Hi all,
building my first old fashion stern wheeler, I coming to the question, which things should be illuminated ?
I think, in old times gas/petrol lights are the only way to illuminate the boat. Haven't seen any pictures of steamboatmodels at night as yet. How to build the windows/doors to get the best effect ? Simply cut out the windows or use some kind of plastics to imitate the windowpane ? Should I use bulbs or LED's ? I own a Petromax Lamp, have anybody seen a working model of such a lamp ?
Many question for now, but hopefully anybody has an answer for me.
greetings, Carsten
Carsten,
I might be able to help a little on this one.
Instead of clear plastic for the windows, I used to buy boxes of glass slide mounts and take the very thin glass out of them and use that instead. Looks a lot more natural and doesn't warp or change colour over the years. A bit fiddly, but well worth it.
To get the nice 'yellowy' light effect, you use 12 volt grain of wheat or grain of rice (smaller) bulbs, and light them using a 6 volt battery. They then have a nice warm oil lamp glow.
If you search around a bit, you can also get little circuits that 'flicker' the bulbs to simulate oil lamps. Just depends how much you want to simulate.
Hope this helps
John
What needs illuminating depends on what type of boat it is exactly - A traditional Mississippi passenger vessel could be lit up like a christmas tree at times, but a workboat such as a sternwheel towboat might only have a few deck lights and navigation lights.
Flickering oil lamps can be done with some electronics as bogstandard said above - Action Kits here in the UK do a unit for this purpose - Take a look at their P90 Twin Flicker Unit on http://www.action-electronics.co.uk/las2.php
No doubt there will be others available, or you could build your own if your into electronics (I'm not).
Regards
Eddy