The Rufus B II

[Rufus B II]

Ladies and gents I bid you a hardy handshake and a warm hello!

I have had a keen interest in and a relationship with this sternie since it came to be in possession of one of my father's friends. For about 2 yrs I have toyed with the idea of making a working model of this boat. A couple months ago, I decided to pull the trigger and do it. The boat is the Rufus B II and it was owned by a lawyer that had some relationship to the notorious Al Capone when it was first constructed and known as the "Freddie Boy". The captain's log bears out several appearances of Mr. Capone on board and a pretty good blurb about the Roof's history can be seen here:
http://www.americansternwheel.org/Boat%20Directory/rufus_b_ii.htm

Here is what I have so far:
The boat:


And here is my progress thus far:










I used a piece of 3/8" plywood for the bottom of the hull to give it weight and stability. I cut a groove near the bow and bent it and reinforced it at the bend using shoe goo to glue the reinforcements in place. I then added  the sides of the displcement style hull made from bass wood to the bottom of the hull using shoe goo, clamps, and 45 degree angles to maintain the squareness of the sides of the hull. Then, to duplicate the rake of the lower deck, I measured the angle on the real boat, took measurements all over the place and scaled it down to 1/24th scale, converted into millimeters ( I hate the fact that the USA has not gone metric! It annoys the crap out ouf me and modelling is SO much easier using the metric system!) and added onto the sides of the bow and the bow itself, angles of basswood so that when I put the deck on, it would exactly match the rake of the deck.

I then added cross braces made of paint stirrers, kind of like bulkheads to the hull dividing it in three segments. I used 45 degreee supports to maintain the square and again, shoe goo is the adhesive.

At this point, I am going to explain my choice of adhesives before I get a barage of emails asking about it. Shoe Goo is a siliconish, rubbery, gooey, adhesive gunk available in the USA. It goes by many names including craft goo, plumber's goo, handyman's goo, mechanic's goo, carpenter's goo etc. etc. etc. IT IS ALL THE SAME CRAP!!! It is just packaged differently for marketing purposes... and priced differently as well. Apparently mechanics are the least likely to shell out money for it so it is priced the cheapest--IME.  Anyway, my experience with it goes back about 20 years when I bought it at the beach to repair a leak in my raft... It still holds!!!! I have patched inner tubes, waterbed materesses, motorbike seats and too much more to name with this stuff, and no amount of water will harm it. Bla bla bla-- there's my story on shoe goo.

After that, it was time to put the deck on. I used basswood planks and glued them together side by side using bar clamps and .... gues what??? Yup! Good 'Ol Shoe goo. I clamped down the deck using goo and c-clamps  and bar clamps. Then I needed to shape the bow with that nice curve. I knew the overhang at midpoint and so scaled it down and market it. I can't find a compass big enough to make the arc, so I used the old thumb tack and string attached to a pencil method to scribe the arc. Then I sculped it to perfection using a Dremmel and a sanding drum.

[Eddy Matthews]

A slightly unusual subject with a bit of interesting history.... Looking good so far.

[ky paddlewheeler]

Glad to see you made it over here(Im the redneck that sent you,oh and Eddy,you should give me some more pic space for that lol J/K)but you got a great start,and keep op the great work!

[Rufus B II]

OK I'M back.

I filled in the dips in the deck and sanded it down. I used a product called "Min Wax Wood Hardener" all over the outside. It is an epoxy of some sort that is thinned out with tons of solvent that wicks the polymer into the wood and then sets up like steel. It is actually made for fixing water damaged wood but it worked well to seal the hull. Then I painted the hull and deck and applied 7 coats of spar urethane to seal it all up tight. According to my calculations, the displacement volume of the hull will support about 11.5 lbs (5.23 kilograms). Once the whole thing is assembled, I will probably have to weight it to get it to draft properly in the water, but that comes later.

I made the splash guard and the supports, pinned them in place and gooed them to the deck with some clamps here and there. I also found a sheet of red rubber foam at the hobby shop that I cut strips off of to use as the bumper. I superglued that one in place. The actual bumper is wooden but for the model....

After that I began the engine room, cutting the basswood and gooing square rods to the corner and reinforcing across the structure etc. The corners of the ER are rounded so after the goo dried, I used a vibrating sander to sculpt the corners.

I found some plastic I beams the exact scale I needed for the paddlewheel support at the hobby shop. This saved me a lot of time. Cut squared them up, glued them etc. and made the diagonals out of basswood.

I then marked the doors and windows-- all to scale of course, on the ER with a pencil and cut my pre-painted basswood strips for the trim. Then I painted the ER, cut out the holes with an exacto knife and gooed the trim in place. Later I will goo plexiglass in place from the backside for the windows.

Then I marked and cut out grooves for the Ibeams in the back of the ER. I'll worry about filling the gaps later.

Well, that pretty much brings you all up to speed on what has gone on so far. Of course I left out some trivial details that any modeler could figure out on his own.

[Rufus B II]

Sorry I've been gone for a while. The guy who was going to machine the paddlewheel for me had some family troubles and so he's out of the game and I decided to go ahead and make it myself out of polystyrene stock from the hobby shop. I don't mind admitting I'm darned proud of my work on this. I carved all this out by hand with an xacto knife. Obviously I have some painting and detail work to do but, as my Aikido instructor says "slow is smooth...smooth is fast".

I've also built some more of the superstructure and I aquired a digital-proportional Hummer from Radio Shack for about $60, which I have cannibalized for the motor, servos, and radio. I have yet to hook them up, I'm not ready for that yet. But when I am I'll need some pulleys and belts and so forth and I have yet to work out exactly how I'm going to do all the drivetrain and steering stuff, but the hardware fits inside the superstructure rather neatly so it shouldn't be too tough.

Here are the pics:

[Red_Hamish]

Hi Rufus B, I liked the neat work on the paddlewheel. Slow is smooth    and she is coming on quite fast  :lol: Well certainly faster then my builds at the moment. Not enough stress in my life just now ( or possibly too much stress ) that is when the bulding bug strikes for me. Anyway keep up the progress reports it really is pretty neat.

cheers

Jim

[Rufus B II]

BTW, I was directed here by someone else and I'm glad for it. An entire forum dedicated to exactly what I'm doing is really cool. Seems odd to me that as big as the USA is, there is no forum dedicated to model paddlers. However, the good 'ol UK.... can always depended upon on have just such a forum. I love the Brits for just that reason (I hope that is not a derogatory term. I don't think it is but if so, I appologise profusely. Quite frankly, I am shamefully ignorant of the difference between England, the U.K. etc. I appologise for that but it is all I can do to keep up with the political zoo in my own country. That said, I love you guys and the Aussies as well. There are shamefully few countries in the world left with "intestinal fortitude" and you guys are at the top of the list. Bla bla bla...).   To have a forum for such an out of the way, specialized kind of thing is fantastic. I've seen stuff on the tube on model train fans in G.B. and how fanatical the advocates of that are and that is cool too. There are model train nuts here in the USA as well who are just as off-their-rocker but they don't get the publicity. After all, we have to concentrate on NFL football and "American Idol" and other useless crap.

Anyway, I'm glad to have a resource like this as I go through the learning/construction process. It's really nice to have a place to pick up ideas.

Also, THIS, is a freakin' MASTERPIECE!
http://www.btinternet.com/~mjt60a/models/images/freshw_wheels03.jpg
That is so insanely complex! My hat is off to the person who built that! WOW! An eccentric hooked up to the buckets that vary the angle of the buckets to improve efficiency? That is absolutely off the hook! I'm definitely glad my sternie has a simple wheel design. It was tough enough getting that right.

[Red_Hamish]

Take a bow Mick , Yes Rufus B our very own mastercraftsman in London who is on here and a sterling contributor too. p.s. Mick I'll eventually get around to a pair of your exceptionally crafted paddlewheels of the non-feathering variety. You do them so much better than I could ever hope to  

cheers

Jim

[thewharfonline]

Mick made me custom paddlewheels for a model paddler I made (PS Alexander Arbuthnot) I needed them in half instead of full round (It's a static model which I am considering renaming) and I was very thankful and they arrived in Australia in fantastic condition! He's the master I say. I've also just recently followed his instructions on making simple spider web wheels.

The model has now been with me to a primary school where it assisted in a speech I made to the school!

Soon I'll have the model all glued together and it will go on display in my room.

Your model is looking great! Keep up the good work!
Sean

[Rufus B II]

Just painted the wheel:

[Rufus B II]

Another shot of my superstructure progress with the painted wheel "in place"-- mock-up style.

[mjt60a]

.....Also, THIS, is a freakin' MASTERPIECE!
http://www.btinternet.com/~mjt60a/models/images/freshw_wheels03.jpg
That is so insanely complex! My hat is off to the person who built that!....

Well thank you but, I have to confess, those wheels are in fact a kit you can buy from 'Graupner' designed for use with the 'Glasgow' paddle tug kit, all I did was replace some of the plastic rivets supplied with the kit, with 8BA bolts (because I'd read one or two horror stories about the wheel falling apart in use...) then painted the whole thing with red lead-colour primer.
I have made some sets of wheels myself but as yet none had 'working' feathering mechanisms, they're not unlike your styrene wheel in construction and appearance....

[thewharfonline]

Stop being modest Mick! You're good, you can admit it  :bow

[Rufus B II]

Now that I have the paddlewheel completed and I have secured the motor, servo for steering and radio for control (cannibalized from a digital-proportional radio shack hummer for $70!!!), I am making serious progress on the superstructure. The following pictures show gaps and other imperfections which I will fix when I actually assemble the cabins, but you get the idea from the mock up.

[Rufus B II]

I'm painting the super. I'll post some pics when the final assy is done and I'm ready to do the motor and stuff.