Model Boat Mayhem
The Shipyard ( Dry Dock ): Builds & Questions => Working Vessels => Topic started by: Edmund on August 26, 2015, 08:14:21 pm
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A little late for a build log as I've already started but I suppose there is quite a way still to go! I've always been interested in good looking but unusual ships, so a train ferry makes a good choice. This model is a small roll-on-roll off rail ferry with a nice open rear deck to model and a bow door that opens. I've rigged it up with a sail winch to open and close the visor as the real thing. I believe the original ship, the Freia, which was built in Denmark, was one of the first ferries to be built with a bow door, very unusual in 1936. By the way the original ship existed until very recently though much altered as a ship known as the Ischia Express in Turkey. It may still exist as far as I know.
The hull is plank on frame on 3mm ply bulkheads. The planks are 1/8th inch balsa which is fantastic to plank with - very forgiving as it sands smoothly into shape, holes filled with car filler sanded and glassed. Upper hull is 1/32nd ply. Two 540 motors powered by 6v battery will be the power plant which is all neatly fitted beneath the main vehicle deck. It should be possible, if one should wish to drive a 00 Hornby train through the ship! The train already on the deck is an old continental Marklin sleeper carriage for authenticity.
I realise behind in the photos is another of my creations, the Icelandic motor vessel Gullfoss of the Eimskip shipping line, another Danish built ship from 1947. I have happy memories of sailing to Reykjavik on her regularly as a child. I drew up plans for her from old photos that I found. She regularly sails our local pond these days, a very solid heavy and reliable model able to sail in any weather!
I've included photos of the plans I've drawn up for the Freia - you can get an idea of what I'm aiming to achieve!
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That's indeed an interesting subject, really looking forward to watch your progress. She looks beautiful as does the "Gullfoss". If you haven't shown her before please do!
All the best!
Hama
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I echo Hama's sentiments........this is a wonderful model :-))
Look forward to seeing more details of this one as she progresses O0
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As requested a few photos of the MV Gullfoss - it should be entitled 1:72 Danish passenger/cargo ship - this one is bread and butter construction - very cheap materials - carved floorboards with plywood decks and plastic card superstructure. Plans and lines were drawn from photos but it's a good likeness I believe. She likes a good Atlantic storm as you can see from the last photo, just like the original. The QE2 in the background is nothing to do with me - she just happened to be at anchor as we sailed past!
Since these photos were taken I've added passengers to the decks and a few cars sitting on the hatch covers and she looks much better.
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Thanks! She really is a beautiful vessel and on the last photo even the sea looks real!
Hama
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Hi Edmund,
Thanks for sharing - unusual AND interesting AND made from your own plans ! :o :-))
Regards,
Ray.
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Hi Ray,
I've always loved drawing up ship plans since I was at Primary school. They were a bit basic then. Sometimes I copied lines drawings I found changing scales and so on and then I progressed to designing my own plans usually from photographs of ships in books and which I had taken myself. One eventually gets to know what should be where in a ship! I love imagining the three dimensionally curves of a lines plan. Occasionally I get round to building the interesting ones!
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Yes Edmund.......understanding and drawing invisible waterlines from projections is very satisfying and a near lost art.........today's CAD packages don't really help without the basic knowledge
I was very fortunate to have a then retired Loftsman from the BHP Whyalla Shipyard extoll a little of his knowledge to me some 50 years ago
One of his favourite terms was ...'close your eyes and imagine how those lines blended' :-))
After all, Noah didn't have a CAD package locked into his abacus did he! {-) ... Derek
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I've never got on with CAD drawing. I need the feel of the paper and a pencil or pen. But lucky you to have an expert professional teach you how to do it. Fantastic!
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That last post was meant to say lucky you to have had someone to teach you to draw the lines of ships properly with paper and pen - it didn't come out quite right now I look at it.
Here's the next stage of the Freia. Filling in the holes - for anchors and the doors by which passengers entered and creating the (pretend) doors by which the car deck was accessed, which was from the sides of the ship. Only the railway ran through the centre and the bow-door, cars, placed either side of the trains accessed the ships through doors at the sides of the front and on the open stern deck - think of the potential dangers the ship was in every time it sailed! And the main boat deck, which will lift off to gain access to the interior. There is a nice docking bridge to model on the next deck up between the lifeboats.
Access to the interior is by lifting off the superstructure from boat deck up and then also removing the main floor of the vehicle deck. Separate access for rudder and radio gear is by another hatch over the stern deck. Next to model is the main saloon and the bridge deck. This stage doesn't take so long! It's always the hull that takes an age.
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It would appear that you have thought out the access points carefully - good to see that :-))
Is there some sort of catch or other device, on the model, to hold the bow door in the closed position ?
Regards,
Ray.
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Two quick sketches to show how the bow door operates. No catches or locks - simply weight holds it closed. The visor itself is soldered from brass sheet, the shape worked out by shaping cardboard into the place for the door and tracing to the brass. The deck is also brass, and not shown is an inner sheet like a buffer across the end of the rail track which will I hope keep water off the vehicle deck from the bow wave etc.
To power the door I initially tried a geared motor which was very effective but I would have had to put in stop switches for the end of its range , and all potentially complex electronically. Instead , much simpler a small sail winch which I acquired cheaply, has a hole drilled in the edge of its drum, and the thread goes through that. Now the sail winch instead of reeling in about 30cm of line, draws in 4cm, and then lets out 4cm. As long as the travel of the lever attached to the bow door is also 4cm the door will open and close. I'm using a cheap 6 channel radio set that has some knobs that can be turned to operate two of the channels. The movement is steady and relatively slow, and the speed appears to be able to be adjusted as well. Over turn the knob and the bow visor will chomp up and down like a crocodile coming to get you, but I think one will get used to it - the upper and lower limits can be marked, but at least no danger of over opening and breaking the thread because the visor will just raise and lower as the winch goes round.
I am thinking that I could model a short pier with link span to float on our pond and the Freia could then approach it forwards and astern and dock to the link span. Docking forwards would of course require opening the bow visor....
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Yep, that all makes sense to me - thanks Edmund :-))
Regards,
Ray.
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Interior shots!
With the vehicle deck removed you can see the frames of the rudder compartment under the open rear deck. Rudder servo will fit between bulkheads two bulkheads back from the rudder arm. The radio gear, speed controllers etc will then go in the next compartment. Second photo shows the engine room. The flat bottom of the ship is created out of plywood so that motors and SLA batteries and ballast will be as low down as possible creating a good stable ship.
You can see the oiling tubes on the prop shafts behind the bulkhead. Because the tubes were slotted through the bulkheads I added these afterwards. A hole drilled through the propellor shaft tube and a brass tube soldered into it with a powerful soldering iron - to ensure the solder flowed properly...
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Well the day job does get in the way a little!
A little work has added another deck. Browny red squares will be where the boats will go - more paint needed on these and more varnish on decks. The deck houses are not complete obviously. A trim will go around the deck edges tidying them and creating a tiny flange that will hold the superstructure in place over the hatch. Will I make the railings? I'm not sure yet. I have the brass wire and must see if I can make a tidy job. Otherwise it will be the expense of about 120 stanchions. I would like the rails to be capped in wood and that would mean I have to make them.
We're at top deck level now, so the wheel house and docking bridges fore and aft will be the next stage and then I will begin to think about the fitting out. The passengers are already on a flight from Hong Kong......
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Lovely work here :-))
Nice to see more passenger SHIPS being modelled as opposed to just tugs and fishing boats (not that I have anything against tugs and fishing boats - I have a few myself!!!).
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I've built a couple of tugs as well, but passenger ships are my passion. Attached are photos of another one of my scratch built creations, the Isle of Wight paddlesteamer Ryde, 1/48th scale.
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I have always been intrigued by train ferries and this captures the look perfectly. I can't wait to see this ship on the water. Your Gillfoss is lovely too.
I shall be following this topic with interest.
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DAMN!!! That Ryde looks good............ :-)) :-)) :-)) :-))
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Enjoying your build very much, Freia is a interesting subject, and as a paddler fan I must say that the Ryde looks fantastic too :-))
Clark
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I thought about a train ferry but an American one as I have an interest in American railroads. I found this and wondered how long it would take me.
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Wow, she's a big beast! The original was 129metres long and 35m wide. At 00 scale that would make a model just under 6 feet long and 18 inches wide.
Much of the work in building a boat is planning how it will be constructed, and being a paddle steamer one of the issues you will have is the amount of power that those paddle wheels will give to the boat to power it through the water. A friend has a model of one of the Dundee paddle ferries, and it is disappointingly slow on the water. Also things to think about are steering. I notice your picture is showing four rudders and as it is double ended that will be repeated at the other end. If you are doing a scale model, then that's 8 rudders - fun to model but takes some thinking how it all operates. I would probably use separate drives for each paddle and steer it like a tank and the rudders are then pretty irrelevant.
Other issue with a rail ferry is hatches through the deck, as they clearly cut through the rails - you need to think if that's a problem if you are going to run actual trains on the boat, or if they are just carried as a cargo.
As for length of time to build, how long's a length of string???
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Hi Clark, The Ryde was of course built on the Clyde, at Denny Brothers of Dumbarton... down your way....
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My railroad is in Z gauge so the boat would be a little under 600 mm. I hadn't thought about intergrating it into a layout. I've been thinking about a paddler for a while and have acquired some Heng Long tank gearboxes which should be perfect for independent paddle steering. The 8 rudders could be a challenge though.
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Z gauge makes it tiny in model ship building terms which creates a whole load of new problems. I would guess a displacement of 15kg at 00 gauge but only just over 1kg in Z gauge. Also very small spaces for motors, and servos though if you use a Heng Long gear box then you won't need to worry so much about rudders. But your biggest problem (or smallest depending on how you look at it!) is the size of the paddle wheels. In 00 gauge they might have been at most 15cm across, but in Z gauge only 5cm and that might just be too small to make functional. Also your freeboard would be very small, may be only a centimetre or so - but a very interesting build if you can work out the build issues!
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Well the day job has been getting in the way! But a little work has happened on the Freia. Railings ---- this has taken some experimentation. But hard brass wire has been the answer, superglued into holes in the deck and a wooden handrail fixed on - drill holes through thread it on and then superglue the hand rail in place a the right height and then wire rails superglued in place. It is getting a little tidier - I might have to go back to some of the earlier bits to redo them. It appears to be quite strong. Half done and the other side to do.....
After the railing - lighting - warm white led's - its getting dark in the evenings and a lit up ship is a fine sight on the pond....
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coming along nicely, is it your intention to have HO scale trains actually operate on it?
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Technically, I suppose, it would be possible to run an HO train through the vehicle deck. The rails run right through and if an electrical connection were needed that would be relatively simple to create. However I don't have a model rail layout to connect to and at the pond side there might be issues with running model trains!
But I was wondering whether next to create a floating dock with rail link span to dock into. It would add an interest to steering and docking and the bow door is able to raise and lower by radio control. I'm hoping that the Freia will be manoevrable forwards and reverse with twin props and tank type control on the TX. There are no bow thrusters! Got to be authentic!
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people run tanks on and off landing craft - so why not the train - a suitable landing jetty with the ability to run a train on and off the ferry will look good, as long as you don't do a telemark recreation, it would be a loss of a good model
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Would copper tape give you a cunningly easy way of transferring power from the linkspan to the ship to power your trains?
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Would copper tape give you a cunningly easy way of transferring power from the linkspan to the ship to power your trains?
Exactly my thought. The rails between each of the hatches have an exposed end that could rest on copper tape.
However even easier - train ferries rarely carried the locomotives. Freia can take exactly four passenger carrriages with about an inch to spare. All you need is a shunter on the link span to hook up and tow the carriages ashore. The loco need never enter the bowels of the boat!
The link span will line up the rails with a pin made of dowel. As the boat backs (or goes forwards) on to the linkspan it will engage with a wedge shape that will lift the linkspan into position as well as line the boat up exactly with the rails. Train ferry docks were often exactly the width of the boat in any case making lining up even easier. Twelve volt battery and controller on the dock should control the loco. Whole thing might be about 8 feet long however! Might have to find my own corner of the pond to operate it! However I'm getting ideas!
Telemark recreations - slightly worrying!
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depends if the pond is heavy water or not %)
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The ramps for loading railcars aboard are too light to bear the weight of a locomotive, IIRC.
I recall seeing a photo of a rail ferry dock where some old flatcars were used as 'spacers' to keep the locomotives away from the ramp. - Tom
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Even better! No need to electrify the rails of the vehicle deck!
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If going for such a plan where the Loco collects the rake (railway term for a number of coaches joined together:O) you might need a way to brake them so that:
The Loco does not drive onto the ferry and lose power thus ruining your activity.
Or:
The Loco pushes the coaches through the back end of your model boat by pushing the other ramp down or worse, breaking it {:-{
Or: Thirdly
Or: The Loco pushes the ferry away from the Linkspan toppling into the water at the same time.
If you could lock the Linkspan in place and also work out a way of braking the coaches then you will have a fun spectacle.
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if the doors strong enough, you could back the boat upto the jetty, which has a recess to accept it so it is flat to the jetty, inside the boat you could have a moving ballast weight where as it moves towards the ramp it provides the force necessary grip to the dock, plus as the model truck fraternity has in one of the youtube vids a pair of pins that locate into the ramp painted as traffic cones they would not look out of place, doesnt matter if the loco over runs - the ramps on the jetty, plus as in most rail sets the last piece of track is isolated temporarily, if the loco is long enough the rear wheels are still on the isolated track and the front on the boat, when it comes time to reverse the train, the isolated track is set for reverse and the train reverses. decoupling could be on the boat with a plate between the tracks and lifted with a servo.
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Loads of great ideas here!
I feel simplest is best. The front visor of the ship is heavy. It would work as a buffer no problem so no train will be pushed right through and into the Swannie Ponds! However if the ship comes in bow first there is no barrier as yet to stop a train ending up in the drink off the stern. I need some sort of barrier here. Maybe something can be fitted that is in place except when link span is attached. Some model railway level crossing gates work like that I beleive. A small wire lever could raise and lower a barrier.
There will be a vertical pin on the bow and stern of the ship that the link span can attach to. My first thoughts had been to simply use the pin to line up on the link span which would have a clip under it rather like a cupboard door catch, but I take the point that a loco could push the rake of railway vehicles into the ship and push the ship away from the dock so some sort of lock is needed.
How about lowering the link span on to the pin on the ship after the ship has entered the dock. This could be done mechanically with a small electrical or hand powered winch, as the dock is always going to be alongside and the controls for the loco will be on shore as well. It would need to move only a small distance as we don't have to deal with the tides!
If a flat car is used between the loco and the carriages on the ship, no need to even electrify the linkspan. That will provide an isolater to prevent the loco dropping into the pond ( we know all about that in Dundee with the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879)
As for uncoupling there could be a fixed uncoupler at both ends of the vehicle deck on the ship - Hornby used to do a raised ramp that even you kept moving the train stayed coupled and if you stopped the coupling undid. No need to have any mechanical operation at all!
Well I still need to finish the ferry first!
Attached I hope two small drawings. One of the dock from above showing how the ship will be held in place as it docks forwards or astern and the second a scheme of how the linkspan will lock onto the ship.
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Brilliant news Edmund! It sounds like your ideas and chin stroking has come up with some sound plans.
I look forward to the Ship being completed now. :-))
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Way too much overthinking of electrifying track here. Have a 'dead' track and mount a suitable battery inside the loco. Yes I know you can't do it with a Hornby loco, but you can buy suitable plastic or metal kit loco's that you could motorise for such an undertaking. With its own receiver you could even use r/c transmitter to operate it........
http://www.newmodellersshop.co.uk/knightwing_metal.htm
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mLfD6Ushq0 - this I hope links to the video I mentioned, seems a good way of doing it - we know its tried a tested O0
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Very impressive! I could see the traffic cones that lock the ramps.
Well I can see I'll have to building a whole dock yard! And it all began with just a ship!
Still researching the Freia and have just discovered that it is regarded as almost first roll on roll off car ferry. Alongside the train track are two car garages......... Now don't get started everybody..... I'm definitely not motorising minature cars ...... though it might be a use for the chikdren's scalelectric gathering dust in the attic....
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That youtube video is absolutely brilliant - and it's got me thinking.........hhhhhmmmm. %)
(Tug Kenny's gonna love that one) O0
Regards,
Ray.
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Still work to do but beginning to look like the business. I might even get her on the water on Sunday on our pond. Still tidying to do, but much of the fittings are in place. Crew and passengers are still ashore waiting for a splash of paint to liven them up. Wiring of lighting is still to be completed - I was having problems soldering - I need a small soldering iron. And there is detail particularly around the bridge. Nothing done about a dock yet but hey lets see if I can steer her first!
I've also attached a couple of photos of the real ship. Bear in mind she was built in 1936 and the last picture is of her sailing out of Ischia in Italy in 2007. Much bashed about and you perhaps wouldn't have realised that she was the same ship. Intriguing how they felt the need to weld a piece of metal onto her bow to give the semblance of it being raked.....
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Just a note, the video I referenced, in it the ship appears to be partially guided loosely with maybe a wire hidden under water as it moves about at first and then appears to be guided to the dock, any method you come up with a dock could have a pusher bar hidden underwater that pushes side inwards to gently centralise the vessel, i.e. as the stern pushes the bar its connected like a scissor mechanism to a pair of long bars that push each side, all underwater hidden from view, will have to sketch it to explain the idea.
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The end of the ferry in the video is wedge shaped and appears to fit into an identical shape in the dock so as it approaches it locks into place. The video ferry must also be working on the chain ferry principal. I always used to be intrigued by these on the south coast of England.
But I like your idea of a guiding wire that as the boat approaches the dock helps it find the right position. However the ferry doesn't have to approach the dock at 90 degrees. If the boat comes alongside then we only need a mechanism to hold the outer side of the ship in place. The link-span for the rails is then a set distance from the dock side and automatically is in the right place to connect for the rails.
Most pictures I have seen of rail ferries docking seem to show that the ferry comes into a very tight dock that comes round both sides of the ship. The ship has straight sides as well so as it enters the dock it is lined up with the link-span to within a few inches. A locking pin on the link-span then does the fine aligning of the rails. This would be the easiest way to model this, and with a wider mouth to the dock that narrowed to the exact width of the boat, docking would be very easy to demonstrate, even when steering in reverse!
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Here is the sketch I thought might work to 'guide the vessel in' without it looking like the docks closed up around the hull, if the pincers are below the water therefore hidden when you push the stern against the centre arrow it pushes the pincers together, they interact with the hull sides an should in theory push the boat central. :D
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It's a beautiful day - almost the nicest day all year for sunshine and warmth!
So a quick sea trial just to see if she floats the right way up. Don't want a Poseidon Adventure!
Ballasted in the test tank, while the wife was out! 3 kg of lead sheet required and a lead acid battery.
Connect up the radio gear and to the pond, wife taking the photos.
Very nice turning circle with twin props. Good reverse control and the bow door comes up gently and slowly. Beautiful! Twin engines and tank controls takes a little getting used to but she can turn on the spot slowly with one engine forwards and one astern. Normal steering she can turn in two boat lengths with reduced revs on inner engine.
More photos later.
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Here is the sketch I thought might work to 'guide the vessel in' without it looking like the docks closed up around the hull, if the pincers are below the water therefore hidden when you push the stern against the centre arrow it pushes the pincers together, they interact with the hull sides an should in theory push the boat central. :D
That looks great! This will be the next step now I know the boat floats!!
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Gorgeous! You have definitly got the look, and she floats really well.
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Hello Edmund!
Beautiful ferry, really nice work there!
Some discussion here about your linkspan. I just started a thread on the subject under "Model boating". Perhaps some more ideas for you there.
All the best!
Hama
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A little trawl of the internet has come up with some pictures of train ferry docks as I imagine the one I might construct for Freia. These two photos of the docks at Dover where therre was a large tidal range. So in fact the ferry would come into a sort of graving dock and when in the gate would be raised from the dock floor and then water pumped in to raise the ferry to the exact level of an almost fixed link span. What interests me is that the dock is almost the same size as the ferry and so the ship is guided into place and can then be held by the link-span.
Entrance to the dock is on the right hand of the top photo, the ship backs in and connects to the link span.
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And here is a German arrangement, on the Baltic with very little tidal range and the ships back in to ship shaped holes and link into the rail tracks.
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With regard to the Dover train ferries - they were only ever stern loaders. They had buffer stops toward the bows in the main. If a ship was 'multi-purpose' (for instance the BR vessel Vortigern), then the buffer stops were portable and the central pair were a heavy duty beam linked as a counter-balance to the bow watertight door. The ships would only ever load and unload rail traffic over the stern.
Other than estuarial train ferries across short crossings, I am not sure that many actually loaded across the bow as the openings were not wide enough. That is not to say that "Freia" didn't - I am not familiar with her so cannot comment on her arrangements.
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Apart from a few double-ended small ferries run in Denmark the majority seem to have loaded and unloaded over the stern as you say.
I do have one picture I have found of Freia with bow door open appearing to be connected to a railway link-span though one cannot be sure as there is no train on it! "Freia" is said to have been innovative - the bow door was one feature but the fact that cars could be loaded by the ro-ro method seems to have been the main feature of innovation and on the main route she ran on she apparently mainly carried cars rather than trains
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Back after a bit of a break - here is some docking video if you click on the YouTube link below.... I might now build that dock.....
Video uses slow motion for more realistic effect. I now need to practise with both ship and camera!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqptOtkp3EQ
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very nice
she sails well . You could build a dock were she wedges her self in so she lines up.see link
john
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy0G6x1pBq0
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And another view....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZO5Omm--f0
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very nice
she sails well . You could build a dock were she wedges her self in so she lines up.see link
john
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy0G6x1pBq0
One day maybe - that is quite a set up - I like it!
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Here is a film of another of my ships the MV Gullfoss. She is the same scale as the Freia, also built in Denmark, but a cargo and passenger motor vessel built in 1947 to sail between Edinburgh and Reykjavik and Copenhagen which she did until 1974. I have fond memories of sailing on her. Always very rough on the three day crossing and my mum and I always seemed to be the only passengers enjoying the food for some reason!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x3RPRv-A8dk
Anyway enjoy the video!
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It's a long time since I posted but here finally is a video of the Freia docking on a linkspan.
The creation is very simple. A tiny magnet attached to the underside of the linkspan attaches to a similar magnet on the bow and the stern of the ship. Ship approaches and the linkspan automatically attaches. Even the rails line up! I tried a magnet on the side of the ship to attach it to the dock also but the Freia couldn't pull away. Instead I use a guide bar which you can see in the video, but which will be painted black eventually when the dock is completed. The linkspan is enough to hold the boat in dock until you want to sail away.
So if you watch the video through you can see both forward and backwards approaches on to the linkspan. No bow thrusters used - everything depends on twin props. It was a rather blustery day and the ship gets blown about a bit! Now to populate the dock with buildings and paint it. Others in our club have produced some fantastic docks which we can set up on sailing days.
Enjoy the link to video on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/vYoDCbTPyuY