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Author Topic: Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"  (Read 6010 times)

Welsh_Druid

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Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"
« on: October 15, 2008, 10:05:39 pm »

Early this year I rather liked the idea of building a model of a cruise ship. The models in the Steinhagen Modelbau range interested me and I decided that the "Arkona" would be a suitable model to build.

This is obtainable from Steinhagen as a GRP hull plus laser cut styrene interlocking sheets for the hull sides, the bridge and the funnel structure. On the styrene sheets the windows and doors are superbly cut but the interlocking tabs on two sheets each side are not accurately cut - easily fixed but dissapointing at the price.

 Plans are available of the layout of the ship which include all the decks plus the side elevation. All at 1/100 scale which gives a length overall of 63 inches ( 160 cm).
The plans are not model building plans and are rather difficult in some aspects to interpret so reference to photos of the full size ship are invaluable. Theses too are available from Steinhagen - 40 prints in all but even so I had to download as many photos as I could find on the internet to help in some aspects.

The cost of all these items was rather high ( the euro rate of exchange has now pushed the price much higher).  I had some difficulty contacting Steinhagen and had to enlist the invaluable help of Jorge ( White Ensign) who sorted the transaction for me.  I have covered all this previously in the thread " With a little help from your friends" but thanks again Jorge.

There are no building instructions or help of any kind. You must source all the rest of the material needed and it is an experienced builders project.

I have powered it with two Graupner 700 bb turbo motors. It turns out that with these it is grossly overpowered and very power hungry. They are to be replaced with less powerful motors and bigger batteries. ( At present there are 2 - 12v 7a/hr batteries.) It needs more weight in the stern so the rear battery will be replaced by a 12v- 12a/hr.

The front battery runs a Roebosch bow thruster. Very effective -it will spin the boat very rapidly but gave problems. The impeller is just a push fit on the motor shaft and somehow distorted and broke loose. I have now replaced it with a brass fabricated impeller soldered to the motor shaft.

The twin 40mm 4 blade props give good forward and reverse thrust and combined with Actions controller/mixer the turning circle is superb. These controllers really are very good indeed. Power for the RX is supplied by a BEC unit from Dawnmist (as recommended by PMK) connected to the 12v battery.

There is a very lot of detail on this model and not a lot has yet been fitted. However last weekend the weather was very suitable for a maiden sail so it was tried out.

It looked super on the water and now I can get on with the rest of the building.

Photos following show various stages in the building and the first sail at Llanberis.

Note that in the second,third and fourth photos the hull has had to be cut away in order to fit the laser cut styrene sheets. As supplied you would otherwise have to cut out all the windows in the GRP hull !!!!

Don B
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Welsh_Druid

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Re: Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"
« Reply #1 on: October 15, 2008, 10:11:27 pm »

more photos
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Welsh_Druid

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Re: Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"
« Reply #2 on: October 15, 2008, 10:32:24 pm »

more photos
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hama

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Re: Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"
« Reply #3 on: October 15, 2008, 10:43:25 pm »

Very, very impressive! Thats the kind of modelboat I would like to have once in my life. Thanks for sharing, please show more when time comes.  :-))
Hama
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Bunkerbarge

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Re: Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"
« Reply #4 on: October 15, 2008, 11:05:42 pm »

That looks absolutely superb and sits beautifully on the water.  Does she handle well and is she stable?  Does it catch the wind like the real ones do?

I could not begin to imagine having to cut those windows from glass fibre so the styrene sheet idea sounds like a good one.
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barryfoote

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Re: Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"
« Reply #5 on: October 16, 2008, 08:53:26 am »

Beautiful. Keep it coming..
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Welsh_Druid

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Re: Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"
« Reply #6 on: October 16, 2008, 10:43:14 am »

  Does she handle well and is she stable?  Does it catch the wind like the real ones do?


As it is at the moment it needs a little more ballast and trimming down at the stern. I corrected it on this first sail with loose heavy items in the stern and it made a lot of difference. The new heavier battery should help to sort this out.  It surprised me how stable it is. As it has a fairly flat wide bottom I could get all the heavy items -  batteries, motors, controllers right down low where they need to be and surprisingly the upperworks fabricated out of styrene sheet are fairly light. I did make a point of keeping weight above the waterline to a  minimum .

Of course there are many more details to add on top - rails, stairs, lifeboats, cranes, winches etc but as I will be making these myself from styrene or balsa and not using heavy white metal castings there should be no problem.

It heels a little when turning tightly but this is at non scale speeds.  There was not much wind when first launched ( perfect conditions) but later the the windage was noticeable, especially downwind when it tends to wander off course - but easily corrected as the steering response is excellent mainly due to the Action Electronics P94 controller/mixer. Into the wind it goes as straight as I could wish.

Broadside on to the wind it heels quite realistically (but not worryingly) reminding me of the last cruise I was on ( Fred Olsen's Black Watch) when a force 9 wind directly abeam induced a very noticeable list to Port.  And it drifts off course quite a bit with the wind abeam.

Don 
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Bunkerbarge

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Re: Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"
« Reply #7 on: October 16, 2008, 12:07:37 pm »

It actually sounds like it handles very realistically Don.

An interesting point you make about the weight of the detail items on top.  This is actually very important on real ships nowadays which get increasingly larger but still maintain relatively shallow draughts to enable them to get into as many ports as possible.  This gives them little resistance to windage effects and reduces the stability by moving the centre of gravity that bit higher.  Real cruise ships compensate for this by making the highest structures as light as possible and in my own particular vessel the funnels are fibre glass, the uppermost structures which are actually fan rooms are also fibre glass and even the mast on top of the aft funnel is fibre glass.  All in an attempt to keep the high up weight down and try to push the centre of gravity that bit lower.
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TugCowboy

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Re: Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"
« Reply #8 on: October 19, 2008, 09:28:42 am »

What a beautiful model, I really would love something like that.

Alex
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Welsh_Druid

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Re: Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"
« Reply #9 on: December 11, 2008, 04:02:48 pm »

UPDATE[

Its finally finished and complete except for the passengers.  A lovely calm day today at Llanberis so attached are the latest photos.

Don B.
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Roger in France

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Re: Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"
« Reply #10 on: December 11, 2008, 04:14:16 pm »

Well done, Don. She looks superb.

I do hope you intend to "populate" her as I am one of those modellers who considers a model to look less lifelike than necessary if there is no crew or passengers.

Regardless of that, she looks superb.

Roger in France.
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Welsh_Druid

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Re: Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"
« Reply #11 on: December 11, 2008, 04:19:33 pm »

Thanks Roger - but where do I get a lot of 1/100 scale people ?   %)

Another view of her today attached.

Don B.
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cos918

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Re: Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"
« Reply #12 on: December 11, 2008, 04:56:02 pm »

hi don She is looking good. As for figure the German company preiser do some . If you go to 4D models and down load there catalog you will see them on page 62 and 63. Note in railway scales HO is 1:87 and TT is 1:120 they do 1:100 figures but hey are aimed at the architectural model makers.

john

http://www.modelshop.co.uk/products/p_01.htm
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Capt. Spaulding

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Re: Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"
« Reply #13 on: December 11, 2008, 05:35:21 pm »

Splendid model. A feast for the eyes. Bravo.
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Captain Jack

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Re: Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"
« Reply #14 on: December 11, 2008, 07:39:17 pm »

WOW! A true master build. Just out of curiousity, could you put cost to build figure on this? It looks like a project I might wish to tackle over the next few winters. Retirement is looming, just don't know if I need to sell the house to finance it. %)
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dan

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Re: Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"
« Reply #15 on: December 11, 2008, 07:45:50 pm »

beautiful looking ship, but i wouldnt want to cut that number of windows and port holes, it would drive me nuts  %%
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Garabaldy

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Re: Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"
« Reply #16 on: December 11, 2008, 08:15:02 pm »

how did i miss this thread before?!

Its really nice, looks amazing on the water.  very neat.
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cos918

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Re: Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"
« Reply #17 on: December 11, 2008, 08:18:51 pm »

WOW! A true master build. Just out of curiousity, could you put cost to build figure on this? It looks like a project I might wish to tackle over the next few winters. Retirement is looming, just don't know if I need to sell the house to finance it. %)

Hi there  I don't know what the $ against the € is. But to buy her in the UK from Germany you will need to sell you house as the pound is weak . She is €210 + €60 + €74 +P/P Post to the US is going to cost as fair bit.

john

Cost page 2 item no 35  http://www.steinhagen-modelltechnik.de/download/smt-netto-Preislisten-2008-IV.pdf

home page  http://www.steinhagen-modelltechnik.de/index.htm
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hama

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Re: Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"
« Reply #18 on: December 11, 2008, 11:12:35 pm »

Very impressive! Hope to see some more pics of her cruising later on. Well done!
Hama
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Captain Jack

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Re: Cruise Ships - The "Arkona"
« Reply #19 on: December 12, 2008, 04:21:47 am »

Thanks for that info, Cos....I'm eyeballing the website now.
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