Model Boat Mayhem
Mess Deck: General Section => Model Boating => Topic started by: django on June 26, 2013, 04:10:10 pm
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Hi I have just had a look over the puffer VIC 96 which is moored up in Chatham what an absolutely stunning boat .Does anyone know if any of the model manufactures make a hull of this type of puffer or a plan thanks Django
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Django...can I just make a point before you go looking for a puffer hull for your VIC............
VIC's actually weren't puffers in the traditional sense....and their hull shapes were different to puffers, especially at the stern..... they were built during the war period as Victualing Inshore Craft (hence VIC ) but pass as "puffers" because of their similarity and because one of them was used in the BBC Para Handy TV progs, because there were no real puffers left.
Puffer hulls can be found regularly on ebay and only the other day a puffer plug came up for sale for producing a mould, but I don't know anyone myself who makes a VIC hull.
to see a prog about a real puffer (and not a VIC ) try finding the old comedy film called "Maggie A Puffer's Tale" you'll see the difference between a puffer and a VIC.
Neil.
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Moutfleet models do two Puffer kits, Models by Design, Kingston Moldings
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Thanks for replies I have got a couple of puffers I have made 1 is a Mountfleet kit of Northlight & 1 which I made from a hull bought at a boot fair altering Mountfleets plan to suit the different scale. I was just hoping that somebody made a hull for Vic 96, its a bit beyond me to completely scratch build one. Thanks Django
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its a bit beyond me to completely scratch build one. Thanks Django
Never say never Django, we thought that many years ago. We started off with simple designed vessels like hard chine launches before building round bilge vessels. We actually prefer building round bilge models at the moment you can disguise any imperfections a lot easier than hard chine boats! Especially getting a level and even chine line! May be one day you might change your mind.
Regards
Nick B
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If I was going to pick a first boat to scratch build I don't think you could go far wrong with a puffer hull!! They are supremely simple designs. I'm good friends with the owner of VIC 96, so if you wanted to model that boat in particular I'm sure I could arrange photos of salient bits, as well as out-of-water photos.
Greg
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I had a vic-20 many years ago.... not sure it would float tho :)
(http://www.commodore.ca/gallery/brochures/vic-20/VIC-20_friendly_brochure_p1.jpg)
I'll get me coat :embarrassed:
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Thanks Greg I might take you up on that offer . The puffers are all fantastic to look at & I think that Vic 96 would make a terrific modelling project I have a couple of leads about a plan so fingers crossed Thanks Django
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I scrounged this from somewhere years back.
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Wow that's excellent thanks very much for you help Django
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We both come from the same place. :-)
Will see if the others I tried to load will make it this time.
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A good comparison of the two VIC hull designs here- the bottom photo shows VIC 19, with almost flush sheer and funnel forward of the wheelhouse she is a lot closer to the original 'puffer' design.
Greg
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Thanks again Greg , what great photo's Django
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ok2
hello
it would be nice to make the platting with rivets and sheet metal pressed.
it would be very realistic.
It's hard to do, but the result would be exceptional
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It would, except that the majority were all welded construction.... {:-{
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I must apologise, as I made a 'slight' mistake, it is VIC 56 that my friend owns :embarrassed: , also kept at Chatham, hence the confusion. Same offer applies of course!
Also, look here on Cochrane's of Selby build list, a number of VIC listed, some with photos.
http://www.gooleships.co.uk/goolesb/goolesb.htm (http://www.gooleships.co.uk/goolesb/goolesb.htm)
Greg
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sorry for the rivets!
then it must reproduce the welds, it is easier %)
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It would, except that the majority were all welded construction.... {:-{
Puffers were riveted and certainly all the early Vics also - perhaps a majority?
Have a meander through here http://themackenzies.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/puffers/index.htm (http://themackenzies.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/puffers/index.htm)
Barry M
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Certainly is a lot of info about puffers on the internet , & some really good photo's. The name puffer seems to cover a lot of different types. The more I see the more keen I am to make a model of Vic 96 as my next project when I have finished my current build of Dawnlight which I am making using a hull from Mobile Marine Models
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Worth tracking down is 'Last of the Puffermen' by Keith McGinn who spent 40 years working on Puffers until their ultimate decline in the early '90's. Published by Neil Wilson Publishing (www.nwp.co.uk (http://www.nwp.co.uk)), cover price £9.99, the photos alone are worth the price.
Barry M
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Puffers were riveted and certainly all the early Vics also - perhaps a majority?[/size]Have a meander through here http://themackenzies.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/puffers/index.htm (http://themackenzies.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/puffers/index.htm) Barry M
Yes, traditional 'puffers' were, however the majority of the VIC's were welded, apart from a few of the early ones as you say.
Great page by the way!
Greg
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I think some clarification is needed here. 'Puffers' were originally scows used on the Forth & Clyde Canal that were outfitted with non-condensing steam engines and exhausted steam up the lum. Thus they produced a characteristic puffing sound in the manner of a steam locomotive. Once condensing steam plant was introduced, they lost the puffing sound and, logically, could no longer be described as 'Puffers'. However, the term 'Puffer' continued to be used to describe any small mechanically powered cargo vessel trading on the canals of Scotland, the West Coast and Islands with a few operating on the East Coast. Thus the original puffers, their condensing successors, VICs and, the last of the line - diesel coasters - were all generically known in Scotland as 'Puffers'. Different machinery, different designs, different construction but all engaged in the same trade and known as Puffers.
Regards,
Barry M
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Hey Barry,
Do you have any idea what the deficiency saving is between a condensing and non-condensing steam engine is? IE.how much money would the ship owners saved?
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Martin,
What a question! I am possibly putting my neck on the block to be shot down by other marine engineers on the Forum but here goes.
If we are talking 'thermal efficiency', then the earliest puffer engines were single-cylinder, double-acting units exhausting to atmosphere and probably their efficiency was about - I stress the word "about" - 10% and possibly less. When these were replaced with compounded two-cylinder, double-acting engines with the LP exhausting to a condenser, thermal efficiency possibly rose to about 15%. (I believe there was an interim period when some compound engines still exhausted to atmosphere.)
Whatever the aesthetic appeal of steam engines, whether reciprocating or turbine, and even with regenerative condensers, reheat etc., marine steam plant never achieved efficiencies exceeding about 34% for turbine plant and considerably less for reciprocating. The huge heat loss to cooling water circulating through the condenser could never be recouped.
The expansion of the puffers' trading areas from canal to open sea also brought its own technical demands. While operating in the Forth & Clyde canals, the puffers took the boiler feed water they required from the canal itself. Once operations were extended to sea water, feed water had to be carried on board as boilers do not like sea water and will quickly scale-up. (Yes, I know that some early boilers were operated on salt-water feed with heavy blow-down to try and reduce the boiler salinity but it was never successful, always dangerous and led to even more heat loss.) Possibly some shipowners did not like feed water carried on board as it reduced space for cargo.
As for how much money the shipowner saved in coal, I couldn’t put a figure on it partly because I’m unfamiliar with 19th C./20th C. coal prices and consumption could vary widely not least because of bunker quality. What I would say is that nothing attracts a shipowners attention like an innovation that reduces his overheads.
A Puffers coal consumption might also vary because of the unofficial access hatch that sometimes appeared between cargo hold and engine room. It was not unknown for a cargo of coal to mysteriously reduce on passage and, allegedly twelve tons went AWOL while one vessel was navigating from Troon to Coll. En route, the puffer put into Tobermory supposedly to trim cargo but shortly after the local coal merchant, at a time of post-war coal shortage, had ample stocks to sell. The case went to court but nothing was proved.
It was a different world.
Barry M
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GREAT post Barry, thanks! :-))
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Thank you Barry, we learn every day, this is a great post, Mick B.
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Could a steam driven engine, other than a turbine, using todays technology & materials be made as a user friendly & economical alternative to modern diesel engines to power smaller craft such as puffers etc ? Django
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In a word - No! While their mechanical efficiency could be similar, the gap in thermal efficiency is too wide.
The biggest, slow-revving two-stroke, turbo-charged/scavenged diesels with electronic control of valves and injection and under ideal conditions, can achieve a thermal efficiency of 50% plus.
A medium to high speed, turbo-charged diesel as fitted to a coaster would be somewhere about 40% efficient.
A double-acting, reciprocating steam engine, no matter how many expansions, reheat or superheat you involve and how good your feed system and condenser, will never be more than about 20% efficient. Also, all that plant will occupy space that could be used for cargo and it's cargo that makes money. No money? - No ship!
The final blow for Puffers (by that time all diesel-powered) was the withdrawal of the subsidy that kept the remaining vessels in service. When the Westminster government withdrew the subsidy in favour of (surprise! surprise!) the State-owned CalMac ferry operation, the puffers went out of business. If the diesel vessels went out of business, the steamers certainly could not survive. At the end of the day, the viability of a service is down to economics.
Also consider that the puffer met a demand for a service from scattered, remote, communities with poor or almost nonexistent road and/or ferry communications. Conditions now are considerably different and the demand for a puffer service probably no longer exists.
There is a great deal of romance built up about Puffers for which Neil Munro alias Hugh Foulis and the Para Handy books and films plus the spin-offs like "The Maggie" are responsible. I thoroughly enjoy reading and re-reading the Para Handy stories but they indubitably give a rose-tinted hue to what in fact was a very hard way of life for the crews for most of the puffers' existence. Poorly paid and living in fourth-rate conditions, crews also had to face a dangerous life which the ship-casualty rate did not improve.
Another time, another way of life and by all means remember the Puffers and their crews but it is not going to come back.
Barry M
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Ah, Barry....and not a mention of the "wee Novelettes" so beloved of the Ch.Engineer (the only engineer in fact).
But forgetting all the hardships, lousy "accommodation" and so on....the tales were a sort of Romance. Much more interesting than the average "plod" over vast distances delivering bulk cargoes or containers with a turnaround time sometimes measured in minutes rather than hours...or even days or weeks in our memories.
However, I appreciate that your erudition was mainly about steam engines...with only a minor foray into the political arena (I commend your restraint!).
It all goes to show that you are still "paying attention". Regards. Bryan.
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Bryan,
I know all the technical stuff went straight over your head as you homed in on Macphails novelettes instead. :P
I have the Para Handy books and have read then many times with enjoyment. Some - although not all - of the TV adaptations were well done and 'The Maggie' is well worth seeing again but they all describe events which emphasise the good times while glossing over the bad. Read/watch and enjoy but never foget they are largely fantasy.
Barry M