Paddle boat - Designing a paddle?

[Bubba1235]

Ok, I know a paddle wheel is not efficent and is very old tech but I'm still kicking the idea around for one. Problem is, I haven't been able to come up with much in the way of plans or designs. Sure they look simple but there has to be some sort of parameters for one like how wide should it be for a given HP, how deep should it sit in the water, what sort of RPM makes sense and when does higher RPM just mean more thrashing of the water, etc. Does anyone have any sort of information or web link for one?



As to why I want one? I seen one this past summer in St. Louis and people were lining up and handing over $7 just to take a 15 minute ride on one built on a 24' toon. I guess it was the novelty of it all...

 

[ncnjeremy]

Re: Paddle boat - Designing a paddle?

Sounds like a fun little project. Shouldn't be too hard to take on. I never tried it so I can't advise much on it, but.... Subscribed!

 

[oops!]

Re: Paddle boat - Designing a paddle?

buy an old toon......and drop two briggs and stratton on it. one for each side. or if you wanted to get kinky....drop two electric motors on it....and run a genny.

the less draft the better. as far as the beam....with toons it does not matter. but wider means more toons

 

[ncnjeremy]

Re: Paddle boat - Designing a paddle?

Oh boy!!! we are going ooooold school now!!!

 

[oops!]

Re: Paddle boat - Designing a paddle?

hmmmmmm

i would think single motor aft wheel....

the reason being that a single with two wheels would require a crank shaft running across the centre of the boat......you could put it under the deck frame.....but it would require major redesigning the toons in that area or under the frame above the toons.

but a steam aft?.......loads of fun

 

[oops!]

Re: Paddle boat - Designing a paddle?

lol...you could sell steam dogs made from the excess form the boiler

 

[ncnjeremy]

Re: Paddle boat - Designing a paddle?

lol...you could sell steam dogs made from the excess form the boiler

yummy!

 

[smokeonthewater]

Re: Paddle boat - Designing a paddle?

DEFINITELY a stern wheeler.. Although you could put the engine in the rear with a transmission and clutch dogs going to each side and chain drive forward to the wheels.... BUT a stern wheeler would be GOODER......

 

[smokeonthewater]

Re: Paddle boat - Designing a paddle?

agreed... the rear engine was for side wheels..... for a stern wheeler I'd put the engine inside a center console.... what about a 10" wide flat belt drive with wooden pulleys inside a guard of course going to the rear. Something like you'd see running a mill from an old tractor.

 

[smokeonthewater]

Re: Paddle boat - Designing a paddle?

it might but then they ran water pumps with em.... might need too consult an old farmer

btw check this out
http://users.wirefire.com/gemort/contents.htm

 

[2ndtry]

Re: Paddle boat - Designing a paddle?

So, how would you steer a sterndrive paddlewheel?

 

[2ndtry]

Re: Paddle boat - Designing a paddle?

So, how would you steer a sterndrive paddlewheel?

Looks like Smoke posted a link while I was typing, that answered the question. Which is, four rudders:

Slower moving sternwheelers require much larger rudders to produce adequate force for suitable handling. Also, since the paddlewheel is turning much slower than a propeller, this too necessitates larger rudders. Therefore, it's almost impossible to get rudders on a sternwheeler too large.

All personal size sternwheel boats will have a hull size which can be controlled with a compliment of four rudders. Two of these should be positioned between the wheel and the hull. These will do most of the steering when going ahead and backing. A second smaller set should be positioned behind the wheel to assist maneuvering at slower speeds.

 

[bekosh]

Re: Paddle boat - Designing a paddle?

So, how would you steer a sterndrive paddlewheel?

There's a large sternwheeler (50-60ft) that runs around on Lake Winnebago. It has rudders but it is also twin engined. The sternwheel is actually 2 wheels and each half runs on one engine so they can reverse one paddle and pivot in place.

 

[wa_ssv197]

Re: Paddle boat - Designing a paddle?

Christine W is a sternwheeler and the rudders are chain driven.

 

[oops!]

Re: Paddle boat - Designing a paddle?

lol....you could allways just fake it......hide a merc 50 under the deck and have a huge wheel freewheeling off the back......lol


it would sure look funny up on plane !

 

[H20Rat]

Re: Paddle boat - Designing a paddle?

since you are going for a fun home built project, i'd also add a couple bow/stern thrusters. Scout around your local craigslist and watch out for old electric trolling motors. You can often ones that only work on high speed, fisherman can't use them any more but for this use they are perfect! It would be fairly easy to rig them up on a push/pull cable system and more or less give yourself joystick control!

 

[ncnjeremy]

Re: Paddle boat - Designing a paddle?

lol....you could allways just fake it......hide a merc 50 under the deck and have a huge wheel freewheeling off the back......lol


it would sure look funny up on plane !

I wanna see a video of that from the front!!

 

[r.j.dawg]

Re: Paddle boat - Designing a paddle?

You know, as I read through this thread, what popped into my mind was those aquatic harvesters you see in marinas digging out the weeds. They steer by a hydrostatic transmission similar to the ones on bulldozers, that enables the side paddles to go either forward or backward. Independent of one another. Now this is a project that has really piqued my interest.

 

[ncnjeremy]

Re: Paddle boat - Designing a paddle?

That is pretty cool now!

 

[dwco5051]

Re: Paddle boat - Designing a paddle?

I have had this idea for many years and even picked up used steam jenny and thought about firing the boiler with batteries and an inverter. Charge the battery with an alternator driven from the engine. Found out how much the kit to build the steam engine was and figured I would build it when I became rich. That day still hasn't come.

Figured I could really confound the authorties on the many small lakes in Pennsylvania where regulations say electric motors only, no internal combustion engines. My prime mover would actually be an electric motor driven oil burner.