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

Thanks you my loyal readers!

These sessions don't produce a lot of drama, but they're essential. I'm basically doing assembly prep… that is… getting everything ready to actually assemble this beast. This includes things like re-printing the main gauge panel platform, painting the mezzanine walkway to conform to the red color I'm using on the rest of the model, painting a lot of grating prints in prep to install them, painting the re-printed lube oil purifier, cutting the clearances to install the escape trunk and opening the main gauge panel frame to accept the lube oil settling tank. I also isolated and 2D printed out views of the SketchUp master drawing to refresn my memory of where all this stuff actually goes. I have a lot of piping that has very specific locatiions and the drawings show what goes where.

The mezzanine decks needs a corner cut out to accept the escape trunk. I could have re-printed both mezzanine decks with the cut out buiit in, but since it took a lot of resin, and it seemed feasible to alter the part after print, I chose the latter. I marked where it would go and use an abrasive cutoff saw with the Dremel to remove the corner. Since cured UV resin is not a thermoplastic, it does not melt when you abrasive cut it. I had already re-designed the walkway and lower floor system to accommodate the trunk. I will put some trim to close up that gap between the trunk and the upper mezzanine.






I repainted the cut area and it looks good.

I used a plan view of the starboard side to determine the placement of the lube oil settling tank. I also drilled the bottom with two holes of a #30 drill to accept some solid core solder of the same size that will serve as the inlet and outlet to this tank. I have no idea of where these pipes will go, so I'll use some modeler's license to send them somewhare under the flooring system and let them disappear into the darkness. Using solder enables me to do some "field modifications" to determine their routing.



Lastly, I stuck all fhose wonderful floor greating prints to cardboard with some blue tape and airbrushed them all with semi-gloss black. I think I may have enough to do the job, but if I need more I'll just print them. Ah… the joys of 3D printing your own parts. I thought these parts that would be floorinng red, but they are painted black in photos I have. So… black it is.



I'm hand painting the replacement lube oil purifier print. If you recall, I have to re-print them as a two-part affair (base and unit) so I could install it. It's way underneath the flooing, but there will be lighting.

I'm itching to get started soldering the railings. It's an essential detail that really makes a model pope. This scale is way to big for photo-etched rails and demands real, honest-to-goodness soldered railings. I'm also ready to layout and drill the flooring to accept all the light wiring and penetrating piping. And then assembly will begin.

Loving this, so much going on.

Excellent work so far!

Thanks guys!
Things are moving right along...

I needed to add piping under the lube oil settling tank. For this I simply used some appropriately-sized solder wire. I polished the solder with steel wool and then used a mix of Tamiya Clear Red and Clear Yellow (mostly yellow) and airbrushed the mix directly on the polished metal, and Voila… copper!

These pipes will be bent to go somewhare, but I'm not sure where that is at this time. That's why solder was the best choice because it's very bendy.



I cut the framing of the main gauge panel floor to accept the oil tank. I then was trying out the wiring scheme and dropped the evaporator/main gauge panel floor assembly. The gauge panel floor disassembled in a bad way.



I wasn't happy with this floor, even though it was already a reprint of the first interation. So breaking it forced me to re-engineer it again, and this time I made it much more elegant. For example: Instead of a piece of styrene glued on the mid-line edge to attach to the HP foundation, I designed a interface that really sits nicely into the flange of the HP girder. I also got rid of the I-beam profile on all but the two outward (visibe) faces. There rest are solid rectangluar shapes. The result is a part that is structurally robust in its own right. I had to modify the engagement end on the evaporator foundation to improve the strenght of that joint also.

All the holes to accept wiring were drilled on the two floor pieces using a spade bit with the shape cutting edges reduce to almost zero rake angle. This prevented breakout cutting the thin styrene sheets.

It was time to permanently glue in the floors. I used Testor's Tube Cement since it has a longer working time, but before that I had to scrape all the Rust-oleum primer red off the gluing surface so it had a better chance to join. I scraped the lattice with a new single-edged razor blade, and used the mini-sander to remove paint from the underside of the floors.



After gluing I used gravity clamps to hold it all together while glue set.



After a while I drilled all the way through the entire floor system and then CA'd plastic straws to serve as conduit to guide the wire out the bottom.

Today, I went back and touched up all the paint to make it more presentable. Most of these things will be very hard to see when it's all together.

I needed a flange around the bulkhead opening from the main steam line and drew and printed that yesterday. Today I glued it in place and after this pic was taken, I painted it white.



Along with the flange I drew and printed a small detail; a spring-loader relief valve that protrudes from the top of the LP Turbine housing.



I painted and installed it today.

I finished painting the now-two-part lube oil purifier. I did the copper piping by brush painting decanted Tamiya SIlver Leaf spray and then the same clear color mix on top.\



Finally, I started making some railings. I used an American Beauty Resistance Soldering Unit (RSU) to solder these small assemblies. The took has a conductive tweezers that enables you to clamp, apply current, heat, solder and then continue to holder while the solder hardens. It makes very difficult things to solder much easier.

I'm using 0.032" phos-bronze wire for this. It scales at 1.5" (38mm) which is just a little oversized, but I wanted railings that would be stiff and hold up. I drew all these railing schemes before starting this and printed out my plans so I wouldn't be "faking" it. To solder the supports I first flatten one end by using a very old pair of Vise Grips. I then form a bend on the end so it will wrap over the main wire, and the then bent a slight reverse curve it it so it will lie more directly under the handrail.

This is the first rail that I bent and solder. The rails encircling the duck unders are the most complex and difficut so, of course, I did these first.

To set the height I'm using my gauge blocks that I printed. The scale height is 32"





The second railing follows a more curvy route.



Abvoe were taken before filing and shaping the soldered joint.

Afer filing I'm soaking the parts in JAX darkening solution that may create a finish that's dark enough to mean I won't have to paint them. The only problem is the solder doesn't take to the chemicals as well as the bronze. The starboard side duck under has the most complex rails. The port side's are much straighter.

Great work so far!

Working on railings. Got all the duck under rails finished, and then started on the longer mezzanine railings. Thought I had enough 0.032 phos-bronze stock, but ran out and had to make an "emergency" trip to the hobby shop. Mike, one of the train guys at the store, hadn't been brought up to date on the engine room project, so I took the time to debrief him. He's a good guy and relates well to what I'm doing.

These two images show the port-side duck under of Prop Shaft #4, with the first showing how the metal looks prior to soldering.



I tried to proactive with the mezzanines by 3D printing the railing sockets. This worked pretty well until it didn't. I printed the 0.032" holes, but they needed cleaning out. In a couple of cases, the wall broke out during that operation. Then the fore-end sockets broke more seriously. These were reconstructed with Bondic and drilled with the same drill. The port end rail ends at the escape trunk. Right now it just goes into hole, but I'm going to draw a small flange and print it to dress it up a bit.

The repair still needs a bit of final shaping before it will pass quality inspection.


Here are all the mezzanine rails fitted. I'm not painting any rails until they're all finished. The lower mezzanine rails also will penetrate the escape trunk aft and be straight across the entire deck. Soldering will not be as easy on the lower deck with interference from the catwalk. While I'm writing this I'm thinking about soldering it off the model after laying out a jig with the same socket spacing. The spacing in accurate since it was done via Multi-copy-array task in SketchUp.



The escape trunk will get epoxied to the mezzanine decks once all the rails are ready to install. The upper mezzanine decking got a litte beat up during the soldering an will have to have another coat of paint, I suspect all the rails should be done tomorrow.

I took this image yesterday. It's the fully glued flooring in place. I did some touch up painting, and it's not great, but it will be almost entirely hidden as the hold floor is on the real ship. The wiring conduits are visible, but not conspicuous.

The big holes are for the main condensate inlet and discharge piping. The duck-unders are errors, but will be invisible. it's why I didn't take the time to patch the holes.

Those railings look so real.

Excellent work so far!

Thanks! They'll look even better when they're painted. I used my idea of last night and made a jig to solder the lower mezzanine rail off the model. I used a divider to capture the spacing drilled the wood to accept the wire. Using Scotch double-sided tape to secure the height blocks to the wood and then taped the top rail to the blocks. The one end is just a 90º bend, and the other belays on the escape trunk. I didn't worry about the stanchion length at this point. After soldering, they were measured with the mezzanine lugs and trimmed to the correct length.



It was easy to solder them on the jig as it was nice and stable.



The trial fit of the rail was very nice validating that my jig hole spacing was correct. The open space on the right side is for a ladder that extends down from the TG deck. It's the only way onto the lower mezzanine deck.



There's another small rail that surrounds the ladder leading down from the evaporator deck. But before I could do that I had to make a correction. I had the ladder reversed with the top in front (fore) and the bottom in the aft position. I designed the foundation frame for this orientation and had to modify it. I removed a thick crossbar and substituted a styrene on in the right spot. The part is held with thin CA.



I was then able to lay out the hole locations and build the rail similar to the style on the duckunders.



So here's the railing progress to date. I have an error in my model which i haven't been able to rectify. I have the grating next to the main reduction gear at a lower level than the turbogenerator decking. On the plans it shows them level and I seem to remember that they are in my visit. I'm just adding a short stair to go from one level to the other and a railing on the TG deck since there's and 18" drop off between them. Fixing this involves a lot of deck changes and I don't think it a) very noticeable and b) therefore, not worth the hassle to correct. I made that railing also.



One of last railing projects, and frankly, one of the most challenging, is the rails and hangers on the entry catwalk. There is a discrepency between the plans and the actual ship. The plans show the entry walk to go fore and aft at the bottom of the ladder and then continue in both directions port and starboard passing over the gear box. In the real ship, the catwalk only exits on the port side, and this is the way I'm making the model. There is a bridge that crosses over the turbine torque tubes that I am modeling… that needs a railing too. This image looking down the ladder clearly shows the left (port) entry and nothing crossing over the gear box.



Here's the proof. Plans clearly show catwalk over top of the MRG and ladders on both sides.

Even though yesterday was my 80th birthday, I was still able to get some work done in the shop. We had a nice dinner at my daughter's house. It's hard to get my head wrapped around that my wife and I are now in our 9th decade of our life. It is now a certainty that I will not die in my 70s. There are no guarantees about living longer, but I have that fact to make me feel better.



In the short session I dug in and built the entry catwalk system. The hairy part was getting its correct position in space. First I had to position the main gear box and it's attendant foundation in its final location. I did find that the foundation did foul with the secondary framework I built to stiffen the entry platform bulkhead. I trimmed it so it all nestled in correctly. I taped the main column in place and the platform's connection to the bulkhead. Then I had to somehow hold the entry ladder in the proper place and orientation and measure the distance from the lowest point on the ceiling. The drop was 2.5" from the ceiling bottom. I then transferred this to a piece of paper to work it out off the model. I determined that the catwalk frame was 3/16" forward of the hatch edge. I taped the frame into place so I could drill the holes aligned through both parts.



After drillng the first through holes, I further stabilized it with a couple of rods.



I made a jig 2.5" high block to position the frame at the proper drop distance and then, using thin CA, glued all the contact points. I tested the fit and it was satisfactory. Here's a testiment to dumb luck. The 2.5" dimension that I measured and cut on the jig block was actually the exposed edge you see. I had it rotated 90º, but, the block was already 2.5" so the rotation was moot. Needless to say, I lucked out on that one.





Again, using my hand rail spacing blocks, I managed to position and solder all the hand rails. It was touch and go since it was a bit "squirrely". I had to break and remake several joiints that were out of alignment. I trimmed the long ends and here's what we've got. I ran out of time and will finish file those rough ends in the next session.



Next session will work on the little bridge, which I believe is the last hand rail that needs to be created. They all need painting.

Great work so far!

A very belated happy birthday Myles and welcome to this special club.

Thanks! I'm happy to be in the club!

All the railings and ladders are painted and all are ready for assembly. Today… assembly will being in earnest.

The last part to be "railed" is the bridge that enables travel athwartship and crosses on top of the two torque tubes that cover the HP/LP input shafts to the main reduction gear.



I glued these railings in and then masked them so I could paint the railings without painting the bridge.



The remaining railings were pushed into a chunk of hard foam. I first shot them with Tamiya gray primer. I did it indoors while spraying it into a large trash bag in my waste can in the basement. It was a very quick job and overspray was more or less contained, eabling me to do it inside instead of out.



Here they all are with a coat of Tamiya semi-gloss black.



For the entry catwalk, I hand painted the black due to the difficulty of masking that oddly shaped spaced. The ladder is also finished in this image, but not glued.



I took the ladders outside to spray them rattle can Tamiya Silver Leaf. It was a bigger spray job and wasn't amenable to spraying in the waste can.



When the silver was dry I went back and painted the railings the same black as before. I have more ladders than I need.



If I'm not mistaken, these are the last "Assembly-prep" steps needed before actual assembly can begin. That's today. There are still many unanswered questions regarding positioning vs. gluing. Much of the fits will be dictated by the printing piping systems. They're the key to the job especially regarding the auxiliaries. The main propulsion system position is dictated by the alignment of the HP's support shelf of the fore bulkhead and the output shafts seal and shaft as it exits the aft bulkhead. The position of the main condenser is now dictated by the openings in the floor to accept the condensate water intake and discharge pipes. The adventure continues.

Magnificent.