Roman Quadrireme Galley by Ian_Grant - 1/32 Scale - RADIO

[Ian_Grant]

Thanks Glen!  I need to think out of the box, the way you do........😀

[Ian_Grant]

On 6/9/2022 at 4:19 PM, Paul Le Wol said:

Hi Ian, I realize that this doesn’t help your present situation but, whenever I order something from offshore, I try to find a retailer that offers a postal service option for shipping. Say for example USPS. Even if it initially costs more, you won’t be subject to brokerage fees. Occasionally your shipment may get flagged and you will have to pay GST.  I’ve only had that happen a few times. At least this has been my experience.

Hey Paul, thanks for your experience!  Actually, living in Ottawa, we are only about an hour drive from Ogdensburg NY. Many people around here have US stuff shipped to the Ogdensburg UPS store which runs a parcel pickup for Canadians. You then drive down, tell US customs what you're up to and hand them (used to be) $10, pick it up for a (used to be ) $5 fee, then drive back across the border and pay the applicable duty. I've done this myself in the past for some special bird surgery stuff my wife ordered for her vet clinic, before COVID. I'm not sure what happens now vis-a-vis coming back into Canada, no rapid test, or what the latest requirements are. If I could have done this for this order I would have saved about CDN$100 even after paying for the gas there and back. So there's some hope yet.

[Ian_Grant]

Remember when I talked about having a machine shop CNC me some bits of aluminum for oar pivots where they attach to the u-channel?

 

Something like this:

I took a drawing to a local machine shop and requested a quote.

 

I just got it back.

 

About $11 apiece, or $968 for all eighty-eight. Plus tax. 😲

 

A flat-head screw trapping a screw-eye loosely sounds pretty good about now!

 

I was also thinking about maybe having the oars 3D printed using "hard" resin. Was planning to go to a local place and ask about 88 of them (100 with spares). Now I'm wondering. Might be good for a laugh, if nothing else.

 

It appears I am over-thinking and over-engineering this project. Will be looking into whether I can return some of that expensive Servocity stuff and go back to the simple methods.

[Paul Le Wol]

Hi Ian,, I know people that do/did that in Niagara Falls NY and Buffalo. Another benefit other than saving money is that you always get to have a great scoff at one of their excellent eateries. 😀

[Glen McGuire]

44 minutes ago, Paul Le Wol said:

you always get to have a great scoff at one of their excellent eateries.

Please educate this Texan that has never been up that way, what is a "scoff"?

[Paul Le Wol]

Hey Glen, it’s just a really good meal. The kind you get at one of your famous catfish diners

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Ian, have you thought about sticking a notice up in your local hobby shops, for someone willing to resin print bits for you? There must be plenty of people with printers who’d be happy to do it for a nominal charge. I don’t know how big those bits are, they look quite small, and the cost to make 100 should be little different to making one. Most of the ‘cost’ in 3D printing is in developing the object and setting it up to print correctly. While resin is not cheap, if these are as small as I think, it’s only a few dollars worth.

 

Looks like you’re using my old friend Tinkercad? That’s what got me going, 2 or 3 years back…….😀

[Ian_Grant]

Yes, TinkerCAD. Not sure I want to have to figure out the nuances of a "real" CAD package. Life's too short....😃

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Yep, slippery slope. It's worth the first month of pain if you foresee yourself using it a lot, otherwise stick with TinkerCAD, which is quite under-rated in my view.

[Ian_Grant]

Veering back and forth between excitement and hopelessness on this project. Fundamental issue is I do not have a lines plan for a Roman galley. They don't exist. I've always known this but now the rubber is hitting the road. I used Pitassi's quadrireme creation for fundamental length and beam measurements. His top view shows the profile of waterline and deck bulwark and that's it. Problem is that his tiny 4" drawing is hard to measure proportions from.

 

At 1/32 scale I came up with the general top view shown here, drawn at 1/4 size on grid paper. This was an effort to see if I am likely to have  the space for all the electronics given that the rowing mechanism takes up most of the interior. It looks a bit tight in the bows for all the connectors sticking out perpendicular to the Arduino PCBs given the looming presence of the giant-scale sweep servos. I may stretch the bow out another inch or so. I've decided to use the Servocity low-flange beam for the bases of the oar beams, with the linear bearings to allow lift movement. I will however revert to the simple eye-screws to mount the oars onto wood like my earlier rowing test jig; no more u-channels and fancy pivots and hinges. As seen the oars require 27" of space, then there is a bit added at each end to accommodate the vertical shafts and linear bearings; then a "no-go" zone at each end required for the beams to do their sweep back and forth. The four lift servos will be mounted beneath the beam bases, screwed to them so they move along with them. I forgot to draw the rudder servo but there's nothing else back there and anyway I'm not sure yet  how I will mount them or activate them. Probably will heed my old dad's advice and "you'll never figure out every detail before you start; have a basic plan then solve issues as they arise".

So now I know to extend the bows a little. Next was verifying there was space in the central cross-section to do the rowing. I really want a space along the keel to place ballast and the battery. Will be a 5-cell NiMH to provide 6V, and will need to be a "flat-pack" style not a "Hump-Back Pack".

 

The cross section I came up with has an 8" waterline beam which is a little beamier than Pitassi's estimate at 1/32 scale. I got that by enlarging the Olympias midship section drawing, and modifying to a bireme with my desired freeboard and my made-up deck level. Here is the result. Left side shows the oar beam placement and the outrigger for the upper reme. The slides are only 17" long, placed at the centre of the beam. This leaves nothing at the ends to get in the way of the lift servos as shown on the right. Clearance is a bit tight for them; I've shown it notched into the side flange of the metal base beam, or I could omit a frame in their locale. By the way, frame spacing will be 2.5", or double the oar spacing. There is ample room in the centre for the 1" wide battery pack.

 

Tricky part will be constructing the outrigger. I need to somehow provide some sort of framing to reinforce it, without interfering with the cycle of the upper oars. Not a lot of latitude for members. I will have to rely on the plywood bottom face of the outrigger to hold the lower hull's edge in a straight line above the upper oars since no cross-beams can be added to the hull here because of the mechanisms. Just how to make this outrigger solid enough to support the removable deck is another question. I did allow for 3/8" beams for the deck itself.

 

Worried I have too much of the hull under water...but if waterline drops so must oar mechanisms then I'm in trouble with clearances...🤔

Lastly, hull lines. All that is available is the drawings of trireme Olympias. I expected them to be much like other lines plans I have seen but after downloading I was shocked to find the following:

He seems to have the cross sections, waterlines, and buttock lines all on a single sheet with the sections drawn right on top of the buttocks. Never seen that before. And I cannot find any indication of station placement and spacing in the general arrangement (below; and just look at how little of it is in the water!). Kudos to Richard Braithewaite for deciphering these for his model. I will have to scratch my head; I wish I had my old drafting table and arm. I need to tweak the bow and stern to my made-up waterline to get ram and rudders correct, and stretch/compress them to my desired lengths. 🤪 I expect I will have to do a card mock-up to verify the lines are anything like correct.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Ian_Grant

[Bedford]

If I understand what you're saying then I can see station placement in that drawing. Although the cross section seems very stubby.

 

The station lines are numbered 1 to 23 and immediately below that sketch is a horizontal line intersecting the vertical grid and numbered 1 to 23 right to left. The only things missing are stations 8, 9 &10 but I assume they are the same as 11.

 

All you have to do is sort out if the side view is drawn 1 to 1 or has been shortened to fit the page and by what proportion.

Edited July 3, 2022 by Bedford

[Ian_Grant]

I see what you mean. Will mull it over. Think I need to rig up a drafting table of some sort. Home-made t-square at least and some taped-together grid paper to get going.

 

happy modelling!

[Glen McGuire]

59 minutes ago, Ian_Grant said:

I see what you mean. Will mull it over. Think I need to rig up a drafting table of some sort. Home-made t-square at least and some taped-together grid paper to get going.

 

Don't forget your slide rule, Ian!  😀

[Bedford]

On the subject of space, would you consider making the hull a bit fuller below the water line. Maybe start out a bit flatter before rounding up for the top sides. She will have a fair bit of weight above the water line so a little extra buoyancy and equivalent ballast might be worthwhile.

[Ian_Grant]

Glen, are you implying that I should get with the 21st century and do it all in CAD rather than on paper? 🤪  It would be great no doubt but I don't want to learn it all with no other foreseeable use. I'm an early 20th century kind of guy plus I loved drafting in high school in the 70's. Mind you we had proper drafting arms.

 

Bedford, I'm open to anything; that contour is from Olympias and it's pretty close to what Pitassi shows at midships. I did decrease the downward flair at the keel per Pitassi. I'm already afraid the hull is too deep in; galleys just skimmed across the water or they'd be too hard to row. I planned to add external ballast if necessary for stability, be it a torpedo or even a short fin keel.

[Ian_Grant]

I created a plan view based on my midships cross section. See below. It's pretty beefy looking for a quadrireme, thanks to my wanting some draft and adding some extra freeboard to the first reme. Not sure I like it. Maybe I could reduce draft 1/2" (half a grid space in this drawing), reduce freeboard to lower reme by 3/16", and reduce clearance between remes a bit.  That last one is a little tricky because some vertical occupation is necessary for making the outriggers sound mechanically. I don't want to just edge-glue thin plywood. On the other hand I could fiberglass them....hmmmm.

 

The oar mechanisms would have to drop down lower to suit but they could also be shifted 3/8" towards the centreline. Just so long as I have my space for the battery pack between them.

 

The curves at bow and stern I just drew with french curves; I don't have access right now to my wife's photocopier at work to enlarge Olympias drawings because my covid is lingering and I can't go in there 😢.

[Ian_Grant]

Being unhappy with the above bulky result I explored reducing the height of the ship. The minimum deck height was dictated by two things (1) the upper reme oar looms' top limit when in the water, and (2) the upper end of the 2-1/4" linear bearing when oar beam is in high position.

 

To address this I decided to reduce the loom length from 2" to 1.5". This increases the force to push two remes from 2lb to 2.6lb. However, the shorter looms require a shorter stroke to move the oars over the same arc; as it turns out a servo moving 120 degrees only needs a 0.866" arm to give the new 1.5" (max) stroke. Max torque is then (2.6)*(0.866) = 2.25 lb-in, the same as before.

 

Since I am now providing a lift servo at each end of the beam I can use shorter 1-1/8" linear bearings with no issue, I think. I will have to build yet another jig to prove this out.

 

Here is the new profile with draft decreased in tandem with deck height. The depth of the outrigger is reduced to match the shorter looms. It is now a scale 24" which I think is enough to have those oarsmen clear of their lower crewmates ie 24" is a reasonable width value for wide-shouldered crewmen. The sweep servo is shown in dotted form on the right. I discovered a "low profile" servo HS-77BB meant for aircraft tail controls etc; it is ideal to use as lift servos and can be mounted above the base beam as shown, which is better than the first scheme of standard servos attached beneath the beams from a maintenance and clearances point of view. Only problem is they cost twice as much as a standard servo, and I already have four standard servos to hand. Will explore more configurations for lift function.

 

I also decided to swivel the mounting clamps on the bearings 90 degrees then I can have the oar beam run along the centre of the base beams instead of the inner edge. This makes a lot more room along the centre of the ship.

Here is the new plan view for this cross section. I like it a lot more than the previous ship. It's much leaner and more like a galley. I did add an inch at the bows as mentioned above, just tweaking the space for the electronics here.

Still a bit worried about stability. I may add 1/8" back to the draft; on the other hand just look at the midships cross section of the Olympias in post #100.....I have a lot more hull in the water already.

 

One last note - I went to a 3D print shop armed with .stl files for an oar and an oar pivot I quickly drew in TinkerCAD. Fancy materials were too expensive. They said they would print one of each in something cheaper and call me. Well I went over yesterday to see the results, printed in acrylic. The oar is a bit bendy, not sure it would stay straight enough; they're pretty close together in the water. Are we all sitting down? This option would be $11 a set i.e. per oar/pivot set.    Just $968 plus tax for all 88 of them. Sheesh! I thought 3D printing was supposed to be cheap. They're printing a set for me in PLA now just to show me. That would be dirt cheap but I'm pretty sure it would not be robust enough.

 

I've already made up my mind to just use wood dowels for oars, with eyes and screws at the loom like I did in my software development jig. Just need to figure out how to jig fitting blades to dowel consistently over 88 instances, say 100 with a few spares.

 

Edited July 6, 2022 by Ian_Grant

[mtaylor]

We had a build here back before the big crash so it's sadly gone of a bireme or maybe a trireme... memory is a bit faded.  as I recall, he set up a wheel at both ends with the oar support between them.  A motor turned one wheel only and thus because of his oar mounts, the other one rotated. Between them he had simple slice of wood with the ends of the oars mounted it.  So he didn't have a much other than radio gear and one motor.  

[Ian_Grant]

24 minutes ago, mtaylor said:

We had a build here back before the big crash so it's sadly gone of a bireme or maybe a trireme... memory is a bit faded.  as I recall, he set up a wheel at both ends with the oar support between them.  A motor turned one wheel only and thus because of his oar mounts, the other one rotated. Between them he had simple slice of wood with the ends of the oars mounted it.  So he didn't have a much other than radio gear and one motor.  

Yes I have seen a video of a similar design, but the circular stroke is very inefficient and silly looking. If I can't have software-controlled rowing where I can alter oar dynamics as I please then why bother going further with this project....

[mtaylor]

Good points.   I've been following even though I have a tough time grasping the details of the electronics and controls.  I hope you can solve your problems to get what you want.

[Richard Braithwaite]

On 7/7/2022 at 2:28 AM, Ian_Grant said:

Yes I have seen a video of a similar design, but the circular stroke is very inefficient and silly looking. If I can't have software-controlled rowing where I can alter oar dynamics as I please then why bother going further with this project....

I designed a simple prototype rowing machine that produces an elliptical rowing stroke. The machinery fits underneath the gangway on a 1:24 model of Olympias (in between the vertical stanchions). there is a link to a video of the machine installed in a 1:24the section of the ship on my Trireme Olympias thread on this site. Adding a software controlled stroke, as proposed here, would be really interesting as it would give you complete control over the stroke geometry.

[Richard Braithwaite]

On 7/3/2022 at 12:11 AM, Ian_Grant said:

Veering back and forth between excitement and hopelessness on this project. Fundamental issue is I do not have a lines plan for a Roman galley. They don't exist. I've always known this but now the rubber is hitting the road. I used Pitassi's quadrireme creation for fundamental length and beam measurements. His top view shows the profile of waterline and deck bulwark and that's it. Problem is that his tiny 4" drawing is hard to measure proportions from.

 

At 1/32 scale I came up with the general top view shown here, drawn at 1/4 size on grid paper. This was an effort to see if I am likely to have  the space for all the electronics given that the rowing mechanism takes up most of the interior. It looks a bit tight in the bows for all the connectors sticking out perpendicular to the Arduino PCBs given the looming presence of the giant-scale sweep servos. I may stretch the bow out another inch or so. I've decided to use the Servocity low-flange beam for the bases of the oar beams, with the linear bearings to allow lift movement. I will however revert to the simple eye-screws to mount the oars onto wood like my earlier rowing test jig; no more u-channels and fancy pivots and hinges. As seen the oars require 27" of space, then there is a bit added at each end to accommodate the vertical shafts and linear bearings; then a "no-go" zone at each end required for the beams to do their sweep back and forth. The four lift servos will be mounted beneath the beam bases, screwed to them so they move along with them. I forgot to draw the rudder servo but there's nothing else back there and anyway I'm not sure yet  how I will mount them or activate them. Probably will heed my old dad's advice and "don't try to figure out every detail before you start; solve the specifics as you get there".

So now I know to extend the bows a little. Next was verifying there was space in the central cross-section to do the rowing. I really want a space along the keel to place ballast and the battery. Will be a 5-cell NiMH to provide 6V, and will need to be a "flat-pack" style not a "Hump-Back Pack".

 

The cross section I came up with has an 8" waterline beam which is a little beamier than Pitassi's estimate at 1/32 scale. I got that by enlarging the Olympias midship section drawing, and modifying to a bireme with my desired freeboard and my made-up deck level. Here is the result. Left side shows the oar beam placement and the outrigger for the upper reme. The slides are only 17" long, placed at the centre of the beam. This leaves nothing at the ends to get in the way of the lift servos as shown on the right. Clearance is a bit tight for them; I've shown it notched into the side flange of the metal base beam, or I could omit a frame in their locale. By the way, frame spacing will be 2.5", or double the oar spacing. There is ample room in the centre for the 1" wide battery pack.

 

Tricky part will be constructing the outrigger. I need to somehow provide some sort of framing to reinforce it, without interfering with the cycle of the upper oars. Not a lot of latitude for members. I will have to rely on the plywood bottom face of the outrigger to hold the lower hull's edge in a straight line above the upper oars since no cross-beams can be added to the hull here because of the mechanisms. Just how to make this outrigger solid enough to support the removable deck is another question. I did allow for 3/8" beams for the deck itself.

 

Worried I have too much of the hull under water...but if waterline drops so must oar mechanisms then I'm in trouble with clearances...🤔

Lastly, hull lines. All that is available is the drawings of trireme Olympias. I expected them to be much like other lines plans I have seen but after downloading I was shocked to find the following:

He seems to have the cross sections, waterlines, and buttock lines all on a single sheet with the sections drawn right on top of the buttocks. Never seen that before. And I cannot find any indication of station placement and spacing in the general arrangement (below). Kudos to Richard Braithewaite for deciphering these for his model. I will have to scratch my head; I wish I had my old drafting table and arm. I need to tweak the bow and stern to my made-up waterline to get ram and rudders correct, and stretch/compress them to my desired lengths. 🤪 I expect I will have to do a card mock-up to verify the lines are anything like correct.

Confusingly, this lines plan is drawn to two different scales. The sections are at 1:10. However the waterlines and buttocks are both drawn to 1:10 in the vertical (in the case of the buttocks) and athwartships (in the case of the waterlines) directions BUT at 1:50 in longitudinal direction. I guess John Coates did this so that he could fit the drawing (with a decent size for the sections at 1:10...) on a shorter piece of paper. The drawing would be over 3.5 meters long at 1:10... 

Some of his other drawings give the locations of the station placement in relation to the structure of the ship (eg Plans 8,10 and 11)

[Ian_Grant]

Thanks Richard. I saw that line on the drawing about the two different scales but I couldn't make any sense of them on the 8-1/2"x11" printed sheet. I guess his actual drawing was much larger, about 400mm across the beam, evidently.

 

Bought some heavy paper to mock up hull bulkheads once I have some proposed cross sections.

Edited July 21, 2022 by Ian_Grant

[Ian_Grant]

Working on a full-size oar beam with the plan to make another mock-up like my first one, but with only one side and all 44 oars. Need to make sure I can build it without oars clashing. I thought more about the lift mechanism and woke up one morning with the idea to have a single lift servo push both ends of the beam up and down, analagous to the aileron hook-up in an RC plane. Took a while to gather parts and assemble as my motivation has gone over a cliff in the hot weather.

 

Speaking of which, I still have not had a single sail on my dinghy at the cottage. Spring was pretty cool and I never had anyone there capable of helping me lift it up and into the water. Finally had a chance two weekends ago on a beautiful windy day. I rigged her, sailed a few yards from our dock, and the tiller extension U-joint broke 🙄. As this boat went out of production in 1980 the U-joint didn't owe me anything! There are no boat parts near the cottage. Fixed it at home but last weekend there was no wind 😭.

 

Anyway here's a video my son shot for me, of the vertical movement. The lift servo on the inboard side of the beam has a link going to each end. These drive bellcranks whose other arms have linkages to linkage horns on the beam. The two bellcranks move in complete symmetry, being driven by symmetric holes in the servo arm. The lift servo is offset from centre so that when I build another identical beam for the other side, the two lift servos will not be opposite each other and so will not interfere.

 

Edited February 16, 2023 by Ian_Grant

[Glen McGuire]

That is so cool.  I bet you had an erector set when you were a kid, didn't you?  

[Bedford]

Now you're getting somewhere, the K.I.S.S. method. Less components, no chance of differential drive in servos causing problems, less weight and less space taken up as well as lower power requirements.

[Ian_Grant]

35 minutes ago, Glen McGuire said:

That is so cool.  I bet you had an erector set when you were a kid, didn't you?  

Hi Glen, yes as a matter of fact I played with Meccano for years including the Meccano "Electrikit" which had coils powerful enough to induce metal rods to move, thus actuating models.  Laid the ground for my engineering career. I still have all my old meccano; I kept it around hoping to introduce my kids to it but of course most kids nowadays are not interested. 😢

[Ian_Grant]

On 7/21/2022 at 8:10 PM, Bedford said:

Now you're getting somewhere, the K.I.S.S. method. Less components, no chance of differential drive in servos causing problems, less weight and less space taken up as well as lower power requirements.

Thanks Bedford;  yes I had worries about two y-harnessed lift servos on one beam moving the same amount in degrees. Not sure of consistency to be expected of a given model of servos. Plus there were the problems of where to mount them.

 

Back to four servos total again, which is easier. I can easily adjust the linkage lengths to make both ends consistent.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Ian_Grant

[Glen McGuire]

3 hours ago, Ian_Grant said:

I kept it around hoping to introduce my kids to it but of course most kids nowadays are not interested. 😢

 

I hear you, Ian.  I bought one for my son when he was young, but once he got a Gameboy, the Erector set hit the back of the closet and never saw the light of day again!  😥

[Ian_Grant]

Yes, it's a shame how gaming has taken over. A friend who used to teach high school Auto Mechanics says in the old days (70's) boys arrived having a rough idea of what a differential did; now they don't know which way to turn a nut to tighten it. 🙄