Opinions needed from “smoke readers”

I think it's a really cool project!

My first reaction...and it's just a 'gut hunch'...is that your excellent wave/spray effect dictates that your smoke should be streaming much more horizontally with the wind direction. Photos of ships of the same class -- some at anchor, in calm seas -- still show quite a bit more dispersal to leeward.

Check this pic of Audacious underway in much calmer conditions on Wikipedia.

But once again, it's a really neat effort and a great touch for an action diorama.

Cheers

gregbale

I think it's a really cool project!

My first reaction...and it's just a 'gut hunch'...is that your excellent wave/spray effect dictates that your smoke should be streaming much more horizontally with the wind direction. Photos of ships of the same class -- some at anchor, in calm seas -- still show quite a bit more dispersal to leeward.

Check this pic of Audacious underway in much calmer conditions on Wikipedia.

But once again, it's a really neat effort and a great touch for an action diorama.

Cheers

 

Agree with Greg. A ship going at cruising speed will definitely have the smoke going horizontal. 

WOW!!!!!!!!!!

That head on shot looks FANTASTIC !

Take that picture again in black and white, and you would be hard pressed to tell it's a model ! 

Nice job !

Your work looks great .  .  . but, as a naval engineer, smoke was the enemy. The guys down in the boiler room would do everything they could to keep from having smoke go up the stack. Smoke, for engineers ('stokers' in the Brit navy) is a big no-no. You never want to have visible smoke going up the stack, white or black. It means that you are not doing your job, and if you emit smoke during combat; you're in deep @#!$@#. Need I say more? Hey, just trying to keep it real for you.

Worked in a Refinery Boiler House for a few years as a fireman and water tender. Making smoke was the absolute worse thing you could do. If any smoke was seen coming from the boiler house they recieved a phone call within minutes from the city followed by a hefty fine. 

Jim 

Stay Safe.

Well, smoke is smoke. And it will go where ever the wind is blowing, not to the rear unless there is no wind.

Up usually means the ship is stationary.

About the only time you want smoke is if you're trying to lay a screen to make it harder to target the more valuable ships on a task group.  ie.  Taffy 3, the DD's and DE's made smoke from the boilers and smoke generators to make it harder for the Japanese to target and range on the CVE's.

Like the idea though,.adds more motion and interest.

Here is an example of a battle ship smoking at full steam, the German battle ship KAISER WILHELM III in her pre-First World War condition. Powered by coal, ships of that era were smoker than modern versions. Depending on the direction of the wind, the trailing smoke hugged the top of the hull. If the vessel were at anchor with no wind, the smoke would rise upward in a column.

Happy modeling    Crackers

While I whole-heartedly agree with every point made regarding smoke being something to be minimized at all costs...I would also point out that, particularly in the age of coal-fired warships, the vast amounts of coal needed by fleets -- and the sometimes huge variation in the quality of the coal available -- meant that smoke was often just a fact of naval life, regardless of how experienced or skillful your engineers were below decks.

As to smoke hugging the top of the hull -- which surely happened -- a part of the skillset of naval architects was to design funnels and stacks specifically to draft smoke away from the ship's structures.

It didn't always work...but, heck, what does?

Leaving out the coal fired ships, oil fired ships should steam with a very light brown haze unless they were deliberately making smoke to hide other ships. There was a problem though, soot whould collect in the boilers and would need to be blown out periodically. This would normally be done at night so that it was not observable. In any case a ship underway would have stack gases (smoke) blowing back horizontaly.

oooh this has generated some valuable knowledge. Keep it coming. While were talking I'm going to try and thin it out, bring it down some and bend it over more to represent the wind. Let's see if the fiber optic cable holding it in place shows too much then. That could make it a non-starter. I've tried black and dark gray painted fiber and it shows more than leaving it clear. A flat coat might stop the reflection tho.

Hi;

       As a former Propulsion Engineer both in oil and diesel, I have the following comments . Firstly, what you have now is an obvious start-up of the turbines.The boilers are good and hot and the fires are hot enough to make that obvious almost vertical stream of very black smoke, It's still not quite up to heat is what the smoke is telling me!

    Also this indicates the ship is almost not moving, hence the vertical plumes! Based on the rest of this very active and exciting Dio, you need to stretch out the smoke and have it going over the stern Starboard Quarter. In the same direction as the water flow on the deck. Also Remember this, A good engineer would try Not to make smoke, unless it's a very sudden move in battle or getting ready to engage, No Smoke would be the rule! Why? The enemy can use your smoke to determine distance and speed.

    Back in the Day the Battle group Commander 2nd Flt Pacific( Usually a first level Admiral) would have a fit if his carrier or escorts made any smoke at all. You see there's a good reason here. Smoke shows a movement up to a higher speed in some cases. Flank Speed( U.S.N.) or Battle Speed ( Other Navies ) could result in a shot Plume. Not short, Shot! A sudden quickly disappearing outsurge of smoke from the Fires being increased and the Throttles opened suddenly. This was indicative of more burners turned in to increase the heat! 

   We had a standing Game upon which Most all the group members would bet on. Our ship Might make smoke! ( Never happen, Dudes!!) Captain Turner had standing orders, No smoke during the day and Blow Tubes ONLY at the darkest of night! Ours were water Tubes boilers therefore the soot had to be blown off the tubes for best heating efficiency! We were "Flag" of our Des-Div. ( Flag wasn't sloppy)

   The "Ozzies" won a lot of Money and Drinks once ashore! All I can say is Thank God we weren't using coal.That stuff is finicky and get a bunch of damp or poor Coal( Royal Navy's constant problem) Then you're going to have smoke, so that's okay!

   Good job and keep on doing this good, and You might get me back into doing A Coast Guard Dio again. At least one! P.S. I also want to remind you to raise the disturbed water and the width of it at the stern. Those big screws could make quite a lot of foam and disturbed water. It would, in U.S.Navy and others Destroyers and Cruisers make a Noticeable " Rooster Tail" It might be flatter due to the ship's hull shape and size, but there would be some big disturbance based on the speed you're indicating forward!

Tanker-Builder

... P.S. I also want to remind you to raise the disturbed water and the width of it at the stern. Those big screws could make quite a lot of foam and disturbed water. It would, in U.S.Navy and others Destroyers and Cruisers make a Noticeable " Rooster Tail" It might be flatter due to the ship's hull shape and size, but there would be some big disturbance based on the speed you're indicating forward! 

lo I actually had added 1/4" to it! Too funny. Guess I need to work on overdoing it to be just right :-) your rooster tail description tells me what i need to do 

Hi;

       I don't remember how many screws the King GeorgeV had either. Now, that said. In the case of a three screw ship you may have done enough. Just make the pattern a little bit wider.

       When I model Smoke ( which,by the way is rare) I always support it with a slightly stiffer Monofilament fishing line than I fish with. I usually, for heavy fishing go for the bigger fish like stripers. The line is just about right.

      Did you know? In W.W.2 the Allies wondered how the Japanese could find them at night, before Good Radar? The Japanese had a simple philosophy, if you see a glowing line it MUST be the Americans. The glowing line caused by diatoms and other small ocean critters glowing because they had been disturbed.The Japanese, being an island people had learned that from their sea-going fisheries industry!

Actually;

    No disrespect meant here. The ship in question in the photo is going about maybe eight to ten knots. Any faster and she would have a pronounced bow wave. Those ships moved more water than they really needed to. It was a design thing.

Other points, for general knowledge concerning oil-fired vessels; outside of boiler lightoff, which pretty much always produces a waft of dark smoke, dark smoke indicates too much fuel, and white smoke means too much air. Steady steamng with a good mix produces nearly clear air to possibly a very slight haze. Good running diesels will produce a light haze, except during start up or a heavy bell change.

And speaking of bell changes, both the fireroom and the engineroom get bells, but only the engineroom answers them. The guys and girls down in 'the pits' also talk during bell changes to keep each other informed so boiler header pressure isn't 'sucked down' too much and the boiler techs can put in or pull out burners as needed. 

Properly lit boilers emit no more than an amber-brown haze.

Boilers in oil-fueled ships (and many coal fired ones, too) are given air draft via powered blowers.  Keeping the flame out of the yellow, high carbon, range prevented building up soot on the poiler tubes and tanks, which kept them more efficient.

Also, KGV cruised about 12kts (around 22 kph, just shy of 14 mph), which is about 20 feet per second that the stack is moving out from under where it just had been.

So, the gasses ought to be at some diagonal aft of the funnels, barring very strong winds from a different compass point.

Now, there is a situation where a capital ship under way might spew some black smoke.  One of the ways to economise a ship is to run it on half the boilers.  This is very handy for pulling routine maintenance on the boilers, blowers and the like while underway. 

But, it does limit available horsepower in case of need.  Like needing to push into a contrary sea or headwinds.  In which case they might light off more boilers to have steam in reserve.  Lighting off boilers starts smoky and sooty (there's a stick with a hook the snipes stick oil soaked rags upon and light, to light off the burners through a port in the side of the boiler).

On USN ships with two funnels, a given funnel tpically serves half the engineering plant.  So, the lit off side will belch smoke until the boilers stabilize.  I'm not remembering how KGV was laid out, stacks per boilers, to know if one stack or the other might show smoke lighting off.

All good Skipper, but you ain't having fun until you're lighting additional burners off the hot brickwork!!       True family entertainment.

Ahhh this reminds me so much of my days working at the electric utility. The 1st plant i worked at had 6 down fired wet bottom coal fired boilers made in 1918 and were apparently also used in Cruisers at the time. I remember crawling between the tube banks . Dang were they tight. Hardest things to fix whenever there was a tube leak. All our boilers had precipitators though so it was rare to have smoke. We changed load and brought on and off burners but even deslagging floor tubes didn't result in much going out the stack. I still remember the woman who was a boiler tender. Always volunteering to deslag boilers. she was a bodybuilder and used it as part of her workout. Wow what a memory.

CapnMac82

I'm not remembering how KGV was laid out, stacks per boilers, to know if one stack or the other might show smoke lighting off.

The class had a midship longitudinal watertight bulkhead in the engineering levels; what contributed to the demise of PoW.

Bill

GMorrison

 

 

CapnMac82

I'm not remembering how KGV was laid out, stacks per boilers, to know if one stack or the other might show smoke lighting off.

 

 

Eight boilers; two stacks.

 

The class had a midship longitudinal watertight bulkhead in the engineering levels; what contributed to the demise of PoW.

 

Bill

 

 

oh and 4 screws. Forgot to answer tankerbuilders question above.

GMorrison

had a midship longitudinal watertight bulkhead

Oh my, I'd forgotten about that. 

Naturally, the trunking of stacks and intakes would split such a thing.

Naturally, all designs are compromises, and the areguments are legion about the 'best' way.

oes suggest that lighting off more boilers would "show" at both funnels.  Which is likely to be more eye-pleasing to the 'lay' viewer.

"Hot bricking"--the ways of snipes are myriad and arcane, much like the fruminous bandersnatch

But, that's ok; we often had to rouse out the snipes to light off at 0200 so as to not have envirowackos sic DNR/EPA on us for all that 'horrible black smoke' which could contain sticky soot downwind.  Smart Operations types made sure to rouse out the Bakers early to make sweetrolls and cinamon buns for the snipes in advance.

Hole Snipes / Black Gang; the last to get liberty and the first ones back aboard. And as I recall, we apparently had no "Smart Operations types" on any of the ships I was on; the only pastries I ever got were stolen from the Chief's mess .  .  . but that's another story entirely !!! 

Ok I've taken all the advice and gone back to try and blend reality with artistic impression. This seems close to the balance point where the smoke is so thin the fiber optic cable starts to show vs being hidden in most views.

Also i used hair spray this time to stiffen up the cotton. this allowed it to be spread thinner and to hold a bit of a shape. In this way the trailing edge of the smoke was broadened to look like it was spreading out some. 

Looks worlds better.

Looks amazing, actually!

Well done! 

That works well with how the White Ensign is flying, too.

Capital Job!

Hey HooYah!

   An experienced B.T would wait till a newbie came below and with a wink from the P.O. in charge Lite off on the Bricks. The boiler casing would literally jump out a foot. That Newbie was, by the time it settled down( Seconds) at the top of the scuttle trying to get out!

 Well:

     After all you've asked, and all that answered. And your response, I can only Say. Carry On Sailor, WELL DONE!! The way she is now, it looks like she's trying to steam off the base. Very Good!