Curunir Steam Ship

When the evil-doers of Isengard need to do something wicked sick on water (preferably a calm river with trade that needs it's wealth extracted) they call upon the A-team of boat crews: The half-men-half-orc-half-elf of Isengard: 200% Neo-Swedes, with 500% limp wrists! These "guys" "man" the ship I am building currently (I picture Saruman engineered and then ordered the construction of this first ship and then a sister ship, later he constructed a big one, a battleship able to take to the choppy seas of Bay of Something-or-other-in-Lord-of-the-Ringsien).

Following the idea above (turn it all up a knotch and eeer'thang'll be better) I thusly and concordedly started planning. But first I had to make a hull. I started with the galley hull that mr Joshua gave me, but I decided after some trying-outs that I shan't use it, and instead make a new hull from skratchz.

How many chimneys should I add? It obviously has two steam-boilers...

Hull was made from polystyren that I cut up semi-carefully and then "planked" with thin plasticard on it's sides and thicker paper that I scored with a razor-thingie on top to add "realistic" planks.

I decided to wait with the decision on how many chimneys and started to make the ship suitably low-fantasy with a tad of Isengardian rivets and protruding things. The things sticking out probably have a name in English, they are essentially shelf-holder-uppers. Riveted, secure iron things that will hold a little platform in place even when the swell is a whopping two feet.

Inspired by an actual steam boat and it's engine room I got a tour of, I added the weird things on the sides (the ones that look like toilet rolls on a stick), though I can't remember what they are or why they exist on a steam engine for boats. The boat I got a tour of had a propeller though, so it might be the wrong thing to add. They looked nice so I kept them.

When planning the ship I wanted it to be playable with regular rules, so I made the hull quite wide, approximately 25-30% wider than a ship of this length "should" be (I think it has less sea-worthy proportions than a barge but that's a compromise I am fine with). The platforms and other areas are made to barely hold a 25 mm base.

Harpoon Ballista, two shovel-wheels, two steam engines and one help-engine for the two saw-blades, a ram and some other interesting gear will be it's main equpiment.

In this picture it is obvious that the ship is steam powered, with a shovel on each side. It has a wooden hull with iron reinforcements. The above-hull building (term for this in English?) is made with iron plates, for various reasons that Saruman himself decided upon.

When I made the saw-blades I...

... realized a thing... how in the actual fluck does these things work? Cue duckduckgo:ing and you-tubing and two or three hours later I was slightly more informed than before. I added a thing, like a bowl with a huge safety valve on the side of each mechanism where it is attached to the hull, and if I knew the name of these things (which would be roughly one third in size in real life) I would be very impressed with myself. And then I added the belts that apparently were used to power saw-blades.
    The saw-blades are huge and almost-high-fantasy which is why they can be removed and another cool thing can be attached in their place. A cool thing of less high-fantasy character.

Obviously, the ship is made to be compatible with The Hobbit-movies' silliness so, as I said above, I added two effective, steam-powered saw blades to cut up any smaller ships and/or to cut through for example an intruding Palaran or Pelargir Messenger, or for self defence against any of Middle-Earth's watery weirdos - of which I shall make a post about later. I shall not disturb my concentration with this post...

 

... ideas are like stupid birds sometimes...

- - -

In the end I went with the fantasy-ish style on the chimneys and attached one big chimney and two smaller, angled ones (at perhaps 22 degrees, someone can correct me here maybe).

The ram does not look like what it is: An afterthought. But it needed that to partly better the ship's proportions and partly to add to the offensive capabilities of the ship. The idea is to have sea battles on a big table, so I need all the contraptions and things I can get. In any case the ram was attached without problems and added to the look, I think.

Without ram but with the Harpoon Assault Ballista and the two smaller semi automatic harpoons on gun-platforms attached on the sides of the hull. It is almost as well armed as the Death Star.

 Well, not really, but it will definitely be manned by fuck-ups like mr Motti (see above for funny-times).

So, this is where we are at now. Naturally this has been done late nights when all the other things have been going on. Painting will be a whole other business and I suspect that I will be on the other side of the world by then. Good bye Sweden with your bombings (we had like 10 of them last week, a police station, a police car and some residential bombings), trucks of peace, idiotic Swedes that think that everything is fine because you have an expensive car (=no public transportation) and live at the right address and not have to deal with people that hate you.

Although this is likely in Russia, we're starting to see things like this now with the Great Influx of Gypsies. Just a reminder to myself that it will be nice going to a country without 10000000 beggars littering and pooping around 100% of all food-shops.

Happy-boat-ending, forget my rant above...