1:48 Engine Room #3 Battleship USS New Jersey for Permanent Display on Board. (1 Viewer)

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Builder 2010

Staff Sergeant
836
1,149
Aug 25, 2016
Louisville, Kentucky
For all of those followers that had the patience to spend almost a year each for the two models that I created for the Battleship New Jersey Museum & Memorial (16" and 5" gun systems), my next (and final) major project for the ship has now begun. Here's Ryan Syzmanski talking about those models.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjFvq6CmYRg&t=21s

I noted in my last posts on the 5" project, that the engine room was on the docket, but it needed dimensioned engineering drawings to proceed. I spend several hours in the engine rooms taking lots of pictures, but without the dimensioned drawings, I would be shooting in the dark. Due to the complexity of the space, dead reckoning like I was able to pull off on the other two wouldn't work on this one.

My search of the National Archives produced a very promising set of original drawings for all the New Jersey's engineering, and I had even planned a trip to College Park, MD to view them. That was until I realized that I was looking at the drawing index of the Battleship New Jersey BB16, built in 1905, not BB62 built in 1943. Who knew there were two of them?

They did find microfiche drawings, but their computer system wasn't working correctly and I couldn't get details on what drawings were in the set. Then John Miano came through.

John wrote a terrifc photo study touring the Big J with terrific pictures of the engineering spaces.

***"A Visual Tour of the Battleship USS New Jersey"*** Copyright 2021 John Miano, Collesseum Builders, Inc. ISBN 978-0-9099804-3-2

I wrote to him asking if he could assist in the project. Ryan Syzmanski, the Big J Museum curator introduced him to me. John did have some drawings that will work, but the were large files. I finally realized that my DropBox installation could be used to capture John's files even if he didn't have the app on his system.

The files arrived yesterday and this morning. They are terrific! I still need more specific drawings of critical machinery mainly the HP and LP turbines and the Main Reduction Gear, but their outlines plus pictures may be enough to do something. I also have specific details about every latdder and grate in the entire space, down to the specific bolting details of how they're fastened to the structure.

I need more info on the structural girders, but I can probably ferret that out. I finally have imagery of the massive foundation steel that supports the equipment. You can't see that on a visit unless you want to crawl around in the bilge and that ain't gonna happen.

This project is more complex that the previous two… I know, I know, that's hard to believe, but believe me. I'm planning on doing milld cutaways of main propulsion plants and the reduction gear. There are over a dozen different sized ladders that need to be produced. I'm planning on 3D printing the floor grating so theywill look pretty good, especially with lighting showing through it. I'm leaving off #2 deck above enabling viewers to see the main equipment floor without obstruction. The model won't be overly large at 1:48, but it will be complex and interesting. It may also get an AV program to highlight aspects that won't be evident once it's all put together. This is the same approach taken with the 5". Ryan's communication person is helping to produce that one for me to put up on the Internet.

Here's a taste of one of the drawings. If you'll notice there is a dimension given between the spacing of the three sea water evaporators at the drawings bottom. That's all I need to perfectly scale the entire drawing. That's the missing link in the other kinds of diagrams I found. All of the other drawings have dimensions as well. The scale they're originally drawn in does not matter since I'm going to be working with them at full size 1:1 real world. I then scale to 1:48 (2.08%) in the slicer before printing any parts. SketchUp likes to work large. On some of the smaller details I may even enlarge them further.

S40-17 Upper Lev Plan.jpg


So… fasten your seatbelts. If this is anything like the previous two, there will plenty of successes, near misses and out-and-out castrophes to deal with. Only the strong of heart should proceed. I will start drawing as soon as I finish editing my book on 21st Century Model Making. Stay tuned to this space.
 
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Glad you're all excited. So am I! And John Miano has come through with even more detailed engineering drawings including those of the HP and LP turnbines, the massive steam cross-over pipe between them, and the main condensor. I'm hoping he can come through with drawing of the Main Reduction Gear and Auxiliary Turbo-generators. Unlike the last project, this one is going to be built from actual, dimensioned plans. John even provided me with drawings of the boiler room equipment, but I'm not going to do the fire rooms. They're not as interesting to me as the engine rooms. It will also double the model's width which will make it harder to display. Right now the model in 1:48 will be about 18" X 8", which could fit nicely on the credenza next to the 16" turret model.

I scaled the overview prints and used the HP/LP output shafts and propeller shafts from engine rooms 1 & 2 that pass through this space to align the various section drawings. Still not sure where that ladder diagram on the far right goes.

NJ ERP Planning 1.png


NJ ERP Planning 2.png
 
It is both complicated and a lot of work, but I will attack it one bite at a time. John Miano's help getting the drawings to me. To date he's sent me 35 of them. Yesterday, in addition to getting me the construction drawings of the induction and discharge piping for the main condenser, he also sent a large set that has the full construction drawings of the main resduction gear housing. Thsee are original and explicitly dimensioned drawings of the finest details. The overall structure of the room may not be perfect, but the equipment within will be almost perfectly scaled.

I've got the main condenser well underway. I'm working on the induction and discharge of this very large structure. The lines feeding cooling water into it are about 3' (1m) in diameter. the amount of water passed through is vast. The angled induction pipe, once the ship is doing about 10 knots, pushes water into the condesers under a ram effect of the ship's forward velocity and the static pressure of about 150 psi, which is the pressure on the hull at the 36 foot draft depth. The discharge pipe is canted facing the aft so there's a scavenging effect from the ship's motion to help extract the cooling water from the condenser. The condenser empty weighs a svelte 39,000 lbs. (17,700 kg.) and that's not counting the 15,000 pounds of water contained within.

As you can see, I'm going to show a taste of the tubes inside. They are overscale. At 1:48, the myriad of very narrow tubes would not be printable. The cutaway part is already designed into the parts and will print that way.

Screenshot 2024-10-30 at 4.25.42 PM.png


I had to reload a SketchUp extension "Curviloft" to create the cicular to oval discharge pipe. Without extensions like these it's very difficult to create organic shapes in SketchUp. The part is hollowed out mainly to reduce the resin use. Viewers won't be able to look up into it.

Screenshot 2024-10-30 at 3.51.35 PM.png


There's a large shutoff valve at the junction of the pipe and the straight portion at the condenser end. There's also another support structure on that end. The top of condenser is the low pressure turbine. It dumps directly into condenser. The condenser is maintained with at a vacuum to capture the last bit of energy in the steam as it leaves the LP turbine.

Even without the rest of the engine room, just having a detailed model of the main propulsion system would be interesting and cool in its own right. I was concerned about the main reduction gear. I didn't realize that John Miano had such a repository of the orginal drawings. And there's still more to be had. If I had to go to the National Archives to retrieve and copy this many, I couldn't have done it in the one day I was orgianlly scheduled to do it.
 
Oh yes! It's very complicated. The main condenser is just about done. I need to add the steam turbine driver on the top of the auxiliary cooling pump. I don't enough imagery of that piece to draw it yet. I've asked Ryan to take some pictures of it when he gets the chance. This large construct will be printed in pieces and with new, large Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra, I can fit a number of them on the machine at the same time. The only components that I worry about are all those nuts and bolts. When you position the part in the printer, you try to have all the fine details facing away from the build plate so they don't get any supports attached to them. Support removal can obliterate fine details. However, the fasteners have details on both sides meaning one side is probably going to get supports or risk not forming. I can adjust the light supports they just capture the nut edge without doing too much damage. Being about to draw this massive thing over the print has really reduced the anxiety.

Condenser Render on Drawing.png


Looking at the reverse view shows the metallic finish very well. This was renedered with V-Ray which has excellent metallic materials in its data base. In real life, that metal is either bronze or Monel. Monel is one of the chlorine/saltwater resistent alloys. And the photos show the condenser to not be painted.

Condenser Reversed View.png

The large Low Pressure Powder Turbine sits directly on top of the condenser. There's more foundation framing that goes on the condenser top to support it. The amount of steam moving through the machine is vast, coming from two large Babcock and Wilcox boilers. I have most of the drawings needed for the LP turbine. I'm missing some and hoping that John Miano has them. I have much better documentation for the HP turbine. Each turbine contributes 26,500 hp, that's combined in the main reduction gear.
 
Wow. A lot of nuts and bolts detail. Can you position the print so that the back, (the part not seen in the end build) is the part that has the printing supports. :lol:
 
Thanks guys!

Just because I have an emense amount of drawing still left to do doesn't mean I can't start producing parts as I go along. The first of those parts are done. The condenser will be produced out of 4 printed parts. This print was about 98% perfect. Some small supports failed and were in a place that actually needed more. The failure created a small discontinuity that can be fixed if I choose. Resin isn't cheap @ $40/kg (USD), so if i can salvage the part I will.

Here's the parts suspended by an aftermarket holder that lets you position the build plate to let all the excess resin drain off back into the vat. Saves mess and resin. The holder was a free download file from Cults3d made for the Saturn 4 Ultra printer. I haven't purchased a spring build plate yet having heard that it could mess with the printer's auto-leveling feature. I don't mind taking the entire plate off the machine, but's a chance to drop it and damage it. It's happened before with my simpler machines.

NJ ERP 1st Print 2.jpg

NJ ERP 1st Print 1.jpg


The parts are really nice. The nuts and bolts resolved perfectly. The job took about 3.5 hours comparing to over 6 on its predecessor.

NJ ERP 1st Print 3.jpg


Here's a closer look at the discontinuity. The broken supports nearby give the clues to why the build sagged in that location. Bondic filler should correct the part.

NJ ERP 1st Print Discontenuity.jpg


Now for some real fun! I've drawn the low pressure turbine spool. I will not be displaying he model with the turbine completely open. I will be opening a segment of it. My difficulty lies in only having that longitudinal section. I don't have radial cross-sections. I could draw the spool without them because all I need is their diameters. But with the housing, the other cross-sections would be very helpful. The LP turbine is large and HP exhaust steam enters the center and flows both ways. If it didn't do this the blades would have to be twice as large. The reverse turbine wheels receive steam directly from the boilers at 600psi. They produce about 15% of the power of the main turbines. The LP turbine sits directly on top of the condenser.

NJ ERP LP Turbine Spool WIP.png


An example of the ambiguity of just have this view is the mass of piping at the ends. Seeing only on view doesn't help that much.
 
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