the 'James Lane' ones sound ideal, I'll have to work out how many I need, thanks everyone 

I bought some pieces of ladder for the passenger companionways, which I needed to build the front part of the superstructure (needed to know the width, angle of the ladder and therefore where it comes out through the front wall...) and more recently, bought some for the 'crew ladders' to the bridge, these are narrower than the passenger ones and I couldn't find any in the shop so got them on ebay.....
When I compared the two, I thought 'they're not even the same scale!' but having re-read the article on making your own, I see the angle for crew ladders is steeper than passenger ones - and on closer inspection, the angle of the treads is different. So, I placed them against a box side by side and so the treads are more-or-less horizontal and lo-and-behold (?) looking at them from the front, they are indeed the same (and correct) scale after all... 

Had a go at building the railings around the back of the boiler casing....
looking at the photos, the watertank is surrounded* by two-hole stanchions and rails but with a diagonal (compared to the horizon) mesh behind them (I have a better picture in 'paddle steamers' by Andrew Gladwell, which shows it in more detail) so I bought some two hole stanchions, brass wire and copper mesh, took out the soldering iron... and set about constructing the thing.
I'd already made a funnel and the top of the boiler casing but they don't look that good, I'll probably make those again, this time with the base plate a bit bigger and use maybe balsa for the funnel in a sort of plank-on-frame method. This funnel is styrene sheet and didn't bend smoothly so even if it looks ok here (out of focus!) it looks horrible close up  
I'll just use the baseplate to mark the holes in the 'good' one....
I assembled the railings in the 'usual way' - I'm sure everyone's done this, or can do so no pictures of that, then filed flat the inside faces of the 'balls' on the stanchions and applied a little solder to them. Then cut a piece of the mesh (diagonally, because that's how the real one is - don't know if that's too much attention to detail but it also helps stop the mesh falling apart!) then, holding the mesh in place with wooden clothes pegs and a piece of scrap wood, heated each spot of solder until the mesh was fixed in place...
*actually, it's not 'surrounded' as the rails are on three sides only

...then tidied up a few pointy bits of solder with a mini file, and spray painted it white  - not too thickly or it might clog up the mesh! (that goes for the amount of solder used too)
I'm quite impressed with how it's turned out 

...I don't know if anyone noticed but in the black-and-white picture (part of a postcard) the structure at the back of the funnel has a vertical rear end, not sloping as I made it (made it before I had that picture). Therefore the water tank won't fit into the space - another reason why I want to make a new one!

Hi PD's........Mick...I cannot open/expand .....'realboilercasing01'.jpg [5.42KB 127x116] ........................ Derek

Quote from: mjt60a on September 30, 2009, 09:18:10 PM
...then tidied up a few pointy bits of solder with a mini file, and spray painted it white  - not too thickly or it might clog up the mesh! (that goes for the amount of solder used too)
I'm quite impressed with how it's turned out 

Looks really good, will use your method when i get around to the railings on my build, thanks for sharing..
Kim

Quote from: derekwarner_decoy on September 30, 2009, 10:43:49 PM
Hi PD's........Mick...I cannot open/expand .....'realboilercasing01'.jpg [5.42KB 127x116] ........................ Derek

that's because it's no bigger, it's just a cropped part of the postcard, if I enlarge it becomes pixellated... like this

I see there's a couple of pics in 'Paddlewheels' this month which show a few more details I hadn't been aware of before (didn't realise there was so much 'junk' on top of the boiler casing!) At the moment I'm spraying the hull with coats of matt varnish because (a) I read somewhere that red primer is not water resistant - and I like it for the hull colour below waterline, and (b) the paints I used are all different brands with different surface finishes (basically whatever I had lying around) and I want an 'overall sheen' to the finish. It looks good so far until I ran out of varnish and masking tape, got more now but I'd expected to have that completed by now....

...while waiting (for the hull to dry enough to handle it again) I've been messing around with various bits and pieces like the boiler casing 'fence', the water tank/firefighting thingy that goes inside it and lately, the landing platforms...
...not really to scale but I found a material to use inside a ventilator I had to replace in the kitchen, it has a styrene 'flyscreen' inside which would be perfect for gratings - in 1/24th scale!  I tried it anyway to see how it would look and I think I'll use it on the model, the holes are about twice the size they should be but I've seen worse, it doesn't look too bad at first glance... 

...looks better painted and with some railings on it... I thought I did a pretty good job of painting but now I look at the photo there's lots of white showing through, eyesight's not what it was, I'll have to give a bit more attention to the gratings before painting the frame and railings...

Well, the varnish/lacquer is all set now so.... better go and see if it's going to end up in davy jones' locker.... ARRRRRR!

...oh dear, there's a slight leak on the rear of the bow section*... and I can see why now, must've got a bubble in the resin, should be able to fix it easily enough - in fact if I'd gone ahead and made the silicon rubber seal I probably would never have discovered it - but I'll fix it first, just in case the seal should fail....

*if I made the hull in one piece (like any sensible modeller), this would never have happened - but then I'd have trouble getting it on the bus....

Looking great Mick.

I've sanded the area with the air bubble back to the wood - and discovered a couple more 
Then re applied resin to them (note to self - next time, put fibreglass tissue on it the same as on the outsides of the hull) which is now set and sanded smooth. I just tried the bow section in the test tank again (with a quite large piece of lead inside) and after half an hour it's looking good so far so I increased the depth a bit to just over the waterline and will see how it looks with the increased water pressure. If it passes this test I'll try filling it to above the portholes and see that they are all sealed too, but I'll need more weight as it's just begining to lift off the bottom! Always seems to surprise me just how much ballast is needed when the hull is deepened even by just half an inch....

While I was waiting for the resin to set I made a start on the promenade deck, first cut one out of card, adjusting it until it fitted then, using the card as a guide, cut one from 0.75mm styrene sheet. This will eventually be covered with 0.8mm ply with the planking drawn on and 'weathered' a bit as it looks too new...