robert e lee

Steve, I looked at Bill Reid's paintings & he shows a black bottom & side up to where the water level on the wheel would be.  I looked at a lot of my old pictures & they all showed the same thing, but they weren't in color. Reid's pictures are really accurate & a lot of the originals hang in the old hotel bar on the river in Marietta, Ohio.

  This is Reid's  picture of my Betsy Ann.

Steve, all my riverboats are white hull & on my wood Lee I put a red waterline. I don't know why because I can't remember seeing one. I will check my pictures for hull color as I have a ton of picture's. In fact all my riverboats are white & even the Natchez was white. There were more than one of a lot of boats with the same name, because they sank fast. 

    My friend the riverboat architect designed a lot of the big current passenger boats. The Betsy Ann I am building was built in 1898 & had a steel hull, which is why she lasted so long. The man who ran & owned her in 1925 was Frederick Way & he wrote a book called Life or Days on the Betsy Ann. His grandson & wife are architects out in California, He drew a 12 sheet plan of the Betsy that you could build her by. He sent me a full set & a lot of details & I have her scratchbuilt in 1/87, HO scale, so I could use HO fittings & details. I am stopped on the photoetch railings & details. Here she is.

I used HO windows, figures, doors,Bells, & a lot more. I used Evergreen sheet & strip plastic. It is one of the few models I haven' finished.

ended up making my own gauges

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is this what you had in mind tanker builder , I put some cotton painted red in the boiler hole's , the figures are only for a size up at the moment .

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gene

this is my first venture outside of sailing ship's ,you are very right about tanker helping me , he really get's into the minute stuff ,I don't think my imagination is that good lol .I'm trying to get picture's of the hull and water line , could you tell me how you did your's .

tanker

I'm not sure what you mean't about the hull , is it under the deck white , tape a line and the rest of the hull black ?

steve5

I just  lucked into your posts here Steve. I didn't know you were into riverboats. They are real fun & very little rigging. I grew up in St louis & rode on real old riverboats back in the 1930's. I have been to a lot of really good places to see the history of them. I also have built the kit you are building back in the 1950's. It was the best kit I had ever seen & I built at least 3 of them including the Natchez & the Robt. E Lee. 

    Tanker is super to give you advice. If you get real fired up on them you need to go to Marietta Ohio & Jeffersonville Ind. I knew a riverboat architect in Louisville & have his book, which I can't find, & went to see him. He was a model railroader with riverboats on his layout & I had them too.  Beware Riverboats will hook you. They are endless fun.

    One little thing that might help you is I use small, 1/8" pine branches cut up for a wood pile on my boats. HO RR detail parts are real good for things like bells & things. I have a boat, the Betsy Ann about 90% done, scratch built from plans I got from an architect in Calif. . His grandfather owned the Betsy & ran it back in the 1920's.

   For the R E Lee white is the color. I also have a ton of detail books on riverboats if you need any info. I also have a book of paintings by Bill Reed of Riverboats. 

   You are doing a great job & your work is really nice. I would like to see more.

Do you have ?

 One small paper punch ? If you do , punch out eight small discs for steam guages and then two slightly for the two master guages on each side of the boiler front . Attach each disc up and slightly to the right as you look at the boiler fronts .

 You can glue guage faces from a model car guage face decal sets . as long as they are the right size .It won't matter what they say because they cannot be seen face on .But , they would be seen from a sharp angle .

  If you cannot find the beasties , get a popular car magazine for down under and cut out the guages you need .The Large guages can be large speedo guages . A little white ( school ) glue will fasten them in place .

    To do the guages nicely , Coat them with white glue and let them dry .You'll see why in a moment . Now , paint the edges of all of them with a dry-brush method on the edges .This will make them look more authentic .      T.B.

That is excellent .

   Do you have them glued in place yet ? If not  , shave some firedoors off and leave them in the open position .Take some figures ( I think the boat still has them ) and have them tossing wood in the firebox . There would be the firemen and the wood passers . 

 You can paint that piece steel /black with a slight shine from the firemen working and walking on them .Cast iron would not polish from wear like steel would so the surface color would still be dark .

 The bales are better , But , they still need to be more oblong in shape with the wrap shaping them that way .Take a small piece of thin cardboard . Make an oblong box , stuff with the cotton , so the cotton sticks out slightly , and then wrap and tie it . T.B. P.S. I love what you've done with those packing crates !

Hey ;

   That's alright .You can muddy color that area with a white /tan mix and no one will be the wiser .Just make sure you do a bow wave kind of line of cleaner hull just behind the Paddle-Wheels . Then you'll be fine .  T.B.

does this look better for the bale's T.B. , this photo makes the mesh look way bigger , than from where we will see it" />

tanker I went for a slightly beaten up look for the boiler , the bulkhead isn't that great at the moment ,but I'll keep at it , before I paint and glue the piece of plastic in front of the boiler , is this what you meant for the blow back's ?" />

thank's tanker , I totally misunderstood you , when you said no waterline , I read over stripe , duh!! , so the white is just under the middle of the boat ,as the deck is slightly curved up at each end. Because I'm repainting the hull , I might go to black , now that I have had a chance to look at it , think that will make it stand out more ,

as I said to capnmac , I was just being lazy , over the white ,

going into town today see if I can get some hessian looking cloth to make those bales , prof J.T. gave me a good pic of the actual size of the bale's .they look between 1.8 & 2m tall.get back to you when I get some more picture's mate .

steve5

Hi Steve5:

    Hello my friend .Hey , on the color's , Don't even think about leaving the plastic unpainted .The plastic from that era is prone to very bad yellowing over time . And from that company too !

     Painting is good , but you did make a Boo-Boo ! The boat's hull was white for at least a foot and a half or two for unladen appearance . The color is alright . If it is darker , as a result of flash whitening being lighter, you're good .     T.B.

thank's capnmac82 , somehow I thought that was the answer , guess I was just being lazy lol .

steve5

do I leave the plastic natural , or paint it a white colour ? ,

Leaving the plastic as is, is tempting.  But, paint is a better option.  If only so that the plastic is not translucent.  A good flat white will better represent painted wood, too.

You probably want a coat of primer, too.

ikar01

it's not a bad kit , the instuctions aren't the best , but I'm having fun . I hope this come's in handy for you . if not me at least the valuable help I'm getting .

tanker builder

is this like the colour you described , it is a fair bit darker than the picture , It's only vallejo ger. red brown primer ?

steve5

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I built this kit long ago when t was fairly new.  I hate to think how bad a job I did on it.  Last year I picked one up for a couple dollars at our contest and have it sitting in the garage, waiting.  My wife suggested to wait until I was retired to work on it.  The trouble is I also have the wooden model of it too.

Hit 65 next month so probably late next year I'll at least go into part itme as I can't afford to retire.  At least it wilsl give me more building itme if medical problems don't interfer too much.

thank's tanker builder , will have alook for rub n buff , I haven't heard of it , I got a stupid question  for you , I'll apologise in advance , as the boat is all white , do I leave the plastic natural , or paint it a white colour ? ,

steve5

Hey :

 Looking good Mate ; Now when you get the hull painted remember this , she was either Dark red or black for the underwater areas with no waterline stripe .

 Your deck looks good , To age it some you can wash it with a wash of Acrylic clear tinted with some chocolate and white . Probably one small drop of each to a large bottle of clear semi gloss paint .

     The Bulkhead in the picture would be sooty grey behind the boilers . On the center area only.

   Want to have some fun .If you can .( I don't know if it's available there ) there's a product here called " Rub n Buff". They have a burnt steel and sooty black .You rub them on and polish like crazy .The color stays on the item .Then you cover it with Clear semigloss or flat acrylic clear . It's used to antique picture frames .

    This would be excellent for the boilers and steam lines .Remember , Back then they weren't lagged ( Insulated ) . Some smudging in front as the boiler deck in front of the beasts would have been a sheet or two of steel or iron in case the firebox did a blowback which did happen from time to time .

      Good luck and keep the pictures coming .  Tanker - Builder

started on the first deck

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T.B.

thank's mate , appreciate the offer , and will do , if I have any issue's , sad about the colour scheme . might have to put a coloured rail in , or something , lol .

J.T.

 thank's for the picture's and history , they will come in very handy .

Years ago, at a Nautical Research Guild convention, I heard a lecture by John Fryant, one of the most knowlegeable steamboat modelers around, about his model of the Robt. E. Lee. He'd done a great deal of research on her.

One revelation (to me at least) was that there were really only two reasons for the fame of this particular riverboat. One was the Currier and Ives print of her race with the Natchez: http://ualrexhibits.org/steamboats/wp-content/blogs.dir/10/files/05/ualr-ph-0101_na_na_na_na_pho065_web.jpg . The other was the song "Waitin' for the Robert E. Lee" - which in fact was written about a later, smaller vessel of the same name.

I did a little digging on the web, and found this set of plans, which looks pretty impressive to me (though I'm certainly not an authority on steamboats): http://steamboats.com/museum/modelplans.html .

Here are a few photos of Mr. Fryant's model: http://steamboats.com/museum/fryant.html .

And here's a pretty good photo of the actual boat: https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7034/6808751505_5d3f47d081_z.jpg .

If you google "Robt. E. Lee steamboat" you'll be taken to a whole lot of interesting pictures - including several shots of models built, to varying standards, from the Pyro/Lifelike/Lindberg kit.

The shortage of really good American riverboat kits - plastic, wood, and other - is a real shame. They make spectacular models.

Good luck.

Steve5;

   Yes, my friend .Sad to say she was All white with  Red letters on the Paddle boxes .Some say that one time, Before the famous race in which she cheated she had red rails and fancywork .

   I have not been able to verify that .I have seen one picture where all the windows and doors had a very light grey paint though.

   That's one reason why I had asked for the Natchez as a Christmas gift .She was way more colorful . I may buy one and change it to the Natchez . Same boat different colors .The kit , as I have said was the same for both except the paddle-box lettering .

    I have modeled enough now to make the change of letters very easy . So I can use the " Lee " instead . If I were you, I would excercise that artistic license in the door and window areas too .

  I have always believed she looked better with Light grey in those areas to counter-balance the natural wood of the fore-deck upper supports . Now that you have made that decision , I think you should keep those wheels and do the same fantastic job on those deck supports too.

    If you have difficulty finding any material , I would be glad to obtain the items and send them to you .Message me .   Tanker - Builder

thank's tanker builder , I was thinking of soaking some paper in tea , then letting it dry out , haven't had a chance yet . still up in the air about the wheel's , I really like the wood effect , might end up using artistic license on that one . put a photo of the stack's in , they still need a little work , but I like them .

I take it tanker that white is really the only colour to paint this boat ?

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That's the idea .

 Now they really need to be larger in size say 1/2 " x 1" almost an oblong . Build them in one of the crates . Then you can make many all the same size . The wrap needs to look like old burlap - Kind of a dark brownish tan . Almost a weak coffee and cream color . Hope this helps .  T.B.    Please excuse this comment . It normally took four " Bucks " to carry one bale . I am referrencing the vernacular back then , this referred to the African - American males required to do the job .

Steve 5 ;

   Those are gorgeous wheels .But a sidenote here ;

     The wheels on the likes of the " Big Named " boats were kept in almost pristene appearance .Why ? Well exposure for too long to the waters of the scrubbing action of the mud suspended in the rivers would weaken the bare wood substantially .

     I believe the Lee's wheels were either red or blue . Not sure , mind you . T.B.     P.S - I think somewhere , someone stated , they might've been dark grey !

For both you and Steve 5 ;

 Look at Christmas ornaments . Definitely !They make those things in different sizes . They would work ! Nice picture by the way . T.B 

hopefully I'm back on track

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steve5

have any of my photos come through

Nope.  Just a greyed-out circle with a bar rather like a European "No Entry" sign.

This forum really only supports external photos--they have to be "someplace else" and linked to this site.  So, you have to be in the full editing pane, and click on the Insert/edit Image button (it's between the chani link and the motion piture icon).  You then need to insert the url of whereever the photo is hosted (sadly, "c:/user/My Documents/My Photos" is not a valid source; the sourrce needs to have "http" preceding it.  To wit:the url

"http://steamboats.com/jpgs/Model%20Steamboat%20CASTLE%20ROCK%20diorama%20MO%20state%20capital%20Jeff%20City.jpg" gives

ow, I can't tell what Tanker is referring to--but, I might be tempted to go check the Chritmas ornaments aisle at the local craft store, and examine the little brass tops on the glass bulbs.

tanker builder

have any of my photos come through ,apparently on another site ,I was told they weren't coming through either .

steve