Robert E Lee by rvchima - FINISHED - Amati - scale 1:150 - Mississippi River Steamboat 1866 - 1876

[rvchima]

I am starting a build of the Mississippi River Steamboat Robert E Lee. This is something that I don't know much about, and I would appreciate any advice. The kit is by Amati, and the photo of the box top shows the completed model. I have built several Amati kits and know that their attention to detail is superb, so I am confident that this will build up into a beautiful model.

 

There are a lot of build logs of this kit on MSW and a lot more of other Mississippi riverboats, so I will forego the history lesson and post links to the other build logs. This will help me find them in the near future when I am trying to figure out some complicated assembly. Please let me know if I missed your build.

 

Mississippi Riverboat Builds on MSW

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

Beautiful build, vintage kit, good history and discussion.

 

Robert E Lee by rodgerdodger - FINISHED - Amati

Beautiful build, ~7 months

Robert E Lee by Script - FINISHED - Amati - 1/160 Mississipi Riverboat

Beautiful build, incomplete log after system crash

Robert E Lee by lazyguy - Scientific - scale 1/8" = 1.45’

Vintage kit finished after 27 years!!

 

Robert E Lee by Mike Dowling - FINISHED - Constructo

Plank-on-bulkhead hull, hand-built stairs, natural finish, 4 months

Robert E Lee steamboat by bcochran - Pyro - 1/163

Vintage plastic model (1961), lots of historical information

King of the Mississippi by john46 - FINISHED - Artesania Latina - scale 1:80

Beautiful build, long, detailed log, modeler passed away suddenly when nearly complete

Robert E Lee by Dan Evans - Amati - 1:150

Incomplete

Edited October 6, 2023 by rvchima
Problems with links

[rvchima]

Reference Material

The link above by bcochran has excellent historical information about the Robert E Lee. His link introduced me to this book,

The Western Rivers Steamboat Cyclopaedium, by Alan L. Bates, Hustle Press, Leonia, NJ, 1968 (I was in high school.) I found a perfect copy of the 2nd printing from 1981 on eBay. The author worked on ferry and excursion boats in the 20s, as a deckhand on towboats in the 40s, and finally as mate on the BELLE OF LOUISVILLE in the 60s. He was an architect by trade and the book is filled with his drawings of steamboat construction. I read it cover-to-cover in one sitting and learned so much. For instance,

 

The hulls were very long, narrow, and shallow, and tended to flex. The engines and wheels were extremely heavy, so the hulls wanted to sag at those points. To keep everything rigid the ships were braced internally with poles, cables, and chains, like a suspension bridge. You can see some poles connected by cables sticking out of the roof of the model on the box top shown above.

 

The stern-wheelers had two double-acting cylinders connected to the wheel at 90 degrees so there were no dead spots. But the side-wheelers had one cylinder on each wheel, so there were two dead spots. They put big paddles at the max-power spots and tiny paddles at the dead spots so the wheel’s momentum could carry it around. That’s a lot of clever engineering for an old boat.

[rvchima]

What's in the Box

Amati's kits are packaged like an Apple computer. Absolutely a pleasure to open.

Another view of the box.

Inside the box. The hull is fully carved from clear white pine about 1.5" thick.

The detailed instructions are in Italian but separate sheets have English translations

Three sets of plans printed on both sides. Mostly three-views of the ship, but one sheet of full-sized patterns for various parts. The laser-cut parts are not numbered so you need this sheet to identify them.

Hull, lots of beautiful strip wood, and some wires.

Stairs, hinges, and various cast or machined parts.

Rigging, lifeboats, anchors, chains, etc. Seems like the rigging should be black?

Cast paddle wheels, doors, windows, and the grand staircase.

Turned smokestacks.

Laser-cut decks in 1mm ply.

And finally photo-etched filigree and printed flags.

 

 

[rvchima]

Hull Construction

The hull is pre-built out of 1.5" thick clear white pine. The bow and stern must be slightly raised using pieces of 1mm ply that are stacked, sanded, and glued in place.

Bow and stern pieces stacked,

sanded,

and glued in place.

 

Step 2 - Paint the Hull!

I have never completed a hull so quickly! But after some rare forethought I realized that it might be wise to build the rudder first.

 

Step 2a - Rudder

The rudder is attached to a keel post that didn't come close to fitting the hull. I had to reshape the hull, drill a hole for the rudder post, and make a new keel to fit.

 

Original keel

Reshaped hull with rudder in place.

New keel cut to fill the hole.

The brass rudder hinges are absolutely beautiful.

Assembled rudder.

[rvchima]

Happy Independence Day to My Followers in the US!

This bad boy wandered through my yard this morning looking for a cookout.

[rvchima]

Deck Construction

I finished painting the hull and attached it to a temporary stand. I ordered a nice cherry stand and brass pedestals from Bluejacket Shipcrafters but will have to stain and finish it first.

 

Four thin plywood deck segments get glued to the hull with huge overhang all around. The ship is like a barge with a gymnasium built on top.

Decks glued and clamped. This is probably one of the few times that I'll use Titebond glue.

Decks glued in place. No one will ever see the hull.

[rvchima]

Cabins

The build log by rodgerdoger linked above has already been a huge help. Rodger noted several errors in the plans that have already bit me.  Parts are mislabeled, drawings are confusing, drawings that are labeled in Italian "Scala 1:1" are actually about 94% full size, and laser-cut decks that should be the same shape don't match.

 

Cabin structures are built starting from the stern from flat stock attached to the bottom of the next deck piece above, then skinned with laser-cut plywood. First problem, the cabins are mislabeled in the instructions. I've corrected that in red below.

I built the cabins in order, A, B, C. The flat stock for A & B was exactly the right height. The plywood skin for C seemed too wide, so I trimmed off about 4 mm to make it flush with the frame. And then I realized that B+C<A, by about 4 mm.

Cabin A.

Cabin C skin incorrectly trimmed flush with frame.

Cabin C plans show skin taller than frame. Luckily I saved the cutoff, so I added some support blocks and glued it back on.

Cabins A, C after repairs, and B.

Now everything stacks up correctly. This will all get covered with doors, windows, and planks eventually.

 

 

 

[rvchima]

Paddle Wheel Housings

The paddle wheels are white metal castings that I will get to soon. The wooden shafts will be inserted into brackets inside the paddle wheel housings. The plans (which are approximately 94% scale) call for the brackets to be made from 1 mm strip wood. That just seemed too thin to keep the wheels securely in place and allow them to rotate, so I made them from strip about 1.7 mm thick. The paddles will have to be correspondingly smaller.

The paddle wheel shaft will fit in this slot and be stopped with another piece.

 

The outside of the wheel covers are planked with 2mm walnut strips. That seems very narrow, but at 1:150 they scale up to 1 ft. boards. That's a big board today, but maybe not in 1866. I borrowed this technique from Rodgerdodger to sand the planks and put a tiny bevel on the edges.

The jig has 2 slots.

The top slot holds 3 strips while I sand the edges flat.

The bottom slot holds 1 plank at a 45 degree angle while I bevel the edges. It seems like a lot of work but I can sand and bevel three 20" planks in 5 minutes.

Here are some planks glued to the wheel covers. Using CA I can glue a plank and trim the end with a chisel in a few seconds. I love the look of the beveled planks. These pieces all get painted white, but other cabin walls will be stained natural.

Here two wheel housings, one planked and one plain, are held apart by spacer blocks clamped in place like an ice cream sandwich. The sandwich gets skinned with the 1mm ply sheet at the bottom of the picture glued with CA. The whole assembly took a couple of minutes.

Finally, here are the two wheel housings with the wheel spokes in place to check the fit. The aft skin stops short of the bottom of the housing.

[yvesvidal]

16 hours ago, rvchima said:

This bad boy wandered through my yard this morning looking for a cookout.

 

I was in Lake Lure this past week, and one of the bears sneaked into the boat house, took all the bread bags and emptied the trash bin. Another one was spotted swimming in Lake Lure and apparently crossing the lake....

 

Yves

[schooner]

Looks "bigger than the average bear" as Yogi would say. Glad you didn't decide to take the trash out early that morning or this could have ended up being a very short build log.

Edited July 6, 2023 by schooner

[Canute]

They like to demolish bird feeders, too.  A friend had his feeder turned into a pretzel. Now they no longer put anything out. Deer are my biggest problem; they enjoy flowers.

 

Your steamboat is progressing nicely, Rod.

[rvchima]

Cabin E

Cabin E sits mid-deck and holds the paddle wheel housings. It overlaps with cabin A slightly. Not too difficult.

 

[rvchima]

Big Wheels Keep on Turnin'

The paddle wheel rims are white metal castings that only required minimal cleanup. The instructions called for the paddles to be cut from 1 mm stock, but the notches in the rims were about 1.7 mm, so I made the paddles out of 3 x 1.7 mm planking left over from an old model. I painted the rims and long strips of planking before assembly, then cut the painted planking to length.

 

Sorry, no photos of paddle wheel assembly. Here's the gist, all done with CA.

Drill a 5 mm hole in a scrap board to hold the axle, then glue one rim perpendicular to the axle.

Cut 4 paddle spacers to exactly the distance between the rims, and use them to hold the second rim to the axle while gluing.

Cut 2x16 paddles to length and glue 13 of them to each wheel. You have to leave 3 off until the wheels are installed over the wheel brackets some months from now.

Sand and paint the ends of the paddles.

[rvchima]

Next Step, Deck Planking

I've been keeping a bag of paint and stain samples from previous models, all labeled on the back. It really comes in handy when I need to paint or stain a new model. I think I'll try Watco natural (large sample near the center) on the decks of the R. E. Lee.

 

[schooner]

Your photo reminds me of something unexpected I recently learned - the MinWax stains you show in the lower right of your photo match what I've encountered coming straight out of the can but if I stirred them (not shaken) the colors change dramatically, e.g the Ipswich Pine goes from the light transparent yellow to a solid dark-medium brown. The can directions make no mention of either stirring or not stirring it prior to use.

I've decided to leave well enough alone- that way I know that I'll get something that looks like the color on the label.

 

Keep up the good (and fast) work - she is coming along great!

[rvchima]

On 7/7/2023 at 7:22 AM, schooner said:

Your photo reminds me of something unexpected I recently learned - the MinWax stains you show in the lower right of your photo match what I've encountered coming straight out of the can but if I stirred them (not shaken) the colors change dramatically, e.g the Ipswich Pine goes from the light transparent yellow to a solid dark-medium brown. The can directions make no mention of either stirring or not stirring it prior to use.

I've decided to leave well enough alone- that way I know that I'll get something that looks like the color on the label.

Tim,

That's an interesting observation. I always stir stain before I use it but for those samples I might have used a quick dip. I probably should redo the Minwax samples.

Rod

[hof00]

Hi Chap,

Sorry I missed the start of your Log, never to mind, I am now up to date!!

 

Looking really good.

 

Your "Visitor" is a little larger than what we are used to.... 🙂

 

Cheers....HOF.

[rvchima]

Planking the Deck

The kit supplies 1x3 mm oak strips for the deck, top and bottom. I stained all the strips first with Watco Natural oil stain. That way if I get a little sloppy with the glue it won't interfere with the stain.

I made the planks 30 mm long, which scales up to 4.5 m or about 15 ft. I don't actually cut all the little planks. I glue down a full strip with CA, then chop the joints between the planks with a sharp chisel. My chisel is much wider than the planks so I do one strip at a time and let the chisel hang over the edge. I staggered the joints over three strips - very convenient 10 mm stagger. After I get some cutoffs I use them instead of full strips.

I coated the completed deck with Famowood wood filler, sanded it smooth, and stained it again with Watco. The whole deck only took a couple of evenings. Here's the final deck with some of the structure on top.

 

[rvchima]

Planking the Cabin Walls

The kit supplies 1x2 mm walnut strips for planking virtually every surface of every cabin. The planks have to be fit around approximately 130 cast metal windows and 22 doors. This often involves cutting strips 3-5 mm long for the spaces above and below the windows. Now I know why several people never completed this model!

 

Much of the model will have white walls and white windows, but the area behind the windows should be black. So I will have to spray paint the walls and windows white, but hand paint inside the window openings black before assembling. The upper cabins will have natural walnut walls which will have to be sanded, edges beveled, and stained before planking.

 

Here is my first go at cabin walls, with a door and some windows dropped in place.

I am getting better at planking using the following techniques:

• Chisel a clean edge on a long plank to get a tight fit against one edge.
• Apply CA to the back of the plank, wipe excess, and lay in place.
• Cut the long end of the plank with flush cutters.
• Sand remaining edges towards the plywood backing to minimize splinters.
• 

 

Edited July 17, 2023 by rvchima

[rvchima]

Tired of Paneling Around Tiny Windows? Do this Tonight - It's Genius!

No, this is not click-bait. I did find a much better technique to fit panels around my tiny windows and doors. I borrowed the technique from marquetry where you glue up smaller pieces on a paper backing. I use medium CA to glue several sticks to thin brown paper in appropriate widths. Then I use a sharp chisel to cut the lengths to fit, 2-5 mm around the windows. The chisel leaves a nice square edge.

How to pick up the tiny pieces? I have a huge roll of 3M double sided tape. I attach tiny pieces of tape to a stick and use that to pick up the panels. It only sticks for a few pieces, but I can replace it in seconds. Smear some CA on the panel and drop it in place.

After I had all the edging in place, I paneled around all these windows in an hour or so.

 

[hof00]

An excellent technique!!

Thank you for the info, 🙂

 

Cheers....HOF.

[rvchima]

Boiler Room & Raised Cabin

The boiler room is a simple 3-sided structure with 8 holes in the front for brass portholes. The louvered sides are paneled with strips with a tapered cross section, except that the taper was too subtle. I glued 0.5 mm thin strips to the high edge to accentuate the taper. The raised cabin sits in front of the boiler room with its own deck on 6 pillars.

Raised cabin & boiler room in their eventual location.

  Front view.

Edited July 21, 2023 by rvchima

[rvchima]

Colonnade

The boiler room and raised cabin are surrounded by a colonnade that support the deck above. Like most everything else on this model, the parts are assembled upside down on the roof. That is usually quite confusing, but in this case the colonnade was easier to assemble upside down. Here's the end product.

The braced columns are built in a jig made from laser cut parts. I stopped my jig flush with the base of the columns so I could flip it over and saw the legs off flush.

I sanded the braces to shape on my disk sander. The angle is 14 degrees - way too small for my fence - so I set the fence to 14 degrees and attached a square block as an auxiliary fence. I could sand perfect angles in a couple of seconds.

 

One big problem with this model is that the cabins are all made separately, upside down, using instructions in Italian with English translations, full-sized layout drawings, and a dimensioned parts list. Often the dimensions don't quite match up, and no matter how many times I look at the drawings it's never clear how the cabins are supposed to go together ...

until it's too late. The roof of the colonnade is supposed to sit on top of the neighboring cabin, but mine was about 1 mm too short. I have no idea how that happened. My only  recourse was to add a 1 mm square pad to the bottom of each column. It wasn't as painful as I expected, and it allowed me to shorten 2 columns at the bow to account for the slope of the deck there. Here's everything correctly aligned.

Almost everything needs to be painted white before I can do much more construction so it's off to the paint booth, AKA garage.

 

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

  'Love this steamer - and its a future project - since I discovered that the Scientific wood model and the Pyro/Lindbergh plastic version are the same scale - about 1:162.  Thus neat detailed parts from the Pyro model can be used to enhance (and make easier) doing the wooden version by Scientific.  I think there are build logs of both versions, as well as in larger scale.

 

  Edit of 8-3-23  OOPS !!  My typo on the kit scales.  I confused the scale of two "other" paired kits (1:172, and typed that as 1:72 - amazing what missing a digit can do).  The hulls on the Scientific and Lindbergh kits measure 21".  When compared to a 285' long original Robert E. Lee, it works out to about 1:162.  The Lindbergh box states 1:163 (close enough) while the Scientific box states 1/8" = 1.45' ...  My guess is that the 'resultant' model size of about 24.5" represents the hull PLUS extended ramps sticking out in front (OAL).  The plastic hull shell and the wooden hull blank from the respective kits match each other almost perfectly, as do all the detailed parts.

Edited August 3, 2023 by Snug Harbor Johnny

[rvchima]

On 7/21/2023 at 6:14 PM, Snug Harbor Johnny said:

'Love this steamer - and its a future project - since I discovered that the Scientific wood model and the Pyro/Lindbergh plastic version are the same scale - about 1:72.  Thus neat detailed parts from the Pyro model can be used to enhance (and make easier) doing the wooden version by Scientific

Johnny,

This is a beautiful steamer and an interesting but difficult build. I didn't appreciate how big and complicated these old ships were until I started this model. At 1:150 scale the Amati kit is pretty big, but at 1:72 your Scientific/Pyro build will be a beast!

[rvchima]

Windows  & Doors

Now that's a lot of windows & doors to paint and install! This ship is really a floating hotel. I would love to see deck plans - does anyone know where I might find them?

 

Edited August 3, 2023 by rvchima

[rvchima]

Bottom of the Hull

The instructions have you attaching the lower cabins, and then flipping the model over and planking the bottom of the hull. It seemed a lot easier to do the planking while the top of the ship was flat, so that's what I did.

When the ship is on its stand you can't see the bottom of the hull, so I planked it with full strips and dispensed with the fake plank joints.

There are periodic braces across the planks.

This grate sits behind the paddle wheels. It must have some hydrodynamic purpose, perhaps to give the water uplifted by the wheels somewhere to go. Anyone know about that?

Everything gets painted white. I think that I like this look better than the chamfered edged planking on the cabins. I might dispense with the chamfers on the next layer.

[rvchima]

First Level Painted, Windows, Doors, and Paddle Wheels Installed - 112 hours over 36 days

 

I painted the cabins with 2 coats of Tamiya white primer and 2 coats of Krylon gloss white, all from rattle cans. Red trim was painted in full strips with Testor's red spray, cut to length, and touched up after installation. Window backgrounds were hand-painted with black acrylic, and windows installed with a touch of medium CA.

Paddle wheels installed and cabin placed back on the hull. The instructions recommended chamfering the edges of the hull planks. That leaves obvious gaps between the planks, and spray paint just doesn't get in there. The next couple of decks are natural walnut, and I think I'll leave the planks flat.

Colonnade and raised cabin installed in front of boiler room. The boiler room has 8 turned brass view windows (portholes) over 8 firebox doors. One of the portholes went flying in my shop, never to be seen again. After hours of searching I made a replacement out of nested pieces of brass tubing. It looked almost perfect, and you can't see it  back there anyway. I suppose firewood (or coal?) was stored under the raised cabin right in front of the firebox doors.

Rear cabins installed.

Everything completed so far.

 

 

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

5 hours ago, rvchima said:

Johnny,

This is a beautiful steamer and an interesting but difficult build. I didn't appreciate how big and complicated these old ships were until I started this model. At 1:150 scale the Amati kit is pretty big, but at 1:72 your Scientific/Pyro build will be a beast!

 

  Thanks for catching my typo ... the spell Czech does not catch a goof spelled correctly  (or suggests something odd for a typo it DOES find).  Were the scale really 1:72 the model would be over 4 feet !  The actual kit scale of 1:162 is just a tad smaller than the one you are building - and nicely done at that. The edit to my original post is pasted below:

 

Edit of 8-3-23  OOPS !!  My typo on the kit scales.  I confused the scale of two "other" paired kits (1:172, and typed that as 1:72 - amazing what missing a digit can do).  The hulls on the Scientific and Lindbergh kits measure 21".  When compared to a 285' long original Robert E. Lee, it works out to about 1:162.  The Lindbergh box states 1:163 (close enough) while the Scientific box states 1/8" = 1.45' ...  My guess is that the 'resultant' model size of about 24.5" represents the hull PLUS extended ramps sticking out in front (OAL).  The plastic hull shell and the wooden hull blank from the respective kits match each other almost perfectly, as do all the detailed parts.

[schooner]

The photo showing the boiler front with the fire doors right under a cabin floor goes a long way to explaining why those boats were such fire traps!

This build is coming along nicely, keep up your typically good work!

Edited August 4, 2023 by schooner