I'm looking to buy ships for my harbour that I plan on building this summer, but I'm not sure what scale will look right. I model nscale and can't find many commercial ships that are 1/160 or close to it. Any help in finding a close scale or a supplier of nscale ships would be of great help. Thanks Shawn
Try these , I have been using some of these to fill in my HO scale harbor
http://mts.inline.net/merchant.ihtm
http://seaportmodelworks.com
http://www.bluejacketinc.com/honscale.htm
http://www.maritimeartchesapeake.com/
http://www.frenchmanriver.com
This is Sylvan, up there in Canada. They are good folks to buy from and their castings are superb.
http://www.isp.ca/Sylvan/n-scaleproducts.htm
They have a decent range of N kits that if you bought them all you would be very busy for a very long time building them all.
I model HO and I've bought many maritime kits in that scale - they are great fun and you have the opportunity also to add some of your own ideas to the kit.
Model-Tech also make maritime kits, built models and detail parts in N. I have bought from them in the past with complete satisfaction.
http://mts.inline.net/search.ihtml
Art Johansen's range of N is currently limited to two kits, but I have modeled nearly all of his HO kits and I like them a lot. They are a basic cast resin hull and do need preporration work and I usually build them using detail parts from other suppliers. I have built Arts kits using all the materials he supplies with his kits. Art also includes a very helpful CD with building instructions and photographs of the finished model and the prototype vessel. From my own past experience can highly recommend Arts kits.
Bruce
You could probably get by with a three thousand to four thousand ton scale; you're not likely to find very many boats that weigh more than that.
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
R. T. POTEET You could probably get by with a three thousand to four thousand ton scale; you're not likely to find very many boats that weigh more than that.
True, if you're only dealing with boats. OTOH, if you're into commercial ships, supertankers and post-Panamax container ships are up into the 200,000 ton range...
Visually, if your maritime model is alongside a quay with tracks on it, it will need to be the same scale as the trains. If the ship is on modeled water away from the trains it can be a smaller size - sort of like the trick of using an N scale farmhouse close to the backdrop of an HO layout.
Then, too, if you don't demand absolute fidelity to every rivet, cracked porthole glass and rust stain, you can probably scratchbuild a reasonably creditable model in N scale - and only a Master Mariner or naval architect would be able to tell your work from a professional's. It's sort of like modeling an oil refinery, where only a petroleum engineer would know if all the pipes go to all the right places.
If I had navigable water on my layout, I'd design and build my own freelance ship - but I'm a long-ago cadet who pulled an A in naval architecture...
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with water navigable by kayakers with death wishes)
Watercraft is one realm where that old forced perspective definitely comes into play!
Thanks to carknocker1 and Bruce for those great links.
Bob
Photobucket Albums:NPBL - 2008 The BeginningNPBL - 2009 Phase INPBL - 2010 Downtown
I think a person could use a variety of hull sizes.You just need to scale the superstructure accordingly. BILL
I took the question at its face value, so my answer is as follows: if you want something small that will fit and still appear to belong, you will have to place the object much further back than the trains, and everything else around it will also have to be scaled on a gradient until similar items appear to match the scale items closer to the viewer. This will be a lot of work because much of it will have to be hand-made.
On the other hand, if the boat or other large recognizable item is close to the viewer, it will perforce be the same scale as the trains. Otherwise, things will look disproportionate.
IOW, just as you can use N-scale telephone poles and buildings further away on the layout to impart the look of distance, you could probably do the same with much of a visible ship of any size. Closer than about 4', though, and I don't think it will work.
-Crandell
While we're talking about using smaller scale items in the background to force perspective ,I think it aslo important to raise them towards the horizon. And generally the horizon should be close to eye level. Thats one of the problems I have with the lower level layouts, unless of course one views them while sitting. As for boats,I think that mostly they are in the foreground on layouts,or they are part of the backdrop.
I was hopeing to have the ships in the fore ground loading/unloading woodchips, grain, a tanker of some kind, a container ship and hopefuly a cruise ship along with smaller boats/tugs. I'm going to try to make Vacouver harbour from Vancouver side, cross second narrows rail bridge and then along North Vancouver up the coast to Squamish. It'll make for a lot of different train loads into and out of the "port's". Thanks for the sites, looks like this might turn into an all year project.
Good morning;
Airfix and Frog models (they usually toss this one back and forth in production) has a tanker called the "Shell Welder", and it is a great model for dockside ops. I have one and am trying to figure out ways to split the hull and widen it as well as lengthen it for HO scale, but I don't think that even my perverse mind can do it, but we'll see...
She is around 130:1 scale, which could sneak in under the door and pass for N scale, if you aren't a "scale-rule richard". it works up to a beautiful model, if you are willing to work at it. Most models of ships I have seen are, in my opinion, a little desirous of quality, but on the other hand, it has to be a tough proposition to cast something like a hull of a modern (1870 on to present) day vessel.
I am, at present, working on that lake freighter that Sylvan models has, and it has been a challenge (but I won) to tweak the hull to conformity. She is presently sitting outside the spraybooth (easier to paint on a stepladder), and is really starting to look good. next week, when all of the paint has dried, I will mask off the finish, and finish the rest. I have a number of tugs, barges, scows, etc, that will enhance the port on my layout.
Also, might I recommend using LEDs for any of the passage and cabin lighting. It will certainly do wonders for a night scene! It is also pretty easy to do, as boat models tend to be rather big and gaumy.
YellowjacketEF3
Not sure where you can get this in US, but here is a 1/200 container ship by Graupner in Germany:
https://shop.graupner.de/webuerp/servlet/AI?ARTN=2071
I've seen the model assembled; it's a beauty. Obviously the containers are undersized for N, but I wonder if replacing them with N containers would help "scale up" the model?
shawn-118 I was hopeing to have the ships in the fore ground loading/unloading woodchips, grain, a tanker of some kind, a container ship and hopefuly a cruise ship along with smaller boats/tugs. I'm going to try to make Vacouver harbour from Vancouver side, cross second narrows rail bridge and then along North Vancouver up the coast to Squamish. It'll make for a lot of different train loads into and out of the "port's". Thanks for the sites, looks like this might turn into an all year project.
Shawn, if you model what you just discussed in almost any scale, it will probably turn into an all-century project - and you might want to contact your local airport about leasing a hangar!
That said, good luck. I once thought of doing something similar for New York in the heyday of the trans-Atlantic liners - and then discovered I'd need the Kingsbridge Armory to house it. (The Armory was big enough to hold 18-wheeler truck shows, including maneuvering courses, without crowding my father's antiaircraft batallion.)
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I used a Heller ocean-going trawler to "suggest" a ship near the backdrop in a 4x1' scene that was part of a 2x4' layout.
I used the hull of a wrong-scale 1/200 tuna seiner with an HO superstructure to create an HO small shrimpboat.
This is probably not your era, but I thought I'd throw this up as an example. BILL
My "train room" is a 40x60 old barn that I have spent the last 21/2 years rehabing, so with nscale space is not a problem. My layout has the bench work done and it's all walk around, no more than 34" at the widest and about 12" at the narrowest. It's shaped like alot of T U L and Y's put together. I've got my dad, 2 brothers helping and alot of friends that come over to drink beer and help put it together on the weekends. I think it's become the unoffical club layout/dog house for some of them. Of those friends one is really into building ship models, so as long as I supply the models and other materials he's all for building them. So it won't be a century of building maybe a winter project now that summer has started to show up up here in the north and wives want their "honey do" list done before we can get back to playing with the trains again. But that gives me the summer to find the ships/other models and go to Vancouver to take more pics of the various industries that I want to place in the harbour. So the more info and planning I can do now the more building I'll get done in the fall. Besides hopefully I'll be able to find some of what I need at train shows, garage sales or ebay this summer. Shawn
Noch from Germany ( Walthers carries this line) offers a tug boat kit, a pilot boat kit, a motor tank kit, an assembled motor barge and a coal barge kit all in N scale. You could view these on Walthers website or on Noch's website as well. I have various boats fro various makers in various scales and I do HO. You can modify all these to your particular scale. The big thing I find is where you place the particular boat on your layout . If it is a bit out of scale ,display it in such a way that the size doen't jump out at you. You can have a lot of fun researching and modifying models in this great phase of model railroading. Everyone should have a waterfront. It gives you another aspect of modelling.Have fun and Happy Easter.