"Tom Sawyer's Steamboat" in miniature
"Tom Sawyer's Steamboat" at Disneyland is also... a model, only very large (although smaller than a real riverboat!) and working!
“King Solomon also made a ship at Ezion-geber, which is near Elath, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom.”
Third Book of Kings 9:26
Third Book of Kings 9:26
Artifacts stories techniques. Last time we told you about the giant Mississippi steamboats. Today our story will be devoted to their models, including models not made of polystyrene, but of wooden semi-finished parts, which will require some work, but they also look much more impressive. In the previous article we already gave an example of several polystyrene models of the steamboat "Robert E. Lee". However, the Italian company "Amati" also produces its model as a prefabricated wooden model, and in a scale of M:150. The price of the model is quite high and today is about 37 rubles - that is, a very large sum.
Model of the steamboat Robert E. Lee by the Amati company
The box from this model…
Model of the Amati steamship Robert E. Lee, view from the stern
It should be said that the design of the model is quite simple. The fact is that its hull is made of solid wood, and since it is also flat-bottomed, working on it is not particularly difficult. The deck of the model is laid out of wide slats of light wood. Moreover, the company even included photo-etched letters on the sides, a grand staircase cast from white metal, many windows, as well as cast metal paddle wheel circles. The set includes as many as four pipes of different diameters - two large and two small. The only bad thing is that they themselves are made of wood, and its texture can be noticeable when painted. It would be better, of course, if the Italians used brass tubes of the corresponding diameter.
The fibrous wood on the pipes is very noticeable and spoils the whole look of the model...
The kit includes flags printed on fabric. To facilitate the assembly process, the kit, in addition to six sheets of drawings and detailed instructions, also includes detailed assembly diagrams and a list of parts and materials, thanks to which the modeler will not have much trouble identifying the blank, rail or finished part he needs. Our sellers often include a translation of the instructions into Russian with the kit.
Model of the firm "Constructo"
Another Italian company "Constructo" also offers a model of this steamship, but in a scale of 1:48. Hence its decent dimensions: 370x680x100 mm. Price: 33 rubles. It must be said that in the author's opinion it is worse than the previous one. It is less detailed and looks more like a toy. The railings are cast from metal and therefore quite rough.
The same model. View from the stern
A very labor-intensive piece of decoration between the pipes
Perhaps the most impressive model produced by the Italians is the model of the steamboat "King of the Mississippi" manufactured by the company "Mantua". Scale 1:50. Price 54 rubles. That is, the model of a simpler steamboat than "Robert E. Lee" turned out to be significantly more expensive. This is one of the most popular steamboats on the Mississippi. In 200, more than a thousand of these river steamboats were already sailing in the USA both on it and on its tributaries. Mark Twain worked as a pilot on one of them, and his famous Tom Sawyer sailed on it.
The model's hull is prefabricated, i.e. it is assembled from already cut keel and frames. Then it is covered with slats in two layers, after which the deck is laid on it. Then the frame of all decks is assembled from the cut wooden parts. And since the steamer has more than one deck, a very impressive number of parts are put into the box.
Model of the rear-wheel steamboat of the Mantua company
It would be much more correct to take the steamship "Marieville" as an example...
The parts for assembling the paddle wheels are cast from metal, and the box also includes a huge number of slats for covering and making all sorts of parts. Some of the parts are already provided. These are barrels, a steering wheel, very interesting "double" pillars, dowels, brass rings for pipes and their tops, chains, blocks, and so on, you can't list everything. American flags and stickers will help to decorate the finished model with dignity.
The assembly instructions are made in the form of a separate book with text in several languages and a set (5 pieces) of huge sheets with drawings. Plus, Russian sellers include a translation of the instructions into Russian with the set. However, this model is not without its drawbacks. The main one is immediately noticeable. This is the lack of sheer decks and perches on them. On the hull, the sheer is still somehow present, but on the decks it is completely absent, which is completely wrong. Apparently, the creators of the model used the drawings of the steamship "Alec Scott" or "Western River", or the Polish magazine "Modelage", where this very sheer was not originally provided.
Toy model from the company "OkKre"
But the model of the Spanish company "OcCre" in the scale of 1:80 and priced at 28 rubles can not be considered a model at all, but can be classified as an educational toy. The fact is that only this model of a paddle steamer includes neat scale furniture for cabins and salons. There are chairs, sofas, beds and even a piano and game tables in the salon. There are paddle wheels, a steam engine, decorative ornament of pipes, carved railings, wooden barrels, brass chains, etc. But all the furniture for this model has a pronounced "toy look", which spoils the whole impression.
Instructions
The instruction includes more than 200 photographs that help at every stage of the model's construction, and there is also a translation of the instruction into Russian with comments and advice. Unfortunately, the human figures are not included in the set. Well, the furniture shown in the photograph is also given as unpainted parts. In the author's opinion, the striped deck, like a prisoner's robe, made of alternately light and dark wood slats, also looks very unrealistic.
A very interesting model of the Mississippi steamship "King of the Mississippi" is presented by the Spanish company "Artesania Latina" in a scale of 1:80. Moreover, the Chinese are also copying it
The kit for building a model of the steamboat "King of the Mississippi" has an improved hull design, since we are talking about a flat-bottomed model. The planking is made of only three parts, namely two solid sides and a bottom. This makes the process quite easy and fast, and the second layer of planking, for which dark walnut slats are used, makes it very attractive and elegant. At the same time, the walnut harmonizes perfectly with the deck, which, like the captain's bridge, is covered with a layer of slats, but already in a light shade. The shape of the flooring is different: on the first deck it is a classic type, but on the others, the planking slats are laid out in a herringbone pattern. Moreover, some windows and doors even have a working design.
Board
View of the stern. Herringbone flooring!
Rear view
Paddle wheel
All decks are connected by wide gangways, and on the upper deck there are benches for those relaxing. The set includes many parts made using photo etching. These are decorative corners, fences, as well as hinges and gratings. The paddle wheel and smoke pipes add additional charm to the vessel. Flags and threads for rigging are also included in the set. The assembly instructions are translated into Russian and include detailed comments from experts with 80 color photographs illustrating each stage of assembly. However, it is not surprising that the model has all this, since its dimensions are quite large: length 660 mm, height 192 mm and width 130 mm.
Chinese version. Only the railing posts are white. The model itself is entirely finished with slats and, apparently, is therefore shown unpainted. But still, no one has cancelled the white color of Mississippi steamboats, about the coloring of which Mayne Reid also wrote…
The domestic company "Family Photo Studio" from St. Petersburg approached the topic of modeling Mississippi steamboats in an interesting way. They took as a basis a paper model of the company "DrafModel" from their magazine No. 1 for 2009 and made the entire power set of the hull and decks from thin but strong cardboard using laser cutting. That is, these parts are simply squeezed out of cardboard sheets, and then colored paper elements are glued to them. Although, of course, most of the steamboat parts remained paper (due to their large-scale thickness!) The magazine with color scans plus laser cutting costs 1600 rubles, which is quite consistent with the expected quality. By the way, the paper on which the model parts are printed is much better than that used by the Poles in "Maloye Modelyazh" in the past. The scale of the model is 1:100.
Cover of the model kit from the company "DrafModel"
I didn't dare to make such a paper model myself. But judging by the photos from the Internet, assembled neatly and skillfully, it looks very good.
Here it is, a photograph of the steamship "Western River" made of paper...
As I wrote in one of the previous articles of this series, I always really wanted to make a model of such a steamship. And about a year ago I started working on it from the hull, using as a basis the drawings and layouts from the old Polish magazine "Modelage". The hull was made using the technology that has already been described here many times - first a "blank" was made (the ends from plasticine, the central part - paper and cardboard), after which it was first covered with a thin layer of newsprint on PVA glue, and then pasted over with "boards" - coffee stirrer sticks. All the cracks between them were sealed with putty based on epoxy resin and sawdust. The sheer on the hull had to be cleaned with sandpaper. The finished shell turned out to be light and very strong (spacers were glued into it for strength!), and when sanded - amazingly smooth. The hull was painted black with automotive primer from a can.
Blank for making the hull. Dimensions – taking into account the thickness of the sides and bottom
As I have already written about this, the Poles made the hull too high. Although it is possible that not all steamships of this type had such a shallow draft that they "could sail on dew".
Mixing wheels with treads made from stirring sticks
But I made the deck as a set of 1,5 mm wide slats with both a saddle and a bend towards the sides. The superstructure parts were taken from the "Family Photo Studio" set. It was convenient for work, but... they, like the "DrafModel" set itself, did not take into account the saddle of the hull and, accordingly, the same bend in the superstructures.
Shear of the body
Second deck superstructure from laser cut parts
Texas' Deck Superstructure Made from Laser-Cut Parts
In general, due to all these reasons, I did not follow the Polish drawings exactly, but tried to make the model I liked in my own way, removing something, adding something, fortunately, there were a lot of such steamboats sailing along the Mississippi...
To be continued ...
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