Peerless 1893 by Cathead - 1:87 - sternwheel Missouri River steamboat

[mtaylor]

Excellent solution, IMO, Eric.  I think they look great.

[kurtvd19]

The sign fix is nicely done.  Neat project.

Kurt

 

[Canute]

Good save on the signage.She's looking good. 👍

[Cathead]

Well, I quietly missed the one-year anniversary of this build, but I have made some progress by starting on the final "big" project, the paddle wheel. First I cut a whole stack of cherry lumber (same as that used for the main deck) on my Byrnes saw. This is more of the material I harvested here on-farm.

Then I laid out a pattern by estimating the size I wanted the wheel to be, from the one decent photo I have, and fiddling with different round objects until I found two diameters that were close enough. Once this was drawn, I set down tiny patches of double-sided tape on each leg's location and began laying out the wheel:

 

Each leg is hand-tapered to fit its neighbors using a sharp knife and sandpaper. I didn't worry about the exact outer length as I'll trim them all down later. I was most concerned with a consistent inner pattern and leaving a clean hole for an axle at the center. When I had them all dry-fit to my satisfaction, I removed each one, put a dab of wood glue on its inner surfaces, then re-assembled the wheel and let it dry.

 

Once this was solid I began hand-cutting the outer circle, formed from a series of small wedges custom-fit between each leg. This is all slow, fiddly work that goes well with a baseball game on the radio. Here's the final result:

And here it is test-fit on the vessel:

As previously discussed I'll be cutting off a small portion at the waterline but intend to do that once I have all three rings made and can be certain I do them all consistently in the right place. I think it's easier to build the whole wheel and cut it down than try to guess ahead of time exactly where I want the cutoff to be.

 

Overall I think it looks pretty good! Thanks, as always, for the kind comments and support.

 

 

 

[mbp521]

Looks great Eric! Tedious work to say the least. One down, two to go. 
 

-Brian