1/271 scale Mississippi Queen

The name doesn't ring a bell; this is a bit far afield for me. Who's the manufacturer? The Mississippi river boats haven't fared well with the kit makers, but maybe this is an exception.

Revell/Germany put it out, it looks like the older Lindberg "Robt. E. Lee". Same scale, I picked it off ebay today, been a while since I did one. It'll look good in the collection! The name change is molded into the side like the real one, Here is a link.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=5937897926&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT

Jake

It's pretty clearly the old Revell Robert E. Lee, which dates (according to Mr. Graham's book, Remembering Revell Model Kits) from 1956. It was a pretty nice kit for its day. I have fond memories of it.

Reissues of it had a problem. The original had a hull that was more-or-less the right depth (more on that in a minute). In 1962, though, Revell re-issued the kit with an electric motor. The motor and associated mechanism (gears, etc.) wouldn't fit in the original hull, so they deepened it. Every one I've seen that wasn't in the old 1956 original box had a hull that was disproportionally deep. According to Mr. Graham's book, the boilers also got removed when the kit got its motor - and never got replaced. Sounds like the molds got modified.

I don't know much about river boats. I did, however, listen a number of years ago to a presentation about the Robert E. Lee at a Nautical Research Guild conference. The speaker was John Fryant, a riverboat expert who had just finished a large-scale model of her for a museum (I don't recall which one). He started out by announcing that all kits representing that vessel were "wrong." I don't remember anything like all of what John said, but the gist of it was that all the existing kits had been based on a spurious set of plans. The original boats usually were built without blueprints, but he'd found some authentic drawings of the RE Lee somewhere (my memory's foggy about where), and had filled in the rest on the basis of photos (of which there are only a handful). I do remember the biggest discrepancy John had found. The hull bottom of every RE Lee kit is flat; the real one had a round bottom.

Since the kit Bigjake has bought doesn't bear the name Robert E. Lee, I guess this isn't a problem. I'm not at all sure any boat was ever named "Mississippi Queen," but it could perhaps be made into a reasonable generic riverboat. I'd be tempted to modify the hull, though. Since it's nice and flat on the bottom, that shouldn't be too difficult. The bottom of the hull should be just a little deeper than the bottom of the paddlewheels.

That's about all I have to offer on this one. Hope it helps a little. Riverboats make pretty models.

The current and only known past Mississippi Queen is and was a stern wheeler. Mark Twain mentions the "Queen Mississippi" in one of his memoirs. Maybe thats where the name for the kit derived from.

I built the Robert E Lee, or at least attempted to kitbash it to resemble a boat that plied the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, but because of poor moldings and fit, it was much easier to carve the hull and build it from scratch.

There haven't been many riverboat kits - a shame, considering what wonderful, characterful models they make.

I think my favorite of the available ones was the old Lindberg Clermont. In addition to pretty nice detail and some good scale crew and passenger figures, it had a downright ingenious motor mechanism. Most of the Clermont's machinery - the gears, pistons, cylinders, boilers, etc. - was exposed; the whole power plant sat in a well amidships. On the Lindberg kit all this stuff was represented more-or-less to scale (I'm talking from memory, and probably looking through the rose-colored glasses of semi-senility), and all the parts moved. You had to look really carefully to see the tiny plastic worm gear sticking out from under the foredeck, where the little electric motor and batteries were hidden.

There are no reliable contemporary plans of the Clermont, but Lindberg's version was believable. I haven't seen that old kit in about twenty years; wouldn't mind getting hold of one.

 

It appears that there are in fact two "Robert Lee" models, both sold in Revell boxes ...

One is 1:270 or likes, and is 15" in length, or less. 

Another is much bigger, more expensive (at least $45 on eBay) and seems to be in scale of ~1:160.

Which one's better? Also, how did they ended up modelling the ame ship twice ...

 I built one a couple of years ago. It's about 20 inches long. I'd had it for years and finally decided to build it. It is quite detailed and might be the old Pyro kit. It makes up into a beautiful model when painted and rigged properly. I don't know who is producing it now but I see them on ebay frequently. There was also a Natchez kit but it uses the same molds with the name changed on the paddle box. It's molded in a horrible green plastic. modelbob71@live.com

I'm fairly (though not absolutely) certain that the 20-inch long ones are reissues of the old Pyro Robert E. Lee.  Pyro itself sold the kit for a while under the name "Natchez," in bright colors. 

I seem to recall that, for a while, the "Natchez" kit was sold with a sort of "consumer warning" on the side of the box:  "The within model is similar to the Nachez, but is not an exact duplicate."  Apparently somebody griped loudly (and maybe legally) about the similarity between the two kits.  The notorious Pyro "U.S.S. Maine," which in fact was a slightly modified version of the company's Olympia, was similarly packaged for a while.

At any rate, under its original label, was a pretty nice one by 1950s standards.  I believe it's available now from Lindberg. 

I'm remembering again the program John Fryant did at that NRG conference years ago.  He made the interesting comment that there seem to be two reasons for the popularity of the Robert E. Lee as a subject for models and artwork.  One is a famous Currier and Ives lithograph showing the race between her and the Natchez (which Currier and Ives do not show as being painted in bright colors).  The other is the song, "Waitin' for the Robert E. Lee."  The song, according to Mr. Fryant, was in fact written about a later, smaller boat of the same name. 

DD1 wrote:

It appears that there are in fact two "Robert Lee" models, both sold in Revell boxes ... One is 1:270 or likes, and is 15" in length, or less.  Another is much bigger, more expensive (at least $45 on eBay) and seems to be in scale of ~1:160. Which one's better? Also, how did they ended up modelling the ame ship twice ...

Maybe Prof. Tilley's comment about there being two Robert E. Lee's built at different times is why Revell made two models?  Are both models identical except for size?  Or are they different ships?

The large scale ( supposedly 1/163) Robert E Lee is quite a nicely proportioned kit, constrained only by the ability of 1950s injection moulding to do things like very fine window bars etc. It has a flat bottom hull of a plausible depth. The boilers/ moulded pile of cords of wood are a weak area.

JTilley, has anything been published on the research in to Robert E Lee?

Will

Hi; In deferrence to J. Tilley I won,t say to much as my sources are way different. One of the specialties of my little model building company is accurate models of "riverboats" These include the workboats of the day as well.The thing that I was told years ago was interesting.The " famous"picture of the race between the Robt. E. Lee and the NATCHEZ was way off base.At that point in the race the Lee was 2 miles or more ahead.The race stipulated ,passengers and cargo would be carried. The "Lee" was stripped inside which made her lighter thus faster. The NATCHEZ followed the rules so I think she should,ve been named winner.I am getting off the subject,sorry! I have built both the "Lee" and the NATCHEZ and found them decent,except the hulls weren,t deep enough. The REVELL issue ,I had fit issues with.None of the WOODEN kits comes close with the "CHAPERON" as the sole exception. J.Tilley is correct. The boats usually were built without plans to speak of.The builders were "rivermen" who understood the moods of the rivers the boat being built would navigate.Also ,most, if not all ,had walking hardware for crossing sandbars.This is NEVER represented in the plastic kits.

I'm in grave danger of getting out of my depth in a hurry here.  I had occasion quite a few years ago to do a little research into the sternwheelers operated by the U.S. Lighthouse Board, and when I was working at the Mariners' Museum I had to read up on the patent drawings of Robert Fulton.  Other than that I've never dug deeply into the subject of riverboats.

The Pyro and Revell Robert E. Lee kits certainly are intended to represent the same vessel - the one in the Currier and Ives print.  My memory of that presentation by Mr. Fryant is getting hazy (I think it took place in 1991 - or maybe earlier), but I seem to recall that he had a photo of the other Lee (the one referred to in the song).  My recollection is that this boat was considerably smaller and less ornate - a working cargo vessel, rather than a glamorous "packet."

I've read that criticism of the Currier and Ives print elsewhere.  C&I were, in many respects, extremely reliable as sources of historical detail; their prints of American clipper ships are generally regarded as some of the best sources we have.  (Two exceptions:  they frequently showed deckhous roofs barely projecting above the bulwarks, and almost invariably showed mast caps set parallel to the waterline, rather than perpendicular to the masts.  Some experts have questioned whether the ships were actually built that way.)  But they weren't above making use of "artistic license" when it came to such things as the distance between racing riverboats.  (Currier and Ives themselves, by the way, weren't artists; they were businessmen.  The pictures they published were drawn on commission by a bunch of different artists, who inevitably had different styles and techniques - and, presumably, different levels of concern for accuracy.)

I just took a look at the index for the Nautical Research Journal back issue CD set, hoping that Mr. Fryant had turned his paper about his Lee model into an article.  No luck.

Alan Bates, another riverboat expert, has published a number of sets of plans for steamboats, including the Lee (the one represented by the kits).  He has a nice website:  http://alan-bates.steamboats.org/index.html .  Click on "Model Plans," then on the name of the boat.  (Plans of both the Lee and the Natchez are there; it's obvious that, indeed, they didn't look much like each other.  Among other differences, the Natchez was twelve feet longer.)  I remember Mr. Fryant mentioning Mr. Bates's plans quite favorably; I don't remember any notable problems with them that Mr. Fryant may have noted.  If I were contemplating a model of the Lee, I'd start with the Bates plans.

That's about the best I can offer.

 

  Big Jake..The "MISSISSIPPI QUEEN" sounds to me like a phoney kit some of the kit manufacturers like to fob off on unsuspecting modelers. If you want to build an "arthentic" riverboat, look into Model Shipways, CHAPERON. Even though the price might set your wallet back for $295.00, it is an authentic copy of a sternwheeler built in 1884 at Chambersburg, Ohio. This steamer hauled cargo and sightseeing tours on the Green River downstream from Mammouth Cave, Kentucky. Fire destroyed her in 1922.

   If your into scratch building models, buy plans of the sternwheeler FAR WEST, from Rocky Mountain Shipyard of Grand Junction, Colorado. Detailed instruction by William F. Wiseman on how to build FAR WEST can be found in the publication, Nautical Research Journal, Part I, March 1988 and Part II, June 1988. The FAR WEST claim to fame was her involvement with the ill fated Custer's expedition against the Sioux Indians in the battle of Little Bighorn in the summer of 1876, where she served as a supply boat, hospital ship and command post. In a feat of navagation, FAR WEST transported 52 wounded cavalrymen 700 miles in 54 hours from the mouth of the Bighorn to Bismarck, N. Dakota. FAR WEST sank when she struck a floating snag near Mullhanthy Island, 7 miles below St. Charles, Missouri on October 30, 1883.

                   Montani semper liberi !  Happy modeling to all and every one of you.

                                             Crackers    

Years ago I belonged to a group called The Sons & Daughters of Pioneer Riverman which published 4 journels a year and I remember photos of the Natchez being larger than the  Robert E Lee. There were actually several boats with these names, both side and stern wheelers. At a convention I met both Bates and Fryant. If you want to know about riverboats get a copy of Alan Bates The Western Rivers Steamboat Cyclopedium. It explains every part on a steamboat.  Incidentally the walking beams used to get over sandbars mentioned above were used only on Missouri River boats. modelbob71@live.com

I can certainly second modelbob's recommendation of Mr. Bates's Steamboat Cyclopedium.  It's not only an extremely informative book but a fun one to read - and it's full of fascinating info for modelers.

I'm sure modelbob is right about the "walking" gear being used primarily on Missouri River boats.  (I'm sure the equipment has a more proper name, but if so I've forgotten it.  What it amounted to - assuming we're talking about the same thing - was a pair of heavy wooden poles that, if the boat ran aground on a sandbar, could be hoisted up on a pair of kingposts and dropped vertically into the mud.  A pair of tackles would then be hooked up between the bow of the ship and the tops of the poles.  Hauling the tackles lifted the boat off the sandbar.)  My one "close encounter" with a Western riverboat was a project I did for the Coast Guard Historian's Office quite a few years ago:  a commissioned drawing of a Lighthouse Service tender named the Goldenrod.  She was a pretty little sternwheeler built in 1888 at Jeffersonville, Indiana, across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky.  So far as I can remember, she spent her career on the Ohio.  The scanty photographic evidence established that she did have that hoisting gear on her foredeck.  I don't imagine, though, that the equipment on board Lighthouse Board tenders was necessarily typical of Ohio riverboats in general.

Another interesting piece of equipment on board that particular boat was a mechanism for folding the twin stacks over backwards when she had to pass under a bridge.  I have the impression that Ohio River boats in general had that gear; they had to in order to travel any distance along the river.

American steam riverboats are a fascinating topic - and they make wonderful models.

jtilley wrote:

There are no reliable contemporary plans of the Clermont, but Lindberg's version was believable. I haven't seen that old kit in about twenty years; wouldn't mind getting hold of one.

I think you're in luck - Lindberg is re-issuing the Clermont this year along with the Carronade and the Olympia.  There's a pretty good book on the early steamboats by Flexner, "Steamboats Come True" which would be a great companion to the kit and is available used on Amazon and Abebooks.

By the way, Pyro also tried to pass off the Rob't E. Lee kit as the Natchez (I have one in a pretty battered box that I'll take a shot at building one day) - the only changes to the kit were to put the name "Natchez" in embossed letters on the paddle guard and to mold the kit in green plastic.

 

It does seem like I've seen an ad for the old Lindberg Clermont recently, but it doesn't seem to be on the Lindberg website at the moment.  I have the impression that Lindberg is in, to put it mildly, a state of flux right now.  Quite a few nice old kit reissues are listed on it (e.g., those wonderful old biplanes that originally were issued by Inpact).  I don't know when we can expect to see them on the hobby shop shelves - and we may well see some other, unannounced kits first.  (That 1/144 Arizona isn't on the website yet either, but as I understand it the company is taking "pre-orders" for it.)

I never thought I'd say this, but I hope the reissued Clermont includes the electric motor it originally had.  Not because I want to run the model across the bathtub, but because of the ingenuity of the mechanism that made the scale (well, almost) gears, piston, etc. work.

If I am using photobuket correctly, this should be a photo of the Robert E Lee. The Lindberg kit does not seem to be too far off. Does the Lindberg kit have a flat hull bottom?

http://s822.photobucket.com/albums/zz144/nitsol/

Shipwreck's photo comes up fine, at least on my computer.  And a fine, atmospheric picture it is! 

One thing I discovered yesterday:  it seems that the boat's name is quite frequently - if not invariably - listed as "Robt. E. Lee."  That's what's painted on the paddleboxes - and apparently she gets indexed that way in reference works.  When I looked up "Robert E. Lee" in the Nautical Research Journal index I came up empty, but there were lots of entries under "Robt. E. Lee."

I'm pretty certain that the Pyro/Lindberg kit has a flat bottom - as does every other Lee kit.  My memory - which is, as we've established many times, less than a hundred percent reliable - is that John Fryant concluded that the actual vessel had a round bottom. 

This magnificent vessel strikes me as an excellent subject for a waterline model.

The Chaperon looks great.  For balance it would be neat to have a Hudson River boat someday.  

 

.

  Woodburner mentions the Hudson River in New York State. Perhaps, he should have included the side-wheeler, MARY POWELL, the most beloved steamboat to ply the Hudson during the 19th century. Honored as the "Queen of the Hudson", the MARY POWELL, built in 1861, sailed the Hudson for 55 years. Known for her speed and yacht like appearance, she made regular schedules from Kingston to her pier in Lower Manhattan, with stopovers at Poughkeepsie, Milton, Newburgh and Cornwall. On her return trip, she would arrive at Kingston by late evening. In 1902, MARY POWELL was acquired by the Hudson River Day Line, who installed new boilers and enlargement of the second deck. She continued on her regular shedule with an occasional charter trip to Albany or Bear Mountain landing. On September 5, 1917, she made her last river trip before being laid up at Roundout Creek. In January 1920, she was sold for scrap.

           I don't know if a kit was ever offered of the MARY POWELL. For the scratch builder, perhaps there are plans available. Maybe research could answer this question.

                Montani semper liberi !  Happy modeling to all and every one of you.

                                                Crackers        

 

Here is something to ponder about the hull situation of the Robt. E. Lee. How do we know that John Fryant, the river boat expert is right ALL OF THE TIME? Is it is just possible that different hull configurations were used on different boats according to the river they were built for, or the whim of the shipright? If so, then a flat bottom Robt. E. Lee would be just as accurate as a round bottom one. And, even if we were confident that it was a round bottom hull; how would we know what it looks like? It seems that we are playing with degrees of inacuracy!

I don't think we ought to get into an argument about the shape of the Robt. E. Lee's hull on the basis of my recollection of what somebody said (or maybe didn't say) at a conference a good many years ago.  I remember being extremely impressed with Mr. Fryant's presentation - and I know him well enough to know that he wouldn't make such a bold assertion about such a subject without having firm evidence to back it up - and the evidence, not the stature of the researcher, is what matters most.  But I'm not prepared to state with absolute certainty that I heard him state the boat had a round bottom.  (I probably shouldn't have mentioned the point in the first place.)  I do remember quite clearly his assertion that all the kits allegedly representing the Lee were "wrong" in one significant way or another - and I believe him. 

Anybody doing serious research on the Robt. E. Lee ought to get in touch with both Mr. Fryant and Mr. Bates (both of them have websites) and find out just what the existing primary source materials are.  My strong suspicion is that those sources are scanty enough to allow plenty of room for different interpretations, but there's no point in every modeler re-inventing the wheel.  I'd also be interested in taking a look at the plans Mr. Bates sells.  I know he and Mr. Fryant are friends, and I remember Mr. Fryant making some reference to those drawings.  I think he may have said that Mr. Bates was going to revise them in light of Mr. Fryant's research.  But I honestly don't remember. 

(Aging memory, as anybody over the age of forty or thereabouts knows, is a weird and frustrating thing.  I find myself recalling conversations, pieces of writing, and events from twenty years ago with absolute clarity, but I have trouble remembering the names of my current students.  My wife, who teaches psychology, tells me this phenomenon is fairly normal in people of my age.) 

What I do know is that the little Revell kit's hull did get modified when the kit was reissued with an electric motor and the related parts (battery box, switch, etc.) when it was reissued.  (According to Dr. Graham's book, the kit was originally issued in 1956 and the motorization parts were added for a re-release in 1961.)  Every subsequent reissue of that kit that I've seen has had the deepened hull.  (It looks like the original molds were altered.  The parts that originally represented the boilers also got modified, according to Dr. Graham; I think they gave way to the battery box.)  The revised hull pretty obviously is too deep for a Mississippi Riverboat.  Shallow draft was essential for those vessels.  It's up to the individual modeler to determine how important that point is. 

If I were building a model of the Lee - from any kit or from scratch - I'd be strongly tempted to make it a waterline version.  In addition to sidestepping the question of how the underwater hull was shaped, that approach would encourage displaying the model in a diorama-type base.  The possibilities there are endless.  You could show her tied up to a levee with cotton bales being hauled aboard.  Or just making her way along the river, with a few snags sticking out of the water.  Or maybe with a Huckleberry Finn-type raft passing by.  Or....

Anyway, if the reissues of the Revell and Lindberg kits lead to a burst of enthusiasm for riverboat models, that will certainly be a good thing.

 

Well, I can confirm that my old "Life Like" kit of the Natchez (kit B238-800) has a flat-bottomed hull, molded in gray (as is the main deck, the rest of kit being molded in green (paddle boxes, upper decks) and brown (paddle wheels, stacks, railings, etc.).  The hull is fairly shallow and the main deck has a considerable overhang as in the prototype.  My first impression is that the kit may be very true to the prototype.

Looking at the kit, it seems like it would build up into a very detailed model of a steamboat although the shape of the stacks indicates that the kit is indeed the Lee reboxed as the Natchez.  I couldn't find any dates on the box or in the instructions, but the instructions bear the legend "Life-Like Products, Inc. 1600 Union Ave., Baltimore, MD. 21211" so I'll leave it to the "Pyro Historians" among us to date the kit.

Lindberg has re-issued the Lee, and it might be a nice kit for those of you who would like to build a western steamboat.

Have a great Thanksgiving.

Mike

Coincidently, a build of the Lindberg Robt E Lee was posted yesterday on ModelWarships.com:

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery/misc/riverboat/lee-163-bh/bh-index.html

I can't imagine a much more un-warlike ship,  but it is there if you are interested in seeing what the kit looks like.

On the Clermont, Ideal also released a kit, supposedly at 1/96 if memory serves.  It looks similar to the Lindberg kit, but I don't think it's the same kit and I don't think it was motorized, but I could be wrong on both counts.

 

The Mary Powell had all the features of a classic Hudson River boat in its prime - walking beam, boilers mounted on the guards, and braces arched over the superstructure. The closest kit for this type is Blue Jacket's Portland.

I just got back from a trip to Ohio and a family wedding. I was able to tour the "Put-In-Bay" area and South Bass Island - not much open this time of year, but it was a fun trip.

Left the cpu at home had to go through 60 email's and just got around to checking the BB's.  WHEW this post is from WAY BACK.  It's amazing how things pop up from the past every now and again.

Woodburner, you are correct. The MARY POWELL would make  an elegant model if it were offered to the public. The Boston to Portland, Maine steamer, PORTLAND, lost on Thanksgiving day in 1898, would be the closest sidewheeler kit available. However, the MARY POWELL for her beauty and historic service on the Hudson River for 55 years, would be a better selection. If plans were available for this lovely vessel, some skillful scratch builder would be proud owner of this elegant model. Anyone of you members of the Forum, who love river steamers, care to rise to the challenge ?

                      Montani semper liberi !  Happy modeling to all and every one of you.

                                                          Crackers       

As long as we'er talking steamboats, the great lakes had some really impressive ones. The City of Cleveland and the City of Detroit and others, four and five decks high and very fast.  modelbob71@live.com