Fantail steam launches

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by confused, Feb 18, 2009.

  1. apex1

    apex1 Guest

    Do´nt worry mate, nothing will happen in 2012 (except the gas will get dearer). Some maniacs have told us the same crap if I was your age, now I´m as old as the Mountains. Remember me to plant some more trees and maybe make some more children in 2012.
    Richard
     
  2. kroberts
    Joined: Mar 2009
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    kroberts Senior Member

    Mike,

    Either you are having the time of your life stirring things up, or you have picked the most appropriate handle on the entire forum.
     
  3. confused
    Joined: Jan 2009
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    confused New Member

    What do you mean?
     
  4. kroberts
    Joined: Mar 2009
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    kroberts Senior Member

    Confused,

    You bounce around from idea to idea as though you were several different people, or maybe you don't care if your project works or not. I can only think of two real reasons for your behavior: Either you are truly very confused about what you want to do, or you are deliberately trying to make everyone here jump through hoops for your entertainment.

    We can and do take extra consideration for your age, but if you actually want help to do any of this stuff you need to settle down and stick to a project, and then listen to the advice given. I know several kids your age who are building their own boats or hovercraft or model planes or other motorized vehicles. They design them in some cases, but most build from plans if plans are available. Nonetheless, by the age of 14 or so many of these guys and girls are driving their boats or hovercraft on the river or their go-karts down a track. Or their remote controlled aircraft are flying around in the sky -- not ones they bought as ready-to-fly, but ones they built.

    Most of us who post on this forum are employed somewhere, meaning we have limited time. Some of the people helping you appear to be fairly well qualified and may be taking time from their jobs so that they can help you. You have a wonderful opportunity to learn here, and you are wasting it. I doubt that the people helping will continue to help if you keep jumping from project to project without even trying to understand the problems involved.

    Since this is a boat forum, let's stick with boats. If you want to pursue this new one, then go to the http://www.makeenginesoutofjunk.com and ask those guys.

    First, what are your requirements? You mentioned some at the beginning of the thread but that has changed dramatically several times. You appear to change design or dimensions based on some arbitrary choice having nothing to do with what people are telling you. Why not go about this in an organized fashion that might get you a working boat that makes best use of your resources to achieve the goals you want to reach?

    Since you are not an expert, let's let the experts help by giving them the things that really matter and letting them help you figure out what solution best fits the parameters?
    1. How many people do you need to carry?
    2. How much money can you spend?
    3. Do you want to build the boat or just buy one?
    4. What sort of speed do you want? Be realistic.

    You can expand that list as much as you want, but then stick to the project unless one of those helping you says that something is unrealistic.

    When somebody tells you to make a calculation, it probably means that you are the one who should make it. Either it means that you know best what you have in mind and so you are the best qualified, or they mean that you should learn something that they consider to be within your abilities.

    You are at a great age to begin experimenting with real projects that can be real fun, or even launch you into a career. The way things are right now with the global economy, if you have the opportunity you should grab it, learn as much as you can from it. You could build a really neat boat that you can sit in and explore with, or you could sit in front of a computer all day dreaming about 50 things that may not even be possible.

    Sorry if you think I'm being rough on you. If you think what you are doing now is entertaining, then imagine what it would be like to explore a real river on a real boat that you designed and built yourself, based on help you get here.
     
  5. apex1

    apex1 Guest

    Well.................

    let me sign that!
     
  6. confused
    Joined: Jan 2009
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    confused New Member

    Well, If I really want to build a boat, I need to wait. I don't like waiting. I have to wait until I move to Texas, which might be in a couple of months or years. And I need more money. And the reason I want to wait until we move to texas is, have you ever tryed hauling a 14 ft boat without a trailer on a 1700 mile long trip? and we don't have any nearby water here in las vegas. I appreciate the help that all of the people here have given me, and I try to stick with one thing. trust me, If I knew that I was going to move to texas in a couple of months, then I would talk about steam launches and steam launches only. But, unfortunately, For all I know, we could be moving to Texas when I'm 18 or 20 years old. And, by that time, I will have moved out of the house and gone to Texas by myself. And speaking of steam launches, Since piston steam engines are to expensive, I should be thinking about a simple steam turbine. I mean, I have an uncertain future, with all this talk of "the end of the world," and rising tensions between U.S and north Korea, who knows what could happen next minute or hour? Plus, ALL my life savings is $230. So unless I find some cheap building materials, then a steam launch is just a dream.
     
  7. kroberts
    Joined: Mar 2009
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    Location: Chicago area

    kroberts Senior Member

    So, based on that response, you have several options:
    1. Start playing with remote controlled models. This is within your budget if you are careful.
    2. Investigate other boat types.
    3. Build your boat anyway, and when you move flip it upside down and tie it to the top of the truck.
    4. Investigate a hobby that you can practice where you are, AND in Texas.

    A word of advice here. Curiosity about how the world works drives education. Many kids (and unfortunately adults too) get their inspiration from the Internet or from TV shows or video games. They think that because it happens on the screen, it could happen in real life. This is not true. There are rarely movies, games or Internet sites based on entirely factual and accurate representations of reality. People who watch shows like American Chopper and similar are all getting the same "new idea" and you have thousands of small custom motorcycle shops starting up, and nobody will ever buy one. They just want to do what they saw on TV. These are not ideas, they are copycats. One chopper shop in an affluent neighborhood makes sense. Thousands of them do not. There is not enough market.

    Start the other way. Find something in your world to be curious about, that you can get to by walking outside your house. Then do research using the library, your teachers, the Internet and even this forum to find out more truth about the thing you are interested in. It could be a go-kart, the trees, the rocks, the animals, the car traffic patterns or whatever. You don't have to build things to learn something profoundly useful about your world, but building things can be a lot of fun.

    For me, it was go-karts. Not the type you buy and race, but the type where you find an engine, some steel to weld together and make a frame, and scrounge other parts until you have something that works. My go-kart taught me how to weld. I was about your age, and although the kart didn't turn out to be wonderful, it was mine. I designed it, I built it, and I drove it. I also broke it and fixed it when it broke, and I figured out why it broke and designed a better version. It was the first significant project I ever finished. It was much better than the store bought karts because I not only got to drive it, but I got to design it and build it, and learn everything I needed to know to do so.

    If you spend a lot of time being bored, with adults trying to get you out of their way or yelling at you because you messed with their stuff, then find your project, something you are truly interested in, and then start asking questions. The difference between a pest and a prodigy is asking questions about things that really matter, and listening and following through. If you want to build a go-kart, you can do that for the $300 you have as a budget if you scrounge properly. If you need help designing it, start asking around and people will help you. They won't necessarily do it for you, but somebody will step forward and tell you where to look.

    Start with something small, meaning simple. Small projects are cheaper, easier to accomplish, quicker to finish and faster to learn something from. They also give you ideas about what to try next, and give you skills you will need to complete the next, more complicated project. A catapult or trebuchet is a lot of fun, but can be destructive. Your parents might not be so enthusiastic about you going down that path if you aim at houses or people or cars, but you would learn a lot probably.

    Need more money? Do people have grass down there? Start mowing lawns. Your first project is to get people to pay you for that, or for some other task you can do. The next project is to buy your own mower and learn to maintain it. Then you have to figure out how to budget your money so your mowing job pays for maintenance of the mower, plus gas, plus your hobby, plus saving a little back for when times are tough.

    Everything you need to know about economics right now: Whatever amount of money you have coming in, spend less.

    Are there scrap yards there? Not the kind with cars, but for scrap metals? Will they let you walk around in there? I grew up in a rural area, and the local scrap yard would let you in as long as you stayed out of the way. We found lawn mowers, snow blowers, electric motors, gas engines, anything you could imagine that someone would throw away. We brought a truck load of scrap to sell, and then we turned around and bought an engine or hydraulic cylinder for the price we would have gotten selling it as scrap. Back then, steel was 10 cents a pound. We bought a hydraulic cylinder for $21 that would have cost $1000 new, and it still WAS new. It had the original manufacturing tags on it, the plastic covers over the inlets and you could see the original milling marks. We eventually made a log splitter from it. We got the 18 hp engine there too, and the reservoir and the wheels and the I-beam and the hydraulic controls. Someone had thrown some of that stuff away simply because they didn't want it on their shelves anymore, some of it had never been used. Sometimes an engine had a dirty carburetor or needed new plugs, and they replaced the whole engine because they didn't know how to fix it. There was a pile of old lawn mowers, we could find 2 that were the same, load them up and fix the better one with parts from the other. Then take the junk one back next time.

    If you start looking at the world around you, the world that you see and touch and smell, then you will never be bored. If you come here asking how to make a boat out of some engine you found in a scrap yard, someone will help you. If you ask us about go-karts, either someone will help you or they will recommend a go-kart forum. If you want to understand hydraulic pumps or carburetors, ask. Someone in your neighborhood knows, or one of your teachers knows.

    Your teachers spend all their time trying to get kids to learn something, kids who aren't really interested in learning. If you come up to them and say you want to know how to build a boat or a go-kart, or something of real value, they will probably forget that they have any other students, and start following you around like a puppy.
     
  8. apex1

    apex1 Guest

    Got it Mike?...................

    So, lets build a..............................................................................boat?
     
  9. confused
    Joined: Jan 2009
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    confused New Member

    Yeah. I have a nearby scrap yard, but my mom won't let me go there. It's like a bout 3/5 a mile away. Next time we go on a bike ride I could go there. Sounds kinda dangerous, well one time, in the middle of the summer, me and my bro went on a bike ride and hr went to a nearby office depot to get stuff for his computer that my mom wouldn't let him get. So, I could easily go to the scrap yard. I could just "borrow" a shopping cart (people always leave them lying around our neighborhood) and use it to haul some of the stuff I need back to our house. Then, we have ANOTHER problem. Where to keep the stuff without my parents finding out. I remember 1 time we drove by the scrap yard and I saw this HUGE engine, it looked like it was in good condition. Wish I had a truck. I could've got it for like 200$ and hauled it back home. I remember my brother saying something about the scrap yard selling a hot air balloon for like $1000!
     
  10. confused
    Joined: Jan 2009
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    confused New Member

    I could get a 50 gallon drum for a boiler from the scrap yard. And since I know how to weld, and I have a welder, I could make a useable boiler. They even have OLD cars at the scrap yard. They look about as old as apex. and some tractors too.
    ok apex?
     
  11. confused
    Joined: Jan 2009
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    Location: Nevada

    confused New Member

  12. rasorinc
    Joined: Nov 2007
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    rasorinc Senior Member

    Great idea. You'll have a ball.
     
  13. apex1

    apex1 Guest

    Looks nice and would give you the skills (or at least some) you need for fullsize boat!
     
  14. kroberts
    Joined: Mar 2009
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    kroberts Senior Member

    OK, there's some more to talk about already.

    First, don't work behind your parents' backs. Ever. If you do that they will be even more restrictive and they will start checking up on you when you're out with your friends. I remember going through that, and it sucks because your friends are watching, and I usually wasn't doing anything wrong anyway. There is nothing illegal or immoral about what I'm telling you to do here, and acting as though there is can bring you all sorts of trouble. Tell your parents where you will be, who you will be with and what you will be doing. Call them when there is trouble, even if you were doing something they don't like. That's extremely important, because if they know you'll call when there's trouble they will let you do a whole lot more stuff that is interesting.

    A better approach is to tell them what you have in mind, and that you have a real reason to be there, a goal for which the scrap yard is a parts supply house with really cheap prices. If you say something like, "lawn mower to fix and make money with" they may ease up on the restriction. Take an adult the first few times at least, until they realize you know the dangers and are careful.

    50 gallon drum: NO! If you start working with heat and pressure, work with that steam engine you showed a picture of.

    RC model boat: Use the steam engine you showed the picture of, that will be adequate for an RC boat. It gives you an idea of how to build the boat, how to set up the engine and all that. You will still have things to learn when you go full sized, but an RC boat is much easier to change, cheaper to build and faster to change. And you can test it without drowning.

    Better yet, once you have built a few of them, you can take an especially good one to your dad and say, "I want to build this one full sized."

    Or even still better, the lawn mower you got from the scrap yard will finance all your RC models and make a big dent in the full sized boat. Your parents will be incredibly more lenient when you earn your own allowance.

    You can get the radio from a broken store-bought RC toy if you can't afford a real hobbyist radio. The hobbyist ones are better, but can be very expensive for an adult with a job, let alone for a 12-year-old.

    Edit:
    You really shouldn't put your address or the address of anything near you on the Internet. Please delete that post. If anyone ever tries to meet with you, make sure your parents are along.
     

  15. confused
    Joined: Jan 2009
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    confused New Member

    Ok. thanks. But how am I supposed to convince my parents to go to the scrapyard? My dad will just say, "We don't need any more junk to clutter the house," or, "You'll probably just leave it lying around the yard." He says that I can get stuff like that when we "Get a bigger house," but, the problem is, when are we going to move to a bigger house? (In Texas).
     
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