RMS Carpathia, Scratchbuild, 1/500 Scale

[Bandsaw Steve]

11 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday All, I don't think using the lifeboats is a sellout. Steve, will your model have anchor cable (chain)? If so, will you be making it yourself, each individual link, or will you use a piece of chain the correct size?

Home made link by link chain for me Arnold, and I’m going to mine and smelt the metal myself! 🤪

 

 I agree; democracy won’t work on this occasion because no-one is paying their taxes into my bank account! No representation without taxation I say! 😀

 

I hope the Martian 👽 is scanning these words!

[surfsup]

You are doing a cracking Job. Much better than I could do.....Cheers mark

[Courageous]

7 hours ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

Home made link by link chain for me Arnold, and I’m going to mine and smelt the metal myself! 🤪

True scratch builder talk that, while you're there, you can grow your own trees...

7 hours ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

 I agree; democracy won’t work on this occasion because no-one is paying their taxes into my bank account! No representation without taxation I say! 😀

Democracy doesn't work anywhere, ever thought of running for Prime Minister, of course you have.

7 hours ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

I hope the Martian 👽 is scanning these words!

Martian has many eyes for scanning.

 

Stuart

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Steve, If you're going to make your own chain you might as well make a couple of lengths for me also, I'll need them for HMS York. And I wouldn't worry about mining or smelting the metal, surely you can get it from Aldi, or maybe Ikea.

     As for democracy, have you ever read any of Terry Pratchet's Discworld books? (A little off topic here). You have to have a warped and twisted sense of humor to appreciate it, which is definitely me! In the books is a character called The Patrician. He believes in 'One Man, One Vote. He is the man and he has the vote.' He believes that tyranny is the only form of democracy that actually works! Like I said, warped and twisted. And very funny.

     Seriously though, I hope you get Carpathia built on time, I would really like to see it. But don't rush and spoil it. Regards, Jeff.

[Bandsaw Steve]

Tyranny has a bad reputation - but only because it’s never been me in charge.

 

Various folks have recommended the Discworld series to me but I’ve never got round to reading any of them; must make the time some day. 👍

 

 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Steve, again continuing off topic (after this I'll stop), I remember my father once saying to the class (he was a teacher and headmaster) "tyranny is a marvelous regime, if you happen to be the tyrant!" If I recall he was laying down the law on that occasion.

     And as for the Discworld series, I thought the first two were only average, but then he got into his stride, so to speak. Regards, Jeff.

[hendie]

I know you won't believe me but I posted somewhere in between your Whoops post and the subsequent Sell-Out postings.

 

It was incredibly intelligent, witty in places, outrageously funny in others, and sagaciously observant in a spot or two. There may also have been a hint of poignancy present.

It was one of those posts that only happens once in a lifetime. Honest. It was. I know you don't believe me but I did.

I did.

 

 

 

On 2/20/2019 at 7:22 AM, Bandsaw Steve said:

Whoops!  Just noticed - the forecastle is missing! 😦

 

Four Castles ?  Here you go...

 

 

[Courageous]

You can watch that sketch billions of times, know exactly what's happening next and still laugh. They don't make them like that anymore.

 

Stuart

[Bandsaw Steve]

7 hours ago, hendie said:

I know you won't believe me but I posted somewhere in between your Whoops post and the subsequent Sell-Out postings.

 

It was incredibly intelligent, witty in places, outrageously funny in others, and sagaciously observant in a spot or two. There may also have been a hint of poignancy present.

It was one of those posts that only happens once in a lifetime. Honest. It was. I know you don't believe me but I did.

I did.

 

 

Actually I do believe you Hendie. I noticed at the time that you had posted two ‘likes’ but no pithy comment and thought ‘that’s not like him - I hope everything’s OK.’

 

A shame your masterwork went missing. Apparently a lot of Shakespeare’s work was also lost, unlikely to ever be recovered.  A sad loss to Western civilisation. Perhaps your post will be found one happy day so that it can be added to the canon of English literature. 

 

Let us light four candles and let them burn as signs of our ongoing hope. 🙏 

 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday, I sometimes have posts go missing, on here and the ATF. But I think in my case it comes down to user error - I have a habit of hitting "Enter" on the keyboard instead of "Submit" on the screen, and hence it gets lost when I move on. Inexperience on my part. Regards, Jeff.

[hendie]

and there was me thinking this was supposed to be a quick build

 

 

 

*nudge*

[Bandsaw Steve]

Yeah - life / work and other such trivial issues are thowing up numerous barriers. Am spending a lot of time away from Perth at the moment so no opportunity to progress for the last couple of weeks.

 

Am aiming to something to post next Friday. Having this finished for WASMEx is looking less likely every day.

 

Never mind- there’s always next year...

 

[Bandsaw Steve]

On 22/02/2019 at 08:06, ArnoldAmbrose said:

 

     As for democracy, have you ever read any of Terry Pratchet's Discworld books? (A little off topic here). You have to have a warped and twisted sense of humor to appreciate it, which is definitely me! In the books is a character called The Patrician. He believes in 'One Man, One Vote. He is the man and he has the vote.' He believes that tyranny is the only form of democracy that actually works! Like I said, warped and twisted. And very funny.

     Seriously though, I hope you get Carpathia built on time, I would really like to see it. But don't rush and spoil it. Regards, Jeff.

Hi Jeff

thought you might be interested to hear that just prior to starting my current trip I bought a copy of ‘The Colour of Magic’ which I understand is Discworld # 1.

 

Rincewind has just met the Patrician - so have really only just started. So far so good though! 👍

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Steve, if memory serves Rincewind was a magician and confirmed coward, He always ran from trouble. The point was what he was running from - where he was running to was irrelevant. And from a standing start he could probably outrun a Monaro. I don't have any of the books myself, I got them out of the local library. I thought the first couple were OK, but it was the third or fourth book that he really got into his stride, to me anyway. Terry Pratchet, not Rincewind.

     And back to topic, how is Carpathia coming along? Without rushing (and possibly spoiling) it do you think you'll have it done by WASMEX? Regards, Jeff.

[Martian]

Democracy not working? If your not careful you will get mistaken for a British MP! (Joke Mods)

 

Martian 👽

[Bandsaw Steve]

8 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

 Without rushing (and possibly spoiling) it do you think you'll have it done by WASMEX? Regards, Jeff.

I think that there’s still a better than 50% chance I will have it done. When travelling for work we generally work over the weekend, this earns us days in lieu - time that I can take as days off in Perth working on Carpathia. So, if there are no major issues, I think I’ll make it. Can’t be sure though.

[Bandsaw Steve]

Lord Kelvin's Wake

 

Lord Kelvin died in 1907 so this isn't really about his wake - that was finished more than 100 years ago. It's about modelling Carpathia's wake using the observations provided by Lord Kelvin's in-depth studies.  Lord Kelvin - it seems - was a fairly cluey physicist and in addition to discovering all sorts of things about thermodynamics and magnetism and just how cold things can (and cannot) get he also looked at the wake of ships.

 

Here is a diagram summarising what he discovered. All vessels (except hydroplaning vessels) travelling over undisturbed water leave a wake in the configuration shown below.  This is the same diagram that I used to shape the wake in my AE2 build and I was happy with the result so I have returned to it to use it for Carpathia.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Simply put, the diagram indicates the following:

• After the initial disturbance at the bow (unsurprisingly referred to as the bow-wave) there is a trough - often small and not highly visible but sometimes quite pronounced. 
• The ‘bow wave’ is the first of a series of ‘divergent waves’  and is the only one that actually starts near the ship - the subsequent divergent waves form further away from the ships hull and are set-up in an en-echelon pattern.
• In plan view each divergent wave is curved - bending outwards from the path of the ship. Note that there are no straight lines in this pattern.
• A series of transverse waves also form, these are perpendicular to the ship's line of travel with each one curving backwards as it gets further from the ship's line of travel.
•  The divergent waves intersect with the transverse waves to form a series of cusp waves that spread back at 19.5 degrees from the line of travel.
• There is a turbulent wake zone directly behind the ship. It gently spreads out and flattens out as it gets further from the ship.

 

Feel free to google 'ship's wake' to see some examples of the pattern forming in real life.

 

Following Chris Floodberg's example, this time I'm going to try using extruded polystyrene foam (as used in roof insulation) - not expanded foam like I used last time. Expanded foam works just fine for this but I am after a different effect this time, so extruded it is. Here I am cutting out the bit that I want to use. Nice stuff this, more rigid and firmer than expanded polystyrene and has no bubbly texture. 

 

 

Here is my interpretation of Lord Kelvin's theory plotted on the foam surrounding Carpathia. Don't worry about the fact that the foam is electric blue - it will still be painted, and don't worry about the fact that Carpathia's decks have been painted as that was just a simple airbrush job.

 

 

Using a gas soldering torch I tested whether or not a convincing gentle wave form could be melted / imprinted onto this type of foam - and it can.

 

 

So after a few minutes with the soldering-torch, the sea around the Carpathia looked like this. It's quite smooth and that was the look that I was after as on the fateful night the sea was remarkably calm.  I'm going to leave it to the viewer's imagination to decide whether this is Carpathia on that 'night to remember' or whether it's just a generic sea-scape setting.

 

 

Now cut trenches where the wake must form.

 

 

Take some milliput and... 

 

 

Start filling in the trenches and forming the waves. Note that I ran out of green Milliput after a while and then switched to white. The two colours mean nothing more than that I ran out of one colour. 

 

 

And now here's how the whole mess looks. I've let it sit like this overnight so everything can firm up.

 

 

So that's the current state of play.

 

I have this weekend at home and am hoping to make some more progress soon.

 

Best Regards,

Steve

 

 

[Courageous]

I like what you're doing here Steve, looks like she's doing about 16 kts. 

 

Stuart

[Bandsaw Steve]

Many years ago I read a book on air-photo interpretation in WW2. If I recall correctly the photo interpretation crowd could judge a ship’s speed by the spacing of the transverse waves. Unfortunately I don’t have that book any more so I don’t know how to set the speed of my ship. ☹️

At this point I’m just going with ‘what looks about right’.  Any insight, either theoretical  or from the ‘real world’ would be most welcome.

👍 

[stevehnz]

From memory, at work at moment, Carpathia was good for about 17 knots, a similar speed to the Cook Strait ferries I think, you might find some aerial shots of them or similar vessels.

Steve.

[Bandsaw Steve]

Good idea - I might have a crack at that.

On a few occasions I have been out and about on Marlborough sounds and have been 

wobbled about by an inter-island ferry’s wake. 

Their wake forms nicely in the protected waters of the sounds and there’s plenty of vantage points for photos from above. 

[Nils]

Steve what your’e doing looks really good. When it comes to wave patterns, «the internet is swarmed» by aerial photos of ships at sea and my guess would be that a ship at similar size would do approximately the same speed and create more or less same wave pattern by a ship of similar hull design.

[Dave Swindell]

Hi Steve

I've been lurking with interest on this build as I plan on building this in 1/700 scale, I also have the Loose Cannon SS Californian to build first to go with it, I'm very impressed with what you've achieved so far.

For me, after 30 odd years at sea, the base can make or break a waterline model. I think sometimes a mediochre model can look better on a good seascape than a good model on a poor seascape.

You're halfway there to a realistic seascape by using the Kelvin wake patterns, and I do like the little ripples that have formed in the troughs of the background wave pattern you've already formed.

One thing that the wake pattern diagram shown above doesn't show is that the bow wave and the transverse wave have a different cross sectional form.

The bow wave has a broad U shape with sharp peaks and a relatively flat trough (as you've modelled them)

The forward face of the wave is generally at a steeper angle than the back.

The transverse wave, however, is a very flat drawn out ~ or sine wave shape, with a very rounded peak and with a gentle change in height over the full wavelength (ie not the sharp peaks you've modelled)

This image from wikipedia also shown here shows the effect quite well from above

Note also the change in angle of converged bow and transverse wave

 

 

There's a very good page on wake patterns on Steel Navy including indications of wavelength/vessel speed.

Another oft missed point is that propwash below the surface causes different colour patterns on the water surface in the area immediately aft of the stern depending on the number of propellers fitted.

If there's any backgound swell and wave pattern, the wake pattern needs to be added to this, meaning the final result can be quite complex to model.

[Bandsaw Steve]

Good tips about the cross-sections - fully noted. Might need to do a bit of re-modelling here.l

[Martian]

Nice work on the wake Steve. Of course, if its the actual night to remember she is going to need that lighting we all voted for. Does anyone have any ideas who we can get to perform the grand switching on of said illuminations? It clearly needs to be some sort of celebrity.

 

Martian 👽