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

[Keith Black]

 Yeah, glue marks wouldn't look natural. I thought you were talking about chipped paint and a scratch or two.

[FriedClams]

Peerless is looking good, Eric. And a very interesting discussion on the pusher bars/tow knees.  Great shots of the Missouri and I especially like the second photo with the crescent moon. 

 

Gary 

[Cathead]

Thanks, Gary!

 

I rebuilt a new version of the tow knees. These are just set in place right now. I decided to focus on the style seen in this photo:

 

Thoughts?

 

I also started laying out a draft of the paddlewheel. Here's the loose size I'm thinking of using; compare with the photo below that is my best view of the stern area.

 

 

Thoughts on all of this? 

[John Ruy]

Looks great Eric…  Perfect 👍 

[mbp521]

Definitely liking the improved tow knees Eric, and I think you just about nailed the paddlewheel scale. 
 

This may be a little off topic of the current subject matter, but I was noticing Peerless’ stern. From the angle of your paddlewheel photo it looks somewhat flat and not tapered. I was curious as to if this was the case or maybe I was just looking at it wrong, but if it is flat, what type of rudder system did she use. Apologies if I jumped ahead a bit, but you know how I like a good rudder discussion. 😁

 

-Brian

[Keith Black]

The new tow knees are a great, Eric.  

[Cathead]

9 hours ago, mbp521 said:

From the angle of your paddlewheel photo it looks somewhat flat and not tapered. I was curious as to if this was the case or maybe I was just looking at it wrong, but if it is flat, what type of rudder system did she use.

In the absence of any plans or other evidence, I based her hull design on Bertrand, for which I did have very detailed plans:

 

These show a flat stern with just a bit of overhang; you can also see the full rudder setup. Remember that I'm building Peerless as a waterline model, so the rudders really can't be seen, except for a hint of the (skegs? is that the right word?). I toned down the rise of the stern and wheel supports a bit, but it's the same basic setup. So all you see on the model is just a hint of the stern curving inward and down, and the otherwise flat plane from port to starboard. One of the last details I'll add it a hint of rudder tops poking out; I haven't done it yet for fear of knocking them off because they'll be very small without the extra support from the part "underwater" and not modeled.

 

So to forestall the next obvious question, I plan to cut off (or not build in the first place) the bottom part of the wheel so that it sits on the display surface as if it's entering the water.

Edited June 2 by Cathead

[KeithAug]

18 hours ago, Cathead said:

I based her hull design on Bertrand,

They are a nicely detailed set of plans Eric. I guess the rudders were effective but they do look quite compromised being behind a stern which rises sharply and is flat across the beam. 

[Cathead]

Keith, to the best of my knowledge, that's a pretty common layout for a sternwheeler stern & rudders. Best I can say is it seemed to work well enough!

[John Ruy]

Eric, 

 

I think you are correct, I’m sure that rudder configuration was adequate for the size of your vessel and conditions on the Missouri River. 
 

For the sake of a good rudder discussion, I’ll submit this drawing of the Klondike operated on the Yukon River. You’ll note the same rudder configuration with the addition of a “Monkey Rudder”. 
 

I just thought it might be interesting to add for discussion. 
 

John
 

Edited June 3 by John Ruy

[KeithAug]

21 hours ago, John Ruy said:

You’ll note the same rudder configuration with the addition of a “Monkey Rudder”. 

 

23 hours ago, Cathead said:

Best I can say is it seemed to work well enough!

John - That seems to be a much improved arrangement - the sweep upward of the stern seems to present the rudder with a much improved flow path and the "Monkey rudder" has the advantage of the the increased water velocity being pushed on to it by the paddle. My original comment was to some extent prompted by the earlier piece on the pushing knees. I was imagining the difficulties of manoeuvring while also pushing a barge. 

Eric -Yes that's the best recommendation.

[Cathead]

1 hour ago, KeithAug said:

I was imagining the difficulties of manoeuvring while also pushing a barge. 

Yeah, it's hard to imagine these things snaking around winding river bends with a barge lashed to the front and just a sternwheel and a few little rudders. But it happened! Z-drives were not yet even a twinkle in a dreamer's eye.

 

And since we have no idea what Peerless' rudders or lower stern actually looked like, it's all conjecture. I just don't have any evidence for any setup other than the typical one for the era leading up to her construction. One of the great benefits of a waterline model, I can mostly ignore the issue!

[KeithAug]

16 minutes ago, Cathead said:

I can mostly ignore the issue!

Yep - but its fun to speculate

[John Ruy]

1 hour ago, KeithAug said:

John - That seems to be a much improved arrangement

Keith, 

I can only imagine this arrangement was necessary due to the navigational challenges of the Yukon River by a large sternwheeler such as the Klondike. 
Yes it’s fun to speculate. 🧐 

 

John

[Ras Ambrioso]

Interesting discussion on the sternwheel and the steering difficulties with their minimal rudder power. The paddle-wheeler I am building, Zulu, has two narrower wheels in the same shaft driven by two steam engines. My thoughts are that the wheel cranks rotated freely over the common shaft. The drawing below shows the wheel arrangement but some of the notes are for the worm gear that then ran the model. There is also an hefty rudder on the centerline of each wheel. I thinks this would have made it easier for the skipper to maneuver through the winding Indian rivers.

I think that Eric is doing a wonderful job on this model.

 

 

[Cathead]

Making a little progress on a rare quiet/unscheduled afternoon. Got a baseball game on the radio and taking care of a fiddly detail: the name boards on the pilothouse. You can see these here:

 

I built these from flat scrap wood with borders of cherry that I carefully carved down with a hobby knife. The central panels are painted red while the borders are cherry darkened with pastel. I then used dry-transfer lettering to lay out the name.

 

I really like the visual effect of dry transfers but have always struggled to lay out series of letters evenly. In this case I like the unevenness, as it yet again looks like some small riverside yard's best shot with a handmade stencil. And it's another one of those details that will blend into the overall rough-around-the-edges effect of the model's style.

 

I made one larger one for the front of the pilot house and two smaller ones for the sides. Here's the front and starboard ones installed:

 

But then I discovered something I hadn't thought through: the port side wall is shorter because of the pilot house door. The original photo shows a board there but I hadn't thought about how it actually fit into the smaller space available. It's the same size board as the other side, but has less length, so how did the lettering work? None of the original photos are clear enough for me to tell.

 

So I clearly can't install this there. Two other possibilities: I could hang it off the stern or off the port wall, where it fits perfectly just aft of the pilot house:

 

 

Or I could start over and make a new board of the correct length, but with much smaller lettering. That option feels wrong because I think the tiny lettering needed to fit in that space would just look weird. Thoughts?

 

 

[Keith Black]

Eric, I like the position in last photo, it seems right. And by the by, they look great. 

[John Ruy]

15 minutes ago, Cathead said:

Or I could start over and make a new board of the correct length, but with much smaller lettering. That option feels wrong because I think the tiny lettering needed to fit in that space would just look weird. Thoughts?

Would all three signs the smaller size and font look correct?

Just a thought…

John

[mtaylor]

That's a tough call, Eric.   I would guess that you'd want both sides to alike as to letter size, etc.?    And I'm guessing that there's no photos of the port side to show the name board?

[Cathead]

John, if I used the small font (necessary for the port side) on the other two signs, it'd be dwarfed by the size of the signs overall, and they're very clearly that size in the historic photos. In another photo you can clearly see large PEERLESS lettering on the front, for example, filling that signboard. Plus, I'm thinking I'm not real comfortable laying out dry transfer text any smaller!

[Cathead]

Mark, the photo I posted at the beginning of this update shows the port-side board, which is the same height as the others. You just can't read the lettering. Here's another image that I zoomed in and cropped, to clearly show the full-size lettering I based on my signs on, and that again you can't see just what's going on with that port side board. Maybe they used a more squished-together font there, but I can't easily duplicate that with dry transfers. I could print out signs to fit, but I don't like the look of that as well.

 

[Ian_Grant]

I can just make out the "P" at the edge of the port signboard. It is indeed smaller than the front lettering.

[Cathead]

Ian, if you go back to the photo of all three together, you can see that I did use smaller font on my side boards but it still takes up too much horizontal space. The hints of lettering I can see implies that the side board lettering is just a little smaller vertically than the front board lettering, but must be painted on with a narrow font to squeeze the word in there. That's what I can't find a clear photo of; what that word looks like fit into that space.

 

I had an idea overnight and will see if I can find time today to play with it. Thanks to all for helping me think this through; even rejected ideas help nudge cognition along.

[mbp521]

Eric, I’m kind of curious if the port side sign board was the same size as the starboard just not split at the door seam so that when the pilothouse door was closed the sign presented itself as whole but still allowed for the door to open and close. Just a thought. Love the dry transfer idea though!

 

-Brian

[Ras Ambrioso]

Eric, I think your sign looks great just like you have it. Don't overthink it. 

[Cathead]

Brian, that's a really creative idea, but I think when you look at the zoomed-in image I posted above, to me it looks like the door is clearly white all the way down. The hog chain post partly blocks the view, but the dark sign is clearly there left of the post but to its right there's nothing but a white door.

 

Ras, thanks, but I do want to keep thinking it through because it just bugs me to have no nameplate sign on the port side of the pilot house. Especially because that's the intended "display" side.

[KeithAug]

Eric - I may be misunderstanding the photo but if I look at the images of the wheelhouse the name boards look somewhat less high than the ones you have made. If I compare actual ones with the height of the helmsman they appear to be a little higher than the length of his upper arm  - I guess about 18" to 20". What is the scale height of the ones you have made - they look to be just under half the height of the door or circa 30 inches? If they should be less high (and hence wide) then it would make fitting the port sign in front of the door more practical. Just a thought.

[Cathead]

Keith, I came to the same conclusion, that I had made the signs too high. That still doesn't fix the text spacing problem, because it still relates to how those eight letters fit within different lengths. But it was definitely part of the problem, so thanks for the extra nudge to go that direction.

 

So I went back and cut down all three signs I had made, and redid their borders. I then took a gamble and made a fourth, very small, sign that would fit along the port side of the pilot house, and was juuuuust wide enough to fit in the eight letters with the smallest font provided on my sheet of dry transfers. These actually came out quite well, so I decided to not use the biggest sign, shift the two medium signs to front and starboard, and use the little sign on the port side. Here's what they all look like together (the former front sign just propped in front for reference):

 

This doesn't quite match the photos because the port sign is shorter than the front sign, but I'm ok with that because I think the tight spacing between text and top/bottom border looks better than text floating in a larger margin. I just think the tight signs look better, as Keith suggested.

 

And here are two more shots of the new approach from both sides.

 

You'd better like them because I glued them on! I feel like these really add some flair and personality to the model. So here's one more broader view against a backdrop of original photos.

Close eyes might notice that the tow knees are missing. I'm leaving them off while I work on the paddle wheel because I'm afraid of knocking the bow against something while I'm focused on the other end of the model. They're easy enough to attach as a final detail.

 

Thanks as always for the likes, comments, and nudges to keep improving on my initial instincts. It's now clear there's no way I'm completing this in one year, but whatever. She'll be done when she's done.

[Keith Black]

 Eric, she's becoming a dandy little model. Looks every bit like the photos, ya can't beat that. 

[mbp521]

1 hour ago, Cathead said:

You'd better like them because I glued them on!

Nah, don’t like them, take em off. 🤣

Just kidding! I think you have a beautiful solution. 
 

6 hours ago, Cathead said:

that's a really creative idea, but I think when you look at the zoomed-in image I posted above, to me it looks like the door is clearly white all the way down. The hog chain post partly blocks the view, but the dark sign is clearly there left of the post but to its right there's nothing but a white door.

After your description I can now see what you are referencing. When I first looked at it I was thinking that the hog chain supports were blocking the door and the sign continued on behind it. It can be a bit of a challenge to make out the perspective of the old photos sometimes. Got it now. 
 

-Brian