Aero,
Thank you for the compliment. Coming from a skillled modeller like you in so many areas means a lot.
I still have my Seawolf with a unique "bilateral" airbag that really dives beautifully.
Also have been distracted lately with Wing Nut Wings WW1 super detailed 1:32 static plastic planes.

Ray, my nemesis, you have no idea what awaits in our next encounter...
remember who won the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, etc etc...
Clear the decks!!! Run out the guns!!!

DanL, I'm curious about these Wingnut planes you mentioned - Tell me more! Did you get one? Googled and saw their website - looked pretty neat. Never seen them before! Did you get one sent from New Zealand? Let me know if you want to discuss this on another more appropriate subject thread.

Oyster,
Seems that 1/48 scale is very popular (also 1/72) for WWI plane modelers, but 1/32 is coming on strong. Wingnuts and Rodin seem to be thw most accurate and most detailed 1/32 models available. The WNW models are now considered the gold standard. I am building the Junkers J1, and have the other three that they have on the market.

New ones are coming out mid-March. Shippong from NZ is free (for now) - included in the price.

Two websites to look at are:

http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/models/

http://www.aeroscale.co.uk/modules.p..._id=106&page=1

Let's pichk this up on the aeroscale thread

My build is at
http://www.aeroscale.co.uk/modules.p...=153993&page=1

Thank you, sir!! I haven't been able to peruse all the sites you listed yet, but have the addresses copied and will take some time looking at them after some immediate chores....I just might hafta order one! I realize this discussion is off the thread topic, so remove this stuff if you want. Thanks again, and see you on another site!

I'd like to see and hear about an hour of the vid on post #11. That is a cool video with great musaic. Pete

Pete,
That post was Jerry's jibe at me (I think) cuz it takes me 45 minutes to set up the Syren for sailing.
It's a clip of the Niagara being set up after winter storage. She sails teh Great Lakes each summer with training crews. I was on her for six days two summers ago.

The Syren and Niagara are contemporaries and actually have a lot of similarities.

Much more info here:
http://www.flagshipniagara.org/flags...gara/index.htm

Aw, it was no jibe at your set-up time, that's Ray's department
I just thought you'd like the vid

One of the Naval Academy's Modelers Group posted some shots of Flickr of the Niagra under sweeps.

Could this be the next trick Syren learns?

I'll have to find my square drill and put in some sweep ports...

With the brass barrels of 18 firing guns, the battery for the guns and the rotary switch, over 2-3/4 lbs was added to the Syren. Add on a couple of extra ships boats, a couple extra servos etc and the weight adds up.

The bow was getting pretty low in teh water, so I decided to trim the keel. Took a saw to it and then reshaped the leading edge. Took off only 1-3/4lbs, but that should help a lot.

The original cart was an upright two-wheel dolly with wood panels shaped to hold the hull (see pic of Paratrooper's cart for Surprise). That was OK but sometimes a problem because the yards hit the cart uprights, and sometimes it was hard to get the cart under the hull when taking it out of the water.

The next cart was built like a boat trailer - the Syren could be slid into and pulled out of the water pretty easily, sometimes even without getting wet. It was also pretty stable and was a much narrower load than the transverse mount two-wheel dolly. Worked great at the local lake with a nice boat ramp. Had a heavy duty guide-wheel system for the keel that made it really easy to mount/dismount the keel.

But on the trip to Ohio to sail with Paratrooper, we had to get into one lake with a rock ledge. The trailer type cart was useless. I used Ray's cart.

Just built a new transverse two-wheel cart, but made a key change. Instead of being upright with the boat loaded, the cart remains at an angle. Keeps the uprights clear of the yards and should make launch and retrievel easier as the cart always stays in the same orientation. Also widened the axle to get a wider wheel base - a good trick learned from Ray. I'll be sailing this week, so will find out how it works soon. A "third-leg" is required to hold the cart at an angle. It's simply and oak board with some alignment stops that is inserted between the cart frame and axle. More stable than it probably looks...

I'll still use the trailer cart when a boat ramp is available, but the two-wheeler is the way to go otherwise.

The tilt back orientation of your cart to the boat concerns me as creating a leverage issue as you lower it at a bulkhead/seawall that you might loose control of, or could pull you in to the drink!

I'm probably going to have to contend with sea walls, bulkheads, and docks as often as ramps and beaches, myself and was looking at lowering the boat without lowering the cart.

The prior owner of my house left me a 20 foot aluminum extension ladder (2 ladders c.12' that slide within each other to extend to 20'). I was thinking of bolting on a set of wheels, a handle-bar, and a boat cradle and making a cart that would lower the boat into the water using a winch.

The problem was standing bolt upright at the edge, with 80-100+ pounds of boat cantilevered out there, without some sort of bracing seemed a bit precarious to me.

Tilting the truck back onto 4 wheels, like a hand-truck used to move refrigerators, seemed an option. The extra wheels could be made to fold up for packing and storage. The issue here is that the whole thing has to be so tall to be able to slide down far enough to get the boat into the water.

I attached a concept sketch, but exact measurements would have to be made to get the right angles, lengths, etc.

Jerry,
I like the slide design you show.
I attached a pic to show that the angles of the new cart are actually easier to deal with than the original cart design, either on a ramp entry or a drop off entry.
The upright design has the prob at times of the cart handle interfering with the lower yards, preventing a lateral slide out of the cradle. The angle design makes both the lateral slide launch or forward "dump" launch easier.
The only funky reqmnt of the angled cart is that you have to have a separate tripod leg to insert to hold the ship upright on dry land. The leg is simply a 1/2" x 3" oak board abot 30" long that is inserted between the axle and cart frame to lock it in as a third leg. It has two alignment blocks screwed/glued to iy to hold it from shifting/slipping. Actually very stable. The wt. of the keel alone keeps the cart from falling backwards.

Dan, that is a great improvement on the original cart - solves all the problems.

My original choice for sailing Mariette was a local coastal lagoon where I used to sail my 10-Rater many years ago. Alas, it seems like it has silted up quite a lot since I started building Mariette (we are talking geological time frames here !), so with a 600mm draught, running aground there looks like a certainty !

So the next choice was a local estuary - nice deep water in the main sailing area, but the boat ramp is few hundred metres upstream & its too shallow there (not to mention a bridge which would not clear the masts). The rest of the accessible water's edge is 3-4' high rock walls, & only launch point left is a floating pontoon.

This got me thinking along the lines of Jerry's sliding design - without a kind benefactor to bestow an extension ladder, my thoughts were based on aluminium "C-sections" as the main fixed rails, with square section tubing (fitted with a number of nylon wheels set at 90deg) as the inside sliding rails. My preliminary designs looked much like Jerry's, but with "footplates" replacing his rear set of wheels (something to stand on & counter-balance the 30kg of boat out there on the end of the slider). I got as far as finding an old cordless drill motor/gearbox setup to use as the winch - BUT ....

All this looked good until my last visit to the site when I realised that access to the floating pontoon was by way of a gangplank - complete with handrails on each side, about 5' apart. So much for wheeling the trolley down the ramp with Mariette sideways on the dolley (she will be about 8' LOA) !

So current thinking is to construct a 2-part trolley :

a) A boat trailer cradle setup like Dan's to get the boat down the ramp & onto the pontoon.

b) An angled slider setup which can be latched & locked onto the side of the boat trailer cradle for the actual launching over the edge of the pontoon.

With a draught of 600mm & a drop from the pontoon to the water of 400mm, the slider will be a big one with over a metre of drop - I'll probably get fined for using a forklift without a license !!!

Life would be boring without these minor challenges !!

Kind Regards,

Peter D.

BTW - Mariette's ply sub-deck is now on (courtesy of slow-cure epoxy & 300 tiny brass nails) - that was Occupational Therapy 101, so now on to OT 102 (80m of 1mm x 4mm limewood deck planking).

Originally Posted by DanL

Just built a new transverse two-wheel cart, but made a key change. Instead of being upright with the boat loaded, the cart remains at an angle. Keeps the uprights clear of the yards and should make launch and retrievel easier as the cart always stays in the same orientation. Also widened the axle to get a wider wheel base - a good trick learned from Ray. I'll be sailing this week, so will find out how it works soon. A "third-leg" is required to hold the cart at an angle. It's simply and oak board with some alignment stops that is inserted between the cart frame and axle. More stable than it probably looks...
.

Very intreguing. I like the way the yards clear the cart. I have had some struggles with mine especially on a breezy day when I would try to launch and the wind wanted to keep the ship up against the cart. I always have to get in the water though--I have not found a sure way to launch and keep my feet dry. The ship is just too large for a near the edge launch. I am looking forward to a post showing this method working. Good on ya mate!