USS Cairo 1862 by MPB521 – FINISHED - Scale 1:48 - American Civil War Ironclad - First Scratch Build

[mtaylor]

Wonderful craftsmanship, Brian.   This beast deserves to be in a museum.

[Keith Black]

 Fantastic attention to detail, Brian. Just a gorgeous build. 

[tlee01]

Very very nice.  Great Build

[Canute]

Superb work. It's been a great learning experience.👍

[KeithAug]

On 9/15/2022 at 9:19 PM, mbp521 said:

On my final attempt I decided to go with some copper sheeting

I do admire your dedication, I'm sure I would have taken the short cut of turning it from solid.

Beautiful rope and rigging work.

Edited September 16, 2022 by KeithAug

[mbp521]

On 9/15/2022 at 3:36 PM, wefalck said:

As to the anchor-buoy: not sure what the guys then and there would have done, but normally the line would be hitched around the crossing-point between the arms and the shank.

Eberhard, I appreciate the input very much. I have been researching how the anchor buoys we’re rigged on the blue water navy ships of the time, and from what I have found so far, they show to either be hitched to the cross-point of the stock and the shank at the top or around the shank and the arm at the bottom. I would think that the same methods would apply to the brown water navy, but I also wonder if the water depth of the rivers as compared to the oceans would have something to do with them being rigged differently. I’ll keep digging. 
 

-Brian

[mbp521]

21 hours ago, mtaylor said:

This beast deserves to be in a museum.

Thank you Mark. One never knows where it will end up. A museum would be a dream come true. 
 

1 hour ago, KeithAug said:

I do admire your dedication, I'm sure I would have taken the short cut of turning it from solid.

Thank you Keith. This being my first scratch build, has definitely been a learning experience. I usually try to plan things out a little better but sometimes I just get an idea in my head and jump right into it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I must say that I have been pretty fortunate that most of the times that I have dove headlong into a project on this build, it has worked out. However, there have been those times that I have failed miserably. To avoid my embarrassment in those times I have chosen not to post those screwups. Scratch build are definitely a totally different beast than kit builds. 
 

-Brian

[mbp521]

@Keith Black @BANYAN @tlee01 @Cathead @Canute

 

Thank you all for the kind words and continued support. 
 

-Brian

[Roger Pellett]

First class research and workmanship Brian.

 

Roger

[mbp521]

Thank you all for your kind words and likes. The continued support is what helps keep me going.

 

I think I have resolved my anchor buoy conundrum. There just isn't a lot of information on the Brown Water Navy in regards to the ships anchors that I was able to find. I finally resorted to researching the Blue Water Navy and the many models that were built of ships from the mid-19th century. There were many different methods used to secure the anchor buoy to the anchor, and I found many pictures of them (they were not posted here due to copyright rules) so I just picked the one that I though looked best. This is the solution that I came up with.

 

The rig that had the buoy rope secured around the arm and the shank had the most appeal to me so I ran with it. Securing the rope to the shank.

 

Anchor, buoy, and rope coil completed.

 

Assembly installed on the foredeck.

 

Hopefully I got this right. If not, at least it's easy to access and fix.

 

-Brian

[wefalck]

That is exactly, what I tried to describe earlier on  👍

[mbp521]

48 minutes ago, wefalck said:

That is exactly, what I tried to describe earlier on  👍

Eberhard, I was thinking that was what you were describing. Makes me feel better about getting it right. Thank you!

 

-Brian

[KeithAug]

The anchor looks great Brian. Over here we would call the rope attached to the crown a "tripping line".

Edited October 2, 2022 by KeithAug

[vaddoc]

Just caught up with your log Brian, what a fantastic model! But your log is by itself so very interesting. A moment in history that many of us across the pond were not aware of.

[archjofo]

Hello Brian,

almost finished !
This has become a wonderful model.
A lot of beautiful detail finishes. 
Maybe you'll make it to the 160th anniversary after all. 
Good luck.

[mbp521]

On 10/1/2022 at 12:35 PM, KeithAug said:

The anchor looks great Brian. Over here we would call the rope attached to the crown a "tripping line".

Thank you Keith. In pouring over all of the contemporary photos of these boats, I found that the outside decks were really quite busy, with plenty of tripping hazards. Especially the fore deck and fantail. I would venture to say that more than one sailor ended up in the water due to not paying attention to all of the ropes laying about. I've been on many museum ships and noticed that things were always stored away and tidy. Not having served in the Navy, I'm not sure if this is the way things were all the time on active ships, especially during wartime. Given the nature of the military, I would assume so. But, due to the limited number of photographs of the City Class Ironclads, they all seem to have a certain bit of clutter on the exposed decks so it's hard to tell if they kept the same standards at the time. 

 

 

On 10/1/2022 at 1:39 PM, vaddoc said:

Just caught up with your log Brian, what a fantastic model! But your log is by itself so very interesting. A moment in history that many of us across the pond were not aware of.

I appreciate the kind words. I was hoping to make the build log as interesting as possible. The American Civil War is a dark time in American history, four years of brother against brother fighting. Growing up in south Louisiana (Baton Rouge) I was surrounded by plenty of reminders of this dark time. As a kid I was somewhat jaded to the fact that the South should have won and was resentful of the North for having done so. However, as I got older (and grew a brain) and studied more on the history of what transpired during that time, I realized that the Union was fighting to keep this country together. History has shown over time that countries that fight for separation from themselves, doesn't always work out like planned. Thankfully the US was able to stay together. No telling what things could have been like if the end result was different.

 

 

19 hours ago, archjofo said:

almost finished !
This has become a wonderful model.
A lot of beautiful detail finishes. 
Maybe you'll make it to the 160th anniversary after all. 

Thank you so much Johann. I still have a bit to go. I spent a few hours the other day creating a punch list of things that need to be finished. As it stands right now I have at least a couple of months worth of work to do. Lots of small details and touchup work. Also, with the weather finally starting to cool off here, more outside projects are taking priority which takes away from the build time. I am trying my hardest to get it done by December, but I'm not going to rush it. Either way, I will have small celebration on December 12 to commemorate the anniversary.

 

-Brian

[Vladimir_Wairoa]

just caught up withn this unusual boat. wonderful detailed work Brian. Congratulation indeed. 

[mbp521]

Hello again Everyone,

 

I just realized that it has been a while since I posted a proper update on the Cairo build. Well, hopefully I don't disappoint too much because not a lot has been done. The nice cooler weather has kept me outside taking care of those much needed projects that were not possible in the summer heat, but I am ever so slowly creeping towards the finish line on this project.

 

Here is what I was able to get done over the past month or so.

 

First up was the completion of mounting the ships boats and getting them rigged up, As usual, information on the City-Class boats was very limited and I resorted to using a few builders liberties on this part. The sloped sides of the casements made for a somewhat unique way of storing the ships boats. The davit bases were mounted about 3/4 of the way down the casements and the middle of them was supported by horizontal bars attached to the casements just below the Hurricane deck. These  middle supports served multiple purposes, center support for the davit, provided a swivel point of the davit to launch the boats and a resting place for the boats themselves when stowed aboard. While I was trying to find out how the boats sat on the davit supports I was playing around with the configuration and got to thinking that if these boats were to just sit on top of the davit supports, there was no stability for the boats to just sit on their keels. So I researched and researched some more, and came up empty. So I decided to take my builders liberties and install a couple of planks lashed to the supports to run parallel to the boats keels and give them more stability. My thoughts on this were that not only would the planks add stability to the boats by keeping them level while stowed, they would also add some protection to the keel keeping it up off the iron supports. It sounded logical to me so this is what I went with.

 

Here are the planks installed and lashed to the horizontal davit supports.

 

Next up was to get the tackle rigged up. I diluted the ropes with 50/50 water and clear Elmer's glue solution to stiffen them since the boats were not heavy enough to keep the lines taught enough to look natural.

 

Another configuration that I was having some difficulty finding information on was how the boats were stored when covered. The lifting rings were not accessible with the tarps over them so it wasn't possible to have them attached to the blocks without cutting holes in the covers. So again I decided that when the boats were stowed and covered the tackle was just left hanging loose above the boats. I don't think there would have been too much concern of the tackle swinging around in rough seas, since the rivers were considerably tamer than the open ocean. When the crew was ready to launch the boats, the would simply remove the tarps, hook the tackle to the lift rings and launch the boats. Problem solved.

Completion of the rigging. The ropes were tied off to cleats mounted to the Hurricane deck and the leftover was coiled up and thrown over the ropes running through the tops of the stanchions. This method is seen in many of the contemporary photos of the City-Class boats.

Closeup of the rig. I also added some ropes to secure the boats in their cradles. These were just wrapped around the boats and the planks just to help keep them in place.

 

The port side boats were a little easier. The aft boat I mounted in the ready for launch position and the forward one was mounted at the waterline, as if ready to head to shore. Having the forward boat in this position also allowed the viewer to peek inside the cutaway in this area.

Same rigging method was used as the starboard boats. The ropes were stiffened with diluted Elmer's to give them a "natural" hang and then secured to cleats, only this time the leftover rope was thrown over the hammock nets.

 

Next up it was time to finally install the rudders. I started out by installing the rollers on the tiller. These were made from small aluminum tubing and 28ga wire. These rollers sat on top of the races mounted to the fantail deck and provided support for the extremely long rudder tillers and followed the tiller arc when the ships wheel was turned. 

Rudders being set into place on the hull.

Port rudder installed.

 

Final paining of the rudder hardware.

 

Our newest crew member Daisy, the Admirals six-month old Yorkie-poo. She paid me a visit to make sure that things were going as they should. Thankfully I passed inspection.

Once I had the rudders installed it was time to get the control lines added. This was another of those details that there was practically no information on so I went with some of the  suggestions of those following along and what I though would the most logical approach to how these control lines would have been done. Salvage photos of the Cairo show a few clear pictures of the recovered rudders as well as some scenes in the recovery video. All of them show nothing attached to the outboard side of the tillers and what either appears to be stiff wire cable or an iron rod mounted to the inboard sides of the tiller. Since there was nothing shown on the outboard sides, I made the executive decision that since this was the side that was attached to the ships wheel, this control line must have been made from hemp rope and would have rotted away over time, leaving no evidence. If it would have been chain or cable, there would have been some sort of remaining evidence of such material or connection. As for the intermediate linkage, I went ahead used the suggestion that this would have been an iron rod with a yoke on each end that attached to the tiller and a turnbuckle in the middle to make steering adjustments as needed.

 

So here is what I came up with. The intermediate linkage and control rod. Again, I used small aluminum tubing for the yokes and turnbuckle.

Then the control lines were made from rope and secured to the outboard sides of the tiller. The pullies were made from spare deadeyes that were covered to conceal the three holes in them. All in all, I am completely satisfied with the way this turned out.

 

The last little detail that I was able to get completed this time around were the latches for the skylights. There is no photographic evidence of these latches, but there were several recovered from the wreck that are on display in the museum. I took a stab at where these would have been used, but logically thinking, something had to hold these skylights in the open position.

 

Starboard  aft skylight with latches installed.

Painted and installed.

 

Port skylight in the open position with the latches installed.

Port midship skylight in the open position showing the latches holding the hatch open.

 

Starboard midship hatch in the closed position.

 

Well that is all I have for this update. December 12th is fast approaching and my checklist of things to finish is getting shorter. Most of them are small details that are really not photograph worthy (paint touch-ups and weathering), but I'll take pictures of anything that would be of interest. I need to research what the forward pennant looked like (many of the contemporary photographs show these boats flying one, but unfortunately they are all blurry). Once I find the correct one, I'll get it printed out and installed as well as the 34-star Ensign. I have read several methods on MSW as to how to make realistic looking flags, I am going to experiment with a few of them and see which one I like best.

 

Until next time, thank you all for the encouragement, kind words and likes and for just stopping by and taking a look at my build. Stay safe and healthy.

 

-Brian

Edited November 8, 2022 by mbp521

[KeithAug]

Fabulous Brian. I love the set of the windows on the side of the paddle wheel housing. It looks a bit like a building from Lord of the Rings. You made a particularly good job of modelling the ships dog, it is incredibly realistic.

Edited November 8, 2022 by KeithAug

[wefalck]

I can echo this ...

 

I don't know anything re. the practices in the USN and in particular their brown-water practices. However, in other navies, boats were often stored hanging from the davits, rather than on skids. There would be a sort of spar connecting the two davits that had a couple of soft bolsters attached around them against which the boats rested. The boats were pulled against these bolsters using flat straps (braided fancywork or canvas strips) going cross-wise from the top of the davit to the spar. The liftign tackles were hooked into chain slings that consisted of two parts: a vertical one to take the actual load and a +/- horizontal one to the stem- resp. stern-post to prevent the longitudinal swinging. There may have been some sort of long chain-link penetrating the tarpaulin covering the boat.

[Cathead]

Fantastic, Brian.

 

One quick thought on the tackles: for processing deer and other livestock, I use a singletree hooked to a block & tackle that allows me to raise and lower the animal easily. During deer season I leave this hanging so it's ready to use. However, I find that wind easily whips the tackle around and tangles it, creating an annoying task that I never get to until there's a carcass waiting below. These ironclads may never have encountered rough seas, but they sure as heck encountered high and whipping winds, and I'd suspect those tackles would get badly whipped around and tangled if left hanging like that. It's possible that could even cause damage; imagine a wooden block repeatedly slamming against an iron pole in gusty winds. And I think even a brown-water Navy vessel would want those boats quickly deployable.

 

So I think I'd suggesting finding a way to secure the lower end of those tackles somehow, to prevent wind-blown damage or tangling. For example, maybe a line or chain on the hook that draws back to a cleat or ring on the actual deck; this would also make it easier for crew to get to the tackle when needed (imagine climbing out onto that structure to grab onto a loose heavy block that's swinging around in the wind). Wefalck's idea of something that runs through the tarp could also be good, though I'm not sure how that works in a waterproof fashion.

 

Remember "loose lips sink ships"? How about "loose blocks create knocks"? Just a thought, you're welcome to reject. It's easy for the peanut gallery to suggest more work on someone else's model!

[wefalck]

Sometimes davits or anchor-cranes had a ringbolt in them or they stropped a rope with an eye-splice around them into which the hook was hooked and the tackle set taught - on a well-kept ship nothing dangles or bangs.

 

The ring reaching up through the tarpaulin was not my idea, but it was common practice as one can see on old photographs. The tarpaulin had to slots reaching half-way across the boat so that you could remove it wihout having to unhook the tackles (which would have been impossible anyway with the boat hanging on them). The slots were closed with an overlapping piece and laced up like a boot.

 

There is also no interest in keeping the boat completely dry. To the contrary, every now and than a couple of buckets of water were spread in them to keep the wood humid, otherwise it would shrink and the seams would open, making it leaking initially while in use. The tarpaulin was just there to keep dirt and excessive salt out and the equipment in or protected.

Edited November 8, 2022 by wefalck

[Lieste]

On 10/6/2022 at 1:52 PM, mbp521 said:

Thank you Keith. In pouring over all of the contemporary photos of these boats, I found that the outside decks were really quite busy, with plenty of tripping hazards. Especially the fore deck and fantail. I would venture to say that more than one sailor ended up in the water due to not paying attention to all of the ropes laying about. I've been on many museum ships and noticed that things were always stored away and tidy. Not having served in the Navy, I'm not sure if this is the way things were all the time on active ships, especially during wartime. Given the nature of the military, I would assume so. But, due to the limited number of photographs of the City Class Ironclads, they all seem to have a certain bit of clutter on the exposed decks so it's hard to tell if they kept the same standards at the time. 

 

The tripping line is to trip the anchor, not the seaman.
With the fluke biting in the bottom, and the cable running along the bottom, the initial pull of the cable when weighing anchor will tend to dig the flukes deeper, and if the bottom is shallow there may not be enough angle put on the hank to pull the flukes clear over a wide enough 'spread' to be able to hold that station. If instead of trying to solely pull the anchor from the hank, you trip the crown, the flukes come clear of the bottom, when intended and the anchor can be weighed more easily.

[Keith Black]

 Brian, what a amazing build holding true to the original Cairo. 

 

 On the Tennessee, how the ships boats were held in the davits seems to have been weather dependent.

 

 When the weather was fair the ships boats were uncovered and held with block and tackle.     When the weather was foul the ships boats were covered and held with canvas straps.  

 

[mbp521]

7 hours ago, KeithAug said:

Fabulous Brian. I love the set of the windows on the side of the paddle wheel housing. It looks a bit like a building from Lord of the Rings. You made a particularly good job of modelling the ships dog, it is incredibly realistic.

Thank you Keith. Now that you mention it, the wheelhouse does sort of resemble a Hobbit House, minus the grass covering of course.😁 The ships dog was quite the task, getting all that fur in place was extremely tedious.

 

-Brian

[mbp521]

5 hours ago, wefalck said:

There may have been some sort of long chain-link penetrating the tarpaulin covering the boat.

Eberhard, I had considered that method of of just running the tackle through the tarp and securing it to the rings, but the more I thought of it it seemed like a not very efficient way of launching the boats. The crew would have to unhook the tackle, to remove the tarp, then reinstall the tackle to maneuver the boats into launch position. Of course, I didn't take into consideration that the tarp could have been split and tied around the tackle at the penetration point and this could have quickly been unlaced and the tarp removed. Looks like there are several possibilities that I hadn't considered. Thank you so much for the input.

 

3 hours ago, Cathead said:

One quick thought on the tackles: for processing deer and other livestock, I use a singletree hooked to a block & tackle that allows me to raise and lower the animal easily. During deer season I leave this hanging so it's ready to use. However, I find that wind easily whips the tackle around and tangles it, creating an annoying task that I never get to until there's a carcass waiting below. These ironclads may never have encountered rough seas, but they sure as heck encountered high and whipping winds, and I'd suspect those tackles would get badly whipped around and tangled if left hanging like that. It's possible that could even cause damage; imagine a wooden block repeatedly slamming against an iron pole in gusty winds. And I think even a brown-water Navy vessel would want those boats quickly deployable.

Eric, that is a great analogy, and something I had not considered was the wind swinging the tackle around. I forget that the winds along the rivers could get a bit gusty and when storms hit, it only makes it worse. Several of the contemporary photos show the empty davits with the tackle hooked together at the bottom block and others show it secured to the bottom of the davit mounts like the two examples below. My dilemma is that I am not able to find any good photographs of the City-Class boats with their boats covered and stowed. I do agree that the tackle should be secured to prevent this from happening. It definitely helps to talk things out and get input on other possibilities. I tend to get tunnel vision at times when I am focused on a project and forget that there are other avenues to consider. I think I am going back to revisit the tackle and see if I can come up with a better method of stowing the loose tackle.

 

Tackle on the Cincinnati secured to the davit base.

 

Tackle on the St. Louis hooked together and hanging.

 

-Brian

[mbp521]

3 hours ago, wefalck said:

Sometimes davits or anchor-cranes had a ringbolt in them or they stropped a rope with an eye-splice around them into which the hook was hooked and the tackle set taught - on a well-kept ship nothing dangles or bangs.

 

The ring reaching up through the tarpaulin was not my idea, but it was common practice as one can see on old photographs. The tarpaulin had to slots reaching half-way across the boat so that you could remove it wihout having to unhook the tackles (which would have been impossible anyway with the boat hanging on them). The slots were closed with an overlapping piece and laced up like a boot.

 

There is also no interest in keeping the boat completely dry. To the contrary, every now and than a couple of buckets of water were spread in them to keep the wood humid, otherwise it would shrink and the seams would open, making it leaking initially while in use. The tarpaulin was just there to keep dirt and excessive salt out and the equipment in or protected.

Eberhard, apologies for the redundancy. I didn't refresh my screen before I submitted my last post and didn't see this reply. I think that the eye-splice around the davit itself would be the perfect method to store the loose tackle and one that I am considering going back in and installing. This will allow the tackle to be stowed neatly and keep me from having to redo my boat tarps. More to come on this shortly.

 

3 hours ago, Lieste said:

With the fluke biting in the bottom, and the cable running along the bottom, the initial pull of the cable when weighing anchor will tend to dig the flukes deeper, and if the bottom is shallow there may not be enough angle put on the hank to pull the flukes clear over a wide enough 'spread' to be able to hold that station. If instead of trying to solely pull the anchor from the hank, you trip the crown, the flukes come clear of the bottom, when intended and the anchor can be weighed more easily.

Lieste, thank you for the insight into anchor operations. I had no idea that there was so much involved with setting them. I thought the anchor was dropped overboard and once it hit the bottom, the wind or the current would set the fluke into the bottom and hold the ship in place. This is just going off my limited knowledge of small craft when I go fishing. Toss the anchor overboard and hope it hooks on something to hold me in place, then pray it doesn't get snagged on a submerged stump or something.

 

2 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Brian, what a amazing build holding true to the original Cairo. 

 

 On the Tennessee, how the ships boats were held in the davits seems to have been weather dependent.

 

When the weather was fair the ships boats were uncovered and held with block and tackle.     When the weather was foul the ships boats were covered and held with canvas straps.

Thank you Keith for the kind words and the examples. When I started this build I had just intended to show all the boats covered like many of the models of the Cairo I had seen. As I progressed through the build and really got into the details of the boat, l decided that I wanted to show the boats in different stages of launch and storage. One of the things that I had not thought of as I was building them was how would they be stowed if they were covered and none of the models out there have that much detail in them. I was studying the pictures that you posted and realized that there is really a lot more to it. While the davit operation on the Tennessee was a bit different than the Cairo, I would think that the stowed methods would be similar. This would probably explain why almost all photographs of the City-Class ironclads show the boats uncovered, because the weather was good when the picture was taken. It was either that, or they never did cover any of the boats to begin with (but I doubt that).😁

 

-Brian

Edited November 8, 2022 by mbp521

[wefalck]

Cover or not cover certainly depends on the kind of weather/climate encountered. As noted above, you want to keep the wood humid in order keep the boats serviceable at any moment. On the other hand excessive water in the boats (although there would be a draining plug in the bottom - cf. the well-know sea shanty) could lead to rot, particularly in a freshwater environment. Conversely, a hot and dry semi-tropical climate would lead to bleaching and cracking of the wood and any paint on it. So in more extreme climates you may need to protect the boats.

 

In the first pictures of USS TENNESSEE shown above, you can see the spar (minus the bolsters) I mentioned earlier. In fact, on rigged ships, these spars may have doubled as reserve-spars.

 

If I understand the topology of USS CAIRO correctly, than the davits would need to be turned in order to swing out the boats. You probably would need stays to steady the davits, leading from a horizontal eybolt in their tops to somewhere on the ship. There may be also a stay between the the davits, which helps to steady them in the secured position and to co-ordinate their movement, when swinging out the boats. Sometimes a number of knotted ropes werer hung from them to allow the crew to descend more easily into the boats. When the tarpaulin was on, they would be coiled and tied together.

 

 

[mbp521]

43 minutes ago, wefalck said:

If I understand the topology of USS CAIRO correctly, than the davits would need to be turned in order to swing out the boats. You probably would need stays to steady the davits, leading from a horizontal eybolt in their tops to somewhere on the ship. There may be also a stay between the the davits, which helps to steady them in the secured position and to co-ordinate their movement, when swinging out the boats. Sometimes a number of knotted ropes werer hung from them to allow the crew to descend more easily into the boats. When the tarpaulin was on, they would be coiled and tied together.

The launching of the boats from these ironclads seems to be a bit cumbersome. Since the boats were longer than the area between the davits, the crew would have to first swing the davits forward (or aft) to clear the bow (or stern) of the respective davit. They would then pivot the cleared davit outboard and swing the boat the opposite direction to clear the second davit. Both davits would have to be rotated 180 degrees to launch the boats. I guess that's why later on some of the modifications, like this one on the Louisville, changed the davit configuration to a more efficient way of launching them.

 

58 minutes ago, wefalck said:

In the first pictures of USS TENNESSEE shown above, you can see the spar (minus the bolsters) I mentioned earlier. In fact, on rigged ships, these spars may have doubled as reserve-spars.

I now understand what you were referring to with this. Took me a bit, but I think I got it. I went back and looked at some of the photos and found this on the St. Louis. It looks like there were ropes that ran between the rings at the tops of the davits that kept them at a uniform distance, They also could have been used to control the swing of the davit when rotating them inboard and outboard. I'll need to go back and revisit this and see what I can dig up. It might be a worthy addition that I missed.

-Brian

 

[wefalck]

Indeed, that's what I meant.

 

It is normal, that the distance between the davits is smaller than the length of the boats, because such heavy boats have to be suspended from their backbone, the keel, rather than the stem- and stern-posts. This procedure of swinging the boats first backward and then outward was standard procedure, described in instruction manuals of the time.