Hello all ,
             Can anyone help me with some plans for a working feathering type paddle wheel which i can construct... :?

cheers Anthony :wink:

Hi PD's - Anthony asked....

Can anyone help me with some plans for a working feathering type paddle wheel which i can construct...

Try ...  :computer our Downloads/Magazines/ModelBoats...1977 December - A drive for Chieftan... you should be able to scale these   :boom up or   down to suit & from memory there may be an article on the Edgar T Westbury  :no1 designs somewhere...... Derek

One has to ask whether the forum thinks it is worthwhile fitting feathering wheels on a model paddler? I talked at length at the pondside recently with a gentleman who has built several paddlers and rebuilt some of them more than once. He is firmly of the opinion that there is no noticeable difference in performance of a model between fixed and feathering wheels. He also mentioned that the slightest knock when transporting or on the pond side was often enough to make them bind and not feather no matter how well they were made. What do others think? Cheers, Ian.

I would have to agree that in model sizes feathering wheels make no noticable difference to the performance Ian, and they are definately much more prone to damage than none-feathering wheels (which is also true for full sized vessels).

The only plus points from a modelling point of view is that they are a technical challenge to make, and they make the model "look" right!

Thankyou derek
                        Exactly what I was after..!  
The relivance of feathering paddles on a model....  it's more to the point of "scale"  why do model engineer's spend  time creating a model to scale.
Hours and hours of detailed work that dosen't get seen or just hidden by paint...?
I think it comes down to personal choice, building a model that exactly replicates the real thing as close as possible   not the economy or speed which the paddles could provide in a model.

In my case I would like to build and get a better understanding :wink:

cheers Anthony

Anthony, you will not get any argument from me about the beauty of a true scale replica of the real thing, however I think it might be wise to make them fixed, non-working replicas. Cheers, Ian.

Hi Ian,
         I agree if I was building a model It would be cosemetic as you suggest.... :wink:
I want to build feathering paddle wheels not for a model but to scale up for( ease of parts )as a little project to get a better understanding of how they physically work,

cheers Anthony

This is going to sound very ignorant but     ... What is the difference between Feathering paddle wheels and paddle wheels??

simply.... :?  a feathering paddle wheel changes the angle of each paddle as it travels through the water a standard paddle wheel dosen't it is fixed.
A feathering wheel changes the angle so it slides and push's the water behind it the angle changes the amount of water it will displace,a fixed paddle wheel tends to slap the water on entry,then  lift the water out on exit a feathering paddle changes it's angle so it dosent do this!

Each paddle is at a different angle depending on it's postion in the water

Hope this help's....

So really, it makes the paddles transition through the water a lot smoother? Would you recommend them over fixed paddle wheels? And are they hard to build?

Cheers

Quote from: anthHello all ,
             Can anyone help me with some plans for a working feathering type paddle wheel which i can construct... :?

cheers Anthony :wink:

Not a plan, but....if you can pay the price (or buy cheap on ebay) you could do worse than build a kit of 'Graupner' paddlewheels as recommended for the graupner Glasgow model.
I bought some for my model and having assembled them, I think I could now build a set of my own, given enough time and patience.....
 

Gnat riverboats build feathering wheels James and both Gnatty and Gant carry them, they are I believe the only boats with them on the Murray.

Can you 'crawl' with feathering wheels or it it cause too much damage?
That could be the reason why Ausstralian paddlers have tended to steer away from them!

I would expect it to damage as the floats pivot it would place far to much load on them

This is going to sound really stupid (again from me)   , but I am new to all these terms. What is crawling Sean or Anth? I have no idea!

A crawling paddler is something Murray boats did quite often (although I think the aligator one may have stronger wheels perhaps!) It pulls or crawls over sand bars and traps etc by winching itself over them!

That's what they're called in other countries...we just wrapped a cable around the shaft and put the engine in forwards...that did the trick and we didn't use a special name!