# Rowing boat mechanism



## cladachb (Nov 25, 2009)

I am keen to go back to roots and build a rowing boat with a rowing mechanism and a man rowing. Can anyone help with plans or ideas?
DAMQ


----------



## benjidog (Oct 27, 2005)

Welcome from Lancashire - I hope you will enjoy the site.

I am sure that one of our many modellers will be able to help you.


----------



## Scousegit (Aug 18, 2005)

Try here for help: http://www.modelboatmayhem.co.uk/forum/index.php

Scouse.


----------



## treeve (Nov 15, 2005)

Popular Science November 1938 announced and illustrated such a toy. Driven by elastic band 'motor'. I had one illustrated in a book many years ago, I wonder if by any chance I still have it?


----------



## treeve (Nov 15, 2005)

Is this the type of thing you mean? A solar driven thingy by Greenex?
http://www.hktdc.com/sourcing/produ...6/Item_No_36014_D_I_Y_Amazing_Speed_Boat.html


----------



## treeve (Nov 15, 2005)

The magazines are all digitized and online on Google.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=iCYDAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&lr=&rview=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
It is on page 102, detailing a model available on the market.
In fact they are all available to browse - if you have mind for that ....

Having gained the image and enlarged it, it can be seen that the elastic band is a simple strained motor. It is locked in the stern and turns the pin at the position under the 'seaman'. The gear turns a worm which operates two discs either side of the knee positions of the 'seaman'. His feet and legs are in a fixed position. The oars are rotated by the end wheels, with the pivot gained in the captured rowlock slot. As the oar turns inboard (grip), the seaman moves his arms, and because of simple lever pinning, his body leans forwards and back. The blades rotate in sympathetic but a wider arc, dipping into the water and out again; I have to assume that there is another gear that introduces a rotation to the oar itself to allow the blade to cut surface better, but perhaps I am being too purist (or puerile!!). The model boat is 11 inches long; the rowlocks are 3 inches from the stern transom. Oars appear to be 6 inches long.

Is that what you are thinking of doing?
I cannot post the image here, copyright resting with Google digital images.


----------



## spongebob (Dec 11, 2007)

I once built a self propelled model boat, when I was about 9, from an idea in popular mechanics junior pages
It was a flat wooden shape out of a piece of 4"x I" nicely curved bow and aft with a 2" hole amidships and a narrow saw cut leading to the stern
Fill the bath with water, fill the hole with sewing machine oil and hey presto the oil slowly flowed out though the saw cut to propel the boat along albeit a bit slow.
By the time I had finished there was no oil left and you can well imagine my mothers reaction when she discovered the oily bath.

Bob


----------



## treeve (Nov 15, 2005)

I made one of those as well, with the same results!! Also a camphor-driven metal boat, another one had some kind of pellet that was set alight and burned to heat the boiler, and kind of jetted the water out through a looped tube.


----------



## John Rogers (May 11, 2004)

Maybe the Flemming self propelled design gear operated is the one he is thinking of. I think Flemming was the name.
Some old hands remember that design.

John.


----------



## Keltic Star (Jan 21, 2006)

John Rogers said:


> Maybe the Flemming self propelled design gear operated is the one he is thinking of. I think Flemming was the name.
> Some old hands remember that design.
> 
> John.


Was that the set up in lifeboats? A series of post type columns that the crew pushed & pulled to move the crankshaft to turn the prop.


----------



## NoMoss (Mar 14, 2007)

treeve said:


> I made one of those as well, with the same results!! Also a camphor-driven metal boat, another one had some kind of pellet that was set alight and burned to heat the boiler, and kind of jetted the water out through a looped tube.


I used to make those with a looped tube. In the end I made a speedboat out of balsa and put a firework in it. It was a very fast but short run and total destruction!


----------



## NoMoss (Mar 14, 2007)

John Rogers said:


> Maybe the Flemming self propelled design gear operated is the one he is thinking of. I think Flemming was the name.
> Some old hands remember that design.
> 
> John.


I passed my lifeboat ticket in one of those boats but they made us use oars for the exam. The oars were so dry that one of them broke under the strain of a large seaman who demanded a case of beer for his efforts.


----------

