Tony Bird
Senior Member
Hi,
It is some time since I posted anything in HMEM, for the last couple of months I have been making a copy of a model steam powered boat described in the August 1933 edition of Popular Mechanics. I have to say that it isn't the prettiest boat that I have built but it does have a certain ugly charm. Known as Polly Wog which I believe is American slang for tadpole the designer isn't credited in PM. On the net I found a 1939 catalogue of a company name Boucher that was marketing both a finished boat and a kit to build a Polly Wog. I wonder if they got the design from PM? It would be interesting to know.
The build started because a member of the Mamod Forum to which I belong to, posted the plans and text for Polly Wog which he had found re-published in a Live Steam magazine.
I was looking for something different to make and Polly Wog is different! A steam outboard motor, a boiler consisting of three tubes joined at each of their ends and a twin rudder in front of the propeller.
Some of the materials suggested were a little bit of a problem to obtain in South Wales: Orange boxes for the hull bottom, aluminium stovepipe for the deck, bevelled gears from a radio tuning condencer for the right angle drive of the engine and a slip tee for the gear box housing being particulary difficult to sourse.
The boiler is heated using Sterno and produces enough heat to power the engine easily. It has been tested in a tank and seems to work well. A safety valve has been fitted instead of just a filling plug as suggested. Rudder only R/C is fitted. Unfortunately our local lake is weed bound until the winter kicks in when it dies back, so it will be some time before it can be tested.
A direct translation of Penbwl, pronounced Pen as in ink and Bull as in cow, is flat head and is used in Welsh for Tadpole. Why Tadpole as well? If you have visited Wales virtually everything is in both English and Welsh. It seemed a shame not to do the same also there were enough letters on the sheet of transfers to do it. The other side has Polly Wog on it just in case she goes to the States, I would hate a language problem.
I did take some photographs of the construct techniques if anyone is interested, which I could post retrospectively.
Regards Tony.
It is some time since I posted anything in HMEM, for the last couple of months I have been making a copy of a model steam powered boat described in the August 1933 edition of Popular Mechanics. I have to say that it isn't the prettiest boat that I have built but it does have a certain ugly charm. Known as Polly Wog which I believe is American slang for tadpole the designer isn't credited in PM. On the net I found a 1939 catalogue of a company name Boucher that was marketing both a finished boat and a kit to build a Polly Wog. I wonder if they got the design from PM? It would be interesting to know.
The build started because a member of the Mamod Forum to which I belong to, posted the plans and text for Polly Wog which he had found re-published in a Live Steam magazine.
I was looking for something different to make and Polly Wog is different! A steam outboard motor, a boiler consisting of three tubes joined at each of their ends and a twin rudder in front of the propeller.
Some of the materials suggested were a little bit of a problem to obtain in South Wales: Orange boxes for the hull bottom, aluminium stovepipe for the deck, bevelled gears from a radio tuning condencer for the right angle drive of the engine and a slip tee for the gear box housing being particulary difficult to sourse.
The boiler is heated using Sterno and produces enough heat to power the engine easily. It has been tested in a tank and seems to work well. A safety valve has been fitted instead of just a filling plug as suggested. Rudder only R/C is fitted. Unfortunately our local lake is weed bound until the winter kicks in when it dies back, so it will be some time before it can be tested.
A direct translation of Penbwl, pronounced Pen as in ink and Bull as in cow, is flat head and is used in Welsh for Tadpole. Why Tadpole as well? If you have visited Wales virtually everything is in both English and Welsh. It seemed a shame not to do the same also there were enough letters on the sheet of transfers to do it. The other side has Polly Wog on it just in case she goes to the States, I would hate a language problem.
I did take some photographs of the construct techniques if anyone is interested, which I could post retrospectively.
Regards Tony.
