Lula by Keith Black - 1:120 Scale - 1870s Sternwheeler Supply Boat for Floating Pile Driver

[wefalck]

I gather it depends on the master and his safety consciousness ... there are/were well-kept boats and others ...

 

[GrandpaPhil]

2 hours ago, Javelin said:

Unfortunately I have to agree with Ferrus. 

Although nowadays safety is improving, a lot of "old school" people are still around on work boats. 

The drive to perform and do things quickly is often that high that people ignore the hazards to their own life and limb. Very often they are not aware of the hazards or have gotten away with some practices for a while not to consider them dangerous at all. 

When at work, tools are often scattered around to avoid losing time to get them. A lot of it depends on who's leading the operations and which kind of mix of characters you have onboard. 

All in all the rate of injuries and casualties on workboats remains high, even today, and that's not entirely due to the inherently dangerous activities they perform...

 

 

That said, I'm happy to hear of the good news (considering the circumstances) about your health Keith! 

Great to see you continuing Lula! 

Don’t forget the extension cords run out and the air hoses!

 

The crews I worked with were pretty conscious about them though.

 

Cleaning them and everything else up was part of our shift change.

[Keith Black]

On 5/16/2025 at 9:10 AM, GrandpaPhil said:

Keith,

  Glad to hear that you are doing better!  Lula looks amazing!

 

Regarding workboat cleanliness, many years ago I worked on a supply boat in the former Gulf of Mexico.

 

It was usually kept as uncluttered as possible to reduce the possibility of tripping or otherwise damaging either the crew or the equipment.

 

We were pretty careful about making sure that we kept everything picked up and stowed.

 Thank you, Phil.

 

On 5/16/2025 at 12:18 PM, Javelin said:

Unfortunately I have to agree with Ferrus. 

Although nowadays safety is improving, a lot of "old school" people are still around on work boats. 

The drive to perform and do things quickly is often that high that people ignore the hazards to their own life and limb. Very often they are not aware of the hazards or have gotten away with some practices for a while not to consider them dangerous at all. 

When at work, tools are often scattered around to avoid losing time to get them. A lot of it depends on who's leading the operations and which kind of mix of characters you have onboard. 

All in all the rate of injuries and casualties on workboats remains high, even today, and that's not entirely due to the inherently dangerous activities they perform...

 

 

That said, I'm happy to hear of the good news (considering the circumstances) about your health Keith! 

Great to see you continuing Lula! 

 Thank you, Roel. I hope and pray your life is not at risk because of shortsightedness and greed by those that have authority over you.

 

On 5/16/2025 at 1:23 PM, wefalck said:

I gather it depends on the master and his safety consciousness ... there are/were well-kept boats and others ...

 Companies would be run much differently if the director's children worked in those high risk areas.

 

 

Thank you to everyone for the comments and the likes. 

 

 

 Lula has her crew. There are eight crew members including Captain Bill.

 

 The boilerman can be seen at the front of the boiler and the lead deckhand is the person walking toward the bow on the starboard side. 

 

 The deckhand hanging on the grab handle is the youngest member of the crew. A lot of his foolishness is overlooked and forgiven because he is also the strongest and least fearful of any man onboard.  

 

The engineer and his assistant are replacing one of the seals on the hand pump that went wobbly. There are four deckhands including the lead deckhand. 

 

 

 Next on the list are the chain supports for the cylinder timbers. What jolly good fun awaits. 

 

 Thank you to each of you for your support and for following along.

 

  Keith

 

 

[Rick310]

It just keeps getting better and better Keith!!

Rick

[Keith Black]

3 hours ago, Rick310 said:

It just keeps getting better and better Keith!!

 Thank you, Rick. 

[LJP]

Simply EXCELLENT!  

LJP

[Keith Black]

23 minutes ago, LJP said:

Simply EXCELLENT!

 Thank you, LJP

[Paul Le Wol]

Keith, that is a great looking crew!

[Keith Black]

3 hours ago, Paul Le Wol said:

Keith, that is a great looking crew!

 Thank you, Paul.

 

 I was going to add a figure using a push broom and I thought I better check Google and check when the push broom was invented. I'm certainly glad I did because the push broom patent was applied for in 1950. How bizarre is that!  

[TBlack]

There’s a patent for a push broom!? Amazing!

[Paul Le Wol]

Good going Keith, I would never have thought of that.👍

[kurtvd19]

That's a good catch about the broom.  That is in keeping with the NRG's motto - Advancing Ship Modeling Through Research".

[wefalck]

What's a 'push broom'?

 

[clearway]

15 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Next on the list are the chain supports for the cylinder timbers. What jolly good fun awaits. 

we do like to "entertain" ourselves Keith- it's a kind of sado-masochism 😁- crew look great and i like the story being told.

 

Keith

[GrandpaPhil]

3 hours ago, wefalck said:

What's a 'push broom'?

 

Eberhard,

  It’s a large broom used for cleaning floors (or decks in this case).

 

https://www.acehardware.com/departments/home-and-decor/cleaning-and-disinfectants/push-brooms/1581016
 

 

[Keith Black]

3 hours ago, TBlack said:

There’s a patent for a push broom!? Amazing!

 Patent Attorneys gotta eat too. 

 

3 hours ago, Paul Le Wol said:

Good going Keith, I would never have thought of that

 Thank you, Paul. It's hard to believe that push brooms predate the first artificial earth orbiting satellite by only seven years. That's just mind blowing crazy.

 

3 hours ago, kurtvd19 said:

That's a good catch about the broom.  That is in keeping with the NRG's motto - Advancing Ship Modeling Through Research".

 Thank you, Kurt.

 

2 hours ago, clearway said:

we do like to "entertain" ourselves Keith- it's a kind of sado-masochism 😁- crew look great and i like the story being told.

 Thank you, Keith. For me, doing chain work is like stabbing myself repeatedly with a sharp needle. Okay, a little over the top... a dull needle. 

 

18 minutes ago, GrandpaPhil said:

It’s a large broom used for cleaning floors (or decks in this case).

 Thanks. Phil. 

 

 

 Speaking of chain work, I'm off to upstairs to blacken me some chain. 

[mcb]

Hello Keith,

Lula is almost finished now I suppose, looking good with all the details and a crew to liven things up.

Thanks for posting about the 'Hard Coal Navy', very interesting, I never heard of that before.

 

Now I'm off to scrape the broom off my grain elevator.😀

 

Thanks for posting,

mcb

[Keith Black]

1 hour ago, mcb said:

Lula is almost finished now I suppose, looking good with all the details and a crew to liven things up.

Thanks for posting about the 'Hard Coal Navy', very interesting, I never heard of that before.

 

Now I'm off to scrape the broom off my grain elevator.😀

 

Thanks for posting,

 

 Thank you, mcb.

 

 The push broom is such a simple idea and it fills a large need, I can't help but believe someone hadn't made a rudimentary push broom long before 1950. They had to have. 

[TBlack]

7 hours ago, wefalck said:

What's a 'push broom'?

 

[wefalck]

Sorry, I don't want to dilute the thread, but I am curious, when a broom would be a 'push-broom', rather than just an ordinary wide broom? Below is an image of Berlin street-sweeps from around 1910, who seem to push fairly wide brooms:

 

[Ian_Grant]

I read the 1950 patent. It's for a new idea of pushbroom construction, with a new handle design to allow the user to sweep under low objects without having to stoop as with a straight handle design. It was so successful I've never seen one for sale. 🤔

 

US11504A is a patent from 1871 describing an improvement in handle/broom attachments for pushbrooms, so they must have existed even before then.

 

As a side note, after one of my high tech layoffs there was a government ad for "junior patent examiners" with technical backgrounds; I actually applied but when they sent a list of reading materials to study it made my eyelids heavy. More dealing with paperwork than anything so I did not continue. I ended up working as a handyman for 15 years which provided much more variety and enjoyment and outdoor time.

[Keith Black]

5 hours ago, wefalck said:

Sorry, I don't want to dilute the thread, but I am curious, when a broom would be a 'push-broom', rather than just an ordinary wide broom? Below is an image of Berlin street-sweeps from around 1910, who seem to push fairly wide brooms:

 

52 minutes ago, Ian_Grant said:

I read the 1950 patent. It's for a new idea of pushbroom construction, with a new handle design to allow the user to sweep under low objects without having to stoop as with a straight handle design. It was so successful I've never seen one for sale. 🤔

 

US11504A is a patent from 1871 describing an improvement in handle/broom attachments for pushbrooms, so they must have existed even before then.

 Well, great googly moogly! Mr Google has lost all respect.  I figured 1950 couldn't be right but when I tried going deeper into broom history, push broom specifically, I couldn't make headway and Google kept coming back to the 1950 date so I accepted AI's 1950 date as gospel. My apologies to everyone! Thank you Ian and Eberhard.

 

 @mcb STOP!  

Edited 2 hours ago by Keith Black

[Cathead]

3 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

I accepted AI's 1950 date as gospel.

In my experience one should trust nothing that AI generates. In every case that I search a subject in which I have any specialist or even reasonable knowledge, the top-level Google AI summary is either outright wrong or highly misleading. 

[Keith Black]

1 minute ago, Cathead said:

In my experience one should trust nothing that AI generates. In every case that I search a subject in which I have any specialist or even reasonable knowledge, the top-level Google AI summary is either outright wrong or highly misleading. 

Thank you, Eric.

 

 This AI business is relatively new. Before, when I used Google search, I could trust the answers I received or at least I thought I could.

 

 Should one no longer use Google when doing research? If the answer is 'yes' I'm in serious trouble, all kidding aside.   

[ccoyle]

11 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

 Should one no longer use Google when doing research?

 

The AI problem isn't limited to just Google. The internet is simply awash in AI-generated crappola grande. And I'm sure we all have friends who seem to be completely incapable of detecting it and insist on flooding their social media pages with it. As always seems to happen, dimwits and ne'er-do-wells have taken a potentially useful tool and largely ruined it. 😢

[Canute]

Amen, Chris.

 

Nice to see your crew deployed around the boat and especially their back stories. We did that in the papermill on our club layout and the visitors liked to read the vignettes.

[Cathead]

1 hour ago, Keith Black said:

 Should one no longer use Google when doing research?

There's a difference between regular Google and Google's AI-generated results. When you search something in Google, often the top result will now be labelled "AI Overview". THAT'S what you should take with a mine's worth of salt. It's AI attempting to synthesize internet-wide results into a coherent answer and it's routinely full of crap. The problem is that AI is a black box and doesn't share where it's getting its information from or how it's analyzing it, so you have no way to assess the accuracy of its sources or results. For just one example, AI tends to assume that quantity equals quality, so it'll spit back whatever it thinks is the most-common answer. But that doesn't make that answer correct.

 

Below that, usually below a blue line, you go back to "traditional" Google results, which is just serving up websites that appear to have information relevant to your search. It's not that these are inherently reliable, but you can actually look at the source. For a theoretical example, if you search "how many birds are there in the world", and a regular result comes from something like the Audubon Society, it's probably reasonably accurate. If it comes from some rando non-bird-related website, you know to be cautious. Regular Google results still give you the option to make your own decision about the reliability of the source. AI results do not.

 

And as ccoyle points out, it's becoming cyclically worse, because now more and more "regular" web results are reposting AI-generated drivel without fact-checking or critical thinking, so even regular web results slowly become less reliable, which in turns means that direct AI results are ever less reliable because it's regurgitating mistakes it generated in the first place.

 

It's always been necessary to use critical thinking when doing internet research, but it's especially so now when the "results" being given are ever-more unreliable. But the most immediate thing you can do is recognize that "AI Overview" section at the top of Google results and scroll right past that little devil, or at least give it some serious scrutiny before taking it as gospel. Think of it like the "sponsored" results you get when you Google a product; just because they come up first doesn't mean they're the best results for you; just because AI Overview comes up first doesn't mean it's the best result. In both cases it means it's what Google wants you to see, and you're better off scrolling past that crap and using real results for your answers.

 

Google should be thought of as a tool for locating resources that will answer your question, NOT as the actual provider of those answers. That means you have to go beyond Google to click on and read the actual answers those links provide, not just trust the AI attempt to summarize those answers. Think of it this way: you can ask a librarian how to find a book on a specialist topic like "how to rig a sailing ship model", but you should NOT just ask the librarian themselves how to rig a ship model and expect to trust the answer. And you should still take the time to assess which of the books on the shelf seem most reliable, not just blindly take the first book off the shelf and assume it's right.