

Some time ago, I found a laser cutting service in Nevada and finally re-contacted them and I'm going to give that a try. It's not cheap, but I'm so stuck on the issue of getting these rings right that the $65 to have the parts cut for me is a bargain.

 

I created the artwork using Adobe Illustrator. I'm not a CAD person, but fortunately AI files apparently work just fine. I decided as long as I'm going to the trouble, I'd go ahead and have pin holes cut where the rings attach to the spokes of the wheel. I have no idea how well the holes will turn out, but this is an experiment anyway. What I learn from this, I'll apply to future builds.

 

 

 

 

So, with a little back and forth with the laser cutting people, I'm now waiting for the final art file for me to approve. I'm choosing standard turn-around service, which means I should have the parts in a little over a week, I think.

 

I decided to try having the parts cut in metal, though I could have chosen birch ply. The only metal that can be cut this way however, is stainless steel. I'm going with .018" thick material, which should be strong enough, though it might be slightly thick in terms of scale. I think it should be okay.

 

The company doing the work is a robotics and electronics supplier called Pololu and they're in Las Vegas. I'll let you know how these turn out in case anyone wants to try them out too. Their custom laser cutting service page is here: Pololu - Custom Laser Cutting Service

 

Hopefully, this will give me a boost in finishing the paddle wheels, because the way I'm building the model, I have to have the paddlewheels in place before I can move on to the wheel houses.

 

Clare

[popeye the sailor]

good to hear the build is still in progress........I had no doubt.   some very good work has gone into her.   I remember you mentioning that there was an issue you were having trouble with.........good to know you found a solution.   I'll look forward in seeing your progress

[gjdale]

Nice to see an update from you Clare. I hope the custom laser cutting works out for you.

[Elia]

Clare,

 

It's good to hear you're still working on Saginaw. I'm very interested in the laser work goes.

 

Cheers,

 

Elia

[catopower]

This isn't much of a build update, but it is an update on the project since I got the laser cut metal parts in the mail today. This is a somewhat pricey alternative, but I just wasn't happy with the parts I was making, so had to try this out. 

 

The USPS Priority mail box arrived today. Expectedly, it was extremely light. The parts were separated into sealed compartments in a thick clear plastic bag. There are 8 parts in all and they look perfect. They are exactly what I had ordered, down to the 16 sets of pin-holes that I thought I would use to help securing the spokes. I drew these into the final Adobe Illustrator files and I suspect they probably added significantly to the cost. I didn't ask for a breakdown, but I will do that probably tonight.

 

At minimum, this was a test to see not only what the laser cutting service could do, but also how my drawings would translate to the final parts. I was afraid that my illustrator files wouldn't work too well and that I'd have to learn another software application for doing the design work.

 

As it turns out, I might have to do that anyway for more complicated work since my illustrations are often composed of shapes used to mask out unwanted parts of other shapes. That won't work for the laser cutter as it sees and cuts all shapes, regardless of whether they are "hidden" behind another. However, I believe there is a tool that will allow me to get around this problem.

 

Not sure what my next laser cutting test will be. I was planning a 3/16" scale version of the 1859 Saginaw as launched and it might be that I'll need to laser engrave the wheelhouse patterns in wood or something. There is still the matter of the carriages for the 30-pdr Parrot rifles on this model. Those carriages details at 1/8" scale might be a good second project and might give me an opportunity to find ways to reduce costs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was hard to photograph steel in dim lighting as it's very reflective. In that last photo, I held the part up to my computer screen so that the light from the screen would show through the pinholes. 

 

As I said, this is not really build progress, but it does move the project forward. Next, I'll have to make some kind of fixture to get the spokes attached correctly and the hubs in place.

 

Clare

[mtaylor]

Great looking parts.  Finding the right supplier is sometimes 75% of the battle for these oddball items that we want.

[catopower]

Hi All,

 

Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving. Latest status update is that the USS Saginaw project still lives! 

 

I actually finished coppering and painting the rudder a couple days ago and spent much of my free ship modeling time yesterday reviewing what needed to be done. 

 

Today, I actually started working on the paddewheels again and resolved how I will be making the hubs and axels and just finished making notes on the steps to finish their assembly. I think I've got a handle on it finally.

 

As it turns out, as much as I needed to try out the laser cutting, the design I did is off a bit. Looking back at the rims I made from copper, I've had a chance to step back and appreciate them a lot more. I think these will work though they are slightly out of round in spots. With half of the covered by the wheel houses, I don't think the issue will be noticeable, so I started moving forward again.

 

I finally learned how to correctly use the parting tool with turned brass on my Sherline lathe and I was able to quickly fashion the hubs for the paddle wheels. These aren't perfect. I'm going to end up centering the hubs on the axels, where on the actual saginaw, the hubs are actually slightly shifted on the axels. This makes the hubs slightly different in shape, but I wasn't able to work that out, so I'm simplifying here. See the edge view drawing in the center of the following attachment.

 

 

 

 

I'm ready to move forward, but just need a length on #129 K&S 3/16" brass tube. Tomorrow, I'll hit the hardware store for some and hope they've got it in stock.

 

Meanwhile, I'm laying out the steps I'll be taking to mount the rudder and start working on the gun ports. On the latter, I've identified a few reference photos that I'm using, but just need to find more detail on the drop-down ports used by the U.S. Navy around the time of the Civil War.

 

I also went back over some photos that are making me feel more confident on my ideas for the way the bridge area between the wheelhouses was made. It's not shown in any detail in the National Archives plans I'm working from.

 

More soon...

 

Clare

[popeye the sailor]

glad to see your still working on her.........look forward in seeing more

[catopower]

Hi Popeye, I'll try to keep making progress. You know, something beyond dusting it off, which I had to do today and boy was there a lot!

 

Mark, thanks for the tip. I had a nice email exchange with Jerry Todd today on the subject. Got some ideas, but still plenty of questions. I guess I can come up with something now though. Still don't know about those fittings for the train tackles, but they look straight forward enough.

 

In the meantime, I got the brass tubing I needed at the hardware store. I'll finish my construction jig for making the paddlewheels and see where that all leads.

 

My car has been in the shop for a few days and it's ready today, but I decided to leave it there until Monday. That will keep me from going anywhere and I can stick around and get some work done here. And today I actually did a healthy thing and walked 20 minutes to the hardware store (and another 20 back). I even managed to find more than one item I was looking for. 

 

Tomorrow, it's supposed to start raining for a week, so I'll just have to stay in and work on ship modeling!

 

Clare

Edited November 29, 2014 by catopower

[mtaylor]

Clare,

 

Are these fore and aft pivot guns?  If so, as I recall, there are four ring bolts. They would rotate the gun, then attach the tackle to two of the ringbolts to lock down the carriage.  I did them as seized ropes, not in firing position.  In firing postion, they had blocks.  Yeah.. I fudged it royally on that as I didn't have small enough blocks.

 

And that's a crying shame about having to stay in and work in the shipyard.   

[popeye the sailor]

any progress is a good thing Clare......I should know       I cut up a bunch of my old tee shirts to drape over them,  so they don't get too dusty.  cost is no object for our 'children'....after all,  we want them to look good!

[the learner]

Looking foward to seeing your jig for the paddle wheels, any one know if Clare is still sailing?

[ccoyle]

Yep, he's around.

[the learner]

Do you know if he finished this build

[ccoyle]

It's marked "finished", but I don't know who added that to the title. Only Clare knows the answer for certain.

[mtaylor]

Guy, it might be quicker to PM him.  He doesn't have any photos in the Gallery that I could find.