Roger Pellett

Tia and Dave,

Ship model building tools cover a wide spectrum so let’s limit your choices to woodworking bench top power tools.

The gold standard is the family of tools manufactured and sold by Byrnes Model Machines.  IMHO nothing else come close.  Unfortunately the owner of this small business recently died.  His widow is trying to sort things out and the word is that she plans to reopen in the near future.

The model tool company Micro-Mark offers a line of power tools superficial similar to  Proxxon, branded as Microlux.  I have no experience buying or using their tools.

Roger

Ian,  Planking a hull is a daunting problem for many modelers.  The “correct” way to do it is to use a method called spiing.  If done correctly it will provide a pleasing pattern for wooden ships/ models.  You are not building a model of a wooden ship so you might want to explore a simpler planking method.

There is an alternate planking system for planking full sized watercraft.  It is called Strip Planking. It is especially popular with builders of wooden Canoes.  It involves planking a hull form of bulkheads with narrow strips of wood and then covering both the inside and outside of the hull with fiberglass.  Sound familiar?

I have not seen this exact system used for models but it might have some applications.  Try looking up strip built canoes on the Internet.

Roger

Old Nautical Research Journals, approx 1975-2000 are a great source of ideas for ship modeling projects.  In those, essentially all featured models were scratch built so ideas gleaned should not conflict with any kits.

In particular I am thinking about a series of articles that Eric Ronnberg wrote about the Boston Pilot Boat Hesper.   Pilot Boats are great modeling subjects.  They were designed by famous designers, are small enough to be built to a reasonable scale, say 1:48 or 1:64, have beautiful yacht like lines, and nice finishes.

Another Pilot Boat subject would be the earlier New York Pilot Boat George Steers c 1850’s; a beautiful vessel.

Roger

Much of the craft store “brass” wire is actually brass plated steel wire.  Another choice would be enameled copper wire, often called Magnet Wire.  I still have a spool from an 8th Grade science project so it’s really old 😀.  Wire and coating have not discolored at all.

Roger 

George,

I used to break a lot of blades on my scroll saw.  Finally, running it at slow speed, I discovered that the blade was flexing on the “up” stroke.  Blades were breaking from low cycle fatigue.  I increased blade tension so the blade does not distort throughout the cutting cycle.  Blades now last a long time.

Roger

There are two different Worlds and to help you we need to know which one that you are living in.

A.  Full sized table saw:  These typically use blades ranging in diameter from 7-1/2in to 12in.  Some hollow ground blades made for cutting veneer are as thin as 3/32in.  I have not encountered anything thinner.  

B.  Specialty Model Making Tablesaw (Proxxon and Byrnes).  These have either a 1/2in arbor or it’s metric equivalent.  These saws can use blades sold for cutting metals by machine tools.  These are often called slotting blades.  These blades usually have a diameter of 4in or less.  A commonly used blade is available as follows:

Diameter  3in

No of teeth. 93

Arbor hole size 1/2in

Width. .030in.

Much thinner blades are also available

Roger

Peerless might not have had expansion loops in her steam piping.  The need for expansion loops is dependent on a number of factors; the stiffness of the pipe itself, the steam temperature, the length of the piping runs, and the arrangement of the piping.  Changes in direction inherent in delivering steam to the engines add flexibility to the piping.  The pipe itself becomes exponentially stiffer as it’s diameter increases.  Your piping is small in diameter and since Peerless is a small vessel the piping run is short.  Prior to the availability of CAD linked computerized analysis programs, piping system flexibility calculations were very tedious involving trial and error solution of multiple simultaneous linear equations, challenging for most engineers let alone riverbank Steamship constructors

SS Meteor built in 1896 is the World’s only surviving Steamship built to a patented Whaleback Design.  While her historic significance has been reduced by changes made over her long working  life, her Scotch Boiler/ Triple Expansion Steam Engine propulsion plant is a remarkably well preserved example of late Nineteenth Century Marine Engineering.

Two fire tube boilers delivered saturated steam to the engine at 170psi, typical for the period.  The single short, 10in diameter main steam line was fitted with a flanged slip joint expansion fitting that eliminated the need for an expansion loop.  This would have been a patented fitting supplied by an outside vendor to the shipyard.  Fittings like this would have been available to Peerless’s builders as well.  Photo below:

Roger

For small wooden parts like this you might find a harder wood easier to work with.  As wooden parts get smaller, it can become harder for soft woods to hold their shape.  Using a harder close grained wood can make it easier to make the small cuts that result in nicely shaped parts.  To work these harder woods it is not necessary to have access to a fully equipped workshop as there are many commonly available items made of woods that could be used as better raw materials  than Basswood for carving these small parts.  For example: Tongue Depressors.  To get a symmetrical shaped set of jaws glue two pieces together and carve them.  When you are happy with the result dunk them in the proper solvent to separate them.

Roger

Not a suggestion that you need to paint your piping, just to add to the discussion about insulating piping.  Context, or local color?  In addition to the reasons discussed already, poorly insulated steam lines can be very dangerous. There have been a number of violent steam explosions in buried underground district steam heating lines.  

The mechanism is something like this:   An insulation failure allows water (or wet air) to come in contact with the surface of the pipe causing a cold spot.  Steam begins to condense at this spot.  The slug of water is propelled at high speed until it hits the next change in direction.  This Water Hammer can rupture the pipe, releasing the contained energy of the steam.

Roger

It would appear that this thing is right up there with the Loom a Line.  

A very nice little model!  It’s obvious that your skills and confidence are rapidly improving.

Well done!

Roger

I do not build working models.  The ones that I build spend their lives in glass cases.   FreekS’ post appears to provide you with good information about the small electric motors involved in model ship propulsion.

Screw propellers work by taking advantage of Newton’s Third Law;  Action- Equal and opposite reaction.  In this case the action is a slug of fluid pushed aft by the propeller.  The reaction is the equal and opposite force pushing the ship or aircraft forward.  Aircraft propellers turning at high speeds act on a very low density fluid- air.  Ship propellers act on a much more dense fluid, water and turn much more slowly, requiring high torque.  I agree with FeekS that you will probably need a gear box.

Roger

You’re probably going to have to make some calculations but I suspect that anything in the 1000’s of RPMs is way too fast.  The RPM for the full sized tugboat would be something in the neighborhood of 75-90RPM.   You need to consider the whole drive train including the motor’s speed torque curve with the propeller’s geometry and the resistance of the hull at various speeds.  It wouldn’t surprise me if that prop stalls the motor.

Roger

I agree with Bricklayer.  Spruce is a great choice for planking your model.

Why?  Plans directed at model makers often do not space bulkheads close enough.  This can make it hard for you to produce a “fair” hull; one without knuckles and flat spots where you don’t want them.  Spruce is known for its ability to bend easily in a fair curve.  I have a stash that I rip into splines for drawing lines drawings.  It is also the lightest of the family of softwoods (those woods cut from coniferous trees.)

In addition to differences in the King’s English and American English, lumber can have it’s own nomenclature.  If you do plan to use spruce, make sure that you’re buying the real thing.

Roger

Yeah, no price listed but I suspect that you guys could add a whole Nelsonian fleet of kits for what they’re asking.

My completely unscientific understanding of MSW members leads me to believe that a substantial majority have a compelling interest in modeling vessels of the Lord Nelson era Navies.😀  This is particularly true if one adds American War of 1812 ships to the mix.

SO!!  Here’s your chance!  M.S. Rau an antique dealer in New Orleans is advertising in the Wall Street Journal a rediscovered portrait of Admiral Horatio Nelson as a young man.  It is supposedly only one of two portraits of him in civilian attire.  Just the thing to display over your recently completed HMS Victory. If you have the space to display a fully rigged Victory, this picture w I’ll fit in nicely.  Width: 30-3/8”. Height: 39-3/4”

Roger

0.7mm=.02755in which my converter rounds up to 1/32”.   Small (Real) Jacobs chucks will close to zero.  For many of us, this inability to accept very small wire sized drills might be serious limitation.  

Roger

Eric,  I hope that you don’t mind a friendly suggestion.

Your steam lines should be insulated.  This is not because of thermal efficiency.  Instead it would be required to prevent condensing of steam in the lines.  Water is the enemy of the reciprocating steam engine since it is incompressible.  The fire tube boiler for your boat would have generated “saturated steam.”  That is steam at the temperature applicable to the pressure at which the feed water enters the boiler.  As as the steam begins to cool from this temperature as it travels through the piping, it begins to condense and water droplets are formed. This water could build up in the engine cylinder causing damage.  I believe that a coat of whitish paint should suffice.

As a model railroader you might be interested in this.  For several reasons; thermal efficiency as well as that described above, it was desirable to heat the steam to a temperature well above its boiling point.  This is called superheat.  In the early 1900’s American Railroad Engineers using European Technology began to convert existing steam locomotives and to produce new ones to generate and run on superheated steam.  This involved routing the steam after it was generated through very hot exhaust gasses from the boiler.  Many of the Railroads maintained their own locomotive design departments to design locomotives specifically adapted to the geography of their particular routes.  This attracted many of the best Mechanical Engineers in the USA as well from Europe.  There is an excellent book that delves deeply into this topic:  American Steam Locomotives, Design and Development 1880-1960 by William L. Withuhn.

It is, of course unlikely that your modest steamboat would have been equipped with this sophisticated technology.

Roger

The W.P. Snyder, preserved at the Ohio River Museum at Marietta, Ohio was a coal burner.  Unlike Peerless, though, she was owned by a steel company that used coal in the steelmaking process and possibly owned their own mines as other steel companies did.  Therefore, a principal cargo, pushed in barges would have been coal.  I believe that her bunkers, were arranged near the bow per. Kurt’s Chaperon arrangement above.  Arranged like this coal could be rapidly loaded by gravity at terminals along the River.

As a short haul trader, I wonder if Peerless’s fueling arrangements might have been more informal, burning either cord wood or coal as available?  In this case, coal could have been wheeled aboard in large burlap sacks with a ready use supply piled in front of the boiler.

Roger

Finishing the hatch covers:

Today marks the official end of the 2023 Great Lakes Shipping season.  Vessels arriving at the queue for the  SOO locks by midnight will be locked through in either direction.  After that the locks will close until March 25 isolating Lake Superior from the other lakes.  It has been a good season with the twin ports of Duluth, MN and Superior WI shipping 51 Million tons of pelletized iron ore to American and Canadian steel miles. The ports also handled significant quantities of limestone, cement, coal, and grain.

The reason for the lakes’ 10 week closure each winter is not ice. Great Lakes vessels can and do navigate in ice.  The 10 week closure is required to perform maintenance that has been deferred during the shipping season.  Superior, Wisconsin is home to one of three active American drydocks on the lakes.  It can dock vessels up to 800ft long.  This winter will be busy.  Eight vessels are scheduled to lay up in the harbor here.

The layup each winter means that Great Lakes ships are and in the past have been well maintained.  That, and the fact that they sail in fresh water means that  weathering of the model will be minimal.  A notable exception is the Noble’s hatch covers.  The few photos that I have found of wooden hatch covers of Great Lakes vessels show a checkerboard of different weathered colors that vary from like new wood to black.

The first step in finishing the covers was to drill holes in them for the ringbolts. This was done using the sensitive drilling attachment mounted in the Sherline milling column.  Another of my simple wooden jigs assured correct location.  (First Photo).  Adding the two ringbolts to each cover was then just the matter of pushing the tail through the hole, bending it over and securing it with a dab of lacquer based fingernail polish. (Second photo).

To finish the covers I mixed up five different grey and black pigments and diluted them with alcohol.  For a couple of shades I added some granulated grey and black dry dye pigment to add a gritty texture. (Third photo). The different colored hatch covers will be arranged in a random pattern when they are added to the model.

Finally, (Forth Photo) two stacks of hatch covers to be fastened near the ship’s open coal bunker.

Roger

These semi Diesel engines used to be very popular for applications like commercial fishing boats.  They allowed diesel fuel to be used instead of the highly volatile and dangerous gasoline.  The glow plugs allowed a lower compression ratio and a lighter engine.  The glow plug was initially heater with an external heat source but once the engine started combustion in the cylinders kept them hot.

Even though not a true Diesel, Gjoa’s engine is still massive.

Roger

In its mounted condition, the model’s waterline should be level.  If you have the drawing that you used to build the model simply draw a line parallel to the waterline shown on the drawing.  Draw lines perpendicular to the line that you just drew and measure the distance to the keel.  Buy two pedestals that meet these dimensions.

If you don’t have the drawings set the model up temporary supports with the waterline level.  Measure up just like you did above.

Roger

Equipping a workshop is entirely dependent on the type of modelmaking that you intend to pursue.  I will agree that assembling a POB kit can  be accomplished with a minimal collection of hand tools.  That’s one reason why people buy kits.  Moving into scratch building, POB, or even some POF models of classic age of sail vessels can also be built with hand tools if you are willing to use purchased metal fittings.  

Modeling iron and steel hulled vessels is a different situation, especially if you intend to meet 1a criteria (only chain and cordage purchased).  Here you can’t have enough tools!  

Our modeling world is by no means limited to Eighteenth Century Sailing Ships.

Roger

An old naval expression says it all, “A ship is judged by the condition of her boats”. Yours is spectacular.

Roger

Wooden ships “work.”  As the ship travels through waves, the uneven buoyancy causes the hull to flex.  With conventionally framed construction the frames made no contribution to to the longitudinal strength of the hull.  In the Nineteenth Century the use of diagonal iron strapping was an attempt to add longitudinal strength to large hills but of course this was three hundred years or so prior to Mary Rose.

As ships aged these longitudinal bending stresses affected planking fasteners allowing individual planks to slide relative to each other, working the caulking loose.  The repair would have been to caulk the seam and to nail the batten atop.  This problem existed to some degree into modern times until advanced adhesives allowed monocoque construction of wooden hulls. 

Roger