Just finished the Dumas Typhoon.
Looking to build the Mt. Washington
Thank you all for your input.
I am looking to power it with steam.
I have yet to see any one that has done that, no one recommends it.
Ther is someone in Great Britian I think has done that, although they had to raise the freeboard by making the hull deeper

Hi Brian, if you click on the link from my post which has the video, you should be able to save the video to your computer. There should be a link in the upper right corner of the video.

Best of luck with the kit!!! Take your time and work through things in the plans that don't make sense. Word of caution within the very first steps of the plans the keel is not represented correctly. In other words, they give you a pattern for the keel and it is not even close to what it should. You will ruin a real nice piece of wood if you use the Dumas drawing as they indicate.

Regards,

Jeff

Sorry Boat the video is not mine.
Rick

Hi Newby 7. My name is Brian McKenna. I am from South Africa and I received my kit recently. Man right now I feel out of my depth. I see you made a video and would love to get my hands on it. Please can you help 😟😳
Regards
Brian
I registered myself as Boat

I liked the video you did a excellent job on the build.Please do put the Mt. Washington in the water even if you don't run the boat you can say she was water tested.
Rick

Thanks for the kind words all!!

Jeff

Jeff - I would not be able to tell that your video was not of the earlier kit with the fiberglass hull and wooden superstructure with plastic overlays, had you not told us. She is exceedingly beautiful!!!

I am glad that some of my photos may have been helpful. If you ever want to add something to your display, you can find unpainted 1:48 scale passengers and crew figures in the model railroad catalogs. Painting is a little tedious, but not nearly as bad as the 1:350 figures for titanic! 😀

Nice work Jeff,
Well worth the time spent on her.

Martin555.

Hi guys. I have just completed my Dumas Mt. Washington. Almost 2 years in the making. I attached a link and hopefully you can view the running model.

I have to say that I was not at all happy with the kit as mine was the vacu-form kit with the decks all being of the PVC flavor and all other build parts were plastic.

I have over two pages of notes of things wrong with the Dumas instructions and they (Dumas) quit being of any help. I'm sure I'm persona non grata at this point.

Specifically, I learned right on the first couple of build instructions that there were major errors. The first being the keel pattern (which they said to make
from their full size plan) wasn't even close.

The hull vacu-form wasn't cooled right or something before it came out the machine as it was distorted and made it difficult to continue the build.

When they changed to all plastic, they did not update any of the plans or pictures except the hull if that was indeed fiberglass at one time. Soldering of railings on the decks which are plastic (previously wood) was not a good idea in their plans so the pattern had to be transferred to plywood with hope you got the transfer right, and then, move the built railing back to the PVC structure.

Not enough material provided in some cases, wrong material in others, wrong plans on the lifeboats and drive rod, step references wrong in some cases, set screws missing for paddle wheels, mounting screws wrong for motor, castings were very poorly made and body filler had to be used. On and on and on, but to finish it, even the flag was cut wrong with half of the top stripe missing.

While I do appreciate the amount of effort that went into the research, design and providing materials for this kit. I think some prudence could have been exercised when the kit materials were changed. Maybe even an updated PDF with corrected plans.

In the end, I think it came out great. I added lights, sound, smoke and deviated in a lot of cases from the plans particularly when melding the various decks and walking beam to the model.

Probably will never see the water but it makes a great shelf looker (my opinion).

One other note on the casting stuff. Before the Mt. Washington, I completed Dumas' large 52" Carol Moran which came out really well. The castings on this boat were made from some plastic injected stuff which almost looked like it was foam. All the fittings looked like Swiss cheese and a lot of work/body fill to get them proper.

So...... not sure I helped anything here but of great help along this journey was Nick Jacalone from Harbor Models and Peejay of this discussion when it came time for the paint scheme.

Switching gears for awhile at this time and working on and old Mantua HO Mikado steam engine kit I got off ebay. Tiny stuff!!!

Best regards,

Jeff

A gentleman in the model boat club has built and run the Mt.Washington.
One of is biggest complaint is stability in the wind .The other is while turning the paddle boxes dig in and try and tip the boat .These are his complaint not mine but they my be valid.
Rick

The only thing I could find on RC groups was from 2006 and they were all wooden boats and I was looking to see if the the new ABS boats handle differently. and then what size lead acid battery they where using if that made a difference. I can not find much information on this boat.

Bruce- I got one of the earlier kits, so it still had the Fiberglas hull. But as far as I know, the rest of the kit is the same. I have not been able to build it yet - mainly because of time and space, and now because of space, aggravated by health issues from extended back surgery last year, from which I am still recovering.

However, if you go to RC Groups.com and do a search for Mt Washington, you should have at least one Full build thread come up, by an excellent builder.

The main issue is her performance in anything but still water, as she tends to be top heavy. The more common approach seems to be a false weighted keel for operation, but I did see an article where a servo with an arm holding a weight at the end was used. It was on the centerline and parallel with the keel. But when the rudder was moved, the weight moved in the opposite direction to counterbalance the lean of the boat. Another thing was to make sure the top vents on the face of the wheel covers are actually open, so the air can get out, to keep it from being trapped.

The kit is very accurate. The plans ar nearly identical to the original ones drawn by John Braynaert (sp?), whose model is in a New England Maritime Museum.

I'm looking at building the Dumas Mt. Washington and was wondering if you could share some of the problems you had biulding this Kit. and if you had some of the plans and photos they gave you you could share to help me make my mind up. What was the quaility of materials like.
Thank You in Advance
Bruce

Thanks Peejay, yes it's curious. The Mt. Washington was originally built and owned by the Boston and Marine Railroad. I have seen pictures where the railroad name was also on the boat underneath the paddlewheel housing. It was sold by railroad in the 20's and I'm sure that's when the railroad name came off for good.

I saw that about the gray on the housing as well. As for the ventilation holes, I suspect but have no clue for sure, that these vents could be opened/closed for what ever reason.

Thanks again for the pics and now you can see my curiosity in terms of what color to make the top of the covers. At least 4 different colors in the pics you sent. I think I'm going to just leave them white like some of the earlier postcards/pictures and pics I could find of the Dumas build.

I've included two pics FYI. The B&W pic is actually from a glass negative I bought and had blown up. The people at the photo place said the negative was from the 20's. You can see the covers were painted here.

The othe pic is one I found of the model from a show in Ohio I believe. It looks like the Dumas kit from the paddle wheel construction.

I have noticed the difference in the tops of the paddle boxes, too. I think most of them are accurate, but have to do with the time they were taken. Even though many of the postcards are ‘colorized,’ they must have been based on something. I do know the writing on the paddle boxes changed, as there was other writing below “MOUNT WASHINGTON,” but it was gone later and additional ventilation holes were in that area.

If you look closely at the model that was completed just when she burned, You can see some grey going up the forward side. What is also ‘curious’ is that the ventilation holes appear to be blocked on the aft side. I had not seen that before.

Got it, thanks!

Hey Peejay, the smoker I'm using is from Harbor Models. I'm also using the Harbor Models power distribution unit which has been great and will allow me to turn on the whole boat with one switch. The sound module also came from Harbor Models and is timed with the speed control. The smoker output is also timed with the engine speed as well.

Nick Jacolone from Harbor Models has been a tremendous source for the electronics, boat fittings and a gigantic help when I have my stupid moments putting it all together. These are moments are becomming more frequent the older I get BTW!

Here's the link:
https://www.harbormodels.com/

Thanks Peejay! Very helpful. I have been acquiring some old postcards from the Mt. Washington era and unfortunately there is a lot of variation, more liberty I suppose, on the colors used on the postcards. I also have a signed copy of the "Farewell Old Mount Washington" but no color on any of the photos in the book.

One of the areas I'm stuck on are the colors that go around the top of the paddle wheel box. Some pictures have it in white, some colored. I'm beginning to think that the paddle wheel box was covered with something (canvas?) later in it's life as a way to preserve the paddle wheel box. The further curiosity in addition to the timeframe and why this was done is the color used here. Some pictures I've seen show the deck floor being grey and then flowing with the same colors over the paddle wheel box. Then I've seen others where the deck floor and the color (greenish) over the paddle wheel box being different. The Dumas model pics I've seen show the boxes without the color on top of the paddle wheel boxes.

Your pictures and info have been a termndous help and I appreciate your reply!👍

Thanks for the info Ron. I have been collecting some old postcards on e-bay and was able to get a signed copy of the book "Farewell Old Mount Washington" which has a lot of pictures but non-colorized. I think I'm getting close to deciding what the colors would/should be. Thanks for the help!

My photos got loaded backwards. When I first looked at them, they were in reverse order. So, the historical model is first, the assembled kit model is second, and the paddle box close up is (obviously) third.

What smoker are you using?

I have the earlier kit, which I purchased in the early 2000’s, before they changed the hull. I purchased drawings, done by John Braynaert, who had built a model for one of the New England Maritime Museums before Dumas started producing the kit.

Don’t know how much you have relied on the internet, but there a lot of colored postcards, many of them ‘colorized’ black and white pictures.

However, the last picture I posted is of a model completed the night before Mt Washington burned, so it should be pretty accurate for her later years. The next picture is a close-up if a paddle box, which does not show its interior colors. The next picture is the kit model, and the colors are very accurate, with green side rails and trim. I have not seen any information about the insides of the paddle boxes, but they could be black or white.

The history of the MS Mount Washington

http://www.lwhs.us/index.html