I'm currently dinking around with the Lindberg (ex-Pyro) Robert E. Lee Mississippi steamboat kit, trying to add some detail so it doesn't look too toylike. Right now I'm carving out 112 window openings so I can add N-scale model railroad building windows, but that's not important right now ;^)
I notice that the boat has "hogging chains" that stretch from the forward upper deck, up over the tops of three kingposts, to the aft upper deck. The purpose, as I understand it, is to prevent the ends of the hull from sagging. Were these really chains, or something like iron rod with clevises on the ends? The kit calls for rigging thread, but I'd like to do better.
The boat also has similar bracing rigging which goes from the upper deck outboard to the edges of the main deck. The kit has some bogus turnbuckles (to be replaced with HO railroad turnbuckles), but again I wonder what the real boat had: wire cable? iron rods? chains?
Anybody out there know?
Steve H