What is it...Take 2.

[Bruno Krause]

I'll keep Judy's incredible thread going, very interesting.

I only have one item that is could be seen as a legitimate steamboat artifact. Hopefully, this will keep the thread going. I have more "artifacts" but all the others are so out there, or could be seen as plain hardware. I suspect that nobody would be able to identify them. Anyways...

What is it?

[Judy Patsch]

A DQ doorknob innerds???????

[Roger Hilligoss]

A nozzle from the boiler???

[Frank Grimm]

I'll keep Judy's incredible thread going, very interesting.

I only have one item that is could be seen as a legitimate steamboat artifact. Hopefully, this will keep the thread going. I have more "artifacts" but all the others are so out there, or could be seen as plain hardware. I suspect that nobody would be able to identify them. Anyways...

What is it?

This looks like a threaded adjusting link from some kind of screw jacK.

[Bruno Krause]

The prize goes to Roger...that is indeed an steam atomizing fuel oil nozzle from one of the multiple burners on the DQ's two boilers. Still has just a slight whiff of that unique, lovable Bunker C/Number 6 smell. I was given this many moons (and a few DQ owners) ago...

[Bruno Krause]

Ok, how about another one...We should all know what this is...Obviously this is a common 3 inch lag screw with a galvanized washer. The point is, where on the Delta Queen did it come from. I'll give you a hint, the paint on the head and washer is a dull mustard yellow, a rather unusual color for the Legendary One, wouldn't you say?

And before anybody accuses me of removing select pieces from the boat with tools, I actually found this unattached, and rolling about...

[inactive user 02]

Bruno,

Since the demise of yellow trim on the window frames on the boat (and the interior of the Aft Cabin Lounge...or todays Betty Blake Lounge) the only yellow I can recollect would be on the circus trim and sprayboard around the calliope whistles.

And a 3" lag would make great sence since that stuff is 1/4" steel.

It wouldn't surprize me to find one rolling around on deck back there either with the vibration of the wheel and the calliope itself.

That said, on a similar subject...The Una Fon was added with the circus gingerbread trim in the winter of 1970-1971 at Avondale Shipyard. Does anyone know why this happened? I have heard Arthur Davis (who later built the MISSISSIPPI QUEEN calliope) was the person from whom the Una Fon and the idea for said instrument came and perhaps the circus trim came from him as well. Later a Pilot told me the sprayboard was added to keep the sound to the stern so they could hear the radio up there. If that were so, then what is the purpose of the override switch to the calliope electronic compliment in the Pilothouse?

Any ideas....especially those of you who were there in that pivitol time in her past?

~Travis~

[Bruno Krause]

Travis, you are correct. I found this lag screw with it's unusual paint color rolling around on the starboard Sundeck in front of 340 last July. It is indeed a piece of the hardware holding the circus fru-fru trim in place. I tried to hand screw it back in place however there has no wood left at this particular hole for the screw to bite into, so into my pocket it went.

[Shipyard Sam]

Front Row Seat

I had a front row seat to the events during that "pivotal time" in the DQ's past, and I remember well the Una Fon being installed, but I can say just one name that was probably the most responsible for the purchase and installation of the instrument: Bill Muster. Mr. M. relished such novelties, and surely he felt that it would lend a unique addition to the boat. He, as well as Cap'n Betty, Cap, and Vic Tooker were excited about it, but no one ever sat me down and explained the "whys and wherefores" concerning the installation. When I first heard UF played, I remember, that I was somewhat disappointed that it didn't create more of a sensation than it did.

Even with the addition of the "sprayboard", it was still hard to hear anything else when the calliope was played. The cutoff switch was surely added because there were times when the callyope player may have started playing when the Pilot, Captain, or Mate needed silence to communicate at a lock or landing or when a difficuly or emergency situation arose and the swith was the solution.

Captain Doc would have loved that calliope cutoff switch, had he still been aboard the DELTA QUEEN and not over on the BELLE OF LOUISVILLE... for whenever Gabe started playing, Doc could have hit the switch instead of going all the way down to the engineroom to turn off the steam. Sometimes too, a few of those Pilots, and we won't name names, just hit the kill-switch for meaness; depending upon their mood.

[David Tschiggfrie]

That electric shut-off switch must have been added after the winter 1970-71 renovation at Avondale. Prior to the 71 season, if the calliope player needed to stop in mid-song, a short blast of the whistle was the pre-arranged signal from the pilothouse to stop right then and there. I've got a tape of Doc playing in Sept. 1968, passing McGregor on the UMR, when pilot Walter Karnath blew a short whistle and Doc brought "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee" to a swift and premature conclusion.