Engine Rooms and other spaces on ship and boat models .

No :

  I built it so sections could be opened up and so on . I made sections of the deck removable with the seams hidden by gear and structures .The deckhouse was removeable and opened in two halves like a LEGO model .

I have the 1/35 Italeri MAS boat kit. I am definitely planning to do that. The deck is one piece and is held down to the hull by screws. Hiding them isn't too challenging.

The below deck is pretty spartan, crew room forward, pilot house well, engine room and fuel tanks.

The hardest part of it are those three big Isotta Fraschini 18 cylinder three bank monster engines. I can't find anything even close. Oh and there's a little Alfa four cylinder inline for puttering around.  Otherwise not a hard project.

I find getting scale drawings of engines much more of a challenge than getting drawings of ships.  I have found a few on aircraft engines in scale drawings books a few years ago and one on a race car engine, but for the most part, I have had to draw up drawings myself, only possible with very common engines.

I moderate a Yahoo group called heatengines, for discussion on all kinds of heat engines- steam, gas, diesel, etc. It is very slow in traffic these days.  I think I will put out a call for folks to document and make drawings of any engines they have access to.  Don't know if it will work, but maybe...

GMorrison

I have the 1/35 Italeri MAS boat kit. I am definitely planning to do that. The deck is one piece and is held down to the hull by screws. Hiding them isn't too challenging.

The below deck is pretty spartan, crew room forward, pilot house well, engine room and fuel tanks.

The hardest part of it are those three big Isotta Fraschini 18 cylinder three bank monster engines. I can't find anything even close. Oh and there's a little Alfa four cylinder inline for puttering around.  Otherwise not a hard project.

When I was assembling the Revell Schnell boat, I was think how cool it would be to open a couple of hatches back there and show off some engines, like they were being serviced/installed.  I got wrapped up in other portions of that project, though, so didn't pursue it. 

Only ship model I have that has an engine is an unlimited hydroplane, which came with a nice Allison V1710!

Don :

    Depending on the type you should be able to get engine service books from the car makers or aftermarket publishers Like Motor's Repair Manuals .

Well I need a 57 liter 18 cylinder engine with the three cylinder banks 45 deg apart!

The ship that I think has the most prominent engine room is the African Queen!  I do remember someone kitted that ship- I think Dumas or one of the other wood kit mfgs.  Seems to me the kit was supplied without engine, the engine was a seperate aftermarket item.

Model Shipways has a nice, 1/24-scale kit representing the Union picket boat that sank the Confederate ram Albemarle. The little steam engine, the boiler, the coal lockers, and everything else are exposed. One of our club members built it, and it came out great.

For those of more modest ambitions, and smaller pocketbooks, Cottage Industries offers a resin version of the same boat in 1/96 scale - with or without a resin Albemarle to go with it.

The problem with most cutaway models which show engineering spaces is that they do not provide for the myriad cables, connectors, boxes, intakes, exhausts, gratings and supports.    Simply plopping a motor in the space will not do justice

Look at Deadliest Catch when they sprint to the engine room to put down a hydraulic leak!  

The CMK innards for the U-boat may have come the closest.  But kits like the Revell cutaway U-99 [or is their U-47?] do a dis-service.  They have so much extra space that the whole U-Waffe could hold a cotillion in the engine room

That's true, esp. All the stuff like fuel filters and valves that can't be faked.

My project would have a  removable deck, so at least in theory the needed detail would be the top down view only.

So far I have found some nice 1/35 Carcano rifles for the wardroom rack.

Chianti bottles are proving difficult...

Hi , DON ;

I do believe Cheddar of England made an exact or fairly exact live steam engine for the Dumas boat !

Hi ,

   That's why when you get your frames and longitudals in there you start cabling and lighting up ( false ),  piping up etc.   .Cable and pipe time on the C.G. Cutter , one whole month ! This is why I build so they can be opened up .

Otherwise trying real lighting ,at the time I built that , would've made the process an agony instead of a pleasure.