Civil War ironclad questions - Plans and paint schemes

Modeling Subjects Ships
1

I’m planning on scratchbuilding (in the fairly near future) some models of American Civil War ironclads and monitors (both Union and Confederate), probably in 1/144 or 1/150 scale. I know there are a number of modellers here interested in Civil War ships, so I’ve got a few questions - hope someone can help!

For reference material I have three Osprey/Vanguard publications - Union River Ironclads, Union Monitors, and Confederate Ironclads - as well as a number of books on 19th century warships, and many downloaded photographs of the various 1/192 and 1/96 resin kits available of these ships. However, there are still many areas I’m unsure about, and I also don’t have plans for many of the vessels I’d like to build (such the City-class Union ironclad, and the later Union monitors). Here are my questions:

  • Are there any good sources of plans for these ships? The Osprey book on Confederate ironclads has side and top profile views of most of the ships covered in the book, which will be adequate for my purposes (although these drawings are fairly small, the vessels are so simple in design that there isn’t much need for detailed close-up views). However, the two books on Union ships only have side drawings of most vessels.
    The plans don’t have to be large or complex; just clear and reasonably accurate. Hence a book on the subject with basic plans/drawings would be preferable to buying detailed plans for each ship individually (considering my limited budget and the fact that the plans will probably have to be ordered from the US)

  • Similarly, do any plans exist of the guns they were armed with (Dahlgren guns, Brooke and Parrott rifles, etc.?) I have various photos of these guns, but for scratchbuilding purposes I need to know the actual dimensions of the guns and their carriages. (I could build the models with the gunports closed, but this would look rather dull considering how simple and functional most of the ships are in the first place). I do have a spare 1/96 9" Dahlgren gun left over from the Revell Kearsarge kit which I could measure and scale down to 1/144.

  • What colour were the iron armoured parts of the ships (in the case of monitors, everything above the waterline) generally painted? They are shown as dark-to-medium grey in all of the Osprey books. Similarly, were the wooden areas (hull and deck) left unpainted or painted to match the rest of the ship? And did painting vary significantly between Confederate and Union ships? (For that matter, is there actually reliable information on the painting of any of these ships?)
    Some models I’ve seen have the armour represented as unpainted metal, but this seems unlikely to me due to the problem of rust. I know some of the Confederate ships, such as the Arkansas, were painted in a reddish-brown colour (red oxide?) presumably for camouflage against muddy river water. The Osprey book does not show this, which makes me doubt the colours shown in its drawings.

2

The Maryland Silver Company carries both plans of ironclads and guns:

http://www.marylandsilver.com/

Scroll down to Ship Plans Copied from the National Archives and Ordinance Plans Copied from the National Archives.

3

I’m not a Civil War expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve had to dip my toe in these rather murky waters a couple of times. Quite a few years ago I got hired to design a paper model (for kids) of the Monitor, for use by the Monitor Marine Sanctuary’s educational programs. And just a couple of years ago my students and I did a class project around the remains of the C.S.S. Neuse, which resides about 25 miles away from her, in Kinston, North Carolina.

The best source on Union ironclads is Donald Canney’s *The Old Steam Navy:*Vol. II, The Ironclads, 1842-1885. I don’t have the book, and it apparently is out of print, but it’s the sort of thing a good library would have - and I’m sure used copies can be found. Don Canney is a fine scholar and the book is well-illustrated. I’m not sure how many actual plans are in it, but my guess is that Don found whatever was extant.

The accepted authoritative source on the Confederate ironclads still seems to be Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads, by my former colleague William N. Still. That one is in print; here’s a link: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780872496163&itm=1

There are quite a few good books about Civil War weapons. For naval guns, the one I’d start with is Spencer Tucker’s Arming the Fleet: U.S. Navy Ordnance in the Muzzle-Loading Era. That one, unfortunately, is also out of print.

Many years ago a gentleman named Earl Geohagen drew a series of plans covering most ships that served on both sides of the American Civil War. He knew his stuff, and covered the bases pretty well regarding sources. His drawings have been around for a long time, and some additional material has surfaced since he drew them, but they’re a good start. The originals are now in the Smithsonian; I imagine copies are available for sale there.

The consensus among the researchers who’ve investigated the Monitor seems to be that she was painted black above the waterline and anti-fouling red below - the red being a rather bright, oxide shade rather than the dull red we associate with hull bottoms today. The Neuse’s remains are in bad shape; she’s had a rough life since 1865 - including being scuttled, excavated by amateur archaeologists who cut her in half, and walloped by two major hurricanes. (Better days for her are on the horizon; that’s another story.) There’s no hint of any paint on what’s left of her. The dedicated (nay, obsessed) guys responsible for taking care of her think, on the basis of photographs of similar ships (e.g., the Albemarle, which was also built in North Carolina and was quite similar), that her hull was coated with a concoction containing tar, lampblack, and (maybe) black paint, which, if it wasn’t pure black, must have been close. (The same substance seems to have been in widespread use in the Confederate Army as a protective coating on such things as cannon barrels.) The Neuse folks think it probably was applied (likely with mops) to all the above-water exterior surfaces - including the unarmored deck planking. Not exactly an inspiring color scheme.

Figuring out the colors of such ships on the basis of black-and-white photos is, of course, tricky. The ships sometimes look grey, but the angle of the light striking an object that’s painted black can be deceptive. Some, at least, of the Confederate ironclads operating on the Mississippi River certainly look in photos like they’re a rathe pale grey.

I hadn’t heard about Confederate ironclads being painted with red oxide, but it’s certainly believable. And I personally wouldn’t rule out the possibility of unpainted ironclads. The image of shabby, rusty Confederate equipment often gets exaggerated, but it certainly is true that the Confederate Navy constantly had supply problems. And I suspect rust was not a particularly big concern for those people, especially late in the war.

That’s about all I can offer. Maybe there are some more knowledgeable Civil War fans among the Forum membership who can help more.

Later edit: It looks like Steves and I were typing at the same time. I haven’t dealt with the source he cited, but I’ve heard of it; I’m sure it’s a good one. I wonder if some of those plans listed as being from the National Archives are in fact Mr. Geohagen’s drawings.

4

Ironclads aren’t one of my main areas of interest, but for some reason I just happened to remember (something that’s becoming rarer these days) that Maryland Silver Co offered the plans. I have never had any dealings with them either.

5

Maryland Silver offers some unique plans, but they are VERY slow. Duane Borchers of Md Silver is a DoD employee by day and a researcher at Archives during his off time. When you order from him the order goes into the queue and it must work its way to the top. Once at the top of the queue Duane takes his master copy down to the local Kinkos to run off a copy. It took 3 months to get the plan book on the first destroyers. A second order, even with a call in advance to tell him that the order was on the way and to look for it, took more than a month.

As far as other sources of plans for ACW Ironclads, those by (Kevin ?) Meagher are pretty good. I got a couple from Taubman’s Plan Service (there is another story!). Taubmans is now available out of the Loyalhanna Dockyard

http://www.loyalhannadockyard.com/

Plans for the Cairo are included in a book by the US National Park Service Historic Structure Report series. They were used by Lone Star Models to make their 1:192 scale Cairo – and again used by Flagship Models to refurb & update the master molds for the kit.

6

Many thanks as usual for the advice and information!

However, one important point (I don’t really want to point out in every post I make, but it’s very important from the point of view of available kits and reference material) - I live in the UK (i.e Great Britain). This means that many books, plans and other sources of reference material widely available in the USA are very difficult to find, and the only way to get many of them is to order from a US supplier - the cost of airmail shipping means that this is often prohibitively expensive (and if you’re buying new rather than second-hand items you often have to pay customs/import duties in addition to this!) For example, the “Old Steam Navy” book series - searching Amazon.co.uk shows the first volume only available second-hand for £45 (near enough to $100) and the second volume (ironclads) is out of print. (Although even on the US site amazon.com the latter volume is over $200)

Also I am on a limited budget (one reason I scratchbuild rather than buying expensive resin kits and detail sets) so don’t really want to spend £20+ on a set of plans for a model which will take only a week or so to build (though thanks all the same for the information on plan suppliers - I’ll keep them in mind for the future)

I’ll probably use either dark grey paint (possibly Tamiya “German Grey”), or black paint drybrushed with dark grey, for the armour plating on my models. I normally use Tamiya Nato Black (which isn’t quite black) for black-painted areas of ship models - it’s a fairly good “scale” colour - so will use this for the hull of the Pyro USS Monitor and any scratchbuilt monitors I build (if I manage to find some plans)

Anyway, I’ve already run into problems. I’m about one-third of the way through scratchbuilding CSS Arkansas. I picked this one to start with as it is fairly small, a very simple shape, and I have a fair amount of reference material for this vessel in the form of the plans in the Osprey book and photos of the 1/96 “Old Steam Navy” resin model (from the Steelnavy.com review). So far the basic shapes of the hull, casemate, funnel and pilothouse are complete but it has no deck planking, armour plating, guns or fittings. However when I had a look at the photos of the OSN resin kit, I got a shock:
My model, built from the plan in the Osprey book, looks like this contemporary engraving (which was almost certainly Osprey’s source of reference for creating their plan)
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h61000/h61912k.jpg

The OSN kit looks like this:
http://www.steelnavy.com/images/OSNArkansas/Ark6761p.JPG
http://www.acrossthepond.net/Arkansas%20007.jpg

As you can see, the two don’t have much in common other than the basic dimensions; the shape of the casemate is completely different, as is the gun layout and the shape of the ports, and the hull has raised bulwarks both fore and aft.
Does anybody know what reference material Old Steam Navy used to design their 1/96 kit? Did they manage to find some original plans or drawings, or is their design simply an extrapolation based on descriptions of the ship? I’d certainly imagine their representation of the Arkansas is more accurate than one based on a contemporary engraving (given that the latter are known for inaccuracy, particularly in terms of proportion) but I know it’s not a good idea to take anything like this for granted.

Isn’t the Neuse the one that a full-scale replica was being built of? I seem to remember you mentioned a while ago that the builders ended up using cheaper timber and a simplified construction technique due to the prohibitive cost of building it exactly like the original ship. What’s the status of this replica project now?

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I haven’t really kept up with the progress of the Neuse replica. The last time I saw it, it was sitting on a parking lot in downtown Kinston. The basic hull and superstructure (made, I think, of pressure-treated lumber and plywood) were in place, along with the stack. No guns, engines, or, so far as I know, interior features. My impression was that visitors were being taken through the thing, though, from what I could tell, there wasn’t much to see inside. A sign alongside announced that anybody making a donation to the cause would get a coupon good for a discount on a barbecued pork sandwich at a nearby diner.

I seem to recall hearing that there was some doubt as to whether the originators of the replica project were going to have enough money to finish it. For a while there was some talk that the state of North Carolina might take it over - and the officials of the Office of Archives and History were trying to make it clear, without ruffling any important feathers, that the state didn’t really want it. Some instinct told me this was a good project for me to stay out of.

The replica does at least provide the average visitor with a good visual impression of what the real ship looked like. That, unfortunately, cannot be said about the actual remains of the ship. What’s left of her is currently housed under a non-weatherproof shed alongside a highway on the outskirts of Kinston. The staff of state employees responsible for her is made up of fine, dedicated people, but at the moment the public’s interest in the ship is so slight that the state can’t afford to keep the site open on weekends. The old ship looks like the scorched skeleton of some prehistoric monster, and most people who drive past scarcely notice her. But if you take the trouble to stop and have one of the staff give you a guided tour, you quickly get hooked. The surviving fabric of that ship is utterly fascinating.

And there’s reason for optimism. Some new, up-to-date conservation methods are being applied to the hull timbers, and the state has bought a building in downtown Kinston to house what in a few years (we hope) will be the C.S.S. Neuse museum. The day (or probably several days) when the ship gets picked up and (somehow) moved the necessary five miles or so to her new home will be a great one.

Here’s a link to the ship’s current website: http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/sections/hs/neuse/neuse.htm

That website includes small (very small) copies of the drawings Mr. Geohagen made, which purport to show both the Neuse and her near-sister, the Albemarle. There’s also a good drawing of a Brooke heavy gun there; click on “Armament” in the left column. When my class was working on that project a couple of years ago the state had me prepare a new set of drawings of her; they’re to be published when (if) the money becomes available. (The originals are in Kinston; I’m not sure what it would take for me to gain access to them at this point.) My conclusion was that Geohagen’s drawings were about right, though a few details have come to light since he made them.

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I dont know anything about Civil War ironclads, but I do know quite a bit about painting locomotives and railroad cars in the 19th century, and specifically the 1860s. Maybe something of this field might be of help to its maritime cousin.

In the 1860s, “blacking” was used for the ironwork of some 1860s freight cars, commonly an inexpensive mixture of lampblack and cheap varnish. It was a way of preserving the metal, and the “cheap” varnish should be understood as “simple,” since better grades of varnishes were only called for when finely painted surfaces required a clean clear varnish, which journal boxes, axles and running gear does not require. An 1869 specification for the chains, brake rods and other iron work of Baldwin locomotives built for the Kansas Pacific offers a more detailed account of the material used, since it describes “coal tar varnish.”

Iron coal hoppers built in the 1860s by Harlen & Hollingsworth (a Delaware carbuilding company also known for their ships) were also painted entirely black. I think this is in part due to the iron fabrication, since wooden freight cars were commonly painted in mineral browns, yellow ochres, and a grey-blue color known as “slate.” Iron work on wagons, carriages and stagecoaches was also traditionally painted black, while the wooden parts were painted in colors and varnished.

In the 1860s, there was no “boxcar red” but instead, mineral or metallic paints, which had iron oxide bases, and created colors ranging from ochres to dark browns.

The most interesting uses of blacking were on the hot surfaces of locomotives - the stack, the firebox, and the smokebox - called “stack blacking.” Every shop had its preferred mix, and these generally included varnish, japan, lampblack, sometimes resin, and worked best when applied upon a hot surface and then wiped down. I havent seen any recipes for the 1860s, but many from the 1880s and 90s, and assume the methods may have been the same.

I think its possible some of the ironclads may have been painted in blacks adopted from these methods, since they would be common in the 1860s and possibly shared by maritime painters. I also would suggest looking into the possability that some of these vessels may have been painted in dark brownish metallic paints, or “slate color,” or blacks mixed with whitelead, or other alternates. Remember that red or brown colors will show up as black in 19th century photographs due to the color process of the film, so what looks black may be a color - and by extension, what may be a color, may also be black, the great caveat. Think too, that some ironclads may have been painted in alternate shades, at the command of their masters, orders from higher up, or in seasonal climates where a black iron ship would be uncomfortable, like the Mississippi.

Sorry I could not offer anything more, but I hope this helps.

Jim

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In the 70’s I was extremely interested in the ironclads and when I traveled to N.Y.C. on a vacation, the last day I found this large hard cover book like a golden book quite thick which had page after page of iron clad paintings and drawings along with descriptions of the paintings, it had a red cover, I didn’t have the money on me to buy it but was going to go back the next day to buy it when my departure time changed from late the next day to that night…I never got the book and never wrote the name down as I was going to go back the next day anyway…I’ve never been able to locate that book again, the cross sections of various iron clads alone were awesome…there was several aerial type paintings showing the various types of iron clad vessels amazing how many there were, from simple to elaborate, drawings of the crews quarters and boilers and the engine I’m still looking for that book. Karl

10

For questions concerning the Old Steam Navy kit, email them directly at the address on their website. The owner is very friendly and willing to talk about his kits, methods, etc. I’m building their USS Weehawken kit right now and every time I send an email to ask a question or bounce an idea off of him, he’s quick to respond.

One thing you will quickly find out concerning Civil War ships, especially ironclads, is that probably no one knows the answers. There’s a lot of conjecture and guessing, but very few original plans and even fewer photos. I find myself doing a lot of educated guessing based on a few photos, plans, and artistic renderings with the USS Weehawken (no close up photos of her exist), but I’m finding that fairly liberating. No one can tell me I’m wrong!

-Devin

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I would have suggested the book:

C.S.S. Neuse: A question of iron and time (Paperback)
by Leslie S Bright (Author)

But it seems to be out of print. I am lucky to have my own copy. Amazon.com.us lists it as $60 to 74.50 for two used copies.

12

The book about the Neuse, by Leslie S. Bright, William H. Rowland, and James C. Bardon, is excellent. In contains the best account of the ship’s career, excavation, and restoration (up to the publication date, 1981), and lots of pictures. The latter include drawings and photos of the numerous artifacts that were found in the wreck, a nice two-page spread showing an overhead view of the surviving structure, and some of the Geohagen drawings (though not the full set). Definitely a worthwhile acquisition for anybody interested in the ship.

But those prices cited by telsono - YIKES! The last time I was down at the site the book was being sold at the gift shop. I don’t remember the price, but I’m pretty sure it was less than $20.00. There was a big cardboard box full of copies behind the counter; I got the impression that the staff was having trouble getting rid of them. I asked if they could spare one (to help with the student project I mentioned earlier) - and they gave me two. I suspect an e-mail to the ship’s website (a link to which is in one of my earlier posts) would bring information on how to order one directly. I have no idea whether the site is equipped to ship books overseas, though.

13

As a side subject to this discussion. Has anyone here every play the old board game “Iron Clads” published by Yaquinto in the late 1970’s. I still have my copy. plus the expansion kit. It was a fun game with alot of diversity in the vessels available going from the Civil War to the South American conflicts that utilized iron clads.

14

Probably the most accurate information you’ll find is at the Mariners Museum in Newport News, VA. Since they have the real thing there. Check out the website the ironclad exibit opens March 9th.

http://www.mariner.org/index.php?oatsad=29

http://www.mariner.org/exhibitions/ussmonitorcenter/

15

Thanks to everyone for all the advice and information. I have decided to temporarily postpone work on the CSS Arkansas (about 50% complete) and build the Pyro 1/250ish CSS Virginia (from the “Monitor/Merrimac” set), with the help of the Osprey/Vanguard “Confederate Ironclads” book to add detail and fix inaccuracies. This will allow me to practice painting + weathering techniques for the various areas of the ship (armour, deck, lower hull etc.). Once this is done I’ll post some photos of my completed model here, and continue work on the Arkansas. If the Arkansas turns out OK my next ACW ironclad will be a Union City-class ironclad (like the USS Cairo). Scratchbuilding these ships is certainly a change from seagoing warships, with their profusion of fittings, superstructure, secondary armament, masts, boats and davits, etc; it’s almost more like armour modelling.

16

You might try the Confederate Naval Museum in Columbus, GA-

http://www.portcolumbus.org/

It was small and underfunded when I was there 15 years ago, but they were pretty passionate about the Confederate Navy. If there’s not an answer on the website, send them an e-mail or give them a call. Hope this helps,

Andrew

17

If anyone’s interested, here’s my half-finished (maybe more like one-third, in terms of actual hours of work) Arkansas: The “strap iron” armour is made from lengths of Slaters strip styrene. Tedious but the finished effect is worth it, it looks a lot better than simply using textured styrene sheet. I may add rivets to the ends of the strips afterwards, though this will be an even more tedious job!

18

A yes Ironclad, the first “real” Battleship (I mean the first metal battle ship). I Myself may have never done a model of a Ironclad but I do have alot of information on one spesific ironclad, The Monitor, in one of the issues of National Geographique they speak about the battle between the Confederate Merrickmack (later call Viginia) and the Union Monitor. I also have a book of illistartion of ship, trains and plane and on one of the page it says on the Monitor, Including a inside and outside plan of the ship in coulor. (its not the actual plans, just artise drawing) but its still good. The Ironclad was flat black (or iron colour) and under the water line was red. If you want I could send some photos and more information on the Monitor if you want.

It will help.