Cold novembre "I was building a 1/96th scale model of the Missouri back in 2004 when I almost drowned testing it. I had blown a fuse and swam out for it on a cold November day" Wowee. What a facinatin story.....
I'll be scaling down most of my N scale ships to Z scale. This is the first year that I've taken a "winter sabbatical" in Alabama, and haven't quite figured out what tools and supplies to bring down from Ohio.
Yep, that was me and though I didn't want to give up on finishing the ship I sold it. I figured I'd never get it finished and had no way to haul it without buying a van to transport it. This event did get me to thinking of another hobby and when I spied the MTL Z cars in a hobby shop I figured it was time to jump ship.....bad pun intended. Still think about the ship from time to time, but my Z friends all over the world have more than made up for missing my boat.
I did the math on your 1/96th scale USS Missouri. That model was over 9 feet long! That's very impressive. Andy Tetsu Uma
Yeah a little off topic, but I just got back from a scale model convention in Colorado (IPMS) and we had a ship modelers BBQ at a local lake. I shot some video of a couple of the ships in action. I thought you all might enjoy. I brought the 1/96 DDG home with me to sail on some Missouri lakes. [video=youtube;MM8mVDsPnt0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM8mVDsPnt0[/video]
Yes, this is off topic, but I'll continue it a bit more. Just viewed the video and a thought popped into my head. Since model ships don't produce any prop wash because of size, what if.............if the props were of such a very slight angle of pitch that they would barely propel the ship forward, which would be more true to scale, and the props were spinning ridiculously fast due to a high speed motor, would there be any prop wash that resembled the real thing to any extent? I'm always wondering how we can make our models, any models perform and look more like the prototypical. Inquiring minds want to know Thanks Brandon.
I don't think you will ever get a scale effect for the wake. It's unlikely you will be able to churn the water enough to get that pretty white wake. But scale speed is possible by just laying off the throttle! But what fun is that? One of the boats at our meet that I didn't get video of was a Ms. Budweiser that did a scale 400 mph. Not very realistic but very cool! Now who is going to be the first to do a 220 scale container-ship for their poolside rail-to-ship terminal?
Seems to me that one could add a water pump to the model with an appropriate shaped nozzle under the stern to generate the wake and perhaps in Z scale, that jet of water would be enough for propulsion. Mark
Sorry to deflate any balloons, but water is probably the single most difficult substance with which to work in modeling, and the smaller the scale, the bigger the problem. The crux of the matter is that water will always be 1:1. The laws of physics will operate against any creative attempts to produce any sort of realistic effect at a small scale. Real water even looks bad in O scale! Countless modelers have attempted to make waterfalls on their layouts only to find they wind up with a) an unrealistic dribble, and b) a serious mess. Even if you have a 100% watertight system, real water raises the humidity of the surrounding area to levels that can adversely affect the rest of your modeling, from warping wooden structures to corroding locomotive parts. For some, the only way to learn this is to try it; hopefully others will save their time, money and effort by heeding the advice of those who know. Even the great John Allen made the attempt and quickly learned his lesson. About the only time real water has been effective is in large lake or harbor scenes, where boats move so slowly they create no wake. Miniature Wonderland has done this; but realize that the final effect came at an astronomical price for the R&D involved, the mind-boggling materials consumed, and the daily maintenance performed by a small army of paid personnel.
