Ilmarinen, the first steamboat in Finland [COMPLETED BUILD]

Thank you Moxis for the description and size of the craft and explanation of your donation to the Museum at Riihisaari which I had a look at by following your link. I loved your word ‘Bugspread’ I think that you probably mean ‘Bowsprit’ but I like Bugspread better. Congratulations on your build and it must be pleasing that many others will now enjoy seeing your labour of love.
 
Thank you for your kind words Peter and Tony! I am also glad that my humble project got you joining this wonderful group. It would be nice to see your build logs here too.

And yes, I am very glad that the museum accepted my model into their collection; until today I have not seen or heard of any other model of S/S Ilmarinen, so this might be the only one in the world.
 
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Thank you for your kind words Peter and Tony! I am also glad that my humble project got you joining this wonderful group. It would be nice to see your build logs here too.

And yes, I am very glad that the museum accepted my model into their collection; until today I have not seen or heard of any other model of S/S Ilmarinen, so this might be the only one in the world.
Thanks for your interrest. I will invite you to click on the hyperlinks in my signature ;). But actually, I'm not the person to focus attention on himself.
Regards, Peter
 
Hello Peter. Now that I have seen your builds of Robert E Lee and Ducati, I wish I had never shown anything here. So superior are your models compared to mine that I just have to stop publishing anything anymore here. I just have to take the hat off the head & start learning from you and other specialists here, how the real MODELS must be built.
 
Hello Peter. Now that I have seen your builds of Robert E Lee and Ducati, I wish I had never shown anything here. So superior are your models compared to mine that I just have to stop publishing anything anymore here. I just have to take the hat off the head & start learning from you and other specialists here, how the real MODELS must be built.
Hello Moxis,
I have given your reply a like, but I don't like your decision to stop publishing ;). Although I make the assessment that this is 'transferable'.
So please keep on publishing. As I mentioned in a other build-log, everybody is his/her own master/specialist, depending on his/her own skills. And what you build is your model and you build it in the way that satisfies yourself.
Your IImarinen is unique. And jou made it scratch from a plan. TOP build!
If you had not published it (and didn't has your birthday :)) , we would never been in contact with each other. And therefor is this forum.
Regards, Peter
 
After a relatively dull building of a hull, now something more exciting: Building of the side wheels. Each of the two wheels consist of 4 pcs rings and 16 pcs spokes, which all have to be very accurate and similar to be sure that the wheel is symmetrical and rotates nicely. The only way to achieve this is to produce the parts machinally, either by cutting them with a laser or a cnc router.
My first idea was to let them be cut professionally out of brass with a laser. This is why I drew the parts with CAD and sent the drawings to laser cutting companies for offer. But after receiving the offers I noticed that prices are so high that the only possibility for an elderly retired hobbyist is to make them by myself.

So, I had good quality 1 mm aeroplane plywood at home, and my good old trusted cnc router had nothing else to do, so I started the production. Here the router is cutting parts for a wheel. The milling cutter used has 1 mm diameter:

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Central part of the wheel is made of brass tube which can be slided on the 5 mm silver steel shaft. Hubs for wheels are turned of Sikablock. It is very nice material for this kind of work, machinable plastics almost like hard wood but no grain. Wheels were assembled on a jig using PVA glue for plywood parts and epoxy for Sikablock:

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To strengthen the joints and give some authentic look for wheels small plastic bolts were glued onto holes drilled for them:

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Ready made wheels were treated again with a mix of milled fiberglass & epoxy, to give them more strength and make them water resistant.

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And finally the wheels were installed on the shaft with "dog clutches" by drilling 2 mm crossholes to the shafts where small pieces of 2 mm steel bar were pushed. These correspond to the grooves milled into the wheel hubs. 3 mm bolts keep the wheels at their
 
Fantastic build this! I really like your engineering solutions. If I ever get around to build a r/c ship I will use your epoxi/ fiberglass combination for the inside of the hull.
 
Hull inside walls were made next. All kinds of clamps are necessary in this project:

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And then the fore and after decks were made:

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Work continued fast because the captain was superwising:

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And very soon all the decks were ready:

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Being a Chief Officer my humble experience is that work tends to slow down when the master starts supervising
This is a really fantastic build!
 
Lovely build Moxis,

I enjoyed reading your blog, pity she didn't get into the water.

Great use of your NC router, really enjoyed watching your video the sound you engine was making sounded perfect.

Your workshop looks so clean, puts mine to shame, my workshop is in a perpetual mess with short periods of cleanliness.

I am going to look at your lovely looking steam engine soon.

Cheers,
Stephen.
 
Thank you for your kind words Stephen!

I would also have liked to see how she would behave in water with side wheels spinning and water splashing. But those museum people persuaded me to change my plans.
But to be honest, I am a kind of guy who likes more building the models than using them, so perhaps this is better choice by saving me of further disappointments.

CNC router is really a nice machine for model building. I am using it more and more to produce parts faster and more accurately than with old school tools. But to utilize its possibilities better needs full time learning of design software. Until today my router is only a 2D or 2.5D, which I would like to upgrade to 3D, but that would need to change my software for 3D, which I have tried but found it too much for my ageing brain.

My workshop is seldom as clean as in those photographs. This is due to the Admiral who always complains about its cleanliness and persuades me to clean everything nearly daily. And of course this helps me too to work there because during the recent years I have noticed wood dust to irritate more and more my respiration leading to possible asthma.

When building the steam engine I really liked accurate machining even so much that now I am considering buying a set of castings for a more complex Compound Launch Steam Engine from Stuart and starting to build it. But that would need building of even larger boat than before, so that would be a many year's project. We will see what happens....
 
I have had the opportunity to visit Matti’s workshop and see all his fantastic tools and machinery, not to mention the models he has produced over the years. For me, as a beginner in this genre, it was an eye-opening and impressive experience to have the opportunity to meet and I repeat my earlier stetement to Matti, that it would be important that these pieces of art would somehow be made public to a larger audience.
The amusing thing is that his wife is building top class doll-houses in the adjacent room! Healthy competition!!!!
 
Thanks a lot for your kind comment Lasse! I remember very good our meeting and conversations about the model building. We could renew this and perhaps consentrate this time into your wonderful models too. Have you been building more models? If yes, could you show them here as well?

And I agree completely that it would be much better to locate the models into some museums for people to see them, instead that they are only gathering dust at my workshop table. At the same time more valuable space would be available on the workshop tables for more models to be built. Luckily I have had the possibility earlier to take three tank models ( Sturmgeschuez III, T-26 and Willys Jeep) into Parola Tank Museum, and now those two ship models into Savonlinna, so situation is getting gradually better.
 
Already for many years I have been interested about Ilmarinen, which was the first steamboat in Finland. She was a side wheeler, length x beam 26,2 x 4,0 metres and built 1833 in Puhos, Eastern Finland.
For many years Finland had been supplying timber into St Petersburg (Finland was part of Russia those days). Normally this was achieved with sailships, and journey from eastern Finland into St. Petersburg could last several weeks. At the beginning of 1800 however information about steam powered ships reached Finland too, and a young sawmill owner Nils Ludwig Arppe made decision to have such a boat built locally to shorten considerably the time of transportation.
So in 1833 a new ship was built. She was equipped with a side lever steam engine producing 34 hp and made by Alexandrowski mechanical workshop in St. Petersburg according to plans and instructions of Mr Matthew Clarke from England. She had an open hull so that the boiler and steam engine were easily visible.

Unfortunately not much information has been remained about her, after many studies I found only a few paintings but not enough to start building:

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But then, when trying to find more information of her, I contacted the Naval History Society of Finland asking possible drawings for Ilmarinen, and it was a big surprise that they had quite nice drawings of the ship and it`s machinery. So finally the build could be started.

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My intention was to build the model in 1/24 scale. So I took the drawings into professional photoshop and asked them to print the drawings in this scale. That went well and in a couple of days I had beautifully printed drawings and the build could be started.
The main idea is to build a radio controlled model of her. Because the steam boiler & engine are very well visible at the ship`s hull, I plan to build her a working engine, powered not with steam but with an electric motor which will be hiding in ship`s construction so that it looks like the steam engine is powering the sidewheels. I hope this main idea will be successful. That we will see in the future.

Anyway the build was started in a usual manner by first preparing a steady base out of thick plywood. Bulkheads were cut of balsa plywood and attached into base, and planking made with strips sawn of aspen.

Making templates for bulkheads of cardboard and using an illuminated desk:

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Bulkheads attached into the baseplate:

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Hallo @Moxis
we wish you all the BEST and a HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Birthday-Cake
Enjoy your special day
I hope, that you are working actual on a new project !?! Maybe you have the chance to show us ....
 
Thank you very much Uwek!

For a long time I have concentrated on other projects than ship models. But lately I have become again more and more interested about them, and who knows if I might start a new project soon.
That will be a model of Tarmo, the first icebreaker in Finland built in England 1907. I have thought to build her in the scale 1:50, resulting into model of appr. 134 cm length. The ship is situated at naval museum in the city of Kotka which gives me possibility to visit her and take as many photographs as necessary to build as accurate model as possible.

 
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