Painting Suter sternwheeler - George Britnell, HELP!

[gbritnell]

Joe,
 I took the picture from a fictional story book about life on the river. All of the photographs were black and white showing vessels that the Corps was using. In the frontpiece of the book was a picture of the Suter that had been handpainted (not in the book but before publishing). The colors on my model were from that picture. Elsewhere in the book was a black and white picture of the Suter and it showed different shades of gray with the same demarcation lines as the colored picture. I can't say that the colored picture is correct but as I had stated in one of my other posts, I would think that the person who hand tinted the photo would have tried to come close to the original but maybe not. Every bit of information that I could get about the Suter, which wasn't very much, was always black and white due to the time frame the boat operated. With that in mind, who's to say what's right or wrong. It kind of makes for a very attractive sternwheeler.
 George

Paddleducks <construction@paddleducks.co.uk> wrote:
 

   The following message was posted on Paddleducks, by towboatjoe  
I'd have to say the color scheme is different. George do you know when the C of E used this color scheme? All I've ever seen is the typical red decks with almond color cabins.



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[towboatjoe]

I've built several model for the Corps of Engineers and I thought I was a little senile, since in all my research, I've never seen that paint scheme. That's what's so cool about building your own boat. You can make it the way you want.
Here's a link to and old sidewheeled dredge that is a museum now in Iowa. Any of you guys planning a trip to the U.S. will want to plan this trip.
http://www.hnsa.org/ships/black.htm

The paint scheme is pertty much what it was in the 30"s from all the photos I've seen.

[derekwarner_decoy]

Hi PD's - TBJ posted this site http://www.hnsa.org/ships/black.htm - at the bottom of the page there is a return to HNSA Guide - well worth a look - Derek

[Eddy Matthews]

Oh well, wether the colour scheme is right or wrong, it's staying as it is for three reasons...

#1. I've already painted it and I'm not masking it all up again to change it.

#2. I really like the colour scheme!

#3. Since I'm in the UK, only people that have read this forum will know it's wrong - So I can just bluff and tell em it's correct anyway!  :-)

[towboatjoe]

It does look nice, but the I wouldn't say the color is wrong unless you were trying to accurately produce the boat. Besides the blame would lay with the illustrator who colored the drawing to start with. Anyone who grew up on the river here knows you don't paint the decks or hull blue because it's bad luck.

A good example is McGinnis & Sons near where I live. They were constantly having breakdowns with their boats and one or two sinkings a year. A couple of years ago they painted their boats black where they were once blue and seems like the "curse" has lifted.

[Eddy Matthews]

Great, now I've got a jinxed boat because I've painted it blue, and it hasn't even been on the water yet! :roll:

Seriously, where does that come from Joe? or is it one of those things where the reason has become lost over time?

[gbritnell]

I guess that's like the old superstition about painting race cars green. At one time they wouldn't use green. I can't remember why or didn't know in the first place but now there are all kinds of green cars and there is no widespread carnage due to it. As I said previously, with all of the searching that I did I couldn't find any reference to the original colors so who's going to know the difference. If anyone can show me the original colors I'll pull my boat out of it's display case and repaint the whole thing. LOL.
 George

Paddleducks <construction@paddleducks.co.uk> wrote:
 

   The following message was posted on Paddleducks, by Eddy Matthews  
Great, now I've got a jinxed boat because I've painted it blue, and it hasn't even been on the water yet!

Seriously, where does that come from Joe? or is it one of those things where the reason has become lost over time?


 
Regards
Eddy


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[towboatjoe]

I'm not sure where it came from. It's just an old superstition. Which would make a good "new topic". Somewhere I have some old superstitions wrote down that comes from the steamboat days. One was that a person always exit the door to the wheelhouse that they entered in.

Only thing I can say to you, Eddy is we'll just have to see if folk lore holds true to models too   :lol: