Paddleducks
Paddler Modelling => Construction => Topic started by: Khephre on August 10, 2005, 03:57:38 PM
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Some of you may remember bits of this model from the Yahoo groups website.
I started my version of the Reliant two years ago and spent close to a year working on her, just a few hours here and a few hours there. But around this time last year I put her aside to work on a couple of other models - a ship assist tug and a barge for my young fella.
I dragged her out again two weeks ago, dusted her off, and have just spent a very relaxing afternoon building a couple of towing bars for her aft deck. I must say it's nice to have her back on the workbench.
Here's where I'm at ...
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The Reliant is looking really nice Tony. It doesn't look like there's much more work needed to complete her so you should have her on the water by the summer down there in NZ.
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Oh and bring on summer....it was so cold today that it started snowing in the suburbs...now all you international ducks are probably saying whoopdeedoo like it doesn't snow in suburbs...but (although i didn't see any and we didn't get a snow day!) it snowed in places where it usually doesn't down here in victoria! I'm so excited!
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Looking really good, what are the dimensions/scale?
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Hello all, Tony the understatement of making a couple of towing bars in an afternoon is impressive. I'd call that high quality craftsmanship.
cheers
Jim
p.s. any chance of making a pair for my PT Tipstaff :wink: :lol:
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Thanks Mick & Eddy, and no snow here, Sean - just rain, rain and more rain...
My Reliant's at 1:32 scale which makes her around 40 inches overall length, 8 1/4 inches beam and I think about 14 inches maximum width.
The hull is plank on frame, fibreglassed with 3/4 ounce cloth and faired off where necessary with auto body filler. The subdeck is ply over cambered deck beams - and the fore and aft decks are Obechi planks with joggled margins (my first attempt at joggling so a bit rough in places).
Sponsons are made from spruce and the paddle boxes are two layers of 0.8mm ply laminated together and planked with 0.5mm planks. The sponson houses are also thin ply that's been bent around formers and planked. Once the sponsons were done, I gave them a few coats of diluted fibreglass resin which soaks into the wood and gives it the waterproofing that the sponsons need.
Paddles by Graupner.
Upper works are 0.8 and 1.2mm birch ply. The 'bridge deck' was built on a former from three layers of 0.4mm ply laminated together, then planked with Obechi (I used the former to produce the camber on the deck, and as a working platform for soldering the stanchions and handrails.
Heaps of rivet heads added - one by painful one - the smallest being about the size of a flea's head (they effectively double in size once the paint goes on).
The ruddy great funnel is a piece of thin wall (2mm) aluminium tube with styrene strips wound round for the funnel rings and underneath it will be a 12V smoke generator from MACK Products in the States.
Most of the fittings are scratchbuilt but there are some that I simply don't have the skills or tools to produce - two-ball stanchions and ship's wheel were bought and used as supplied. The porthole surrounds were bought and lenses cast from clear alumilite; the cowl ventilators were also bought and details added - e.g. handles to turn them.
Inside the engine room there are two MFA 148:1 gearhead motors connected by O-Ring belt drives and pulleys to the paddle shafts. The motors are powered by two Action Kits speed controllers and 12V SLA betteries and put out 108 revs per minute at full speed. The pulley and belt drives gear this up by 1.5 times so the paddles rotate at up to 160 rpm at top speed.
I've tried an Action Kits electronic motor mixer to mix the two speed controls and rudder servo but wasn't impressed with the results so have sourced another brand to test - if that's no better then it's back to a caterpillar drive approach.
So there she is in a nutshell.
What's left to do? Steering chains and guides, scuttle hatches and skylights, deck lights, towing bollards, a tow hook and table on the foredeck, the mast and rigging and that's about it! Easy, when you say it quickly!
Roll on Summer.
Cheers
Tony
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Tks Jim, you're generous in your praise. But the answer's NO! (ever so politely). My workshop floor's littered with rejects.
I used 4mm T-section brass which is close in scale to the prototype, notched the centre strip every cm, bent it to the required curve, resoldered the notches and cleaned it up.
The upstands are two sizes of brass rod, 3/64 and 5/64, with suitable sized washers soldered on just above the end of the rods to give me something to anchor into the deck. Flattened out and tweaked the other ends to provide nice little lands for the joins with the towing bars.
Dryfitted everything using alligator clips, brass wire and ply spacers to hold the bits together, then soldered it all up - complete with the mandatory break to rinse Carr's Green solder flux from my right eye. Cheeeez, that stuff stings when it starts eating eyeball flesh!!!! My right eye feels/looks like I've been peeking through keyholes all night!
Went together quickly enough but I reckon that I spent a couple of days or more visualising how I would go about building these bars. So by the time I actually reached for the t-section brass I'd probably built and rebuilt these bars half a dozen times!
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Hello all, Tony as is so often the case the final detail is what makes or breaks a model. The pictures that you have posted are absolutely lovely. Well done to you sir. Looking forward to seeing pictures of her in the water.
cheers
Jim
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Hi Tony,
Re the solder flux in the eye may I suggest that you and all others use Protective eyewear when using solder also use in a WELL ventilated area.
Afterall we only get one pare of eyes.
PS on a side note they just showed some Kangaroos in the snow in Australia to give us some contrast its 30 C here at the time.
Regards,
Gerald
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A brief update on progress.
This last week has been terribly disrupted with a bit of work-related travel, club meetings, etc., so not much progress to record. However I've managed to produce both towing bollards, including the foredeck bollard with its tow hook, table and supports.
The bollards are thinwall brass tubing with half-housing joints. I cut a few styrene disks and washers for the end-caps and deck flanges.
The towhook and table is a substantially modified Aeronaut fitting set which has been kicking around the workshop for a couple of years. While the casting is good I think that I have enough confidence to try scratch-building my own in future.
They're dryfitted at the moment so that I can continue to work on other deck fittings and hatches without too much clutter on the decks.
Also produced the steering chains and rods and the waterway blocks that they pass through, but those haven't been fitted yet.
Not much left to do now - a good handful of hatches and skylights, a few fittings, the mast and associated rigging, a few crewmen, the name, port of registration, a white band on the rubbing strake at the deckline, and a good clean-up and touch-up work on the paint, Finished with a wee bit of weathering (judiciously applied of course). Easy when you say it quickly!
So, summertime cruising is just around the corner. Yahooo!
cheers
Tony
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Well modelling is a great stress-buster, and the last few weekends working on Reliant have been powerful medicine indeed. Having said that I'm so close to the end that I've had to deliberately slow myself down to avoid "modeller's rush".
I've now got all of the hatches and skylights fitted, decklights installed, steering chains and assorted fittings done, and did the lifebelts last weekend before shooting down country for a few days with my new job.
To give a sense of scale the lettering on the lifebelts is only 2mm high - thank the Lord for BECC - I simply couldn't have done it freehand with my shaky hands. Still it took a good couple of hours to do all four with name and port of registration, all done about two inches off the end of my nose, so I was truly cross-eyed at the end of that particular ordeal.
Next thing to do is re-install the electrics.
A mate of mine is doing me some scrollwork transfers for the hawsepipes, so once they're done, I can step and rig the mast. Then it's time for a 1:32 scale magnum of champagne and a shake down cruise of the local pond.
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Hello all, thank you Tony for sharing these wonderful photographs. The Managing Director / Shipwrights in your yard must be justly proud of their achievements :lol: What a fantastic job you have done. Well done my friend. I bet you are dying to get this one in the water and receive many a deserved bucketful of praise for the sheer beauty of the Paddler.
cheers
Jim
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That's very generous of you Jim.
The 'yard foreman' does confess to being pretty satisfied with the outcome. I had her in the water half way thru the build and she handles nicely and looks a pretty sight under way.
I must say that there's something so much more satisfying about a subject like the Reliant, than those modern screw-driven tugs and suchlike. Whether it's the paddle wheel propulsion, the nostalgia of steam or the character of the vessel, they do make for great subjects.
Tony
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I mentioned a week or two back that a mate of mine was helping me with some scrollwork transfers for the bow of Reliant.
Well I spent a very pleasant couple of hours in Garry's company this morning and here's the result. He's done a superb job and I couldn't have dreamed of a better result!
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Very nicely done Tony!
Was it done by hand? It certainly looks like it - His hand is definately steadier than mine, even 6 pints of the amber nectar couldn't steady my nerves that much! :-)
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He drew the design freehand using computer software and used that to laser cut thin adhesive-backed vinyl into the scroll design (lovely buttercup yellow). We used the old National Maritime Museum display as a starting point and worked from there. Fantastic stuff, and it only cost me a couple of Custard and Apricot Danishes and a Lemon Tart!
A bit ostentatious for an 'umble working South Shields tug, though! Next thing the skip'll be selling tickets for day trips!
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Eddie - I heve seen the golden scrolls on Tony's Reliant bow directly via e-mail out side of PD's, but it is not showing up here??? - regards Derek
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Eddie - I heve seen the golden scrolls on Tony's Reliant bow directly via e-mail out side of PD's, but it is not showing up here??? - regards Derek
It displays perfectly to me Derek - Have you checked your computer/firewall settings to make sure that "pop-ups" are allowed?
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Hi PD’s – Eddie it is an electronic pagination issue – at the time of the message I scrolled onto last or next & read the text, but the attachment .snp was in the previous page – no drama – I just thought Tony was following a twisting type things by on of his far gone Scottish mate – you know – like liquid paper on the PC monitor screen to correct spelling errors!! - Derek
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From: Eddy Matthews [mailto:construction@paddleducks.co.uk]
Sent: Sunday, 6 November 2005 12:20 AM
To: construction@paddleducks.co.uk
Subject: RE: Building Paddle Tug RELIANT
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derekwarner_decoy wrote:
Eddie - I heve seen the golden scrolls on Tony's Reliant bow directly via e-mail out side of PD's, but it is not showing up here??? - regards Derek
It displays perfectly to me Derek - Have you checked your computer/firewall settings to make sure that "pop-ups" are allowed? <![if !supportLineBreakNewLine]> <![endif]>
Regards
Eddy
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No Derek, that's my Irish side all the way from Raphoe Donegal -- fait' an' begorrah :P
Can hardly read the forum for all the correction fluid; mental note to self - need to buy (yet another) PC screen! :crash
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Who is the supplier of the plan? and does anybody know where I can get some brass Paddles or detailed plans for them thanks
this is a picture of a alternate way of making tow bows they are made by cuting a bow shape and soldering a top on I found that easyer than trying to bend a solid it could be made in plastercard just as easy
Peter
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I used David McGregor's plans. Plus photos of Reliant in Neptune Hall.
Tony
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Thank you for that info ill see what I can get. I have the P N Thomas book that has some info in so ill go through that again. Im trying to get info together before I start this time as the last two build have been started and then stoped to correct mistakes as info came in. can I just ask what is " Neptune Hall" and do you know of any fiberglass hulls 36" To 46 " as I would like to go down the steam route as I have with my other boats thanks Peter
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Hi Peter:
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Metcalfe Mouldings used to make a 1:48 fibreglass hull dxecribed as follows:
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Item #673 P.S. RELIANT,Steam Paddle Tug, 1907, 55 GBP
This super detailled hull is a model for all those who love paddlers. The steam paddle tug "RELIANT" was built in 1907 as the P.S. OLD TRAFFORD, being named after an area near to the Manchester Ship Canal where she spent the early years of her working life, being sold for further use as a harbour tug at Seaham.
Our hull features all representative plate lines, sponson support pads, panama ports, hawse pipe holes and scrolls, and the stern rubbing strake all `moulded in'.
Each hull is supplied complete with comprehensive full-size two sheet plans by David MacGregor, showing details of her appearance and include details of her previouse apperance as OLD TRAFFORD.
This actual ship was on display in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich for many years. More suited to a builder of some experience.
Measurements - Model Scale = 1:48.
- Length....26.1/2".
- Beam....5.1/2".
David Metcalfe has scaled doen his operation and it looks like he almost only builds to order, but his hull is a fine one, expecially since it has plating detail.Â
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Neptune Hall is the location where "Reliant" was once displayed at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich before they unceremoniously destroyed her (don't get me started!) in defiance of all maritime conservation protocol.
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All that remains of her today at the NMM is one stumpy paddlewheel with all the feathering blades removed which wouldn't even illustrate to a 5 year old what a paddle tug might have looked like. The story of Relaint/Old Trafford is indeed a sorry one.
Â
BTW. Do you have the book issued originally (proudly) published by the NMM called "New Order, Old Thing" which is a must for anyone interested in this paddler?
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Our friend, Stuart Badger in the UK, made a magnificent model of "Old Trafford" and he's always been very helpful in answering questions about making the model. Do you have the URL for the website which has pictures of his model build?
Â
Regards
Â
PJ
Victoria, BC Canada
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----- Original Message -----
From: crash93 (construction@paddleducks.co.uk)
To: construction@paddleducks.co.uk (construction@paddleducks.co.uk)
Sent: Saturday, August 05, 2006 4:43 AM
Subject: RE: Building Paddle Tug RELIANT
Thank you for that info ill see what I can get. I have the P N Thomas book that has some info in so ill go through that again. Im trying to get info together before I start this time as the last two build have been started and then stoped to correct mistakes as info came in. can I just ask what is " Neptune Hall" and do you know of any fiberglass hulls 36" To 46 " as I would like to go down the steam route as I have with my other boats thanks Peter
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Hi PD's & thanks Peter for the .jpg snap - from this I see you are a true artisan in soft soldering brass and so compliments :clap2 to your work
Could you please share with us... do you use GAS flame or an electric soldering device :?: .... what type of flux :?: - I am sure other PD members will confirm detail of PS Reliant etc......regards Derek
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The solder Iron I use is a weller ds801 desolder station.its old abt 10 years or so. It enables me to solder and then remove all the excess.
the boat picture I posted was of my hs tug it was posted because of the tow bows
the flux I use is Backers solder flux its an acid but works better than any I have tried. Peter
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Thank you for that info ill see what I can get. I have the P N Thomas book that has some info in so ill go through that again. Im trying to get info together before I start this time as the last two build have been started and then stoped to correct mistakes as info came in. can I just ask what is " Neptune Hall"
Neptune's Hall was the main display area of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, where RELIANT, or the majority of her, was on display, until the area was redeveloped a few years ago and the museum took RELIANT to pieces and managed to lose or mislay her.
Alistair
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Sorry my last post should have read "Bakers soldering fluid NO 3" sorry for that. Peter
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Thanks Peter - I use the same "Bakers" solder/tinning fluid here in OZ, the one with 40% zinc chloride, only problem is the fumes tend to get up your :nose & brings tears to the .....:sob - The Yorkshire paste alternative is only 27% zinc chloride, but I don't like the residue
When you get time, please post more snaps of Tug Boat ???????, if the soldering is any thing to go by the rest should be :trophy - Derek
PS - did I see a line of conflict between the steering chain on the STDB side & a dual bollard :?: :?: :?:
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derekwarner_decoy. This may answer your question Or may not together with the e-mail I have sent you