Paddle Steamer

I completed today the paddle steamer that Andy got me for Christmas.

This is another excellent MDF kit from Sarissa.

It comes with a large number of sheets, four of which have to combined and compressed together to form the hull.  Here's how mine spent a night...

The kit goes together well but a lot of care is needed with the thinner pieces that form the barriers and struts around the deck.

This is where I made my first modification.  The side roofs for the promenade deck were designed to be removed.  Instead I glued them which provided the strength to allow me to remove several of the roof struts where they crossed the internal rooms.  This improves access which I think will make playing with figures on the steamer a lot easier.

There are pros and cons for whether to paint before or after constructing MDF kits.  I prefer to do it afterwards but that meant a lot of masking as I wanted to keep the planking looking like wood.

You can also see in these images where I cut out the internal roof struts.  You can also see my second modification - I added some stairs between the decks and cut out access holes in the floor of the first deck, framing them up with some spare window frames from another kit.  Again, for playability, I wanted it clear where figures are going to move from one deck to the other.

After a session in the spraybooth and removing the masking tape, the lower deck looked like this:

I sprayed the paddle wheel bright red, painted the railings a similar red and painted the deck with shellac.

The kit came with a cardboard funnel which didn't extend to the lower deck.  So my third modification was to create a funnel in three parts from 14mm dowel and install them at each level.  This means that when the roof is removed, the funnel is represented on both decks and playing figures could be positioned appropriately.

I also glued an old poker game set of figures to a piece of planking which would fit nicely into any of the rooms on the steamer, or indeed in the saloon or hotel Wild West buildings.

To finish it off, I glued some string around the capstans and surfaced the roof with black vinyl sheeting, and made some nameplates to show off the name I gave it... Louise Marie.

This is a really nicely designed kit, lots of fun to make, and I'm looking forward to playing with it in a future Wild West game.  It is also available for hire for colonial games!