Arun Queen's vIsit to the Southwater Dabblers

I took Arun Queen to sail at the Southwater Dabblers Model boat club, it had a lot of interest and people kept asking me if they could see inside bcz they had never seen a hand drill used as a paddle wheel drive mechanism before!
Here she is showing off her maneuverability.
.

Steering and stair cases.

I make the stairs from Costa Coffee shop stirrers! Great for decking too. though a little late for this boat. Despite making up a jig to set the position of the treads they still came out a little wonky! I suppose I ought to make some hand rails though Murray cargo vessels didn't bother. Maybe some benches from the afore mentioned stirrers would look nice and add some interest to the top deck.






Also photos of my unconventional steering system!

The Arun Queen

The two new photos show a photo from the web of the same type of toy aircraft carrier that the hull came from (I omitted to take one before I started) and the now Arun Queen with her new life belts made from toy car tyres and even a fire bucket! I've since filled in that uneven gap at the base of the wheel house with a skirting strip.
The problem is it all started as a lashed together experiment and now that it works I'm trying to tart it up to make it look like a scale model...well I guess it'll end up somewhere between to two! I have some port holes made the make the super structure look more interesting and I'd really like to add some more detail behind the funnel, maybe add a Murray style vertical towing pole, it makes sense to tow from the middle of the vessel as towing to close to the stern counter acts any rudder action and would prevent it from maneuvering around the bends in the river.
(Link to a photo of a steamer towing a barge)
http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/itemimages/156/995/156995_Large.jpg

A very short maiden voyage!

I'm very glad I didn't take my son's advice bcz it had a bad leak behind one of the paddle wheels and would have sunk! That's why it was listing so badly. Is {hopefully) fixed now and other wise every thing went to plan, my unconventional twin rudders work well too! It a shame for the video that the top deck lid wasn't down fully.

99% there.

There is still detail to be added but I hope to launch it some time this week. Being an Aussie vessel you will notice that the skipper has got a few kegs of the amber nectar on board!
Sorry this blog has been over run by this build, to see the footys scroll down to older entries.

Testing my speed controller.

Testing my built from junk speed controller. That LM338 voltage regulator runs very hot though as it is dissipating too much power, I will try to find a battery closer to the 8 volts or so I actually need rather than the 13 volt one I have at the moment. I guess I could water cool it! But it proves it all works!
From left to right: Direction change micro switch-Servo-Speed potentiometer- Push to break power micro switch -direction change relay.
That hand drill bevel gear drive is a little noisy but that's all part of my boat's old school-low tech charm I guess!




Just added this video!

Progress!

As you can see I've started to build up the superstructure, to prevent it getting too top heavy it is mainly made from balsa, I have since these photos glued on the splashers and filled in the gap at the top. (and all the gaps where parts don't quite fit!) The battery was nearly flat so quite convenient for a test in the bath, I didn't want full power just a cruising speed and even like this it seemed impressive! The speed regulator board (LM338 chip) has just been tested on my bench and I will try it on the boat's motor tonight, now I need a 12 volt relay for reverse switching and and probably a second micro switch so that the motor is totally disconnected and not draining the battery when in the stop position. The main job left is designing and fitting the twin rudders that sit behind each paddle wheel, this seems far more sensible than one rudder trailing behind in the center where it would have far less influence and be more likely to be damaged.
Btw the doors came from the original aircraft carrier though they weren't doors, kind of louvers of some sort,I turned them round to show the back just bcz i thought they looked like a ships doors, probably more water tight and ocean going than you'd find on a river boat but never mind. I'm also going to use the aircraft lift platform as the bridge's roof as it has a nice planking pattern on it, why not.