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

[Cathead]

Keith, let's say it's a mix of intentional and skill/patience limitations. I like building these rough boats where a few flaws in the work doesn't distract the way they would in, say, a pristine Royal Navy frigate. Not intentionally being sloppy, but the natural output of my comfort zone tends to produce a reasonable outcome for this sort of model!

[Ras Ambrioso]

I agree with Keith. I had a lot of rough spots on my first planked  hull (Emma Berry) but it made boat look like it was built on a short budget. It added to the looks of the finished boat.

[Cathead]

Made some progress this weekend. You may recall that, way back in August, I built the initial frame for the boiler deck:

 

Now it was time to finally start adding to that, now that the engine room structure was done. From what I can see in the original images, especially the one below, there was a rectangular grid that connected to the vertical support posts, topped by a series of parallel beams that actually supported the deck. In other words, a two-layered structure:

 

So I began laying out the cross beams on top my original rectangle, using a simple jig to ensure consistent spacing and centering. Apologies in advance, I seem to have taken very few photos of the next steps:

 

The view above shows the fore end, with special framing where the chimneys will go.

 

Once I had these glued in place, I went back and filled in the gaps with more beams. The photo below also shows the semi-solid sandwich that will glue onto the top of the engine room. If you look closely,  you can see that I used two pins to strengthen the joint between the part that sits on the solid engine room, and the part that extends out over the main deck supported only by posts.

 

Here's the completed structure placed loosely as it will be on the model:

As a reminder, the holes I left in the main deck planking accept the vertical posts that hold up this boiler deck. A bit flimsy, which is why I'm sticking to my plan of pre-planking the boiler deck before installation.

 

With this done, I soaked some thin wood strips and bent them around the edges of the frame to make the smooth outer rim you see in the original photo:

That's where I stand now. Once those strips dry, I'll do a final fitting and gluing. Once I paint this structure white, I think I'm ready to work on planking. For those wondering, all the cross-beams here are on-farm cherry, while the rest of the frame is a mix of that and scrapbox wood. I'm not looking forward to milling lots of thin planking strips, doing so is right at the edge of my skill set with a Byrnes saw. Luckily I have a lot of cherry on hand.

 

Thanks for checking in on this slow, slow progress! 

 

[mbp521]

Looking good Eric. This has to be a first that I’ve seen, off-model building of the deck. I totally understand the reason behind it, given the deck is not too structurally sound, and the pressure needed to deck the frames. I admire your approach to it. Anxious to see how it all works out. 
 

-Brian

[Cathead]

Yeah, I'm anxious too. Never done something quite like this before. 

[Cathead]

Just a quick Christmas Eve update, since I had a relatively quiet weekend to get a bit more done. Here's the final boiler deck structure, with the edge glued on, and all painted up. I didn't paint the top since it'll be planked over. 

 

Top view:

Bottom view:

Set loosely on the model with a prop at the bow:

 

 

Though I'd assumed the next step would be planking, I'm realizing I need to build the boiler assembly first, so I can be sure it'll fit nicely underneath. The flues connecting the boiler to the chimneys need to slot into the appropriate gaps in the deck structure, and this will actually help support the deck, giving it more solidity than just the thin support posts. So that's the next step, and honestly it sounds like a nice change of pace from all the framing and planking that this build has mostly consisted of so far.

 

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, or whatever other best wish works for you!

 

[Keith Black]

Eric, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. 

[leclaire]

Merry Christmas and a Happy New year to you Eric, and the same to all members of this wonderful community of ship builders.

 

Bob

[GrandpaPhil]

Eric,

  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you!

 

Peerless is looking good!

[mbp521]

Looks like it fits nicely where it’s supposed to. 
 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and Mrs. Cathead as well. 
 

-Brian

[Cathead]

Started working on the boiler today. I don't have any good photos from the side and only one from the front that can be zoomed in but is grainy. Way's Packet Directory says Peerless had only one boiler, which makes sense for such a small vessel. So I just started laying out a basic generic boiler design based on the larger ones I've built for bigger vessels, with a single boiler tube surrounded by a rectangular casing. Here I'm using a wooden dowel and some thin pieces of farm-milled basswood.

I then drew out a pattern for the complicated piece that connects the boiler to the chimneys (not actually sure what this is called; anyone know? @Roger Pellett? It took two pieces of basswood glued together to get the right thickness, though I then had to cut it down again.

 

Then I used a bandsaw and hand tools to rough out the shape I wanted:

 

And used scrap wood to build two basic round doors, which can be dimly seen in one original photo:

 

When I was reasonably happy and had sanded everything pretty smooth, I added legs.

Then glued the two main parts together. Here's the full assembly with a person for scale:

 

And here it is on the model, with the deck loosely held in place:

 

I think it's a bit too tall; I might try to carefully cut down the legs just a bit. The tops of the chimney-attachment-whatevers are slightly notched so that they fit into the square holes I framed within the overlying boiler deck (you can see this in the preceding photos). This not only helps them hold the deck in place, but also lets the deck rise at a slight angle to the boilers, as it should.

 

So that's the loose idea. If I decide to keep this version, I'll prime it and then give it a nice coat of black and then some pastel rust. I think it's good enough but want to sleep on it. It looks kind of rough in raw wood, but when painted black and hidden in the shadows below the deck, I'm not sure there's much point in trying to make it too perfect. It also needs a few more details, like a mud drum and so on. Thoughts? Specific concerns or improvements?

 

Edited December 31, 2023 by Cathead

[wefalck]

The thingy between boiler and stacks is the ‚smoke-box‘.

[Cathead]

I thought to check Alan Bates' definitive reference (foolishly not doing so before), where he refers to that structure as the breeching. Guess I'd forgotten that, not like I haven't perused that book ten times.

 

After sleeping on it, I think I'm going to pursue the usual modeler's curse and partially tear down this first draft to improve it a bit.

[mbp521]

I was thinking it was called the flume, but my knowledge of steamboat terminology is somewhat limited. However, I do like Eberhards description of “thingy between boiler and stacks”. A technical term that works well 😁. 
 

It’s surprising that she only had one boiler, I would think that she would have had at least two given the power needed to propel her upriver. However, thinking about it, steam locomotives got by with just one boiler and they seemed to function quite well. 
 

-Brian

 

 

 

[Cathead]

The steam locomotive is a good comparison and a fun question. I'm not sure how much a small steamboat like Peerless weighed, but was it significantly more than a single-locomotive freight train of the 1900s? And she was probably carrying most of her heavier loads downriver (like bulk flour/grain). Her boiler looks smaller than a locomotive's, but again she's a lightweight timber craft operating on water.

[wefalck]

I believe many such riverboats had locomotive-type boilers, rather than than the more complex marine boilers. But this may also depend on the period, I suppose.

 

A locomotive boiler has the firebox at one end, the fire-tubes going through the actual boiler room and the smokebox at the other end, where the flue-gases collect and are led up the smoke-stack.

 

However, the boiler you modelled seems to be a return-type of boiler, where the fire-tubes are U-shaped and return towards the firebox, ending up next to the fire-box, before the flue-gases exit through the stack (see picture below). It seems that two U-shaped fire-tubes are placed into the same boiler, stoked by two fire-boxes side by side:

Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flued_boiler.

 

The power of a steam-engine is determined by the surface of the grate in the fire-box and surface of the fire-tubes along with the maximum permissible pressure.

 

The above construction is one of the simplest forms of boiler and would not permit very high pressures due to the large diameter of the single/double fire-tube and the difficulty of keeping the large openings for them water-tight.

 

[Cathead]

Yes, riverboat boilers are single-ended; the firebox is fed at the same end as the exhaust, unlike a locomotive.

[kurtvd19]

Eric:

The stacks and the breeching need clearance from the combustible wood and the hot stacks.  If the area where they pass through the decksisn't visible no worry, but if visible you may want to provide a gap.

Kurt

 

[Cathead]

Thanks, Kurt, you're right but I decided that I cared more about increased structural strength than that particular detail. A close and knowledgeable eye will see that they're touching, but the vast majority of viewers won't realize it, and I'm more comfortable having the forward part of the boiler deck supported by something a bit more solid than a few spindly posts. 

 

This is especially true for Peerless, which unlike other steamboats I've built, doesn't have any solid superstructure anywhere under the boiler deck forward of the enginehouse. No staircase, no intermediate walls, nothing. So I just feel better using the breeching as a support and sacrificing a bit of accuracy. 

[wefalck]

You could simulate a bit of protective sheet-metal around the openings ...

[Cathead]

That's definitely happening above the boiler deck. I thought Kurt was referring to the underside of the boiler deck, where the breechings go up through.

 

Here's the one decent front view I have. You can see the single boiler, the two round firebox doors, and the breechings going up through the boiler deck to the stack. I've circled the heat shields above the boiler deck, which will fully obscure the connection between the chimneys and the breeching when viewed from above. What I thought Kurt meant was that, looking up from underneath, the breeching still shouldn't be in immediate contact with the wooden framing on the underside of the boiler deck. I agree, but am emphasizing structural support over accuracy since this detail won't be very visible on the finished model.

 

[mbp521]

Oh wow! That photo really shows the scale of just how small this boat really was. Now I understand how she got by with just one boiler. 
 

-Brian

[Cathead]

And one final update from a quiet New Year's Eve. I pulled apart the original boiler and used a dremel along with hand tools to carve and sand the breeching down to a slimmer form that I find more appealing. I also shortened the legs supporting the boiler. The final difference is subtle but I'm much happier with it. Here it is after priming and painting; also note I added a pressure gage atop the front of the boiler.

Some of the dimensions don't quite match up to the original photo, but I'm ok with that. I don't feel like detailing it any further, as it is it'll blend nicely into the shadowed background of the overall model.

 

Happy New Year to all of you!

[Keith Black]

 A nice looking boiler and Happy New Year to you, Eric. 

[wefalck]

Wouldn‘t there be a safety-valve and some piping that leads the steam safely out of the boat? 
 

And: where is the steam for the engines taken off? Is there a steam dome to ensure dry steam is drawn?

[Cathead]

Yes, there would be a safety valve atop the boiler and the venting pathway runs through a pipe that connects to the chimney. Steam for the engines draws off the top, there's usually a cylindrical drum up there, from which piping runs back to the engines at the rear of the vessel. Here's a view of the full machinery setup on my Arabia. You can see the steam drum, the piping to the engines, safety valves on both sides, and the vent pipe leading to the right side of the breeching.

 

:

I'll be adding these features, though some of them can't happen until the boiler is installed (rather than ahead of time). What I meant when I said no more detailing was that I wasn't planning on subtle things like rivets (unlike Arabia above), sorry that wasn't clear. I'll also be adding the "doctor" pump you see right behind the boiler, which was used to draw river water up for the boiler. There's a mud drum suspended below the boilers that was used to settle out the river's high sediment load before entering the boiler. That drum is already installed on the Peerless boiler, you can see it if you look closely.

 

Arabia was at 1:64, whereas this is at 1:87, so I'm being a bit more simplistic with the smaller scale for sanity's sake. Thanks for the good questions!

 

[KeithAug]

23 hours ago, Cathead said:

And one final update from a quiet New Year's Eve.

Eric - I find the older I get the quieter they get! Nice progress and a great way to see the old year out.

Edited January 1 by KeithAug

[Cathead]

Here's some more progress on the boiler. I took a few of these overexposed to help the dark black be visible. Here I've added the steam vent into the breeching and a representative safety valve, a t-shaped pipe from which two steam lines will run to the engines, and a rough version of a "doctor" pump used to draw river water for the boiler. If you follow the piping you can see that the water runs from the pump around to the mud drum beneath the boiler, where the Missouri River's abundant sediment would settle out before getting into the boiler proper.

 

This is a more simplistic version of the same setup I built for Arabia (see last post), but that was (a) at a larger scale, (b) intended to be a more open model with internal visibility, and (c) I just plain held myself to a higher standard for that one. This will work fine for Peerless.

 

And here it is set in place on the main deck, with a brick-lined ash pan under the firebox doors (for hopefully obvious reasons). First photo without boiler deck, second photo with boiler deck loosely resting on top (but not bent to proper curve).

 

There is no other superstructure to build; unlike all the other vessels I've built (and also unlike Chaperon, one of the few accurate kits out there), Peerless has absolutely no support for the entire boiler deck forward of the engine room, other than two rows of supports posts. I'm repeating myself here, but that's why I chose to have the breechings directly support the boiler deck even though it's not quite accurate. Otherwise it's a long, delicate run of mostly empty space. Also I chose to build the deck framing separately. I've said all this before, but I thought these photos really made the point.

[Keith Black]

Eric, the boiler turned out great!

[wefalck]

Talking about photography: when I am photographing objects with a high contrast ratio and when the surrounding illumination is likely to drown-out the shadows in other parts, I do not overexpose, but I rather manipulate the contrast range in Adobe Photoshop. Here I can 'lighten' the shadows and darken 'lights' (if needed), and then reset the contrast. From an artistic photography point of view these wouldn't be 'good' pictures, but here we are doing sort of 'technical' photography and want to show certain features of the object. This process does not disturb the overall exposure and contrast balance of the image too much and therefore is more pleasing to look at.