Robert E Lee by John Ruy - FINISHED - BlueJacket Shipcrafters - 3/32” to 1’ scale or 1:128 - Steamboat

[John Ruy]

Boilers…

 

The Robert E Lee had twin high-pressure steam engines; cylinder bores 40 inches (101.6 cm); stroke 120 inches (304.8 cm); eight iron boilers each 46 feet (14.02 m) long and 27 inches (68.6 cm) diameter, working steam pressure 120 lbs. 

 

Here is a drawing of the boilers I grabbed from the internet. These boilers were quite massive, to say the least. 
 

 

Scratch building the boilers…

 

 

 

Wood blocks and dowels…
 

 

 

shaping the metal casting…

 

Boilers and fire box all set…

 

 

 

Adding the breaching duct to smoke stacks…

 

 

Steam Drum and safety valves added. Two steam pipes are headed to the engine room for the massive steam engines.

 

More deck planking to do and the work on the paddle wheels and engines will begin.  

 

Cheers 🍻 

 

Edited December 16, 2021 by John Ruy

[John Ruy]

Main Deck planking continues…

 

 

1/32” x 1/8” basswood strips, cut into 4” pieces and staggered 1”… 🤪

 

 

 

 

Finally, completed deck planking. 😎

 

Stained with a light cherry to keep the natural wood look. I will coat this with satin Poly to seal it. 
 

Now! I can move on to the details of the Main Deck furnishings. Boiler Deck supports, engine room walls, paddle wheels and engines. More detail coming with the boilers and steam pipes as well. 
 

Cheers 🍻 

 

Edited February 27, 2022 by John Ruy

[John Ruy]

MainDeck furnishings, paddle wheels, engines, etc…

 

 

Finished up the hull trim, before proceeding with everything on deck. 
 

 

Scratch building the infrastructure for the transmission of steam power to the massive paddle wheels. 
 

 

 

couple of cutouts to give some perspective of just how massive this steamboat really is. 😆

 

 

started working on the framing around the paddle wheel housing. 
 

 

Steam engine parts. These pieces of wood will become the steam cylinders driving the paddle wheels. 
 

 

Two steam cylinders ready for installation. 
 

 

Steam engine transmission structure completed. 
 

 

A little micro Carpentry. 😆

 

 

 

Progress on the engine room, lots of details coming. 😎

 

 

Inspiration photo only, massive paddle wheels coming up … 

 

later… 🍻

[Cathead]

Nice work! I'm curious about the decision to leave the cylinder timbers (the angled wood supporting the engines) as an open lattice rather than a solid stack of beams as on most prototypes. Aesthetic preference or did you find an example of this approach?

[John Ruy]

3 hours ago, Cathead said:

Nice work! I'm curious about the decision to leave the cylinder timbers (the angled wood supporting the engines) as an open lattice rather than a solid stack of beams as on most prototypes. Aesthetic preference or did you find an example of this approach?

 

Thanks… Below are the drawings I am working with. I am going to frame out the main engine room so I can leave one side open to view the engine room and paddle wheel. I have a copy of The Western River Steamboat Cyclopedium by Alan Bates coming and hope I can detail the engine room layout from that as a reference. I couldn’t find a copy of the Engine Room Cyclopedium, still searching for that one. I thought the open trestle style would be 1870 period. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

[John Ruy]

@Cathead Here is the link to a scratch build I am referencing. 
 

https://shipsofscale.com/sosforums/threads/paddle-steamer-robert-e-lee-scale-1-96-scratch-build-by-the-alan-l-bates-drawings-completed-build.5362/

 

In this log they reference the Alan Bates drawings. I am hoping there is more to reference the interior of the engine room, since I intend to make it viewable. 😎

 

[Cathead]

So those drawings, which you also posted earlier, appear to show that the cylinder timbers are a solid mass of stacked timbers underneath the engines, switching to an open lattice about halfway along (more specifically, two lines of parallel stacked timbers with the engine suspended between). The idea here was likely to provide the maximum support for the weight of the engines and for the vibration and pounding they produce. For example, see the similar arrangement on Arabia here:

 

 

Those drawings also accurately show how such stacked timbers were mortised into each other for greater strength, as you can see better here:

 

 

 

However, one difference between Arabia and your plans is that the former also used stacked timbers to support the weight of the wheels (see below) while your plans show an open lattice below the wheels, which strikes me as a little rickety but I can't say it's wrong.

 

 

I can't say whether your vessel had the same arrangement below the engines as Arabia, just that it's what the drawings appear to show and that it was a common practice. Don't mean to be critical, I just know you're interested in accuracy and I wanted to ask in case you cared. If you do want to go with this approach, you wouldn't have to tear down what you've done, I bet you could sheath the forward part of your cylinder timbers in thin strips that would nicely simulate solid timbers, especially once the engine room area is mostly enclosed except for the viewing opening. Otherwise it's a clear case of modeler's license and no harm done.

 

Here's a view of my Arabia in progress, which gives a more 3D view of the timber arrangement than the museum photos do (scale has its advantages):

 

 

You might also contact a few of the true steamboat experts on MSW, like @Roger Pellett or @kurtvd19, who may have deeper insights than I do into engine layout on larger sidewheelers like this. After all, if there's one rule about Western River steamboats, it's that a lot of different designs were experimented with and it's difficult to assign hard rules on "how it was done".

 

[John Ruy]

6 hours ago, Cathead said:

Don't mean to be critical, I just know you're interested in accuracy and I wanted to ask in case you cared.

Thanks Cathead, I do prefer accuracy over Aesthetics. Thanks for pointing out my misinterpretation of the drawings and giving me the correct info. I can some times head down the wrong path. 
 

Your comments help me interpret this drawing a bit differently. 🧐

 

I now see heavy timbers stacked under the wheel shaft. 
 

Thanks again, I don’t mind the rework. Can’t wait for the Cyclopedium. In the mean time keep a close eye on me. 
 

John

 

Coming up… Paddle wheels. 😆

 

Edited December 27, 2021 by John Ruy

[John Ruy]

Stacking Timber…

 

 

Corrected the engine supports. They look much better now. 
 

 

 

Starting some wall construction for the engine room. 
 

 

Also stacked a few Timbers to better support the Wheel Shafts. 
 

 

 

Boiler detailed and placed. Now I can start the Boiler Deck supports. Still looking at those paddle wheels, they are intimidating. 😬

 

My Engine Room Cyclopedium is on the way should have it tomorrow. Then I can look at detailing out this Engine Room. 🧐

 

Happy New Year, Stay Safe out there. 
 

Cheers 🍻 

Edited January 3, 2022 by John Ruy

[John Ruy]

Post and beam supports…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now that the forward boiler deck supports are in place, I will need to work on the paddle wheels prior to building the walls of the engine room to support the aft boiler deck. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Got a good start on the paddle wheel construction. I will need eight of these. 
 

This will take some time. 😆

 

Cheers 🍻

 

 

Edited January 7, 2022 by John Ruy

[Cathead]

I love seeing the structure take shape. I've always found building paddle wheels maddening, good luck to you!

[John Ruy]

4 hours ago, Cathead said:

I love seeing the structure take shape. I've always found building paddle wheels maddening, good luck to you!

Thanks, My wife already thinks I am a mad scientist in the basement.  LOL 😆 

 

My laughter is becoming some what maddening.  Just saying…

[John Ruy]

Paddle Wheels…

 

 

Correcting to 1mm…

 

 

Time for paint…

 

 

1 of 8 complete…

 

Onwards. 🤪

 

Edited January 9, 2022 by John Ruy

[John Ruy]

Hanger Rods with Turnbuckles…

 

 

Installed some Hanger Rods with the wire and turnbuckles supplied in the kit. Painting them flat black enamel. 
 

Work continues on the Paddle Wheels. 
 

Cheers 🍻 

[John Ruy]

Paddle Wheels…

 

Thought I would share some progress I have made on the paddle wheels. Albeit rough to say the least. 
 

 

 

4 of 8 wheels assembled…

 

 

Airbrush painted before final assembly. 
 

 

 

Determined spoke alignment was not accurate enough to proper alignment of the paddles. (Quite Maddening 🤪)

 

Spent hours adjusting the spacing to “exactly” 6 mm. Results were minimally acceptable. 

 

 

 

Fortunately once the housing is completed the misaligned paddles will not be seen. But, I will know they are there. 😆 There is that OCD, AGAIN!

 

 

I plan to leave side panels off to make the engine room and paddle wheel viewable from one side. That said, I will build another set of wheels more carefully and accurately. 
 

We will see how I do before I decide to remake the first one. That is if I don’t go insane. Wish me luck. 🍻

 

 

[Cathead]

Exact same problem I had. No matter how careful I was, it was nigh-on impossible to get every spoke lined up, even when I tried marking a single line of spokes so I could keep them all aligned. Tiny variations ripple through and are maddening!

[John Ruy]

19 hours ago, Cathead said:

Tiny variations ripple through and are maddening!

Agreed… I have noticed that when I cut the blocking, it must be square to minimize the twist in the arms. Careful measurement to 6 mm and precise clamping of each piece may get the results I am looking for. The problem with that is there are 34 arms, 68 blocks cut from 1/16” basswood. Multiple that by 8 wheels for 2 Paddle Wheels . 🤪 But who’s counting. 

 

Did you find any particular techniques useful in minimizing the misalignments?

 

Thanks

 

 

 

[John Ruy]

Paddle Wheel 2.0…

 

 

 

Progress… 🍻

[yvesvidal]

These wheels would have to be 3D printed or laser cut to be perfectly precise and aligned.

What a challenge!!

 

Is it possible to build all four at the same time, stacked on top of  each other? This way, alignment errors would be minimized.

 

Yves

[John Ruy]

1 hour ago, yvesvidal said:

Is it possible to build all four at the same time, stacked on top of  each other?

Easier said than done. 🧐The hubs are spacing the wheels. 
 

 

As you can see here I will have to revisit the blocking and adjust. 
 

Thanks for your suggestion, I will leave the hub off one side so I can lay the next wheel directly on this one. 
 

 

Tedious but doable, I think. 🤔

 

I will let you know how it works. 👍

[Cathead]

On my Bertrand I build each of the five assemblages on a separate template, and seem to have managed ok. It helped that Bertrand's wheel only had 13 spokes.

 

 

For Arabia's wheels, I laid things out similarly but used pins to help hold pieces in place:

 

 

I then built subsequent wheels right on top the first to try and minimize variation:

 

 

Even so I still had trouble getting things to line up, but it's hard to notice in the finished model with so much else going on visually. As I said above, I marked the end of one spoke on each assemblage to remember how things aligned. Here's a link to where my wheel-building discussion starts in the Arabia log if you want to consult more details.

[John Ruy]

Boiler Guard and Catwalk…

 

 

Boiler Guard constructed of 1/32 materials. 
 

 

 

Two Boiler Guards completed ready for paint. 
 

 

Cutting in Boiler Guards and Catwalk. Nice break from those Paddle Wheels. 
 

Work continues on the Paddle Wheels. 
 

Thanks again to @Cathead and @yvesvidal for the tips On Paddle Wheels. 
 

Onwards 🍻

[John Ruy]

Paddle Wheel progress…

 

 

2 of 4 wheels aligned.  🍻

[ccoyle]

You have the patience of a saint.

[John Ruy]

8 hours ago, ccoyle said:

You have the patience of a saint.

Thanks… Don’t we all on MSW…  👍
 

Steady as she goes, Don’t give up the Ship! 🧐 

[John Ruy]

Boiler Catwalk continued…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Starboard side Catwalk completed. 
 

Cheers 🍻 

[John Ruy]

Paddle Wheels continued…

 

Finally, got this figured out and one more to go. Thought I would document the steps to get this far on the last one, now that I know what works. 
 

 

Installing the spokes on the hub using CA Glue. Be very careful to align with the template accurately. 
 

 

Marking the spokes for the blocks. 
 

 

Trimming the spokes to proper length. 
 

 

Cutting 6 mm blocks. VERY CAREFULLY, cut 1/16 basswood strips with ends that MUST be Square with the proper angle to set the spokes properly. 
 

Magnification required. 🧐

 

 

 

Verifying the spacing between each spoke to be 6 mm (not 6.25 mm) after gluing and clamping. 
 

Note the block in the top photo had to be trimmed. The block in the bottom photo did not need trimming. 
 

 

Started with blocks on opposite sides of the wheel. 
 

 

Clamped the wheel flat as I continued around with in both directions. 
 

 

I got better at cutting these blocks. Used a single edge razor blade as It is stiffer than an Exato Knife. 
 

 

That’s it… Easy Peezy just repeat until you go insane. 😆 

 

Still need to do the tiny center blocks and the paddles. 
 

Thought y’all mighty get a kick out of this detail. You might not want to try this at home. LOL 😂 But then again you might like the challenge of scratch building a paddle. Some of you already have. 
 

Onwards 🍻

Edited January 24, 2022 by John Ruy

[Cathead]

Very nice, and great little tutorial.

[md1400cs]

John,

yes those wheels are indeed excellent work 👏

[Altduck]

Those wheels are turning out great!

You've developed a winning method for them.