The Delta Queen

[Bill Jones]

I started this project because it appears that I'm allergic to the wooden model my mom gave me for Christmas. Before starting Bluenose, I decided to build a tool box of sorts. In the process, I broke out in a rash all over my body. Since wood seems to be out of the question, paper and cardboard seem a good alternative.



I picked the Delta Queen because building from scratch seemed a good idea, even though I've never done that before, and she seemed relatively easy. I imagined it as a layer cake with doors and windows. I decided that I should attempt to build the paddle wheel first since if I can't build that there's no point in attempting the rest of her.



I had to learn a little bit of 2D CAD drawing which is how I produced the pattern you see below. I decided on 150 scale for now. There are some details on the wheel that are too small for that scale, but I'm learning to build things not how to detail them.



Knife work is a little bit harder than I thought. You have to keep the blade perpendicular to the paper or you make a slicing cut, which will just about always go off course.



The next step is transfer the pattern to the heavier paper that will make up the wheel. It's slightly less than a 1 mm thick. I'm struggling with how to reproduce the white metal bands that go around the side surfaces of the wheel. They're there to support the wood, and they add a contrasting color, but they may be too thin to bother with. At 150, they're around 0.3 mm thick.