some wood stain and a very fine point- ed brush, and touch up all those little spots of unstained wood at cut ends and sanded corners.
The hull is now nearly finished. Mark the locations on the deck for the five bitts and cut a 12″ square hole through the planking. I located the last full-height vertical bulkhead at the point where the sloping portion of the ends intersects with the bottom of the barge, which allowed me to have some- thing to glue the bitts to besides just the deck plank edges. Chamfer the four top edges of each bitt slightly and drill a horizontal hole through the timber to take a piece of heavy wire that forms the arms of the bitt. Slip them into place and glue them to the face of the bulkheads from underneath. The access hatches were scribed into some .010″ sheet styrene, cut out, painted and glued to the deck. The bilge pump covers were made of two different diameter discs punched from .005″ styrene sheet, glued together, painted, and glued to the deck. There are three staples (I actually
used eyebolts) located on each side of the deck for the vangs. One can be lo- cated on the side elevation drawing that ran in Part I (December, 2012, RMC). The second would be even with, or just aft of the mast, and the third
11.
would be mid-way between these two. All are located at the edge of the deck, just inside the rail. See the note re- garding the vangs in the sidebar. If you wish to paint your barge, this would be a good time. I used Caboose Red to paint my model. The sides of the hull were only painted in the recessed areas. The wales should not be painted. These took a mighty beating in real life, and as a result were rarely, if ever, painted. I also painted the bulwark and its cap red. This is also an excel- lent time to add any lettering to your barge, as once you start the working on the mast and rigging you will not want to start laying the model on its side for decaling. This was the extent of paint- ing on the barge itself; everything else was left in a stained wood finish.
Completing the deckhouse Place the barge on your workbench and install the deckhouse in its well. Make sure it is fully seated and sits square with the barge. I used 2″×6″ and 2″×8″ styrene strip to form the trim on the outside walls of the deckhouse. Cut a piece of 2″×6″ just a bit longer than the rear wall. Drop it into place on the deck and slide it into position, on edge, and tight up against the lower part of the rear wall. I used a new No. 11 blade in my
hobby knife, which makes it a bit easi- er to stab the trim and move it about. When it is in place, use a very small brush (No. 0000) to apply a drop of liq- uid cement along the top edge of one end to tack this piece into position. When that sets, move along the bot- tom of the wall, a bit at a time, forcing the trim down tight to the deck, and gluing as you go. Do not glue the strip or the deckhouse to the deck of the barge. Work around the deckhouse, in both directions, adding the lowest piece of trim to each wall as you go. Make sure the joints are tight, but don’t wor- ry about trimming the ends off just yet. When all the base pieces are tacked in place, gently lift the deckhouse out of its recess and run glue into all the joints from underneath. (Remember, you don’t need a lot of glue.) Put it aside until the glue is dry, then trim and sand all the ends flush.
Now you can add the corner boards to all of the outside corners. Use a 2″×6″ flush up to the edge first and then go around the corner and add a 2″×8″ flush with the outer face of the 2″×6″. This will give you a corner that is the same on both sides. After drying, trim the top of the corner boards so that when you slide the roof into place with its trim attached the bottom edge of the roof trim sits on the top of the corner boards.
Carefully mask over the inside of all the window and door openings with blue tape. Be sure the tape is tight all around the edges so that no paint can leak inside and spoil the interior paint. When the taping is done, stuff the in- side with tissues or paper towels. Now paint the outside of the deckhouse the same red as used on the hull or what- ever your choice of color is. Pull out the paper, remove the tape and let things dry. Now you can paint the trim, black in my case, and, finally, the window sashes, white on my model.
When the painting is completed and
dry, do any lettering needed on the deckhouse walls, and finish off with a coat of Dullcote. Lastly, install the win- dow glass and the rest of any interior details.
11. The painting and decaling is complete in this view from the stern and the author is ready to start the rigging (we will cover that in the next issue). The trim at the top of the walls is actually attached to the roof. In combination with the “step” on the inside of the walls, this ensures a snug fitting roof and, even better, no unsightly gaps under the edges of the roof. Most of the roof detail is also visible: nameboards, the boiler stack, steam ex- haust from the cylinders, and the smokejack from the stove in the crew’s cabin.
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
The hoist with the boiler can be glued to the floor. I formed a pipe from brass wire that connects the feedwater valve, at the bottom rear of the boiler, to the water tank. I installed a water tank from New England Rail Services and hung it from the ceiling. I now added the coal box in the corner, filled it with real crushed coal, and left a shovel there just in case a crew shows up to raise steam. I also added some tools hanging on the wall, mainly some large wrenches (O scale), and a couple of oil cans.
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