The Ship Model Forum

Devin,
This is a deck coaming that prevents debris and water from going down the hatchway. The device on top is an awning support that is used to hang a waterproof canvas to keep rain and heat out when at port.

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Rusty White
flagshipmodels.com
Home of the American Civil War warship kits

Rusty,

Thanks for the info. I found photos of them somewhere last year and scratch built some reasonable facimilies. I went with the straight vertical sides, also found photos of them slanted sides, which makes sense in regards to diverting water away from the hatches. There are also photos of the awning supports on those with block and tackle rigged, so they evidently used them to raise and lower supplies into the holds.

-Devin

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We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

I will be adding them to the new USS Passaic when the kit is released. Post pics of your finished model. It looks great.

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Rusty White
flagshipmodels.com
Home of the American Civil War warship kits

Thanks. I have photos on my website, and I'm working on a build article of the entire project for the site here. I ended up with over 300 photos, so it's taking me some time to get them processed.

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We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

Checked out the web site. Well done!

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Rusty White
flagshipmodels.com
Home of the American Civil War warship kits

Devin,

Your Weehawken looks great! Unfortunately as before I cannot access your website from across the pond to check out all of what you've posted. Must be that nefarious content of yours that upsets the PSB!

BTW, have you noticed that the Yahoo Groups USS Cairo page has been removed? That's a shame since it was a great resource for anyone interested in the rivertine gunboats. Luckily I had downloaded all the files I needed for my build but was hoping to use the site for further reference after I commenced my build.

Chuck

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"China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world." ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Rusty,

Were the hatch coamings on the monitors iron or wood? My Canonicus drawings, plans & reference photos show what appear to be wide timbers while Devin's Weehawken clearly represents what appears to be iron coamings. I'm not too hung up on getting mine 100% spot on but thought I'd ask before proceeding with weathering & the final finish. Thanks.

Chuck

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"China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world." ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Chuck,

Sometime this month I'll get the full build article into Tim and Sean here and then you can hopefully see it all. Funny what gets blocked by firewalls!

Also, my coamings weren't necessarily wood or metal. Basically I built a "painted structure" and left it at that. From what I could tell from photos the coamings were painted to match the ship hull color, so I left it like that. It seems to me, though, that such fittings would be stripped and stowed for battle (like the stanchions, boat davits, etc.) so making them of wood to reduce the weight would make sense.

-Devin

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We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

This is one of those things that is not able to be documented. As Devin pointed out earlier, there is still so much we don't know about Civil War vessels because the standard operating procedure those days was to destroy all records (what records were kept) rather than have them captured. Plus in many cases with the new technology concerning ironclads, they were learning as they went along. I suspect the coaming seen on some Monitors reflects this learning curve. So I doubt seriously that the coaming is made of metal, rather timber. The crew noticed water and debris being washed into the hatch during patrols, so the Captain had the coaming added when they put in to port. The most readily available material was timber.

The same thing occurred when submarines were in their infancy. The Gatos were heavily modified by order of the Captains as problems were discovered during patrols. The modifications were then added to new Gatos as they were built. That's why few Gato conning towers looked the same.

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Rusty White
flagshipmodels.com
Home of the American Civil War warship kits

I am working on designing paper models of the monitors Canonicus and Onondaga in 1/250 scale and am having trouble with references. I don't have plans for Canonicus and the only set I could find goes for $60. I'd really like something cheaper. I am also seriously lacking any sort of real references for Onondaga. I have a set of drawings that I found online, but they don't give any detail, just general shapes. Any leads on good reference materials? I am not an expert on monitors, and in fact until recently paid them no attention, so I have no idea where to even begin to look. Many thanks in advance for any tips.

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"It is best to remain silent and let others assume you are dumb than to speak up and remove all doubt"

http://nssavannah.wordpress.com/

Avery,

Have you downloaded the PDF book I posted above? Steve Lund has been an excellent resource for me & may be able to assist in your needs. He built both models in 1/72 which you'll find in the book.

I have plans & reference photos for Canonicus that I could can get scanned for your use. The plans & templates are in 1/72 scale & should be good enough to use.

Chuck

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"China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world." ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

That would be excellent if you could have the plans scanned, I can compensate for costs etc. if necessary

Do you know how I can contact Steve Lund?

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"It is best to remain silent and let others assume you are dumb than to speak up and remove all doubt"

http://nssavannah.wordpress.com/

Chuck,

Are you referring to the color plan and profile that Steve had from the Warship issue?

Avery, I might have some stuff you can use. Let me look. I have started some 1/200 scratch Canonicus builds, but want more info myself so I can do a full-hull 1/96th Tecumseh to go along with my Weehawken.

-Devin

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We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

Devin, I'd love to see any info you might have, I would be very very grateful. Your Weehawken was the inspiration for my 1/250 scale Passaic model, and it clarified many details while I was doing the design work.

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"It is best to remain silent and let others assume you are dumb than to speak up and remove all doubt"

http://nssavannah.wordpress.com/

Checking through Thoroughbred Model's website, I notice that they've just released a 1/600 scale USS Choctaw. Since she seems to be very popular with ironclad modelers (I'd like to build her in 1/96th someday!) I thought it might be of interest here. By my calculations the kit should be just under 5 1/2" long; she was a big girl in real life, even longer than the twin-turreted Monadnock class monitors. While the Thoroughbred kits are meant for wargaming, with a little TLC you can make them into decent scale models; I've done so with a few of them as you can see on my website.

-Devin

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We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

Avery,

Have a look at the Plans-N-Things eBay store:

http://stores.ebay.com/PLANS-N-THINGS

They list a single plan sheet of plans on the Canonicus class. From the photo it looks like they're the initial drawings and close to what is shown in the "Old Steam Navy" book. I ordered a sheet and will compare the measurements with the "Old Steam Navy" drawings and other plans I have before I start my Tecumseh scratch build.

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We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

Manhattan finally got her bottom wet today in her shakedown cruise. I need to add more ballast to bring her down to proper waterline & work out the devil that's in the drive servo that shutdown after 10 minutes of use. And yes, that is a privy hanging off the stern.

At this rate I'll be lucky to get Tennessee finished by the fall.

Chuck

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"China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world." ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Looks darn good, Chuck!

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We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

Thanks Devin. Its been a lot of fun & I still have a smoke generator to add.

Am looking forward to getting Tennessee on the water so I have the pair running together.

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"China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world." ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

I just talked with David Meagher today to purchase a bunch more of his plans. He's actually started work on both Passaic and Canonicus plans in 1/96 and, if they are as good as all his other plans, they should be exceptional. He's had those on the back burner but I'm hoping I sweet-talked him into moving them to the top of the list. Since he's selling his plans himself for $20, you really can't beat the price or quality.

Matt