Suter Information

[george britnell]

The Suter started out from pictures in a fiction book about life on
the river aboard a towboat. It was a fiction book but the photos were
from mostly U.S.Army Corps of Engineers archives. I got the bug to
build it after attending a riverboat festival in Marietta, Ohio last
year. I scrounged up as much information as I could from
universities, books and websites. The scale is approximately 1/55. I
don't even know how I arrived at that figure but after all the
calculations from photos etc. that's where it ended up.
The boat is 38.00 inches long 6.25 wide and 13.50 high to the top of
the stacks.
There were no drawings for the boat, I just took numbers from other
steamboats of the era and used those numbers along with my photos to
make my own drawing and sketches as I went along. The original plan
was to make an R.C. model but after looking at all the compound
curves on the cabin roofs and the exhaust pipes with their supports
I decided that to try and make removeable panels for access to the
drives and radio gear would be just to much work and to delicate for
the scale.
The boat is constructed mainly from basswood. The hull is planked
with internal ribbing as I had originally wanted to make it R.C. so I
needed to keep the weight down. I used maple for some of the parts
like the kevels (cleats) as opposed to machining them from brass like
a lot of the other parts. I thought about making a mold and casting
them from resin but that was another learning project in the middle
of the one that I had already started. The smokestacks and supporting
hardware are constructed from plastic and brass. I wanted to stay
away from the plastic but when I started soldering all the bits
together in close proximity with the already soldered bits well you
know what happens. They make wonderful induction soldering tools for
this type of work but but I could't justify the cost for the amount
of use I would get out of it. I already have a fairly complete
machine shop in my basement for my other modeling work so you have to
draw the line for tooling somewhere.
The colors came from a hand painted picture in the book that I had
mentioned earlier. I assume the author used the original colors when
doing it, if not It's too late to worry about it. It looks quite
attractive in the colors anyway. The only problem was the flash
bleached out the blue. If I have better luck in the future I will
post some new pictures. If anyone is interested in building something
like this I would be happy to give you all of the information I have
gathered and learned along the way.
Sincerely George

[John Roberts]

Hello, George,
I, too, have an interest in river boats, but so far my modeling of them
is in the planning stage. I have some pictures and info that may be of
interest to you. Please contact me off-list.
John