1. Added more details to the roof of the pilot house per the kit instructions and referring to photos. I trimmed back the widow awnings to match the photos. Railings will be added soon.
The mast on the rear of the upper deck is different than the kit. A base was made from styrene. The mast will be glued to the new base support and then to the upper deck.

2. Here’s the pilot house with the railing attached
Here’s the pilot house with the railing attached. Noting in the ref pictures that the railing has only one cross bar. Thus I cut off the top and bottom bars to get the result on the right.
Noticing that the tall pilot house is “see-through”! Time to build a floor and some interior details.

3. Here’s the pilot house interior
Here’s the pilot house interior... based on the floor plan shown on slide 4. A control stand with wheel, Capt. seat, benches or cabinets and a desk. I also added a dresser that I’m calling a cabinet of some sort. The cut-out in the corner will be for a ladder access. Primed the whole thing and then did a little detail
painting. BTW – the Capt. seat is a seat from a
coach interior, just cut apart. Yes... The wheel is a
brake wheel...! The notch on the rounded part is
to clear a protrusion on the pilot house inside.
Here’s the interior, all painted and with the
Capt. at the helm.

4. Most everything is now built... Time for primer!!
Did the application from a standard spray can, outdoors and let dry for a few days.

5. After a week of letting the primer dry (and no time to get back to this) I finally got everything painted! I had a couple of bottles of PolyScale Reading Green – perfect!
Here’s everything done and drying.

6. For the life boat, I noticed that the Schuylkill did not have the standard “boat” like in the kit. Instead, it had a more oval life raft, located on the rear upper deck. I was temped to use the lit boat, but decided to stay true to the real thing. Taking some styrene strips, glued together and then shaped it on a bench grinder. Used alum foil to make the “cover” and pained it all white and mounted it on a few strips.

7. Had another opps moment as I was painting the white stripe on the hull, there was a bump molded in, while the Reading Tugs were flat. Thus I puttied the rear to smooth it out.
While not the best putty job, it did the trick and now the rear of the hull is flat. Some side details, like tires and rope, will help hide the roughness.

8. Started to install the top railing to the main hull, which is held on my several pilings posts. But, noticed they were too tight to fit and not positive if it was the paint. I took a 7/64 drill and cleaned out the holes in the hull and the railing. Now everything fit much better. I glued from the front and moved toward the rear.

9. OH. Another OOPS. The rear of the top rail is short
OH.. Another OOPS! The rear of the top rail is short! This could be due to that error I had at the start. No matter, need to fix it. I cut the railing and glued it on, then filled the gaps with styrene. When painted, almost invisible.

10. Detail painting didn’t take as long as I expected and went well
Detail painting didn’t take as long as I expected and went well. I was able to achieve the red trim on all the windows, using a micro-brush! Here we can see the main cabin, pilot house and top deck painted, with windows and the pilot house interior.
In the portholes, I used the kit’s window parts as they fit into the holes and appear flush.
For the pilot house,
I cut sheet acetate
and it curved right
into place.

11. I decided (with some advice from others) that the main deck would have been a marine gray color, so after two coats of paint, it’s time for some dull coat.
On the upper deck, main cabin and pilot house, I applied gloss coat, as I expect that these tugs were maintained very well and would be a bit shinier, longer.

12. Here are the “decals” I made for the lettering and stack logo
Here are the “decals” I made for the lettering and stack logo. These were printed on standard paper and glued on with Elmers.
The text is Bookman Old Style in bold in a dark green and a gold. Text size 12 pt. The gold goes on the pilot house sides, the green on the hull sides.
The name for the end of the hull was done in “word-art” to a curve with the same format/color as the gold lettering. Text size is 14 pt and I added a space between each letter.
The Reading logo was taken from the internet and simply sized to be approx. 1” across. I tried some locomotive decals, but they were too old and broke apart.
SCHUYLKILL
S C H U Y L K I L L

13. After installing a fire line on the starboard side (right) I glued the pilot house and top deck to the main cabin, finishing half of the tug. Also added the rigging and flag!

14. Time to detail the hull – tires on the side, some extra rope, crates, barrels and crew on deck. Also the large fender, the large mass on the front of the tug for pushing other ships. More on that in a second...

15. Here is the fender! Made of craft twine/string, my wife crocheted several strings of the twine. I cut them in sections approx. 4 inches in length and then folded them. I took a long length of string and folded it several times to a total length of 4”. I coated that with Elmers glue to bind it together. After it had dried for awhile, I strung the length through the crocheted pieces, forming the basic mass. I did a second string as well. I then coated the entire mass with Elmers glue and water, to bind it all together. After it had dried for awhile, I mounted it on the hull. Notice it hides that first mistake I made in construction!

16. OK... We’re done!! Here’s some pictures of the finished tug – SCHUYLKILL!

18. Reading Lines – Central Division
Here’s a couple of views of the Reading tug Schuylkill in action on the
Reading Lines – Central Division