| WaltOHara | 22 May 2013 6:48 a.m. PST |
Hi, all, I'm trying to make some steam powered boats in the 15mm scale, and I'm stymied about how to make a decent paddlewheel without spending weeks on it. My thought was to find a 3 inch half cylinder from somewhere and add paddle tops to it with styrene, but I can't even find a decent half cylinder shape in any medium. Any suggestions? My intention is to make something basic that I could recast with resin so I could make a small fleet of kitbashed paddlewheel steamers. |
| Cloudy | 22 May 2013 6:56 a.m. PST |
PVC pipe sliced in half? Curve a piece of styrene? |
| Jana Wang | 22 May 2013 7:12 a.m. PST |
Stack a few of these and cut them in half. link |
| Jana Wang | 22 May 2013 7:13 a.m. PST |
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 Editor in Chief Bill   | 22 May 2013 7:34 a.m. PST |
Inside of a roll of tape? |
| 45thdiv | 22 May 2013 7:53 a.m. PST |
Go to a home do it yourself type store. You can look in the wood finishing trim section for all types of shapes to use. You buy it by the foot so it will only be a few dollars. Matthew |
 John the OFM  | 22 May 2013 8:10 a.m. PST |
I have a few very hard inner cylinders used for carpet or vinyl. Think of very strong toilet paper rolls. They are 3" in diameter and 3 feet long, with a wall thickness of about a quarter inch.
PM me your address and I will ship them to you for postage cost via PayPal. If you have a bandsaw, or access to one, they might work. |
| Gunghogan | 22 May 2013 8:28 a.m. PST |
There is a very nice hard plastic tube inside adding machine tape. |
| Cleburne1863 | 22 May 2013 9:09 a.m. PST |
Go to a plastic model or hobby store. Look for Plastruct supplies. They have all shapes of plastic tubes you can cut to the right half-diameter. plastruct.com |
| snurl1 | 22 May 2013 10:59 p.m. PST |
Peanut butter jar lid cut in half? |
| bsrlee | 23 May 2013 4:28 a.m. PST |
Plumbing section of the local BigBox hardware store. Since you only need a small amount just look in the fittings bins for some pipe joiners which you can then saw in half, giving 2 half cylinders. If you are building a whole fleet you might get an off cut piece of PVC pipe in the scrap bin if they do cut-to-length. |
| firstvarty1979 | 23 May 2013 12:06 p.m. PST |
Walt, See if you can find a PVC Shower drain that looks like this one:
Finding one with concentric rings like this might be difficult, but if you can get a couple of these to put together, you'd have a nice representation of a paddle wheel with the addition of a few piece of sheet styrene, wood strips/coffee stirrers, or popsicle sticks. Oh, and I don't think you really want a half, but more like three-quarters or more. See in this image how little of the wheel actually is hidden by the water:
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| Syncman | 02 Jun 2013 8:38 a.m. PST |
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| Darth Mortim | 02 Jun 2013 9:27 a.m. PST |
Just a thought, but have you tried the inside reel of packing tape or cutting off the end of a container of pringles? I used them for cylinders when scultping some battle terrain for a few game scenarios. ~Darth Mortim, Lord of the Sith |
