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

[rvchima]

Grand Staircase

The staircase is cast metal. It needed a little sanding to flatten the top, but wasn't too bad otherwise. There is a support dowel between the deck and staircase landing, so I drilled through the center of the landing to make a tight fit for the dowel. The four bottom stairs are individual pieces of plywood that are glued up and angled to fit the slope of the fore deck. I used double sided tape to hold everything in place, used a little CA to glue the bottom stairs and dowel permanently, then removed the assembly for painting.

 

The columns and arch were built separately and glued to the staircase. The instructions called for lamps on the two columns. No lamps were included with the kit, so I made some with tiny gold beads on brass pins.

 

I really liked rodgerdodger's red carpet treatment, so I borrowed the idea. This is the first thing that passengers would see when boarding the ship, inviting them to go upstairs. Good thing, because the next thing they would see is the boiler room.

 

 

[rvchima]

Third Deck Planking

The technique of gluing planks to a paper backing is working extremely well. The 2 mm walnut strips supplied with the kit are about 20" long, and I am gluing up 10" segments of 2, 3, 4, and 5 strips, plus segments of 1+2+2+1 mm strips that fit the doors and windows. I put a stop block on my cutting board to cut pieces to the height of the cabin.  I saw with paper side down so the wood doesn't tear when the saw cuts through.

Another big advantage is that when I mess up and glue something crooked, it cuts off easily through the paper backing and just requires a little sanding to remove the paper.

I planked the forward cabin, sanded and oiled it in two days. Then painted the window interiors and added the windows and doors in a couple more hours.

The flat planks on the walnut cabins look SO much better than the chamfered planks on the painted cabins. The next deck is back to white, and I will totally forget the chamfering.

I planked the aft cabin in 3 hours.

 

Edited August 9, 2023 by rvchima
spelling

[hof00]

Looking really good Chap!!

[Cathead]

Just found this while looking for recently started build logs to support. You're making good progress on a complicated model. Think of all the planking work as a tradeoff for all the rigging you won't have to do, compared with a typical three-masted sailing ship.

[rvchima]

Onward and Upward

Building this ship is like baking a wedding cake - you just keep adding layers on top. (Not that I've ever baked a wedding cake.) The layers from my previous post have all been attached, a layer of skylights has been added, and another layer of cabins is framed. The smokestacks are just there temporarily.

There will be four brass rails going through 12 wooden columns around this rear deck. Previous builders have commented on how difficult they are to build. I am not looking forward to that.

The sidelights are white metal castings about 2.5 inches long. Every little hole had to be cleaned out with a tiny square file. The red trim pieces are supposed to be made of wood, but there is no way to bend wood around those sharp corners, short of laminating thin strips. I did what other builders have done and used styrene strips. They were painted with the same red paint used elsewhere but came out shinier, brighter, and, well, plastic looking.

The ship has 14 staircases made from beautiful wooden strips that must have been cut on a CNC machine. They have to be cut to length and have side rails added. I stained everything with a walnut stain.

 

[rvchima]

Not As Bad As I Expected

 

On 8/17/2023 at 11:58 AM, rvchima said:

There will be four brass rails going through 12 wooden columns around this rear deck. Previous builders have commented on how difficult they are to build. I am not looking forward to that.

I started those rails yesterday about 5:00 and had them done by 9:30, including dinner and dishes. I pre-painted the column stock. The column heights varied by about 3 mm from fore to aft, so I cut each slightly over sized and sanded for a snug fit. Like Rodgerdodger, I built a brass and wood jig for drilling the columns. Masking tape on the back prevented tear out.

 

Rodgerdodger used music wire for the rails. My instructions said that the rails were metallic thread. My kit has some very fine 0.2 mm brass wire, but also some 1 mm brass rod.* I used the brass rod, and pre-bent it to match the plans as closely as possibly. Then I threaded 4 rails through 6 columns in the proper order, arranged everything on the deck, and applied CA with a glue looper. I only broke two columns in the process.

 

*One problem with this kit is that it includes lots of parts with no explanation as to what they are for.

[rvchima]

Texas Deck & Pilot House

 

The captain's and crew's quarters were on the top deck. Since the captain had the biggest quarters the deck was called the Texas deck after the biggest state at that time. The pilot house sits on top of everything, giving the captain a commanding view of the river. Construction was the same as lower decks - basswood frame planked with walnut, leaving room for LOTS of windows and doors. The pilot house itself has 15 windows and one door. Everything was framed with red styrene, and a trim strip of photo etched gingerbread was added inside.

There is still a lot of photo etched trim to go. I pre-painted it while still on the sprues.

[rvchima]

Trim and Railings

The photo etched trim hangs down from the deck above and supports the tops of about 150 columns that go down to the deck below. The instructions say to use 1 mm square walnut strips, but they are hard to paint and keep smooth. I found some 1 mm square x 20" long styrene strips on Amazon that would be delivered the next day. I expected a 20" long package but received a small envelope with the strips rolled up inside. They straightened out some, and when cut to 18 mm lengths the bends didn't show. Everything got attached as follows:

• Glue trim around the top
• Glue top of column to trim
• Glue bottom of column to deck
• Glue railings to bottom of columns
• Glue walnut trim to railings

It only took a couple of afternoons.

The Texas deck got a little porch in front and railings around the top of 6 staircases.

 

 

[rvchima]

Smokestacks

The forward smokestacks came nicely turned from hardwood. I curved the photo etched trim pieces and attached them to the tops. The stacks are braced side-to-side with three tubes each surrounded by 3 rings supporting 4 wires. The kit did not include the brass tubes so I substituted aluminum that I had on hand. The kit came with extremely thin brass wire so I substituted black thread. Assembly was fiddly but not impossible. I can't imagine how the rings and wires could offer and structural support, so I suppose they were purely decorative.

[rvchima]

 Status - 225 hours, 68 days

The decks, railings, and smokestacks are all attached and the working base has been replaced with a beautiful cherry base from Bluejacket Shipcrafters. It may seem like there's not much left to do, but looking ahead in the instructions it's obvious that there is plenty. There are masts, gangways, lots of rigging, and support braces to build. There are 3 lifeboats, 2 anchors, and a capstan to build. There are flags, lanterns, a steam whistle, and other accessories to add.

 

My wife and I are getting ready for a trip to Utah to see 5 national parks, so I won't be posting for a few weeks. Don't worry, I will finish the model eventually.

 

[neilm]

Fantastic work. Just bought this, so will be needing some advice along the way please. 😊

[bcochran]

On 8/3/2023 at 8:04 AM, rvchima said:

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?

 

Here are some plans I used for reference.  You might already have them.  The plans were by Bates I think.  I bought a set on Ebay and when my boat was finished I passed them along to another member who was building a Robt E Lee.  There are 9 pages,

Edited September 19, 2023 by bcochran

[bcochran]

On 9/2/2023 at 12:25 PM, rvchima said:

 Status - 225 hours, 68 days

The decks, railings, and smokestacks are all attached and the working base has been replaced with a beautiful cherry base from Bluejacket Shipcrafters. It may seem like there's not much left to do, but looking ahead in the instructions it's obvious that there is plenty. There are masts, gangways, lots of rigging, and support braces to build. There are 3 lifeboats, 2 anchors, and a capstan to build. There are flags, lanterns, a steam whistle, and other accessories to add.

 

My wife and I are getting ready for a trip to Utah to see 5 national parks, so I won't be posting for a few weeks. Don't worry, I will finish the model eventually.

 

Hog chains are an important things to add

[rvchima]

On 9/18/2023 at 8:16 PM, bcochran said:

Here are some plans I used for reference.  You might already have them.  The plans were by Bates I think.  I bought a set on Ebay and when my boat was finished I passed them along to another member who was building a Robt E Lee.  There are 9 pages,

Bcochran,

Thank you for the drawings of the R. E. Lee. I do wish that I had them earlier to avoid

 

A HUGE MISTAKE

The plans above show the stacks close to the cabins on the Texas deck. The kit had holes pre-drilled in the decks that I assumed were for screws for the stacks. I realized that I could never tighten screws in that location so I used short dowels to attach the stacks from above, and I built the stacks and braces to fit those holes. Turns out they are way too far apart.
This is where the stacks should be.

This is where my stacks are. I didn't realize my mistake until I started to attach supports for hull chains.

The hulls on river steamers were so long and shallow that they tended to flex, and had to be braced with chains like a suspension bridge. This image from The Western Rivers Steamboat Cyclopaedium by Bates shows typical supports and chains. The Amati kit has the supports, although most of them stop at the top deck. The front support does go through all of the decks, right next to the stack, probably through the pre-drilled hole that I centered the stack on. Fortunately there was just enough room to place the support next to the stack. But how to drill the hole?

Years ago I needed to thread an electrical wire through a wall, and made a very long 1/8" drill out of a piece of wire. It worked perfectly to drill through the decks for the support piece.

Here's the drill,

and the support piece in place. All the other support pieces are dummys, attached only to the upper deck. So my stacks are too far apart, but I can still squeeze the chains in place.

[Cathead]

Just to head off a potential and easy-to-make error, the hog chains you're working on were not literally chains, but solid iron rods tightened with turnbuckles. Modelers unfamiliar with steamboats can easily be misled by the terminology, so I thought I'd offer a heads-up just in case you hadn't recognized this.

[rvchima]

On 9/22/2023 at 8:46 AM, Cathead said:

Just to head off a potential and easy-to-make error, the hog chains you're working on were not literally chains, but solid iron rods tightened with turnbuckles. Modelers unfamiliar with steamboats can easily be misled by the terminology, so I thought I'd offer a heads-up just in case you hadn't recognized this.

Eric,

Thank you for the explanation about the "chains". I didn't think they were actual chains but I wasn't sure. Anyway I was planning to use heavy black thread with tiny, hand-made turnbuckles. Photos to follow.

[neilm]

Excellent build. Great skills and patience. Loving this . 

[rvchima]

Steamboat Robert E Lee is Finished, 269 Hours, 102 Days

Since returning from a trip to Utah to visit five national parks, I've put in about 40 hours to complete the rigging, accessories, and deck furniture. Here are photos of the final model.

 

The masts and yards were fairly complicated, with the hinged joints between them made up from brass tube and sheet. The chain supplied for the gangways is tiny and required magnifiers to work with. The gangways would never hang in place by themselves so I glued small black wedges to keep them were I want them.

The kit includes two very nice metal and wood anchor kits and a really cute turned capstan. The instructions said to use 1 mm wood strips for the capstan bars, but the turned base had 1 mm round holes so I used brass rod. When I clipped the rod to length after assembly the ends were rough so I touched one gently to my disk sander, and the sander grabbed it and dragged the whole thing into the gap between the spinning disk and table. That really mangled the capstan. I sure wish I had taken a photo.

I ended up turning a new capstan on the end of a dowel. Here's the new one and what's left of the old one.

 

The ship has two tiny lifeboats for 240 or more passengers, and no davits for launching them.

There is one more lifeboat or ship's boat hanging from a boom at the stern. Like the gangways there is no way this would hang correctly by itself, so I pinned it to the stern.

 

Summary

You can't go wrong with a kit by Amati. They have excellent materials and detailed plans, and end up as beautiful models.

 

The illustrated instructions for the Robert E. Lee are in Italian. An English translation is included but you need to refer back to the Italian for illustrations. The build sequence was confusing. Instead of building cabins upward from the lower deck, they are built down from the deck above. That allows you to plank and paint the cabin walls, but it makes it quite confusing to see which parts all need to line up. The instructions recommended rounding the edges of the cabin wall planks. I regret doing that on the lower decks - the paint didn't get into the joints and it makes the work look sloppy. I did not round the planks on the upper decks. You can still see hints that the walls are planked but they look much cleaner. I also found that I could pre-glue several planks to a sheet of brown paper, glue that to the cabin walls, and trim the length later. That gave a much neater look.

 

This is not an easy model. All the planking, windows and doors, and a surprising amount of rigging add up to a lot of work. In the end, though, Amati's Robert E Lee builds into a beautiful model.

[berhard]

Nice build. Enjoyed following your build log.

[Paul Le Wol]

Rod, congratulations on finishing The Robert E. Lee. Steamboats are special. Yours is extra special.

[Knocklouder]

Congratulations  great build,   

[neilm]

Beautiful work. Thank you for sharing and giving us all pointers. Very well done. Be very proud. 

[hof00]

Hi Rod,

Yet another very nice build!!

(Wots next? 😀)

 

Cheers....HOF.

[Cathead]

Great job, that's a really attractive model!

 

On 10/6/2023 at 12:48 PM, rvchima said:

The ship has two tiny lifeboats for 240 or more passengers

.

For what it's worth, steamboats of this era didn't carry "lifeboats" at all. The existing boats are for the general use of the crew; there was essentially no provision for evacuating the vessel in case of emergency. In part this was due to relaxed conventions of the era, but also the reality of river vs. ocean navigation. Although steamboats sank fairly frequently, it was a very different process than for an ocean-going vessel. Loosely speaking, steamboat sinkings tended be either mild enough that lifeboats were unnecessary, or violent enough that they were functionally irrelevant. 

 

If the hull was punctured by river debris (or an occasional collision), there was almost always time to navigate close enough to the riverbank that the vessel would just settle into the mud and people could be gotten off in a leisurely manner, at worst having fled to the upper decks (where most passengers tended to be anyway). It was rare to sink in a channel deep enough to swallow the whole vessel right away, and these vessels almost never overturned.

 

The more disastrous events usually involved a boiler explosion, which tended to rip the superstructure apart and/or set it on fire (these boats quickly became infernos once set alight), and when this happened, there was little time or ability to competently launch lifeboats for hundreds of people even if they had existed. And even in these circumstances, an explosion or fire rarely compromised the hull, because all the machinery and most of the superstructure was above the water line, so anyone who wasn't killed, maimed, or burned faster than a lifeboat could be deployed was generally safe on the hull as it drifted to shore.

 

Finally, most of the river corridors on the Mississippi, Ohio, and lower Missouri were fairly well settled and heavily traveled, so there were generally other folks around with boats who could respond quickly. Quite different from a disaster in the middle of the ocean or on some remote storm-wracked shore. 

 

This isn't to say that sufficient lifeboats wouldn't have been useful under certain circumstances, just that the context was very different for what would make them worth carrying and deploying. These vessels weren't designed in a way that carrying lots of boats on instant-deployment davits (e.g. Titanic) would have been very practical, and having piles of boats lashed down somewhere on deck (e.g. your average sailing vessel) would have been too slow to deploy in most steamboat emergencies in which they would have been useful.

 

That's my perspective, anyway.

 

 

[rvchima]

Thank you all for the gracious comments. I enjoy the work and do appreciate all the feedback. It often surprises me how frequently I refer back to my old posts to see how I did something or what kind of paint that I used. So the build logs are a useful reference for me, and I hope that they will help other modelers in the future.

 

I will be starting on a woodworking project, a TV console cabinet for my son, so no posts here for a while.

 

Eric, thank you for the perspective on lifeboats. I suspected that they were impractical and maybe unnecessary on riverboats. However, Smithsonian Magazine had an interesting article, When Deadly Steamboat Races Enthralled America, with some pretty grizzly statistics about steamboat disasters, mostly due to fires or boiler explosions. It makes steamboats seem somewhat less glamorous.

Edited October 9, 2023 by rvchima

[Cathead]

20 minutes ago, rvchima said:

some pretty grizzly statistics about steamboat disasters, mostly due to fires or boiler explosions. It makes steamboats seem somewhat less glamorous.

Oh, they were certainly dangerous and deadly. There's a steamboat wreck every few miles along most of the lower Missouri River. One blew up near where I live, so badly that the boat's safe ended up in the hills on the other side of the riverfront town. That one orphaned a whole mess of Mormon immigrant children who were subsequently adopted into the small town's families. The point I was making above was that a full complement of lifeboats wouldn't have saved many victims of the deadly explosions and fires, and generally weren't necessary for the more benign incidents. 

[schooner]

Rod,

I just got back from a long road trip so I missed the finish to this build. Great job!!! I had no idea this kit was so detailed, and complicated, but you really did her justice.

Maybe you could bring all of your model ship building skills to bear and make your TV cabinet look like the bow of a planked boat!

Edited October 31, 2023 by schooner

[CharlesK]

Greeting rvchima. I am just starting to construct the Robert E. Lee and I quickly realized that at least one sheet of parts is missing,  So I have a quick question. Did you encounter any missing sheets of laser cut parts?  Thanks for your answer.  And I want to thank you for doing this building log, it really helps me.  Charles

[DomFischli]

Hi Rod

Woow this looks amazing! Now i'm thinking of doing this next. Just wanted to know if this is alright for a beginner like me? I just finished my first model the Amati Endeavour 1:80 had a few mistakes but i'm really happy with it. 

Dominik