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

[mbp521]

2 hours ago, FriedClams said:

Nice update Brian.  Extremely clean and well executed work as we have all come to expect.

 

 It is reassuring to know that I am not alone in this.  I have modeled myself into a corner more than once.

 

And aren't 1-2-3 blocks the handiest things?

 

Gary 

Thank you Gary. I guess that is one of the fun challenges of scratch builds, finding a way to get yourself out of that corner. 
 

As for the 1-2-3 blocks, I picked these up a couple of months ago and I can’t figure out how I ever got along without them. They are indeed handy tools to have around. 
 

-Brian

[Cathead]

Whaddaya mean, "you hope you'll have more next time"? That's a huge dump of fantastic work.

[Canute]

Don't stint yourself. You've got a great build going here. Keep on truckin'.

[mbp521]

On 4/23/2021 at 5:37 PM, Cathead said:

Whaddaya mean, "you hope you'll have more next time"? That's a huge dump of fantastic work.

 

 

On 4/24/2021 at 10:43 AM, Canute said:

Don't stint yourself. You've got a great build going here. Keep on truckin'.

Eric/Ken, I guess it was a poor choice of words. Just to me all the “fiddly bits” of this build don’t substantiate to much until they are actually placed on the boat. But I guess if I look back on it I was a little productive since my last update. I have a whole shelf with the cannon carriages, ammo crates, cannon implements and various other odds-n-ends just waiting to be installed, just getting a bit anxious to see them in place I suppose. 

 

-Brian

[Smile-n-Nod]

In the phrase "USS Cairo HSR", what does "HSR" mean?. 

 

(Side note: when I searched for "HSR" on this site, I got 0 hits, even though "HSR" is used in this thread.) 

Edited April 30, 2021 by Smile-n-Nod

[mbp521]

14 minutes ago, Smile-n-Nod said:

In the phrase "USS Cairo HSR", what does "HSR" mean?. 

 

(Side note: when I searched for "HSR" on this site, I got 0 hits, even though "HSR" is used in this thread.) 

Brett,

 

Thanks for stopping by. Good to see another fellow Texan on here.

 

HSR stands for the Historic Structure Report. This is a document that the National Park Service made available on their website. It contains detailed information on the salvage and reconstruction of the Cairo, her permanent berth structure, and numerous detailed drawings of what she looked like after she was rebuilt. These drawings are what I am mostly basing this build off of. If you wan to take a look at them, the PDF can be downloaded from the NPS website: https://www.nps.gov/archeology/sites/subcul1.htm just scroll down to Mississippi and select the USS Cairo Historic Structure Report.

 

-Brian

[mbp521]

On 8/11/2020 at 7:17 AM, 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,

 

I was going back through my build log looking for something I had previously posted when I ran across this post. I know that it has been a while since you posted it, but I believe the info that you are referencing about the modifications to the armor plating was noted in the "Hardluck Ironclad: The Sinking and Salvage of the Cairo" by Edwin C. Bearss. I read this book a couple of months ago and I remembered that he writes about the testing of the plating at the Cairo, IL shipyard where the test fired cannon balls into the plating from across the river.

 

Bearss also discusses where Lieutenant Bryant of the Cairo had the addition of another course of Oak planks and plating on the forward three surfaces of the pilot house for extra protection after Flag Officer Foote was injured when the Louisville and St. Louis pilothouses were damaged during battle at Fort Donelson. This is the reason for its odd shape. Originally designed as octagonal, the additional forward plating change its look. It was also at this time where the viewport flaps were added to the protect the pilots from sniper fire.

 

As for the railroad iron being added to the forward casemates, this came about from the Cincinnati being rammed by the Confederate gunboat General Bragg by her starboard paddlewheel during action off Plumb Point. The General Braggs paddlewheel had sideswiped the Cincinnati and climbed the casemate ripping timbers above and below the waterline near her bow. This prompted the Federals to make serious adjustments to protect the boats during frontal assaults. Scrap and captured railroad irons were fashioned to the casemates just forward of the front port and starboard guns for this added protection. Bearss does not say whether all of the City Class boats received this upgrade, but does state that the Cincinnati received it during her repairs after she was raised, and the Cairo definitely had them since they were attached during her salvage.

 

I am still not able to find any documentation on whether or not the aft casemate was armored. The designs called for it but there are no resources that say that it was installed. None of the pictures of any of the boats show this and there is no evidence of the Cairo having it either since this section of the boat was lost during the recovery efforts. So without having any info on it, I m not going to armor plated the aft casemate.

 

-Brian

[Ras Ambrioso]

Brian:

Today I started to follow your built and I am overwhelm by you attention to detail and the history lesson that your build has. I am on page three of your build and will keep reading and learning from you. You have developed some really interesting techniques hat I will  certainly applied to my own builds. Kudos to you.

 

Ras

[mbp521]

1 hour ago, Ras Ambrioso said:

Brian:

Today I started to follow your built and I am overwhelm by you attention to detail and the history lesson that your build has. I am on page three of your build and will keep reading and learning from you. You have developed some really interesting techniques hat I will  certainly applied to my own builds. Kudos to you.

 

Ras

Ras,

 

Thank you for the kind words and welcome to my build. Glad to have you aboard!

 

This is a learning experience for me, and over the past year I have definitely learned a lot! Not just about the Cairo itself, but Civil War history as well. There have been several people point me in the direction of fantastic books about the western theater of this war that have just fueled my interest in it. 

 

I am glad to see that some of my techniques will be of some use, that is one of the best things about this forum, is the willingness of everyone to pass along tidbits of information that make this hobby most enjoyable. 

 

I hope you find the rest of the build log as interesting as the first three pages. I should have more updates coming in the next week or so.

 

-Brian

[mbp521]

Hello again Everyone,

 

I have returned with a brief update. We have been dealing with the loss of my father-in-law a couple of weeks ago and have been out of town getting funeral arrangements and other things straightened out so there has not been a whole lot done lately, but I wanted to get something out there to keep the build log rolling.

 

For this update I was able to get the hull painted with another coat of red oxide and a touch of black. I needed a third or fourth (I forget how many coats I previously put on it) red to hide some minor blemishes that occurred moving the model around on my bench. No major damage, just a few nicks. Once the red was dry, I sprayed on three coats of satin clear to give it a good finish. The clear coat also allows for a cleaner, crisper line when taping and painting the overlapping color.

 

Once all of that had dried, it was time to mark the waterline. Since there is no clear documentation on what color the hull actually was, I was also not able to determine where the actual waterline would have been. So once again, I took my builders liberties and decided that the waterline would be just below the armor plating that sits below the knuckle on the casemates. 

 

First coat of black applied. When I was uploading these, I realized once again that I forgot to take pictures of the progression. Sometimes I just get so involved with what I am doing that I totally space on the pictures.

 

Three coats of black and another three of clear satin.

 

Starboard side painted.

 

Overview of the hull bottom. The two holes just aft of the center keel are the pickup tubes for the Doctor pump. A little detail that I thought would be neat to add.

 

Bow bottom.

 

Stern bottom.

 

And finally the rudders painted in the same manner. These were a little trickier since I had to get the tape down in the plank grooves to prevent the black from bleeding over.

 

 

Next up was the railroad iron armor plating. I wrestled around with this feature for a while. I wanted to portray the irons as accurately as possible and had first thought about using actual HO scale railroad pieces. I had a few pieces from way back when that I managed to scrounge up, but not nearly enough to complete the job. I made a couple of test runs with it but the brass was to rigid to get it to form with the contour of the casemate. I also figured that I would have a difficult time getting the glue to hold the brass rails in place. The final straw was when I went online to see what the cost would be to find someone selling old pieces of track and found out that this was not a cheap alternative. I know you can't put a price on a quality build, but the line has to be drawn somewhere.  So finally I decided that I would use Styrene plastic strips for the railroad irons instead. I settled on the 2mm x 2mm strips which were the measurements of the brass HO scale railroad tracks. Since these would be placed side by side and only the flat end of the iron shown on top and the ends visible, I decided to just shape each end of each iron to give the appearance of the I-shaped irons. 

 

 

First row of irons going in on the port side.

 

Starboard side irons in place and marked up for the bolts.

 

Port side going in.

 

Port side installed. This armor plating was done as an after thought, and a brief history of why is in my previous post #247. Since they were added later on and according to records, most of the work was done by the crew, then they would have been done quick and cheap to get the boats back into action as soon as possible. Since this was the case, I would venture to say that not a lot of effort was put into looks and more into functionality, so care would probably not been take to make sure that all of the irons were laid perfectly flat and even. I tried to replicate this when placing each strip so that they were not perfect. This can also be seen on the actual boat display, albeit the Irons could have been misshapen during the salvage operation. Either way, I wanted to make them look like they were done in a hurry. I'm sure that they won't be as obvious once they have been painted.

 

The look that I was going for.

 

Next up was placing the bolts to hold the irons in place. For these I used tiny brass nails with their heads clipped and filed square to simulate the square bolts and plates used on the actual boat. First few as a test run.

 

The rest of the holes marked a drilling them out.

 

All of the bolts in place on both sides.

 

During the installation of the railroad irons I found a mistake that I made during the construction of the forward casemates. I didn't quite get the angle correct where the port and starboard sides meet up with the forward casemate at the top. According to the HSR plans, I do have the angle correct on the forward casemate, but somewhere I went wrong when I built out the sides. This caused me to have to trim some of the railroad irons at an angle instead of them being full runs from just forward of the first cannon on each side to the forward casemate. I do apologize now for my mistake, but I was not about to go and tear apart all of the work that has been done on this part for this minor detail. I figured that I would have to live  with my mistake and learn from it. Please do not think lesser of me 🙄, but this would be a LOT of re-work, and I do think that I may be able to disguise some of this when the hurricane deck is installed and everything is painted. 😇

 

So that is all for now, I very much appreciate everyone stopping in and taking a look as well as all the likes and comments.

 

-Brian

 

Edited May 17, 2021 by mbp521

[mtaylor]

Sorry to hear of the loss of your father-in-law, Brian.   As for the model.... I doubt the original was perfectly "square" either.   The irons look great.

[Keith Black]

 Brian, my deepest sympathies  to your wife, her family, and to you.

 

 The Cairo is looking top notch in every way, you're doing an amazing job modeling her. 

Edited May 18, 2021 by Keith Black

[BANYAN]

Condolences on your loss Brian.  The work on your build continues with its excellent quality - impressive for a first scratch build mate.  Funny how those little 'errors' come back to bite; especially when you think you had it nailed.  I have experienced a few of those.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[mbp521]

Thank you all for the kind words and condolences. 

 

I realized that today marks the one year anniversary since I started this build. I just wanted to show the overall progress after the first year.

 

Day 1.

 

 

Day 365.

 

Coming along, and more to come. Thanks for sticking with me this past year.

 

-Brian

[Cathead]

Lovely work as always. Correct me if I'm wrong, but are those railroad irons just essentially iron rails, and that's why you were looking to source HO-scale track? I wish I'd known, I have a lot of leftover brass track that I would happily have sent you for free. Apologies if I missed that detail early enough to have made a difference. It's been a distracting time here and I maybe haven't been reading as closely as I should? Your approach certainly does and will look great.

 

Condolences on your loss, I've been there recently too and am still working with the aftermath.

[mbp521]

2 hours ago, Cathead said:

Lovely work as always. Correct me if I'm wrong, but are those railroad irons just essentially iron rails, and that's why you were looking to source HO-scale track? I wish I'd known, I have a lot of leftover brass track that I would happily have sent you for free. Apologies if I missed that detail early enough to have made a difference. It's been a distracting time here and I maybe haven't been reading as closely as I should? Your approach certainly does and will look great.

 

Condolences on your loss, I've been there recently too and am still working with the aftermath.

Eric,

 

You are correct. The irons were just salvage railroad tracks that they used for additional armor plating. I appreciate the offer on the track. If I’d have known earlier I might have taken you up on it. I was struggling to get the pieces that I had on hand to lay down right since their location in the boat is in such a weird place where compound curves and twists are involved, so that was just one of the reasons I went with the styrene instead. The styrene was soooo much easier to work with, especially having to drill all the bolt holes, and I think once everything is painted I’ll have the desired look I was going for. 
 

I appreciate the condolences as well. It was a tough loss for the family. I took it harder than my wife did at first, but now she’s starting to really struggle with it. He’ll definitely be missed. 
 

-Brian

[vaddoc]

My condolences Brian. I hope things get better with time.

 

You are doing a fantastic work, I am sorry I do not have the time to visit as often as I would like to. Now, I had not realised that the armour plating was actually railroad tracks. The weight must have been very considerable and it is impressive that it is all secured essentially on a wooden frame. I also find very interesting that despite all the armour and guns those boats were still ramming each other. 

Your paddle wheel is truly very impressive, well actually the whole model is wonderful. The red oxide paint is very nice.

 

Regards

Vaddoc 

[Cathead]

Brian, that makes a ton of sense. I can easily see how trying to shape actual brass rails in a consistent and parallel shape could be maddening, and how much easier styrene would be. Again, you'll be in my thoughts as we go through a similar period.

[mbp521]

On 5/22/2021 at 2:03 PM, vaddoc said:

My condolences Brian. I hope things get better with time.

 

You are doing a fantastic work, I am sorry I do not have the time to visit as often as I would like to. Now, I had not realised that the armour plating was actually railroad tracks. The weight must have been very considerable and it is impressive that it is all secured essentially on a wooden frame. I also find very interesting that despite all the armour and guns those boats were still ramming each other. 

Your paddle wheel is truly very impressive, well actually the whole model is wonderful. The red oxide paint is very nice.

 

Regards

Vaddoc 

Vaddoc,

 

Thank you for the condolences and for stopping by. It is truly amazing at the lengths they went through during the Civil War to protect these boats a crews, yet wouldn’t hesitate one bit to go to extreme measures to take out the enemy, including ramming one another. I have read numerous stories where, gunboats designed as rams (which sometimes were converted packet steamers) would sacrifice themselves in a hail of gun and cannon fire to remove their foes from the battle. Some truly amazing stories. 
 

These particular gunboats were built for durability, yet didn’t have a long lifespan. Other than the Cairo the longest surviving City Class Ironclad was the was the Carondelet which survived until 1873. All others were sunk during the war or sold for scrap shortly after the war ended in 1865. 
 

As for the red oxide paint, I am definitely pleased with the way the color came out and works with the black. Once I have the casemates painted up, I’m sure it will really look good. 
 

-Brian

Edited May 24, 2021 by mbp521

[mbp521]

On 5/22/2021 at 4:54 PM, Cathead said:

Brian, that makes a ton of sense. I can easily see how trying to shape actual brass rails in a consistent and parallel shape could be maddening, and how much easier styrene would be. Again, you'll be in my thoughts as we go through a similar period.

Eric,

 

it was definitely a challenge to get the brass rails to work. I even went so far as to try heating the brass to get the twist to hold its shape, but it was just too difficult. I usually try to go by the 10% rule (be 10% smarter than the thing you are working on) but in this case I just conceded defeat and moved on. All in all I am happy with the results. 
 

-Brian

[gak1965]

My condolences on your loss. 

 

Your progress is amazing, and an inspiration to us all.

 

George

[KeithAug]

On 5/19/2021 at 3:55 PM, mbp521 said:

I realized that today marks the one year anniversary since I started this build.

 

A remarkable amount don for just a year - compared to my sometimes pedestrian progress. The hull painting turned out rather well and overall she is looking quite trim - probably a lot more so than the original. I continue to find this vessel most interesting. Condolences on the loss of your Father in Law.

[wefalck]

Pedestrian progress ? Compared to that I am a snail that turns around itself  😁

[mbp521]

George, Keith & Wefalck,

 

I very much appreciate the condolences. I’m sure as time goes by things will get better. 
 

The pedestrian progress is the one thing I am trying to avoid. I know sometimes it’s hard to avoid, especially when the weather turns nice and you have an over abundance of outdoor projects that seem to take precedence over shipbuilding. Drawbacks of owning acreage, there is always work to be done. Hopefully the work won’t creep too much into my build time and I can keep everyone updated and interested. 
 

-Brian

[BANYAN]

If that is pedestrian then my current build will be relegated to prehistory before it is finished   At least five years on this one and I am just starting the spars and rigging.

 

cheers

 

Pat

Edited May 30, 2021 by BANYAN

[mbp521]

1 hour ago, BANYAN said:

If that is pedestrian then my current build will be relegated to prehistory before it is finished   At least five years on this one and I am just starting the spars and rigging.

Pat,  

 

Not sure if it will take me five years on this one. Hopefully not, but I’m sure I have at least another one, possibly two.  Can’t go too long though, I have other builds that I’d like to get to. 
 

-Brian

[mbp521]

Hello everyone,

 

Finally back at it after a well needed summer vacation. Took a nice little stroll along the Bourbon Trail in Kentucky viewing some beautiful country and giving my liver a good workout. Picked up several bottles of tasty adult beverages and I am now ready to get back at it.

 

This past week I wasn't able to get too much done, but I did take a lot of pictures. So this go-round I started working on the cannon ports and doors. This was a fairly simple task, and I wanted to get them done so that I could start work on painting the casemates. I wanted to paint the casemates and the doors all at once so the color stayed uniform.

 

First task up was to install the sleeves for the upper door ropes (not sure of the proper terminology of these).

 

For the sleeves I used some small aluminum tubing inserted into a small hole that I drilled above the cannon ports.

 

 

I traced the angle on the tubing then cut and filed it to shape.

 

Then inserted the tube and glued it into place.

 

...One down, twelve more to go.

 

 

Then it was on to the port doors.

First thing I did was to make up a simple jig to make sure the doors stayed square and uniform.

 

Next I cut the strips for for the individual door planks.

 

After the strips were cut I used a piece of paper for the backing to help hold things together.

 

 

Once the planks were glued into place, I then drilled the cannon port out.

 

Oooops. Got a little careless with drill.

 

Front port doors in place.

 

Port doors in place. For the hinge straps I used thin styrene strips that I will cover with aluminum tape with the rivet pattern punched into it.

 

 

Finally, upon my return from our trip I was extremely happy to see that my cannons had finally come in. There is still some work to be done on them, they need to be polished up to remove the milling marks, the bores drilled to the correct diameter and the necks and knobs will need to be filed to shape, but I am definitely please with the way they came out. They are a definite improvement over the wooden ones I attempted to make a few months ago.

 

 

 

One cannon mocked up in its carriage.

 

...and finally one set in the gun port. Looks like there will need to be some adjustments made to get the height right, but I'll get there.

 

Well that is it for now, thanks again for all the likes and kind comments and also for stopping by.

 

-Brian

[leclaire]

Brian - thanks for showing the screw up with your drill. I was beginning to believe you never made a mistake like us mere mortals who follow your magnificent work.

 

Bob

[BANYAN]

Nice photos and good progress Brian; looks like the adult beverages provided some incentive

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Keith Black]

Brian, very nice work. Nice to see a update, good to have you back.