Like many people, Paul Fieman was fascinated with the Minne-Ha-Ha growing up.
His family vacationed at Trout Lake every summer, and his mom and dad would bring Paul and his brother to Lake George Village to ride the classic Lake George Steamboat Company vessel.
Paul’s fascination with the Minne-Ha-Ha led him to build an intricate “O” scale model of the boat that has taken most of two years to build.
“I’m still working on some details like the railings,” he told Glens Falls Living. “Every railing I am building by hand. I’m very close to being done. Right before you called, I finished the railings in the paddlewheel by the back.”
The detailed model is 39 inches long, 16 inches high and almost nine inches wide. The real Minne-Ha-Ha is 137 feet long and 30 feet wide, he said.
“I did the drawing for it and that was in 1999, before the internet,” Paul said. “And I just never got around to building the actual model until October 2018.
“I was cleaning the garage. I build electric guitars, and I found the drawing that I did rolled up in a tube in a corner of the garage. The drawing wasn’t really accurate. I just had photos to go by.
“When I went to do the model two years ago, most of my research was on the internet. I think I’ve watched every video of the Minne-Ha-Ha on YouTube just to get details, like how the smokestack looked or how the railings looked.
“Started the hull with pieces of maple that I had glued together and then I carved it to get the shape of the boat. The hull is hollow in the center, and that’s where the engine room and the boiler room are.
“Basically, it’s made out of maple. The railings are made out of different types of coffee stirrers that I found at Starbucks, believe it or not. The paddle wheel — my wife is a school teacher and she had some popsicle sticks for crafts — so I took those and I made the paddle wheel out of that.
“The top part of the boat, I drew onto pieces of maple and cut out the windows and the openings with my band saw. And then the inside walls and a lot of the decking is basswood, which is a type of wood commonly used in models.
“It’s all glued together with different types of glue. I used wood glue for the heavy pieces, the hull and the superstructure and the frame. The fine detail, like the railings and the frames and the windows, I probably have gone through 50 tubes of Superglue.”
Paul said he’s had several offers to buy the model, but he had another idea.
“My dream would be to have it displayed in Lake George, in a museum or somewhere up there,” he said. “I have had offers to sell it. I’m flattered by it, but I built this to show people. I’d rather have it where other people can see it.”
He said people can contact him through Facebook.
“I hope people enjoy this long after I’m gone,” he said.
