Arabia 1856 by Cathead - FINISHED - Scale 1:64 - sidewheel riverboat from the Missouri River, USA

[michael mott]

Looks Great Eric, Wow that end on shot of the archeology of the hull shows how difficult a job it really is.

 

Michael

[Cathead]

Michael, you're not kidding. For those who never saw the original, the photo I used above was cropped to emphasize the actual wreck. Here's the full context of the excavation; notice all the pipes constantly pumping out water. Remember, this is in the Missouri River floodplain and well below the groundwater table (one reason it was so well-preserved).

 

Edited July 14, 2018 by Cathead

[John Allen]

Amazing just an amazing build research above and beyond. The research is as enjoyable as the build, fantastic. Kudos

[steamschooner]

Eric, I think you nailed it on the deck planking, looks great!

Steve

[druxey]

Looks very plausible, Cathead. Nicely done!

 

I had no idea that the wreck was so deep down. Thanks for posting that photo.

Edited July 14, 2018 by druxey

[mtaylor]

I too believe you nailed it.  As for that overall photo, it's an incredible sight to my eyes.  

[leclaire]

Eric,

 

Those photos of the dig also show how fast that river can silt in and cover up a wreck. I would never have thought that many feet of soil could build up in a relatively short period of time, particularly when you consider the river change often and sweep away what was deposited in the first place. 

 

Very nice job on the planking issue. I started to chime in several times but always realized I really had nothing to add but chatter.

 

Bob

[Cathead]

A quick update as planking progresses:

I've developed a steady and efficient approach to this tedious task. Every so often I pre-paint a bunch of planking strips so they're available in bulk, doing this lightly enough so the paint doesn't soak through to the bottom where it would look wrong on the underside of the guards. I've been working from the inside out, one side at a time. In a given work session, I do the following:

• Measure and cut a full hull's length of individual planks along one side.
• Dip these in my dissolved steel wool & vinegar solution, wipe excess liquid free to avoid spotting, then set aside to dry. This darkens the paint and stains the underside a weathered brown.
• Take the strips I previously cut & soaked for the other side (in the last session), sand smooth any rough spots on edges or ends, rub on varying amounts of dark pastel (sometimes none) to vary the coloration and texture, then glue in place.

This makes for a consistent rhythm and a manageable set of tasks whenever I can sit down at the desk. For example, in the photo above, the top (port) planking line has just been laid in place, while off-screen the pre-cut planking for the bottom (starboard) line is drying after the vinegar soak. It'll start going a bit faster once I each the guards, as half of the hull's length is already done from then on.

 

Progress will slow down for a few weeks as I'll be out of town visiting family in western NY, and may even get to attend part of this neat event hosted by the Model Shipwright Guild of Western NY.

[Jim Lad]

Coming along very nicely.

 

John

[Cathead]

The main deck is planked!

Apologies for no updates in a while. Planking is slow and tedious and there really isn't much to show as it progresses. Plus, August was my busiest-ever work month so I was particularly disinclined to get on the computer for any other purposes.

 

Sharp eyes may have noticed that my deck planks are a bit wider than they appear to be in the original wreck photos. That's intentional; I knew I wanted to paint and stain each plank individually, and thought I would go absolutely crazy if I used really narrow scale planks. As it is, this deck took me over two months to complete. I think it captures a realistic feel and honestly that's more important to me than exact replication.

 

I remain really happy with the steel wool & vinegar stain I've been using on all these planks. It darkens the paint just the right amount and gives any exposed raw wood a nice weathered tone. The underside of the deck, though it will be difficult to see on the completed model, has a nice appearance to my eye:

 

 

Look closely and you'll see that a couple of red paint blobs seeped through here and here (particularly just forward of the port wheel). I tried to check each plank before installation, but obviously got sloppy in a couple places. I can't fix it, and again this is an angle that won't be seen on the finished model, so I'll live with it. Trying to keep a pure white hull clean during the building process is also proving to be a challenge; just too easy to grab her with pastel-grubby hands or accidentally smear stain. I'm considering whether to stain/pastel the lower hull brownish to simulate a river-mud waterline.

 

Next up, I return to machinery work. I need the wheels and boilers built and installed, along with the engines, before I do any superstructure work so I can be sure they all work together properly. Gotta say I'm not looking forward to building the wheels!

 

Thanks for reading and for putting up with the long delay.

Edited September 1, 2018 by Cathead

[kurtvd19]

Eric:

Great work and it looks very good.  Had you not mentioned the wider planks nobody would have noticed.😀

As to weathering the hull - once you start with the weathering you need to keep the rest of the boat weathered to the same degree.  A pure white hull will look odd with weathered decks.

Good to see you got some time to post.

Kurt

[Cathead]

Thanks, Kurt. I wasn't clear on the weathering: I absolutely don't intended to leave the hull shining pristine white by the end when the rest of the model will be more weathered. I haven't done the hull weathering yet because I figured the hull's finish would get beaten up sooner or later during the rest of construction so wanted to be able to sand out or paint over any faults, which will be a lot easier before final weathering is applied. I just meant that I was still trying not to have to do that by keeping the hull clean in the first place until I was ready to weather it, and hadn't decided whether to just dull it down overall or specifically add a muddy waterline.

 

I started laying out the paddlewheels today. They may not be as bad as I thought; the larger scale than Bertrand is already clear in terms of having bigger pieces to work with. Plus, on a sidewheeler, it's easier to turn the "bad" side of a wheel or competent inward to hide it!

[vossy]

This looks great Eric. What color did you stain the deck? Maybe I could go with this on Chaperon?

 

Cheers

 

Chris

 

[Cathead]

Chris,

 

The individual planks are first painted with diluted Model Expo Bulwarks Gun Red (MS4802). M-E paint tends to be rather thick, but diluting it works well in this case to let some color soak into the wood. This is partly why I had to be careful not to let it soak in too much and come out the other side, at least for the guard planks that are exposed at the bottom. I'd think any reasonable shade of red would be fine, especially if you're going to weather it down some.

 

Then each plank was dipped briefly into a staining solution I made by dissolving a chunk of steel wool in white vinegar. I didn't let the planks marinate; each got literally a one-second, in-out dip into the solution, then was laid out to dry on a cloth. I wiped excess liquid off the surface, or else it gets little droplet stains. If you leave it in longer, you get progressively darker color, but one second is enough to dull the bright red paint and give the exposed underside a suitably weathered look. You have to be careful with this solution as it stains everything; I "ruined" a pair of pants by absent-mindedly wiping my hands, creating a permanent rust stain (they're still perfectly wearable, but not for going out to dinner).

 

As you may recall, I started by using pastels to darken the paint instead of the solution, but switched over after a few lines of planking. I still used some pastel to individually darken stained planks further, giving the deck a bit more local contrast. For this, I just rubbed a finger along a dark grey pastel stick and then along the stained and dried plank surface.

 

I have to say, I'm very pleased with the final appearance of wood treated in this way.

[vossy]

Thanks Eric, it sure does look sensational. I was initially thinking of staining the Chaperon deck a redish color instead of using a more solid paint type color. My only concern is that the Chaperon deck is one piece of etched in lines for planks and thus wont have the nice uneven grain effect you get from using separate planks. Anyway, still a ways off.

 

Cheers

 

Chris

 

[Canute]

Eric, nicely done decking.  I, too, use that vinegar/steel wool weathering method. Normally, I brush the stuff on the strips. Just dipping in and quickly removing to a drying sheet is a good idea. Prevents too dark a result. I'll use that tip of removing beaded stains spots now, too.

[Cathead]

Chris, for a scribed deck, you might still be able to use pastels to subtly vary the individual planks after painting and vinegar staining. In the deck shown above, I went back over the surface using pastel on a fingertip and rubbed a bit of darker color on a few planks where the overall color seemed too uniform. You could probably also use a cotton swab if your fingertips are stubbier than mine. I'm not sure whether vinegar staining would warp a solid deck; weighting it down might introduce discoloration to the surface as it dries unevenly. You might experience with some cheap scribed wood sheets first. Maybe if you laid the stained deck facedown on a towel so that the stained surface pressed evenly into that, and placed weights on the back?

 

Ken, yeah, I tried the brush method first and found it tedious; quick experimentation showed that dipping was a lot faster and had no problematic effects (like warping or uneven color).

 

Actually, looking back at the photos above, you CAN see the difference between pure pastel weathering and the vinegar weathering (plus subtle pastel in places). There's a clear strip down the middle where the color isn't quite as yellow-brown; that's the non-stained area. It's more obvious in the photo than it is in person.

Edited September 3, 2018 by Cathead

[cog]

Chris,

 

As Eric wrote, you can still give your deck some additional (depth of) colour with pastels. You can even apply shading around doors/windows. With the plastic builds you add rust or stains with pastels either dry brushed (I use a hard brush to rub it on) or by dissolving it in water. For the latter I use water colour/aquarel brushes, depending on the purpose flat or round. You can then apply it to whatever painted object you want. If it's to strong you can rub it off with a stiff brush - take care of the painted surface - when applied wet either a dry or a wet brush. I've used white, black, brown, yellow, and blue to get the effect I wanted on the decks. The rust was applied wet with a very small brush or a sponge, depended on the effect.

 

However, don't just jump in, try it on some practice material

 

Cheers

[Cathead]

Working on the paddle wheel has been a refreshing change of pace. As a reminder, here's one shot of a restored wheel at the museum (with me for scale); there are many more in this post from my design thread.

I couldn't measure the wheel directly, but sources say it's 28' (~8.5 m) in diameter. I know the width exactly because one of the axles is on display within the museum and I could photograph and measure it up close (see photo later in this post). I estimated the overall layout of the wheel by visual inspection of my photos, then drew up a plan on my computer that I could print out and use as a template. Luckily, the Arabia has 18 spokes, making a nice easy 20° angle between each. For contrast, Bertrand had something like 13 spokes, meaning none of them lined up properly and were harder to lay out cleanly.

 

To actually build the first ring, I drew on techniques I used to use when building Guillows balsa-frame aircraft. I laid the plan on a piece of cardboard and used sewing pins to mark the end of each spoke along the outside circumference:

 

I "sharpened" the end of each spoke at roughly the correct angle for all to fit together. On the real thing, each spoke's end would fit into a precisely cast iron hub, like this:

 

But I felt that my skill set wasn't up to trying to manufacture such a detailed piece, especially having to make three identical ones (so all the rings lined up). So I decided to fudge it by assembling the wheel spokes as a solid mass and placing a flat hub along the outside. Notice how all the spoke flanges face inward on the axle; this means they'll be barely visible on the finished model anyway, so my approach should simulate the right effect. I may even draw in some faint black lines or shading to suggest the presence of the flanges separating the spokes.

 

Given that choice, I laid out all 18 spokes on the plan and used more pins to hold them in place. I filed a slight notch at the outer end of each spoke so they'd sit against the end pins more securely.

 

Once I was happy with the layout, I smeared wood glue within the central "sharpened" zone so it would sink into the slight gaps between spokes and bind them together. When that dried, I flipped the assemblage and repeated the process. I was careful not to use too much so that it wouldn't drip down and bind the spokes to the paper plan. I kept the glue within the rough area that would be covered by the wheel hub, to minimize any change in appearance of the finished wheel. This worked great; the wood absorbed the glue and held fast as a tight structure with no reinforcement necessary:

 

Next, I started filling in the rings. I started with the outermost one, figuring that it would hold the spokes in the proper alignment while the rest were filled in. Starting from the inside out had too much potential to deform the spokes and end up with an uneven and unsightly pattern. This was the correct decision.

 

I cut each piece using a combination of sharp hobby knife, sharp blade on a "chopper" type platform cutter, and a small razor saw. I used files, sandpaper, and the hobby knife to adjust the end angles until I was satisfied, then glued the piece in place. Some weren't perfect and there are subtle differences in spacing between spokes, but they're all but invisible in the collective view. Here's the wheel with the first two rings completed:

 

And here's the finished wheel, sanded to a smoother finish:

 

I'm quite happy with how this turned out. Of course, now I have to make at least two more. It was a fun project the first time, we'll see how I feel after repeating it. I say "at least two more" because each wheel consists of three such assemblages, so in theory I need six of these. However, I'm only planning to leave one side of the Arabia open to view, as I did on Bertrand, so I need one fully developed wheel. As the other side will be enclosed, it seems unnecessary to build a full wheel that will be 90% hidden within the paddlebox. So right now I'm considering only building the lowest part of a "dummy" wheel for that side and hiding it in fully planked paddlebox. I think by the time I build three of these, that will feel like the right decision.

 

It took a week to build this first one, but perhaps the next two will go a bit faster now that I've worked out my methods. In any case, it was nice to celebrate my birthday today with a finished mini-project. It's raining here, so we're having a quiet indoor day with good food, which is just fine with me at 39. We're making fried rice with garden produce and homemade sweet-and-sour-sauce for lunch, then German potato pancakes, homemade breadstick-pretzels, and pear sauce (fruit from our orchard) for dinner with a coconut-lemon rum cake. Will probably open a bottle of homemade mead to celebrate.

 

Thanks for reading

[Roger Pellett]

Nice work Eric!  You might actually find building half a wheel is harder than building a full one.

 

Roger

[Cathead]

Thanks, Roger, that means a lot coming from you. I know what you mean about building a half-wheel, but I think I've figured out a proper solution. Stay tuned.

[druxey]

Nicely done, Eric!

[Cathead]

To finish one wheel assembly, I needed to make two more identical sets of rings. My first plan was to build these on the paper plans just like I'd done the first one, but I was afraid that would enable too much variability. So I hit on the idea of building the next rings right on top the first one. After cutting the next 18 spokes, I clamped each one to its counterpart on the original:

The end clamps made the spokes warp up a bit in the middle, so I used large clamps to hold the whole assembly in place and flat:

 

Next, I used the same approach as before and smeared wood glue into the central area, being sure not to overdo it so none leaked down to the original ring below. This worked great; once it dried, I had a solid set of spokes following the same pattern as the original. I flipped this over, treated the other side the same way, then set about completing it just as described above. I did this a third time and ended up with three nice wheel rings, shown below after sanding. This was MUCH faster than laying the first wheel out on the paper plan using pins.

 

In case you were wondering, I marked the end of one spoke of each piece so that I'd know where to line them up again. These look nice in the photo but they're certainly not perfectly symmetrical (I'm not that good a craftsman), so it's important to know how best to align them.  Next I painted them, which took longer than I expected. There are so...many...nooks and crannies in these darn things that all have to get color!

 

Below are two shots of the three rings temporarily threaded on an axle and placed loosely on the model just for visual interest (no attempt to line them up perfectly or join them); I wanted to see what they'd look like in place.

 

 

They're obviously pretty bright and need to be toned down. I tried the vinegar/rust soak I used for the decking, but as these are painted on all sides it didn't really do anything (no raw wood to soak into), so I used a thin wash of black paint to dull the color. I don't have a photo of that but they look a lot better now. Next up, cutting and painting all the bucket boards (the horizontal pieces connecting the rings) and working out the best way to build this complex structure so that everything lines up (including both the buckets and the axle holes). I think it's going to be tricky.

 

Also, Roger mentioned the difficulty of building half a wheel. I think that, using the methods above, it'll be fairly straightforward to lay out half a wheel on the paper plan, glue the spokes in place at the center, then duplicate that twice using the clamping method. If I then attach wheel hubs and string them on an axle, the half-wheel will naturally hang down into the visible part of the wheel housing, and no one will ever be able to see up into the upper half. That's the current thinking, anyway.

 

This was a nice stage to reach this weekend. Thanks for reading.

[mtaylor]

Just a suggestion... You could cut the one have made in half and fake the mounting to the shaft since it won't be seen. Then no need to make more.  You could probably use the one you have for this. Unless there's more of the upper part that will be visible... then <shrugs>  you'll have to make more.

[Cathead]

Mark, good idea, except that I intend to leave this side of the vessel open to interior view so I need a full wheel on this side (i.e. 1.5 wheels total).

[mtaylor]

Ah... cool idea. Ignore me then for not remembering.

[Cathead]

The wheels are mostly done. Assembling the three rings into a coherent, well-aligned whole was extremely difficult. It was made worse by the fact that I wasn't as precise as I thought in keeping all three built to the same pattern; even very slight misalignments of the spokes led to difficult problems.

 

First, I made spacers to hold the rings the proper distance apart, and spent lots of time spinning and testing the rings to find the best alignment.

Some spokes needed filing or filling to get the buckets (the paddle planks) reasonably aligned. These changes looked terrible as I made them but they really fade into the background with painting and with the complexity of the wheel as a whole. Plus, I made a point of not modifying the outer ring, the only one that's really visible.

As previously discussed, I built the port wheel at about 40% completion as everything above that will be invisible. Here are four pictures of the completed 1.4 wheels test-installed on the model.

I think they look pretty good for scratchbuilt wheels, and am very, VERY glad to be past this portion of the project. I want to do some more weathering and I haven't yet decided how to install or simulate all the iron bolts that hold each bucket to each spoke. More on that later. Thanks for reading!

[druxey]

Nicely done, Eric. I bet you are glad that the buckets aren't feathering ones!

[Cathead]

That's not funny!

[Jim Lad]

Just catching up after a long break from your thread.  You've done a marvellous job on those paddle wheels.  If I ever get around to building a Murray River steamer (mostly side-wheelers) I'll know just where to come!

 

John