My Nile River Boat Is Finished

 

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Well I finished my first ever "build a boat" project today as I finished off the Nile River paddle boat with the assembly of the rear paddle wheel mechanism. I was saving the "hardest for last" element of the ship, but it turned out that the paddle wheel was not as hard as I thought that it would be.

This last sentence pretty much sums things up: building terrain in general and boats in particular turn out to be not as hard to do as expected.

I started the construction on October 4th and finished it today, October 20th.

The only thing left to do is to figure out a name for the boat. Any ideas? Leave them in the comment section at the bottom of this post.

The boat is armed with a Krupp artillery piece in the bow and a Gatling Gun in the stern. There is room in the middle to add another machine gun, if needed. (If needed!!!????)

Midsection: there is space to place a second Gatling Gun on the main deck.

The metal boiler plates and the wood planks are removable in case I want to use the boat in times of peace. The canopy is also removable as is the smoke stack (for storage or transportation purposes). After making the armored plating for the gun crew in the bow I decided that other parts of the boat needed some protective cladding as well. I cut pieces of coffee stirrer sticks into random lengths and glued them to a frame that I made out of rectangular bass wood. I glued a 1" by 2" thin base from Litko, sideways, onto the basswood frame. Then I glued the planks atop the Litko base. The piece was then primed in black and then dry brushed from dark grey to medium grey to light grey and then some white highlights on the boards.

Krupp Gun and crew in the bow with boiler plate metal protection.

Upper deck of the stern showing a Gatling Gun and crew.

The Bridge

The paddle wheel mechanism was the last part of the boat that I constructed. I found a pack of decorative gears in the bead and jewelry section at Hobby Lobby. The largest gear was the perfect size for the paddle wheel frame. I attached 1.5" pieces of coffee stirrer sticks to the spokes of the gear so as to extend the diameter of the wheel frame. The paddles were made from balsa wood.

Midship: room for another Gatling Gun if needed.

What's next? There might be another paddle boat in the future, maybe a side wheeler, or some small dhows to be manned by the Dervish. There could be some potential river battles with boats.