Sternwheeler From the Susquehanna River's Hard Coal Navy by Keith Black - 1:120 Scale

[kurtvd19]

Keith:

Looking real nice.  You have captured the essence of a unique work boat.   Are you planning any sort of brace for the steam whistle pipe or is the actual diameter such that a brace is not needed?  You probably mentioned the size but my memory is not always connected correctly.

Kurt

 

[clearway]

😊😁😊

[Keith Black]

10 hours ago, Paul Le Wol said:

Enjoy the moment Keith.

 Thank you, Paul. I'm taking a couple of days to do exactly that. 

 

9 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

Amazing work, Keith!

 Thank you, Glen.

 

9 hours ago, Canute said:

Enjoy the feeling, mate. That little boat looks the purpose of reclaiming hard coal from the Susquehanna. 

 Thank you, Ken. 

 

3 hours ago, kurtvd19 said:

Looking real nice.  You have captured the essence of a unique work boat.   Are you planning any sort of brace for the steam whistle pipe or is the actual diameter such that a brace is not needed?  You probably mentioned the size but my memory is not always connected correctly.

 Thank you, Kurt. You be one sharp eyed fella. I missed my chance for the brace of choice when I got ahead of myself and glued the whistle on before I slipped one of my tiny PE eye pins down the wire (24 GA) first. I was hoping to maybe get away with not having the brace but now that you've pointed it out to the whole world 🤣, I guess I need to figure out something because it does need to be braced to the exhaust stack...........cain't get away wid nuttin' round here. 

 

2 hours ago, clearway said:

😊😁😊

 Thank you, Keith

[Paul Le Wol]

39 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

cain't get away wid nuttin' round here. 

Hahahaha!

[Keith Black]

 Speaking of steam whistle line brace....

 

 This photo shows the brace. The angle suggest (to me at least) that the brace carries past the steam line and anchors into the pilot house wall. Do my colleagues agree? 

 

 

Something like this? You guys realize this is going to cause project delays and cost overruns. 

[mbp521]

All caught up Keith, what an amazing build! Your attention to detail is outstanding. It still boggles my mind as to how you can cram so much into these small scale builds. One good thing about them is they don't take up much shelf space, something I'm quickly running out of.

 

-Brian

[kurtvd19]

55 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

Something like this? You guys realize this is going to cause project delays and cost overruns. 

That would work - with the attachment point on the pilothouse high enough so the crew don't bump their heads.  I realize you just randomly terminated the red line at the pilothouse.

Kurt

 

[Javelin]

On 9/23/2025 at 5:58 AM, Keith Black said:

 

 All the water, exhaust, and steam lines have been added and attached, it's quite the maze but NOTHING like Roel's masterpiece. 

Well there, I was just about to say that all great things (or mazes) have small beginnings (or pipes), and that you made a good start of one, till Kurt mentioned that brace. 

That's how insanity starts... Before you know it, you're adding more pipes and supports... and there you go: a maze! 

 

What I was really going to say is that those details and pipes are what makes your build so excellent and realistic. Leave those pipes off and it may become bland and in some cases toy-like (although that still wouldn't be the case for your build). 👍

 

[Keith Black]

16 hours ago, mbp521 said:

All caught up Keith, what an amazing build! Your attention to detail is outstanding. It still boggles my mind as to how you can cram so much into these small scale builds. One good thing about them is they don't take up much shelf space, something I'm quickly running out of.

 

 Thank you so much, Brian. You're correct about the footprint and the space required to display them. I could (hopefully) build several of these at this scale and only need a couple of book shelves to display them.  

 

16 hours ago, kurtvd19 said:

That would work - with the attachment point on the pilothouse high enough so the crew don't bump their heads.  I realize you just randomly terminated the red line at the pilothouse

 Thank you again, Kurt for keeping me honest. In my #303 post I was laughing at myself because I was trying to skate on making the brace thinking, will anyone really notice? And sure enough, I was caught red handed and I find it a laughable (at me) situation. 

 

 As far as the pilot house attachment point.....1) It could work out where I'm only able the brace between the exhaust stack and the steam whistle line. 2) If I am able to attach to the pilot house it's probably going to be a arbitrary point. I'm not too worried about the height as that attachment point would be on the port side of the railing and resins for crew access to that side of the railing would have been minimal. 

 

14 hours ago, Javelin said:

Well there, I was just about to say that all great things (or mazes) have small beginnings (or pipes), and that you made a good start of one, till Kurt mentioned that brace. 

That's how insanity starts... Before you know it, you're adding more pipes and supports... and there you go: a maze! 

 

What I was really going to say is that those details and pipes are what makes your build so excellent and realistic. Leave those pipes off and it may become bland and in some cases toy-like (although that still wouldn't be the case for your build). 👍

 Thank you very much, Roel. The brace doesn't really add to the maze that much, truth be told, I was simply being lazy. 

Edited yesterday at 05:03 PM by Keith Black

[Keith Black]

While we're on the subject of leaving things off.......

 

 I can't confidently determine what this is. 

 

At the start of this build, Eric (Cathead) thought it was a ship's boat/skiff. I don't think that's what it is for two reasons.

 

1) If one enlarges the below photo till it pixelates one sees something like what I've drawn. The black object I took to be the water tank and it made sense for it to be there because that would have been adjacent to a pump. 

 

 2) if in fact the black object is a water tank, once added there's insufficient room for a ship's boat/skiff. 

 

 I think what we're seeing (the white object) is a poly tank added when the water pump was upgraded requiring additional tank capacity. Poly tanks didn't come about till the 1960's. These photos could have easily been taken in the 60's not 50's as I had originally thought.  

 

 Whatever it is I'm leaving it off due to uncertainty and making the push boat as it would have been before a possible water pump upgrade.   

 

 The below is a more modern, larger, and better designed Susquehanna towboat and for the life of me, I don't see a ship's boat/skiff. In the limited number of Hard Coal Navy photos I don't see a ship's boat/skiff on any of the vessels. 

[Cathead]

For the life of me I can't NOT see that as the bow of a small upturned boat with the stem and keel arcing over the top. The strongest argument I can think of for it NOT being that is that it looks rather deep, more like a maritime boat, especially when it can't be all that long. It would seem far more likely that this vessel would use a simple shallow squared-off jonboat.

 

Otherwise could it be some kind of stern-facing vent hood? But there isn't much room under it for any sort of equipment that would need such a large vent, and I can't even think of what that would be. Presumably they didn't have a restaurant-grade commercial fryer in there...

[clearway]

it could be a barn or other building on the shoreline perhaps Keith?

 

Keith

[Keith Black]

3 hours ago, Cathead said:

For the life of me I can't NOT see that as the bow of a small upturned boat with the stem and keel arcing over the top. The strongest argument I can think of for it NOT being that is that it looks rather deep, more like a maritime boat, especially when it can't be all that long. It would seem far more likely that this vessel would use a simple shallow squared-off jonboat.

 

Otherwise could it be some kind of stern-facing vent hood? But there isn't much room under it for any sort of equipment that would need such a large vent, and I can't even think of what that would be. Presumably they didn't have a restaurant-grade commercial fryer in there...

 Thank you for your input, Eric. I value your thoughts including "Presumably they didn't have a restaurant-grade commercial fryer in there."  LOL, that's funny I don't care who you are. 

 

3 hours ago, clearway said:

it could be a barn or other building on the shoreline perhaps Keith?

 Keith, It does kinda look like a barn there on the shoreline..............you been standing too close to the tracks again haven't you? 

[Cathead]

Well, pretty much every modern river towboat has a grill/smoker out on deck somewhere, so maybe these guys were just foodies ahead of their time.

[Jim Lad]

I can't make head nor tail of your 'thing', Keith.

 

When you clean up the image and zoom in it doesn't look like a tank to me, but I can't think of what else it could be.  Given the type of craft it's on, it certainly wouldn't be anything complex or sophisticated.

 

John

 

 

[MAGIC's Craig]

 

Just for the fun of taking part in this discussion, this last image teases my boat design thoughts enough to offer the idea that it looks to me to be the stem and forefoot of a (possibly) lapstrake craft, quite full in the bow, in order to be able to carry weight (See the size of the arms on that crew member) and perhaps it was simply some small craft which was scooped up inexpensively to be useful if needed. I have no more knowledge than anyone else though as to whether that was the case. Back to you, Keith.

[Keith Black]

3 hours ago, Cathead said:

Well, pretty much every modern river towboat has a grill/smoker out on deck somewhere, so maybe these guys were just foodies ahead of their time.

 Susquehanna sausage on the barbie.  Yea, that's the ticket. 

 

1 hour ago, Jim Lad said:

I can't make head nor tail of your 'thing', Keith.

 

When you clean up the image and zoom in it doesn't look like a tank to me, but I can't think of what else it could be.  Given the type of craft it's on, it certainly wouldn't be anything complex or sophisticated.

 It's a bloomin' mystery, John.

 

56 minutes ago, MAGIC's Craig said:

Just for the fun of taking part in this discussion, this last image teases my boat design thoughts enough to offer the idea that it looks to me to be the stem and forefoot of a (possibly) lapstrake craft, quite full in the bow, in order to be able to carry weight (See the size of the arms on that crew member) and perhaps it was simply some small craft which was scooped up inexpensively to be useful if needed. I have no more knowledge than anyone else though as to whether that was the case. Back to you, Keith.

 Craig, there's only five feet from the water tank to the point where you see whatever it is. Not even close to the room needed for even a small skiff.

 

 I think it's a poly tank designed to go into the hull of a ship or boat. For whatever reason the tank wan't used for it's original intent (deal feel through?) and this ugly duck bought it because they needed a tank and could have cared less what it looked like, they just needed a light weight tank. They were able to get a deal on the tank and adapted it to their need by flipping it upside down and making it work. 

 

 That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. 

Edited 20 hours ago by Keith Black

[Javelin]

The more I look at it, the more I'm thinking we're actually looking at 2 things, with the darker object looking like a davit/ handrail or pipe and simply a white looking object behind it... By the angle of the picture their edges seem to coincide, but perhaps they aren't just object.

 

The forward pipe? seems glossy, it seems to have a lighter spot on the forward upper edge, which seems like a reflection...

Just saying...🧐

[Keith Black]

9 hours ago, Javelin said:

The more I look at it, the more I'm thinking we're actually looking at 2 things, with the darker object looking like a davit/ handrail or pipe and simply a white looking object behind it... By the angle of the picture their edges seem to coincide, but perhaps they aren't just object.

 

The forward pipe? seems glossy, it seems to have a lighter spot on the forward upper edge, which seems like a reflection...

Just saying...🧐

To me it looks like copper tubing coming out the top of that black pipe going into the pilothouse to maybe a pressure gauge?  

Edited 9 hours ago by Keith Black