The Tyne Paddle Tug 'Eppleton Hall'

[Faraway]

This is a new type of build for me, I've never done a paddler before. Probably because there are very few paddle boat kits 'out there'.

I've already done the two other kits from Neomega, a Clyde Puffer and a TID Tug. Both excellent little kits which were not over complicated and went together well, so it made sense, to me anyway, to build this.

 

She still exists, and is in the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, it is a shame that she is not here in the UK. Hey Ho.

As you can see from this this box, the kit is in 1/144 scale and is resin and PE, so lots of cutting and sanding before bits can go together.

 

So without further ado, here we go.

 

A nicely cast hull

 

With nice thin bulwarks. Neomega have provided decals for the name, which might be easier to apply than paint the letters. I shall ponder this once the hull is painted.

 

A detailed sheet of PE.

Although, as you can see, the name is incorrect. And Neomega do apologise for this.

 

Lots of bits and bobs, I'm sure they will make sense as building progresses.

 

As I am doing her as 'waterline' the same as the other two, she has to have a crew.

These are also from Neomega, difficult to see how they are but a coat of primer will sort that.

 

As you can see, the moulded deck planks nicely produced.

 

But, rather than paint them, I thought I'd add real wood, so......

The camera or lighting seems to have leached the colour out of it, it is a lot browner than this.

 

It is often said,  that I seem to build quite quickly so I will keep a record of days and times for this build.

Jon

 

 

[Faraway]

And so it begins.

Day 1 

1hr 57m

 

Cut out the foam.

I'll add waves etc later.

 

As I'm going to cover the deck with wood I need a couple of templates to lay over the wood deck sheet, so I can cut it out.

 

Let the cutting begin........

[robgizlu]

Yup - dats der one dat I saw.  The finished one on the stand was really nicely done.  wish I'd taken a pic

This is going to be good

(Wish it was available in 1/350 )

Rob

[Bertie McBoatface]

It looks like your crew are wrestling with sea monsters

[dnl42]

5 minutes ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

It looks like your crew are wrestling with sea monsters

 

I was wondering if some manner of canoodling was afoot... 

[Ray S]

9 hours ago, dnl42 said:

 

I was wondering if some manner of canoodling was afoot... 

 

I am SO glad I was not the only one thinking along those lines - except I was thinking the crew were down in Davey Jones's Locker wrestling with octopi

 

Ray

[Faraway]

@Bertie McBoatface @dnl42 @Ray S 

I can see I’m going to have trouble with you three 

Jon

[Faraway]

I spent three hours yesterday, assembling one of the paddles and it wasn’t until I was nearly finished that I began to think something was amiss.
 

I’m going to post an update later, but first I’ve got to reread the instructions.

 

I think port and starboard have got muddled up, once I’ve figured it out in me own head, I’ll try to explain what I think has gone wrong.

 

But so far, I think the problem is partly my lack of experience in building a paddler, and didn’t really understand what I was doing.
And the instructions saying a part was for the port side, when it was actually for the starboard.

At the moment, I do know that a part pictured on the instructions shows seven spokes, but the actual PE part has only six, but I don’t think it will make much difference, as half of the wheel is hidden in the wheel box and the other half isn’t there, as I’m doing it ‘waterline’.

 

See you in a while.

Jon

[Faraway]

OK.

Here are the instructions.

As you can see they clearly say that the PORT paddle box is shown and that the actual brass piece has P on it. But the piece shown in the drawing has a different arrangement of spokes and the actual part is marked with an S.

And the spidery piece (RED) clearly shows seven legs, but the actual brass piece has only six.

So, I'm going to use Port brass with Starboard resin and visa versa.

 

As you can now see with this dry fit assembly, there is not a lot of the wheel to be seen.

 

How often do we come across vague instructions ?

Anyway, once these two Paddle Wheels are assembled I doubt it will be noticeable. 

Jon

[Bertie McBoatface]

1 hour ago, Faraway said:

How often do we come across vague instructions ?

 

It seems to be particularly common in maritime modelling. 🙁

[ArnoldAmbrose]

3 minutes ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

1 hour ago, Faraway said:

How often do we come across vague instructions ?

 

It seems to be particularly common in maritime modelling. 🙁

Gidday, I guess that's an advantage of scratch building model ships  -  no vague instructions. 🙂 In fact, no instructions at all, just diagrams and photos. 😁

Mind you, that can be equally confusing.  🤔  🙁  😫       Regards, Jeff.

[dnl42]

Hm, the instructions do look vaguely like the parts...

 

I can't find good images of the prototype's paddle wheels, but a couple suggest they are articulating or feathering, which could explain those microscopic inner pieces where they expected several bends. 

[Faraway]

10 minutes ago, dnl42 said:

Hm, the instructions do look vaguely like the parts...

 

I can't find good images of the prototype's paddle wheels, but a couple suggest they are articulating or feathering, which could explain those microscopic inner pieces where they expected several bends. 

I just wish that there had been seven legs, one for each paddle blade.

I’ll add some photos later, but it looks ok as you can only see a couple of blades when it’s assembled. It’ll look even better when it’s got a coat of black paint.

Yes, you are right, the very thin legs contect to the blades and would cause the blade to rotate slightly.

I found this explanation on this website.

 

https://maritimearchaeologytrust.org/

 

 

ADVANCES IN PADDLE TECHNOLOGY

The problem of fixed floats (the paddle blade thrusting against the water) was that maximum thrust was only possible when the blade was at the six o’clock position (at a right angle to the water relative to the direction of travel) meaning that, at any other position during its immersed rotation, a specific float would exhibit reduced power. This inefficiency was apparent from the outset of paddle driven craft. In response, the feathering paddle wheel was first patented in England in 1829 by Elijah Galloway, with rights transferred a decade later through an intermediary to William Morgan, who developed the design that became the standard for many paddlers – each paddle during the rotation of the wheel would automatically rotate slightly through a mechanical linkage thereby improving the angle that each individual paddle was presented to the water, thus increasing overall efficiency.

 

Jon

[beefy66]

Well Jon I see your not hanging around again mine arrived last month will hope fully pick up some tips for later will have a look on some of my holiday disc's might have a few of her from 2012 when we were in San Fran

 

Might take while for me though as not a lot of time going spare at the minute.

 

looking go so far though.

 

Stay Safe

 

beefy

[Faraway]

1 hour ago, beefy66 said:

Well Jon I see your not hanging around again mine arrived last month will hope fully pick up some tips for later will have a look on some of my holiday disc's might have a few of her from 2012 when we were in San Fran

 

Might take while for me though as not a lot of time going spare at the minute.

 

looking go so far though.

 

Stay Safe

 

beefy

Beefy. It looks to be a simple build, once the paddle wheel assembly is done. 
At least doing it waterline, you don’t see much actual wheel, do it full hull and the wheel will sort of take centre stage, as it were.

I’ll try and make this WIP as informative as I can.

Jon

[Faraway]

My forth day and 11hrs.

A finished paddle wheel.

Just need to mask the outer surfaces and then paint the rest black. 

 

The metal part of the deck.

 

Closely followed by the boiler house.

 

I'm aiming to finish her in this livery.

But without the red below the waterline. So, it would appear I'll be picking out some of the paddles in white.

These are the colours of.....

France, Fenwick Tyne & Wear Ltd.

I'll endeavour to find out more about this company.

 

So, that's the progress so far, things should get a bit easier now the paddles are done, they could have been so much better AND easier with better instructions and better PE. Never mind, it's done now.

Jon

[Faraway]

I’ve found this site, lots of excellent pictures which should make painting this ship much easier.

http://www.tynetugs.co.uk/eppletonhall1914.html

Jon 

[foeth]

There's a colour scheme in Thomas' volume British Steam Tugs too, matching the pic in your link labelled "Above photo of EPPLETON HALL lying at the breakers is copyright of Malcolm Donnelly". (Largely black, red hull/funnel strip, buff upperworks, not much new). According to the volume (which really is a gem!): "colours of her last owners, the Seaham Harbour Dock Co.".

[Faraway]

Day 5 / 15 hours

Metal deck masked as is the hull. You can't see, but I've painted the white line along the hull, I used white primer.

Inside of bulwarks painted the same buff as the boiler house.

 

Green on there hull above the red below waterline.

Once hardened off I'll mask it and then spray the rest of the hull black.

 

Scuttles in the boiler house given a brass and silver finish. I might put a drip of liquid glaze to represent glass.

 

The majority of deck fittings await paint.

 

Jon

[Killingholme]

Cool kit, and excellent progress. It would take me about a year to get here. I wonder whether the asymmetric paddle parts are an attempt by the manufacturer to depict the 'quartering' of the wheels? I.e. one wheel is a quarter turn ahead of its counterpart to equalise the action of the reciprocating engine. Just a thought!

 

Will

[Faraway]

2 minutes ago, Killingholme said:

the asymmetric paddle

I did wonder about that, I get the impression that this paddler would never actually go in a straight line.
More a gentle wiggle, bit like when you paddle a canoe.

Jon

[robgizlu]

Jon - nice work on the paddles which look Fab.  Your usual rate of progress is making me ask myself - what do I do with my time?? 

Rob

[Faraway]

Day 6 / 18hrs

That's the main part of the hull paint work finished.

Not sure how I'm going to highlight the lettering yet, I've a choice of painting them or using the provided decals. Decals would be neater IF I can get them lined up accurately and use a lot of decal fix to soften them.

Painting will need a VERY steady hand.

I will ponder further.

I might add a very thin line of red to the top edge of the green, to present the antifoul red, also I should add a fine line of the buff colour to the slightly proud line at the bottom of there bulwark.

 

These are the stencils I cut out earlier and I have now stuck them to the underside of the wood deck, prior to marking around them.

 

Like so.

Holes punched out, now to cut it out.

 

And bloomin 'eck they fit. Just needed a very slight trimming around the outside.

Even the holes lined up.

I think that has come out really well, so glad I used this wood deck rather than try to paint it to look like wood.

Probably add a bit of staining around the winch etc, after all this is the deck of a working boat.

 

That's it for now.

Jon

[dnl42]

As all your work, this is coming quickly and beautifully!

 

I too wonder where I'm losing so much productivity.  With that, I had better get to soldering that Beaverette body!

[ColonelKrypton]

21 minutes ago, Faraway said:

Painting will need a VERY steady hand.

 

Moving along nicely.

 

As to painting those tiny letters, a tiny brush and steady hand of course but something else to consider is an acrylic paint pen.  NOT a (alcohol based dye) Sharpie or the like but an acrylic paint pen.

 

Posca pens is one common brand name that are available in a variety of tip sizes and colours.  Winsor & Newton also have these but with only one tip size but a nice selection of colours.  I have been experimenting with the Posca pens and they are useable over top of other paints and easier to handle than a paint brush.

 

cheers, Graham