Live steam "Fusilier", the 1888 MacBrayne paddle steamer.

[birlinn]

Drawings done, at 1:48- the original was 202 feet long. Will order a load of ply and strip tomorrow.
These paddlers had such shallow draft- the original only drew 4' 8".
To get my boiler in, and to get a decent displacement, I have had to drop the keel by 1", or 4 feet to scale.
Not noticeable in the water....

[birlinn]

Just spoken to Jerry at Clevedon Steam; I am thinking of using their 'Virgo' paddle engine/boiler combo.
Apparently this needs gearing down 3:1 at the paddles, but found, and ordered, a neat belt drive set-up from Amazon with the right shaft size for the motor.
Now awaiting delivery of £144 worth of ply and stripwood....

[Hankwilliams]

Hi Birlinn,

very interesting and elegant boat, looks similar to a smaller edition of "Columba". The gear reduction engine to paddleshaft of 3 : 1 seems good also at my own experiences. A scale of 1 : 48 will give a lenght of 128 cm - this will be ok, but you should build rather light with thin materials and also light superstructure. I will post soon some pictures of my steamdriven paddlers.

Thomas

[birlinn]

Just ordered the engine/boiler combo from Clevedon.
Already got a very neat 1:3 cogged belt drive from Amazon.
Still wondering whether to have a go at feathering paddles- the diameter is only 110 mm.

[Hankwilliams]

Belt drive looks good, will be a sufficient connexion between engine and paddle shaft. Most i`ve used cogwheels for connexion, but the distance between the cogwheels must be very precise.
I will post some more examples of the gear reduction at my steam driven paddlers.

Thomas

[birlinn]

Start made- now to sort out the stern!
Sides will be  0.8 mm ply; bilges 2 layers 0.4 mm ply.
Lines are are very much a guess, to get the extra draft needed.
The floor tiles are 300 mm square, to give you an idea of the size.

[birlinn]

Clevedon Steam gear arrived today- looks very good.
THe hull looks very skinny, in spite of the increased draught- time to check the calcs!

Will be a slight delay- my 2CV has a worrying oil leak to be sorted.

ETA: checked the displacement- 6.05 kg, which is what I got last time. Phew!
Need to keep the model minus gear down to 3.7 kg- should be OK.

[derekwarner_decoy]

Must admit I was wondering about the available freeboard, as the hull does look very slender  , but that ballpark 60/40, to 50/50 displacement sounds reassuring and typical for our Paddler steam models of this design

However the total weight [displacement] of the steam plant & drive & paddles of 2.35kg sounds questionable

Will be watching the build progress 

Derek

[PS.....a 2CV leaking?.....you are in good company, as Thomas also has a Citroen]

[birlinn]

With a bit of shuffling, the steam gear fits, just.
But everything is still too tight- the main steam pipe from the boiler will require a bit of hacking for clearance.
I was trying to keep a screened off boiler and engine room enclosure from the deck saloon, with a walkway on both sides, but this is looking increasingly impractical.
So current idea is to put black or reflective glass in most of the deck saloon windows, to screen the gear inside.The side walkways were forming a stiff H section stringer at deck level to the central box.
I think i will omit this, and give a bigger opening with carbon fibre  tubes either side to keep the stiffness to the box. Could even be lighter...

As far as weights go, the set up as shown is 2.57 kg; allowing 0.5 kg for water and gas, I will still have around 3 kg left for the build.
The 0.8 mm ply sides seem plenty stiff enough for the box, ditto the bilges  which are two laminations of 0.4 mm ply.
The carbon mast is a mere 7 grammes, the alloy funnel 32 grammes, but I am not happy with it. It was a bit of old vacuum machine pipe, and has a swage at the end which annoys me. I have another bit of pipe- but 56 grammes..
Paddle shaft is now also carbon; will have chromed brass/brass bearing tubes.

What do you experts think?

[birlinn]

Still waiting for some more ply and strip wood to get the basic hull, so I played around with the funnel.
It's made from thin aluminium tube from an old vacuum cleaner, and was a real fiddle to get the M1 nuts on to the eye bolts down the funnel.
Thinking how to tidy that gap at the base...
PS: already touched up that missing paint on the back of the steam pipe.

[birlinn]

Basic hull done, but a lot of filling and fettling yet!
0.8 mm ply has its limitations, so planking used in areas.

[Hankwilliams]

Looks really good, Birlinn!

Thomas

[birlinn]

Just weighed the hull- 650 grammes so far.
I recon it will be about 1.7 kg all in.
I can't see the steam plant and R/C gear weighing much more than 2.7 kg, so even rounding those figures up a bit, it looks like plenty of ballast will be needed.

[Hankwilliams]

In every case it`s better to add some ballast at the deepest point of the hull, than too much weight of engine and boiler. What is the relation between lenght and breadth of the hull? When I look at the pictures, I guess this relation will be ok. One should avoide too narrow hulls - the nautic stability may be not sufficient.

Thomas

[birlinn]

Slow progress, but today I drilled the portholes.
Next up the basic sponson platforms, then the fun bit- the feathering paddles.