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

[Roger Pellett]

Brian,

 

Doing the research, figuring out the building process, and sticking with the project through completion is a huge part of scratch building.  Without a compelling personal story it is easy to get sidetracked and the uncompleted model gathers dust.  Thanks for sharing your story.

 

Roger

[KentM]

I see you are listed as Far North Texas.  I live in Frisco.  Looks like an interesting build which I will watch.

[mbp521]

Kent,

 

Welcome aboard, glad to have you following along. 
 

Frisco huh? I’m about 45 due north of you on Lake Texoma. 

 

-Brian

[mtaylor]

Brian,

Don't apologize for the reasons you're building her.  You found something to be passionate about and will drive you.  The one thing I've learned and it applies to other things in life as it does model building.... Find the passion or the reason to build it.  

[dcicero]

Brian:

 

I've with everyone else on this.  Thanks for the history lesson and your passion for the subject will keep you interested through a long build.  One of these days, I'm going to try my hand at Cairo or a similar vessel myself.  The naval side of the Civil War is overshadowed by the land war, but there's plenty there for the modeler, lots of technical innovation and experimentation, some of which worked out and some of which didn't.

 

 

Dan

[mbp521]

Dan,

 

Thank you for the words of encouragement, and I hope to one day follow your build of the Cairo. 
 

9 hours ago, dcicero said:

The naval side of the Civil War is overshadowed by the land war, but there's plenty there for the modeler, lots of technical innovation and experimentation, some of which worked out and some of which didn't.

You hit the nail on the head with this one, there was some serious experimentation going on with these boats. Given the fact that they just had 100 days to provide seven ships, there had to be major trial and error going on.  
 

Just a couple of examples would be, like one of our previous discussions in this log, the rudder placement and the lack of control of these boats. While the design of these boats was based on the standard stern wheel steamers, many alterations were made to try and protect the mechanical features from enemy fire like moving the paddle wheel forward and under the structure, armor plating etc. I’m sure the builders didn’t have much time for test runs and left it to the Army for shakedown testing. 
 

Another example would be the armament. These boats originally just had flat armor plating on the front, aft and sides (as well as the pilot house) when they left the shipyards. The function of the side plating was just to protect the boilers and that was about it. The crews felt this was not enough and came back and placed the additional armor forward and aft of the side plates using salvaged railroad irons. This holds true for Cairo, I’m not 100% sure of her sister ships. It’s really hard to tell from the old photographs if they all had this additional armor and I have not done extensive research on the other six to be sure. Through my reading though, there were many alterations done to them over time, unfortunately Cairo’s life span wasn’t long enough to get the chance to see many of these alterations. 
 

-Brian

[Roger Pellett]

A very serious discrepancy was a lack of armor on horizontal surfaces.  Where the Confederates had located forts on high bluffs, several boats were disabled by plunging fire that hit boiler steam drums.  This was not a problem unique to the gunboats.  Fifty years later ( and still later with HMS Hood in 1941) the Royal Navy was still confronted with inadequately protected horizontal surfaces.

 

Roger

[mbp521]

Hello again everyone,

 

Update time.

 

So it's been a pretty productive week, I started working on the boiler.

 

First thing I did was cut five 3/4" dowels, 6" long for the boiler tubes. To simulate the rivets, I used some aluminum foil tape I had laying around. Using a ponce wheel, I ran the wheel on the paper side to give the 3-dimensional look of the rivets. I then cut these into strips and wrapped them around the boiler tubes.

 

Simulating the rivets.

 

Strips wrapped around the tubes.

 

It was at this point that I figured out that I was going about this all wrong. I was making this way too hard on myself. So after rethinking the process, I decided to just wrap the entire boiler tube with the tape and create all the rivets at once.

 

This was the result.

 

Much easier and quicker. Next step was to create the steam drum using the same wrapping process.

 

First I drilled out the holes for the connector pipes and pressure relief valves.

 

Then installed the steam drum. The steam drum was made from a 1/2" dowel cut 4" long

 

Next I simulated the mounting flanges for the steam drum and pressure relief valves.

 

 

Then it was time for a test fit in the hold.

 

Work then began on the flume and furnace doors.

 

Simulated rivets for the flume.

 

Work on the furnace doors.

 

Taking Eric's advice I went ahead and printed the bricks for the boiler floor. After careful consideration, I determined that hardly any of this will be seen at all so I went ahead and just used the printed pattern for the entire floor, including the ash pit. 

 

 

Another test fit and all looks to line up pretty good.

 

 

Now time to load up the coal bunkers. I used some modeling clay for the form and pressed some medium grain Talus for the coal.

 

Some of the loose fill I held in place with some watered down PVA.

 

Next, build up and installation of the pressure relief valves.

 

Finally I installed the port and starboard coal bunker doors, got the boilers painted flat black and then dry-brushed the assembly white to highlight the rivets and other features.

 

Next on the build agenda will be paint up the coal once the PVA dries, build the boiler supports and the engine mounts. 

 

That's all for now, Thank you all for looking and the likes.

 

-Brian

 

 

[Nunnehi (Don)]

Brian,

 

Excellent work! I’m really enjoying following your build!

 

Don

[Keith Black]

Brian, very realistic, beautiful work. 

[Roger Pellett]

Looks first Class!

 

[Cathead]

That's beautiful.

[dcicero]

Spectacular!

 

Maybe someday I can take on a project like this, but in the meantime, I'm just going to enjoy the work vicariously.

 

Your construction of the boiler system reminds me of an incident aboard USS Mound City, a sister ship to Cairo, during an expedition up the White River in Arkansas.  The goal was to knock out a river battery at St. Charles, AR.  Here's how that went.

 

"As the Mound City moved forward...she fired several shells, but the Confederates stayed quiet, well hidden in the trees and brush.  AT 8:45 AM [June 17, 1862], Colonel Graham Fitch and his 46th Indiana were landed and proceeded up the left bank toward the bluff.  Soon his skirmishers encountered Williams' men, and with the first Confederate positions pinpointed, the gunboarts opens with a heavy fire of grape and canister that forced Williams and his men to fall back.  Fry's light guns now joined the fight and at 10 AM, Dunnington opened up with his battery.  Kilty soon silenced Fry's lower battery and moved the Mound City to within two hundred yards of Dunnington's battery.  By this time Fitch's men were in position to storm the meager defenses, but Kilty told him not to risk his men; the Mound City would silence the guns.

 

As the Mound City passed the lower battery, Kilty ordered his men below to avoid the small arms fire from Confederate sharpshooters.  Suddenly "there was a crack,' a rushing sound, and an awful crash."  Commander KIlty had just opened the trapdoor to the gun deck and was shouting orders when a blast of live steam came rushing into the pilothouse.  Kilty was thrown back and the pilot, blinded by the steam, fell through the opening to the steam-filled gun deck.  One of Dunnington's shots from the rifled 32-pounder had penetrated the port casemate, tearing through four men; passed through the steam drum and heater; then lodged in the seerage cupboard.

 

As steam enveloped the Mound City, men frantically tried to escape by jumping overboard.  Rebel sharpshooters on the banks began firing at the scalded men desperately trying to save themselves.

 

...

 

The Mound City's plight brought a quick repsones from Colonel Fitch and the other gunboats.  Fitch ordered the gunboats to cease fire, then charged the enemy positions.  Lt. George M. Blodgett, in the meantime, brought the Conestoga alongside and secured a line to the Mound City's stern, then began to tow her downriver.  As Fitch's men overran the Southerners, cutters from the other boats were lowered to rescue as many survivors as possible.

 

The Mound City was towed downriver about a mile and secured to the bank, after which the Conestoga's bluejackets entered the casemate.  They were shocked at what they found.  The scene was described by the correspondent from the Cincinnati Commercial:

 

Here lay the bodies of some 20 men scalded to death, others with their mangled bodies severed asunder by the fatal shot.  The gun deck was literally strewn with from 75 to 80 others, who, being badly scalded and horribly disfigured, were tearing off their clothing and long strings of bleeding flesh hangling from their finger ends, hands, arms, and lacerated bodies, and with eyes burnt out and closed, crying out for "Help, help -- water, give me water, water -- save me.  Oh God, save me, save me.  Oh!  kill me, shoot me.  Oh, do end my misery.  Doctor will I live?  Tell my wife how I died," and numerous pitiful exclamations and pathetic appeals of this character.  The features of all were wonderfully distorted.  Many could not be recognized by their most intimate friends."

 

Every time I've visited USS Cairo and looked at that steam drum and the single steam outlet in the center of it, which branches to the two engines, I think of USS Mound City and the living hell aboard her when that shot penetrated the steam drum and let loose 140 psig (9.7 bar, 361°F, 183°C) steam into that confined space, with nowhere to run.  It's just horrifying.  That's what combat was like in these western river gunboats and they saw a lot of it.  Mound City wasn't taken out of action by this.  She was back in action at Vicksburg, Grand Gulf and the Red River Expedition in May 1864.  She was sold in November 1865 and broken up in 1866.

 

That account, by the way, is in another really great book, Ironclad Captain:  Seth Ledyard Phelps and the U.S. Navy, 1841 - 1864 by Jay Slagle (Kent State University Press, 1996).

 

And if you're ever in St. Charles, AR, you can see a monument to the action.

 

 

According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, "its inscriptions commemorate the 148 Union soldiers who died in the explosion of the USS Mound City, caused by what is sometimes described as the single deadliest shot fired in the entire Civil War. Inscriptions on another side memorialize the smaller number of Confederate dead in the engagement. The monument was placed in 1919 through the efforts of a relative of William Hickman Harte, the master on board the Mound City who died in the explosion, and is one of the few memorials placed in a Confederate state by a northerner in commemoration of both Union and Confederate war dead."

 

 

Dan

[FriedClams]

Fantastic work on the boiler Brian!  I like your technique on the rivets and the dry-brushing highlights them nicely.  Wonderful result.

 

Gary

[Kevin]

love the boiler work Brain, this is going to look fantastic when finished 

[mbp521]

Thank you all for the kind comments!

 

Dan, excellent history lesson. I would say that that was one lucky shot that crippled the Mound City. One of the major drawbacks and hazards of the City Class iron clads (and I would speculate other classes as well) was the lack of escape routes in the event of a boiler rupture. I can only imagine what those men went through. Those lucky enough to make it through the gun ports faced enemy snipers while the others were basically boiled alive. Unthinkable horrors of war. 

 

-Brian 

[dcicero]

Not a lot of thought given to crew comfort in those ironclads, Brian.

 

You'd made a point earlier about armor plating and I swear I'd read that armor was added to the forward casemate and pilothouse in light of battle experience.  As I recall, after actions up the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers -- Forts Henry and Donaldson and Fort Pillow -- the need for that armor was clear.  The boats would form up in line abreast, with only their forward guns bearing on the enemy batteries.  They took a lot of punishment from directly ahead because of that and needed to beef up that armor.  I believe Cairo's pilothouse was modified like that and I seem to remember seeing that extra armor on the pilothouse when visiting, but I looked around last night to try to find the reference for that and couldn't.  Drove me nuts.  I can usually lay my hands on a reference like that without any trouble, but not this time.

 

I do know the forward casemate armor was beefed up over the original plans and that was done prior to any of the boats going into action.  I even found a reference to proofing trials of that armor and it was found to be completely acceptable.  Those trials were done at Cairo, IL.

 

 

Dan

[mbp521]

31 minutes ago, dcicero said:

Not a lot of thought given to crew comfort in those ironclads, Brian.

 

You'd made a point earlier about armor plating and I swear I'd read that armor was added to the forward casemate and pilothouse in light of battle experience.  As I recall, after actions up the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers -- Forts Henry and Donaldson and Fort Pillow -- the need for that armor was clear.  The boats would form up in line abreast, with only their forward guns bearing on the enemy batteries.  They took a lot of punishment from directly ahead because of that and needed to beef up that armor.  I believe Cairo's pilothouse was modified like that and I seem to remember seeing that extra armor on the pilothouse when visiting, but I looked around last night to try to find the reference for that and couldn't.  Drove me nuts.  I can usually lay my hands on a reference like that without any trouble, but not this time.

 

I do know the forward casemate armor was beefed up over the original plans and that was done prior to any of the boats going into action.  I even found a reference to proofing trials of that armor and it was found to be completely acceptable.  Those trials were done at Cairo, IL.

 

 

Dan

Dan, How right you are, no creature comforts at all, with the exception of maybe the officers quarters. Of course even they had to deal with the heat and the constant churning of the paddle wheel and the engines. Still better than the enlisted crew had it. Sleeping in hammocks below deck having to deal with the heat and on deck with the mosquitoes. And as anyone from the Western Rivers region can attest, the mosquitoes can be horrible.

 

I seem to recall reading the same thing about the armor upgrades and I believe that it was at the Cairo museum. If I remember correctly, all of the interlocking flat armor on the forward and side casemates was original (well in place when they were delivered to the Army. The upgrades with the railroad irons was the later addition as they proved that the 12" thick oak planks on the side was just not enough. I do not recall as to whether or not the aft casemates were armored. I would think that they were, but I'm not 100%. I will need to do little more digging when I get to that point in my build.

 

The pilothouse was definitely armor plated. Here are some pictures of it from my visit there a few years back. I also recall from my research that several skilled Confederate sharpshooters took out some of the pilots of these boats by taking a perfectly aimed shot through the portals in the armor. 

 

 

I know that most of the surface damage on these plates was due to rusting, but I can't help but think that some of it may be from bullets and cannon balls.

 

-Brian

[mtaylor]

The Union had given thought armoring the upper areas after the battle at Fort Donaldson.   There, the cannons were up high and shooting down at the boats.  The Union was cranking out gun boats pretty fast, all things considered, and some of them never were upgraded due to the pressures of war while the South built some ironclads, they converted far more to wood clads and cotton clads.

[Vladimir_Wairoa]

On 8/11/2020 at 12:10 AM, mbp521 said:

Hello again everyone,

 

Update time.

 

So it's been a pretty productive week, I started working on the boiler.

 

First thing I did was cut five 3/4" dowels, 6" long for the boiler tubes. To simulate the rivets, I used some aluminum foil tape I had laying around. Using a ponce wheel, I ran the wheel on the paper side to give the 3-dimensional look of the rivets. I then cut these into strips and wrapped them around the boiler tubes.

 

Simulating the rivets.

 

Strips wrapped around the tubes.

 

It was at this point that I figured out that I was going about this all wrong. I was making this way too hard on myself. So after rethinking the process, I decided to just wrap the entire boiler tube with the tape and create all the rivets at once.

 

This was the result.

 

Much easier and quicker. Next step was to create the steam drum using the same wrapping process.

 

First I drilled out the holes for the connector pipes and pressure relief valves.

 

Then installed the steam drum. The steam drum was made from a 1/2" dowel cut 4" long

 

Next I simulated the mounting flanges for the steam drum and pressure relief valves.

 

 

Then it was time for a test fit in the hold.

 

Work then began on the flume and furnace doors.

 

Simulated rivets for the flume.

 

Work on the furnace doors.

 

Taking Eric's advice I went ahead and printed the bricks for the boiler floor. After careful consideration, I determined that hardly any of this will be seen at all so I went ahead and just used the printed pattern for the entire floor, including the ash pit. 

 

 

Another test fit and all looks to line up pretty good.

 

 

Now time to load up the coal bunkers. I used some modeling clay for the form and pressed some medium grain Talus for the coal.

 

Some of the loose fill I held in place with some watered down PVA.

 

Next, build up and installation of the pressure relief valves.

 

Finally I installed the port and starboard coal bunker doors, got the boilers painted flat black and then dry-brushed the assembly white to highlight the rivets and other features.

 

Next on the build agenda will be paint up the coal once the PVA dries, build the boiler supports and the engine mounts. 

 

That's all for now, Thank you all for looking and the likes.

 

-Brian

 

 

Fantastic work on riveting, excelent . V.

[mbp521]

It has finally arrived. Not sure how I ever made it without this book. What a wealth of information packed into it. 

 

 

-Brian

[vaddoc]

Brian, this is a truly fascinating log, just managed to catch up. The American civil war history is largely unknown to most Europeans, blending the building of the boat with the historical circumstances around it makes a most interesting read. 

By the way sir, your boiler room looks fantastic!

Lovely work

[mbp521]

Vaddoc,

 

Thank you for the kind compliments. The American Civil War is truly an interesting subject. A subject that I was really into when I was younger.
 

As I grew up, my interest in it kind of faded away (once girls and cars came along). Then I was fortunate enough to get deployed to the UK during the Gulf War and that’s where the real history is. Not downplaying American history, it’s just that Europe has a lot more of it. I spent a lot of my spare time while I was there exploring historical sites and taking every opportunity to go where Uncle Sam would send me throughout Europe and Southwest Asia. 
 

It wasn’t until a few years ago when we visiting Vicksburg again that my interest in the Civil War was renewed. But you are correct, the build log coupled with the history behind the ship, definitely helps to keep it interesting. 
 

-Brian

[ccoyle]

4 minutes ago, mbp521 said:

visiting Vicksburg again

My 3x-great grandfather was with the 39th Georgia at Vicksburg. He was captured and paroled, then later wounded during the Atlanta campaign and discharged for disability. His son's family emigrated to Parker County, Texas.

[mbp521]

3 hours ago, ccoyle said:

My 3x-great grandfather was with the 39th Georgia at Vicksburg. He was captured and paroled, then later wounded during the Atlanta campaign and discharged for disability. His son's family emigrated to Parker County, Texas.

Very interesting history, good to see that he was able to survive and prosper after such a devastating war. I have relatives out in Parker County as well.
 

Most of my family immigrated from France and Ireland in the mid 1880’s and settled in Louisiana, so I have no Civil War history there. But it’s great to hear about those that have. 
 

-Brian

[mbp521]

Hello again everyone, 

 

So it has been a very unproductive productive week or so.

 

I started working on the engines last week and got them about halfway built when I started to realize that they just weren't looking the way that I wanted them to. Unfortunately there are no real good detailed drawings of them (the HSR drawings are somewhat useful but are still a little lacking in details), so I am having to rely on photos of the actual Cairo and other builds to get an idea of the shape and reasonable size of them.

 

Working off the photos is tough given that everything is painted black and doesn't show a lot of depth.

 

So I gave it a shot to see what my first version would look like.

 

I started with the bottom support rails. The width was pretty easy to figure out since the HSR Gun Deck Plan drawings have them in place and since I have the plans scaled to 1:48 I could get this part close.

 

I then turned down and carved the connecting yokes. 

 

Then using 3 different size dowels I made up the steam drums and piston rods and laid out the assembly.

 

It was here that I started to think that they just weren't looking correctly proportioned. So I decided to work on other features and figured I'll circle back to these when I can get a better understanding of the size proportions between the assemblies.

 

So I decided to start work on the support pillars for the engines and paddle wheel. These were a little easier to figure out. The hardest part of this was getting the height position of the paddle wheel and the correct angle of the timbers.

 

These are the ones from the actual boat. Although they are not original, they gave me a general idea of how they were constructed.

 

These are my versions.

 

These are all just dry fit for now. I am waiting on another order of scale lumber to complete some of the interior walls. Once I have those in place can get everything glued down.

 

Next, to stall for time while still pondering my engine dilemma, I decided to get the toe boards in place for the crew quarters. 

 

Starboard quarters.

 

Port quarters.

 

Lastly I finished installing all of the hatch covers and cut out the rough version of the Pittman arm wooden inserts. These will be used a rough draft for now until I can get the engine situation straightened out. I just wanted to see what it was going to take to get these carved out.

 

Pittman arms.

 

And how she sits now (pardon my foot photo-bombing the picture). I removed the boilers and set them aside so they wouldn't get dinged up while working on the other features. I still need to get the boiler hold painted with a whitewash and touch up the coal, but I'll get there.

 

 

Doesn't look like very much right now, but soon I will start going vertical and it will then begin to look a little more like a gunboat instead of a barge.

 

That's all for now. Thanks for taking the time to visit.

 

-Brian

[Cathead]

Looks so good. One detail I love in original steamboat engine timbers is the scarph joints between the timbers (both between the horizontal timbers and between the slanted timber and the angled surface below it). It'd be really hard to do right in a model and would barely by seen, but it makes a lot of sense for strengthening the original assembly for the pounding it took from engine operation. You can see these in your photo above and on the Arabia's timbers as well:

 

 

[mbp521]

Eric,

 

I did notice this little detail and really thought about adding it, but it was just one of those that I decided to forgo since it is not going to hardly be seen at all.

I am glad that you showed me the Arabia pics though. Part of the reason I decided against doing the scarps joints was that I wasn’t 100% sure that was original or just built that way on the restoration since a lot of the original timbers were missing. 

 

l guess I need to stay consistent when deciding what details to add and what not to. Mostly depends on the mood I’m in at the time I’m building it. 
 

-Brian

[BANYAN]

Just caught up with your log Brain; congratulations on a very fine build - especially noting this is your first scratch build.

 

Looking forward to seeing your progress.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Vladimir_Wairoa]

On 8/24/2020 at 8:31 PM, mbp521 said:

Hello again everyone, 

 

So it has been a very unproductive productive week or so.

 

I started working on the engines last week and got them about halfway built when I started to realize that they just weren't looking the way that I wanted them to. Unfortunately there are no real good detailed drawings of them (the HSR drawings are somewhat useful but are still a little lacking in details), so I am having to rely on photos of the actual Cairo and other builds to get an idea of the shape and reasonable size of them.

 

Working off the photos is tough given that everything is painted black and doesn't show a lot of depth.

 

So I gave it a shot to see what my first version would look like.

 

I started with the bottom support rails. The width was pretty easy to figure out since the HSR Gun Deck Plan drawings have them in place and since I have the plans scaled to 1:48 I could get this part close.

 

I then turned down and carved the connecting yokes. 

 

Then using 3 different size dowels I made up the steam drums and piston rods and laid out the assembly.

 

It was here that I started to think that they just weren't looking correctly proportioned. So I decided to work on other features and figured I'll circle back to these when I can get a better understanding of the size proportions between the assemblies.

 

So I decided to start work on the support pillars for the engines and paddle wheel. These were a little easier to figure out. The hardest part of this was getting the height position of the paddle wheel and the correct angle of the timbers.

 

These are the ones from the actual boat. Although they are not original, they gave me a general idea of how they were constructed.

 

These are my versions.

 

These are all just dry fit for now. I am waiting on another order of scale lumber to complete some of the interior walls. Once I have those in place can get everything glued down.

 

Next, to stall for time while still pondering my engine dilemma, I decided to get the toe boards in place for the crew quarters. 

 

Starboard quarters.

 

Port quarters.

 

Lastly I finished installing all of the hatch covers and cut out the rough version of the Pittman arm wooden inserts. These will be used a rough draft for now until I can get the engine situation straightened out. I just wanted to see what it was going to take to get these carved out.

 

Pittman arms.

 

And how she sits now (pardon my foot photo-bombing the picture). I removed the boilers and set them aside so they wouldn't get dinged up while working on the other features. I still need to get the boiler hold painted with a whitewash and touch up the coal, but I'll get there.

 

 

Doesn't look like very much right now, but soon I will start going vertical and it will then begin to look a little more like a gunboat instead of a barge.

 

That's all for now. Thanks for taking the time to visit.

 

-Brian

Very nice work Brian. Vlad