Boats

"Rob Kemp" wrote

Hi Rob,

Do you realise just how big a boat is in 4mm scale?

John.

420cm is just over 13' 9" or did you mean 420mm, which is around about 16.5" :-)

But, as John says, boats are quite large, even in 4mm scale. If the area you are modelling is a Scottish loch, then look at getting a model of a puffer ( small Scottish coastal steam boat) or a small fishing trawler.

Here's a web site giving some details of a puffer

The boats were no longer than 67 feet so that they could get through the locks on the Crinan Canal, so a model in 4mm would be about 10.5" long.

Jim.

Atypical "Loch" steamer (Maid of the Loch of Balloch) was (is) 180ft which equates to 720mm ~ 2ft 4in. Being paddlers for the most part, were very beamy too.

"Rob Kemp" wrote

LOL - 300mm (30cm) is about one foot.

John.

If it's a 15 foot boat, it will be 60mm, about 2 3/8 inches long!

Alan

"Alan Holmes" wrote

Most rowing boats would be getting on for 15' in length.

John.

Trouble is, the puffers and fishing boats you see as commercially-available models are pretty much all post-war. The puffer models I've seen, specifically, are all Admiralty VICs (Victualling Inshore Craft), which were based on the last post-war puffer design. Hull shape and particularly deckhousing aren't right for the 1920s, when the puffer design still had much more inland waterways influence. Nigel McMillan, OTOH, with his 7mm Campbelton & Machrihanish models, has got the early puffers right.

Atypical is right. _Maid of the Loch_ was abnormally large for a lake ship

- it's one of the reasons she was a commercial failure. 120' would be more the mark for a large inland-lake or loch- paddler, 50'-80' for steam launches.

Thanks Jim, great help. Now where to get one?? Rob

Wouldn't a large percentage of boats be even older than the railway period being modelled?

(kim)

This company do a Clyde Puffer in HO scale - might be if use...

Stu

So a 20 foot motor boat would be 3 1/8 inches long!

Alan

Thats it! Thanks a lot Rob

You'd have thought so, wouldn't you? However, I've seem nothing from the "railway" accessory makers (Langley et al.) which would fit much pre-1950, and most of the boat-kits (in anything approximating to 1:70-1:90 or

1:40-1:50)are either late 20th century prototypes or much older. Given that a lot of coasting craft in the early 19th century had long lives I've thought of trying to adapt a 1:50 or thereabouts version of the 1830s Dutch paddle-sloop _Curacoa_ as a west highland mail steamer, a la a smaller version of MacBrayne's _Glencoe_ in 'O', but haven't got around to it to date. There's nothing 'off the shelf' that would suit the 1870s-1920s time slot, though :(

Now that's not bad at all - I wasn't aware of this lot.

The stern is rounded off - so this is a puffer, not a VIC. That would be a perfectly good representation of one of the newer, better (big fleet) puffers of the 1930s. For an older boat, cut awat the wheelhouse and replace it with something representing canvas screens. For an older boat still (1870s build, probably still around certainly to the 20s) mock up a rounded casing at afterdeck level for the top of the boiler, make the funnel longer and put the wheel on afterdeck level behind the boiler.

If I was modelling in OO I've be in the market for at least three :)

(snipped)

And for anybody else interested in the subject, here's another Clyde Puffer available a litttle closer to home

Don't how good this is?

Also a steam dredger

Hope this maybe of interest

Stu

Again, she;s got a round stern so pre-WW2: she's actually a really good representation of a Glen- or Light- (I've not got refs to hand, so it's hard to be sure which line she's most like - but big-company anyway) line Puffer of the middle 1930s (I'd guess mid-30s on, with the angled front[1] to the wheelhouse, but it'd be easy to adapt the model to earlier boats. The basic hull could be used to as a starting point to represent pretty well any puffer from the 1870s on.

Drift-net fishing boat, and very typical of east-Scottish steam fishing boats of the 1910s on (actually, I suspect the model may be based on an Admiralty adaptation of a drifter design for minesweeping during WW1, but the design was typical of best pre-war practice and 'most all the surviving boats went to fishing in the 1920s..). Not what you'd find on inland water normally (anymore than the puffer would be) unless there's a canal..

Suggestions on that: (a) The Invergarry and Fort Augustus Railway (originally operated by the HR, then by the NBR, taken over by the L&NE at the grouping) ran to a pier on the Caledonian Canal at the foot of Loch Ness. If the I&FA's plans had worked out then it would have extended to Inverness. Hypothesise that this happened and the Invergarry & Inverness (as it becomes) is worked jointly by the NBR and HR, and thus becomes a LN&E and LM&S joint line. Interesting possibilities there. Alternative: (b) The predecessor to the (NBR-backed) West Highland Railway (which was built from Glasgow to Fort William) was the Glasgow and North Western Railway, which was backed initially by the NBR and then by the Glasgow and South Western and would have run from Glasgow to Inverness. Now about a joint NBR/G&SWR worked "G&NW" station on the Caledonian Canal, modelled in post-grouping days? More awkward than (a) 'cos DJH and /damme, I forget/ do Highland Railway engine and stock kits, but there's very little around for the G&SW that I can think of. Or: (c) There were endless plans by the Caledonian and the North British for railheads on Loch Fyne (Ian Futers has modelled some of these) - try one of those :)

Very much so. Perhaps I really ought to move back to 4mm/' !

[1] Seriously de-luxe stuff that! The VICs certainly didn't have it.

Which not particularly useful here, there are of course various military torpedo and rescue boats from the 1940s (WWII) available. While I suspect not many layouts could house the 1:72 Flower class corvette kit, I've seen least layout one with one.

The Dutch firm Artitec do various ship kits, but I don't know what periods they represent.