Banshee II by Glen McGuire - 1/700 - BOTTLE

[Keith Black]

 Those vent slots look spiffy, Glen. Everything is looking very nice. 

[BANYAN]

Hi Glen, those paddle wheel covers came up a treat, the slots are particularly nicely done/defined.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Glen McGuire]

Thanks, Keith and Pat.  I think y'all are being generous, but I'll take it!

 

For the last few days, I've been bouncing around ideas in my head for how to make the paddle wheels, but couldn't come up with what I thought was a great plan.  Finally, I said WTH and just started building one, kind of making it up as I went along.  I started with a 3/16" dowel for the hub which I decided was a good diameter.  Then for the blades, I scrounged around and didn't find anything around here really suitable.  So I went to where I go when I'm desperate - my unstarted Artesania Latina kit for the USS Constellation.  And there I found exactly what I was looking for.  The planking strips are super thin (0.5mm) and the perfect width (5mm) to fit in the wheel housings I'd just completed.

 

The pics below show the sequence of steps involved.  First was to put the dowel into a vise and, using a fine kerf saw, cut a slot to slide the blade into.  I did this one slot and one blade at a time.

 

 

My original plan was to do 6 blades.  With a hub of only 3/16", I figured that's all I had room for.  But things went surprisingly well so I decided to try and double the number of blades to 12.  Trying to go from good to better is usually when I get myself in deep trouble.  But I closed my eyes and kept going!

 

 

And somehow, things worked out pretty well.

 

 

With a big sigh of relief, it was time for some tedious work - making the outer ring near the ends of the each blade.  I didn't really have a plan for this either when I started, but I figured I'd try something with the planking strips again.  I took one and cut a bunch of pieces that were about 2mm long purposely varying the length of each by a hair or two.  Then it was a matter of trying different ones till I found the perfect fit between each blade, then inserting it.

 

 

And the final result:

 

 

I'm really happy with how the wheel turned out.  Now I just have to do it again.  

 

 

 

   

 

 

Edited June 10 by Glen McGuire

[Keith Black]

 Wow, Glen, that's perfect!  

 

 I think I see some rifles in your future. 

[Knocklouder]

Amazing work Glen, 

[BANYAN]

You should be pleased Glen, they turned out a treat.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Ian_Grant]

A tiny work of art....

[Glen McGuire]

10 hours ago, Keith Black said:

I think I see some rifles in your future. 

Rifles??  You're going to have to splain that one to me, Keith!

[Keith Black]

30 minutes ago, Glen McGuire said:

Rifles??  You're going to have to splain that one to me, Keith!

See Tennessee post #1030, pg 35.

[Canute]

Excellent job on your paddlewheel.

[Rick310]

That paddle wheel is sworn of art!!  Beautifully done!!

Rick

[berhard]

Just discovered your build log. Fantastic work! I look forward to following the rest of the build.

[Glen McGuire]

Thank you, @Keith Black, @Knocklouder, @BANYAN, @Ian_Grant, @Canute, @Rick310, @berhard, for the comments.  Very much appreciated.

 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was not thrilled my work on the wheel covers.  So I decided to bite the bullet and make new ones.  It was a 4-hour time investment, but I like the new ones a lot better.  There were 2 things I wanted to fix.  First, I needed a little more material across the bottom to fit an axle since the wheels must actually be able to spin!  Second, the vent slots were bugging me and it took me a while to figure out why.  After staring at them endlessly, I finally realized they needed to fan out to conform better with the round shape of the cover rather than simply being rectangular slots.  The first pic below has the original ones on top and new ones below.

 

 

 

The bad news is the width of the sidewheels make each half  of the split hull too wide to fit inside the very narrow bottle opening.  So the new plan is to connect the 2 wheels with their housing structure to make a one-piece subassembly.  Then I can insert it sideways into the bottle, turn it 90 degrees, and drop it in place onto the hull. 

 

The further I go, the more complicated this thing gets!  But I do not want to scale down the sidewheels to make them fit.  To me, they are what makes this ship (or these types of ships) really unique.  When this project is done, I think the sidewheels will be the thing that catches your eye, so I want them to be prominent.

 

 

   

Edited June 11 by Glen McGuire

[Landlubber Mike]

Glen, those paddle wheels and housings are fantastic.  Even more impressive at the scale you are building.  Nice job man!

[Rick310]

Couldn’t agree with you more!!  The paddle wheels really stand out and you did a fantastic job!!

Rick

[Keith Black]

3 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

The bad news is the width of the sidewheels make each half  of the split hull too wide to fit inside the very narrow bottle opening.  So the new plan is to connect the 2 wheels with their housing structure to make a one-piece subassembly.  Then I can insert it sideways into the bottle, turn it 90 degrees, and drop it in place onto the hull. 

 I admire your tenacity Mr Glen. Me, I'd be building a SIJ.......ship in a jar.  

 

 It's looking positively grand, Glen.

Edited June 11 by Keith Black

[gjdale]

4 hours ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Glen, those paddle wheels and housings are fantastic.  Even more impressive at the scale you are building.  Nice job man!

 

Wot ‘e said!

[mtaylor]

Just wow.   Just the thought of even trying something that small makes my eyes cross.  Well done.

[Javelin]

How could I have missed this? 

I only seem to notice your new builds when I see them in your signature. 

 

You really outdid yourself on those wheels. This will be a stunner again!

 

[Ian_Grant]

Great job Glen!  I'd have been sorely tempted to 3D print those wheels and covers; maybe the whole ship. 😉 Cheating perhaps......

[Glen McGuire]

On 6/12/2024 at 5:25 AM, Ian_Grant said:

I'd have been sorely tempted to 3D print those wheels and covers; maybe the whole ship. 😉 Cheating perhaps......

Here's what I envision Ian and other engineer types doing in their spare time...

 

https://x.com/HumansNoContext/status/1799367028580532379

 

[KeithAug]

lovely detail on those paddle wheels.

[Glen McGuire]

Finishing up the sidewheel subassembly.  First, I cut a slot for the wheels' axle to rest in.  Next was cutting notches in the bulwarks to fit the structure that connects the 2 sidewheels.  Next, I built the structure and attached the sidewheels to complete the subassembly.  Finally, I dropped it in place for a dry-fit test.  So far so good.

 

 

 

At this point, I figured I'd better see if the subassembly would fit thru the bottle's neck.  And......of course it did not.  But it was close and only took a small bit of shaving to make it work.

 

 

 

 

Next to the sidewheels, I think the most iconic thing about the ship is the dual smokestacks.  So I wanted to pay particular attention to them.  These are also subassemblies that will be installed onto the deck inside the bottle.  I had some 4mm diameter brass tube which was a good size for the bulk of the smokestack, but I needed a slightly larger diameter piece for the smokestack to rest in at the base.  I scrounged around and found these stainless steel straws I'd gotten as a weird Christmas gift a few years ago.  They were 6mm in diameter and perfect for what I needed.  Hopefully the person that gave me the straws will not figure out what I used them for!  The 4 vent pipes are 1mm music wire.

 

 

 

Here's everything so far, dry-fit in place.   Mini-Dimples the Ship Inspector finally decided I'd gotten far enough along for her to look things over.  She gave it two horns up, but said she's still skeptical about this thing getting successfully assembled inside the bottle.

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Edited June 14 by Glen McGuire

[Ian_Grant]

Glen, she's a thing of beauty........the ship, and Dimples. 🙂

 

By the way, that video about eating Pringles the "engineering" way was hilarious.

Edited June 14 by Ian_Grant

[Keith Black]

 Glen, that looks so cool!

 

Cows are naturally pessimistic and rightly so. 

 

[Glen McGuire]

8 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Cows are naturally pessimistic and rightly so. 

Those golden arches are making my cow nervous, Keith.  Remember, we don't use the "B" words around here (Burger, BBQ, Brisket, etc).

[Glen McGuire]

10 hours ago, Ian_Grant said:

By the way, that video about eating Pringles the "engineering" way was hilarious.

It immediately made me think of you and @gjdale.  I'm counting on one of you to make a tiny working steam engine to spin those wheels for me!

[Keith Black]

7 minutes ago, Glen McGuire said:

Remember, we don't use the "B" words around here (Burger, BBQ, Brisket, etc).

 I guess branding and banding is also not spoken of? Jeez, there's lots of "B" works cows don't like.  I certainly hope boats isn't on the list.  

[FriedClams]

Read through your log in a couple of sessions, Glen and I'm really enjoying this build very much.  But, then again, I enjoy all your builds.  Excellent work on those wheels and covers.  I agree version, 2.0 wheel covers are a nice upgrade!  I mentally gasped when I saw the image of the wheel inside the throat of the bottle and thinking one false move and the wheel drops into the bottle and you would have to break it to recover the wheel.  The problem being that you would have to drink yet another bottle of O'l Sailer Jerry,  This is going to be another great SIB model!

 

Gary

Edited June 15 by FriedClams
spelling

[Glen McGuire]

3 hours ago, FriedClams said:

I mentally gasped when I saw the image of the wheel inside the throat of the bottle and thinking one false move and the wheel drops into the bottle and you would have to break it to recover the wheel.  The problem being that you would have to drink yet another bottle of O'l Sailer Jerry,

 

You ain't the only one, Gary!  You'll notice I only stuck it in far enough to make sure it would fit, then quickly retracted before I did something really dumb!  Yes, it would've meant getting another bottle of that rotgut.  I took a swig of Ol' Jerry's brew and I don't think it compares very well to the Bundy rum all the Aussies keep talking about.  😝😝