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

Incredible !

Thank you!

With the base in hand, I took it to General Plastics and Rubber here in Louisville. I'm glad I did. I am getting the plexiglass CNC router cut. This produces a very smooth square edge that requires very little cleanup before glue up. The CNC machine is digital and can work to three decimal places. This enabled me to get the end pieces correctly sized. Reason? The 3/16" plexiglass is actually .177" not .188". They were able to spec the actual measurement of 14.374" to cut the end pieces do they will fit pefectly square within the two long side pieces, letting the top fit exactly over all four sides. If I attempted to do this over the phone, it would not have work. We were able to measure directly from the base.

Even better, the price was $10 less than the material for the 5" gun case and it's actually a bigger job. I don't know why this is, but I'm not complaining.

I got the base back to the shop and got to work on it. First up was setting up the model's location on the base. I eyeballed it and used use a square and masking tape to demark one side and end. I placed some gravity clamps onto the model to hold it in place, and then with a slim transfer punch, located the five lighting lead locations onto the wood surfface.



This image shows the pin pricks where the lighting permitted.



I drilled the holes with an ample brad point drill and then flipped the base over to work on the bottom. I put some felt and cardboard under the base to protect the finish.

I installed the power supply and secured the power cord with some cable clamps. I drilled some pilot holes for the screws and put some tape to set the drill depth. The main plank is 3/4" thick so I set the drill depth to half of that.





To mount the power switch I crafted a brass mounting plate. I prepared the 15/64" drill for drilling brass and used a clearance drill for the small, flat-head brass screws that would hold the plate and switch in place. I had to do it twice. When I cut the countersink on the thin brass sheet I went too deep and enlarged the opening so far that screw fell through. My 2nd attempt was more successful. I'm preparing all the power circuitry now when there's no model on top. After the model's built and plexiglass case is attached, I will lay it over on one side and tie into all the LED wires into the circuit board. It will be the last act before the model is declared complete.



This time I was smart and had Bryant cut all the slots in the base before I got it.



Tomorrow, I'll mount the circuit board on some plastic standoffs and the bottom will be done for now. Then I'll flip it back over, remove the backing film on the servo tape, align the model on the tape lines and permently adhere the model to the base… and then the fun will really begin.

Great work so far!

This post covers two days. Yesterday, I finalized attaching ALL the electrical components below the base. What's left will be the very last task performed, after the case is built and mounted, when I turn it on its side and attach all the field LED leads to the circuit board. It's AFTER the case is on to protect turning the model on its side.



I flipped the base over and got ready to permanently affix the model to the base. Flipping the bare model on its side, I peeled the backing film off the double-sided, foam servo tape. This stuff holds like crazy and, unfortunately, holds its backing film with equal force. This image represents almost an hour's effort. A couple of the faux dry dock blocks popped off due to all the manhandling and had to be reattached. Slowly, I started to get a bit better at getting the backing off without either pulling off the foam tape or breaking off the blocks.



Once all were open, I carefully held the model against the masked lines and pressed the model onto the base. I was rewarded with an extremely firm adhesion. I could probably lift the entire base by pulling up the model, but resisted the temptation for fear of catastrophe if I was wrong. Each block may not be that strong, but 24 of them have a lot of collective power.





I'm glad I chose to go with the dry dock blocks. It made it more understandable (to me) on how to fasten the model to the base.

Today I went to General Rubber & Plastics to pick up the cut Plexiglass. It was supposed to be cut next week, but they were early and I'm happy. Monday, my good model buddy, Chris Bowling, is coming over to lend a hand, and having a master builder like him around to help with the case glue up is great. All the pieces look like they fit pefectly. When you're in a model contest where Chris has an entry, the best you can do is 2nd.

Back in the shop for a short session, I added some horsepower decals to the model. Having the RPM numbers without the horsepower numbers seemed incomplete. I also added the latest RPM decal to the repainted MRG top.

There's not enough clear space on the HP turbine itself, so I put the decal adjacent to it.





i still have to add a new number "12", which will happen on Monday after the decal is fully set.



Now to the next very challenging task. Arranging and marking the location of all the units and their mounting pins. I've chosen to do this by re-using the floor template sheets. I added the holes for the main condenser piping and will situate all the units in their exact final locations. First thing was setting up some 3º guidelines to ensure that the MRG/HP and main condensers are all rotated on that bias. Then I laid on the TG unit AND the work platform that spans the gap between them. This platform (and others) are critical in spacing out many of the unit positions on the model. I got it in position where it looked right. I couldn't nest it into the I-beam TG frame because the TG is proud of the surface by the height of the mounting pins. They will be sunk in holes when in final position. This entire exercise is to locate those pin holes.



I had to trim the lenght of the big lube oil filter's piping since it was restricting my ability to move the TG unit fore and aft for final positioning. Their length was just an approximation anyway. I don't really know where the pipes go on the ship. They're under the floor plates.

So… the task is to locat these kind of things on the template, make holes in the template and then spot them on the actual floor. I chose to do it this to keep as much damage off the real floor as possible. To complicate things I've created two different kinds of mountings. Oh well.



Monday will be taken up with building the show case, and further work on equipment locationing.

Everyone have a nice weekend. Weather here in Louisville will be spectacular. Tomorrow is my model club's annual judged exposition. Our club, the Military Modelers Club of Lousiville, is celebrating its 50th anniversay and the two founders are still members. One, Brian Bunger, is the propietor of one of the best hobby shops in the USA, Scale Reproductions, Inc. He's an avid and masterful model builder himself and the shop reflects his love of the hobby. The club has many fabulous builders and I'm very proud to be in their company.

Excellent work so far!

Today was a major milestone day! My friend and master-modeler, Chris Bowling, came over to lend a hand. And boy did I need it. It took too experience builders to pull it off. To give you a taste of what Chris can do, this was his entry in out model club's annual exposition this past Saturday. It started as a paper model kit of the launch platform and crawler, and then after about 4 months of intense efforts. The shuttle Atlantis is a Revell kit that is greatly enhanced. Scale is 1:72.



We located all the untis with columns and drilled all their mounting holes. We intalled, permanently, the main condenser and main reduction gear foundation. And then started installing more things that go around it. Everything was installed with 5-minute epoxy and they are very secure. We probably spent an hour getting the turbogenerator unit positioned and settled down to the correct depth once all the pin holes were cleared of any interference from the plastic lattice that laid below.

Intially, we used the paper template to mark hole locations, but found that the paper was fouling the pin holes making it hard to settle down to full depth. When all of the columned platforms had their mounting holes confirmed, I permanently installed the main condenser. This was a 3-step process. First, the condener pump was CA'd on the tapered pipe end, and then the main body was epoxied to the hold floor. Before gluing, Chris sanded the oxide red to provide a good gluing surface. Epoxy set in 5 minutes and then I glued on the startboard end. The handwheel on the big gate valve just bumped the bulkhead, but we could still get the condenser correctly located. The LP turbine foundation was CA'd to the supports flanking the condenser.



When cured, we located and marked the positioning for the MRG foundation and did the same sanding job. The foundation was spoxied and held in place with gravity clamps. The HP foundation was help lavel and clamped to the bulkhead while curing.



At this point Chris had to leave and I continued adding the starboard #1 prop shaft bearing and the lube purifier foundaion with epoxy. The seal bearings are not glued in yet.



I also glued in the separate steam powered lube pump which has been floating around on the parts table for a long time.

I had to relieve some of the bearing bores in the MRG to get the gear coveres to lie flat. I then epoxied the gear covers with the reduction set installed and clamped with lots of clamps. Gear box will be installed next.



Chris helped me and finished sanded all the glue edges on the plexiglass in preparation for glue up tomorrow. I can do that without help. Chris is returning next monday to help some more.

It's really exciting that this is actually reaching this point. It's going rather fast.

Fantastic!

Thanks guys!

Dug into building the enclosure today. I thought I was doing everything right this time. It is my 5th clear case build, so I should be getting better at it. I'm almost there...

The plexiglass is sitting on a wet towel and I wiped down all the surfaces after peeling off the protective film. This is supposed to kill any static charge. It generally worked. I was very diligent in applying the masking tape to hold it all together. The cutting measures that we determined were perfect. I started with Tamiya tape, but it didn't exert enough pull holding the parts in alignment. I substituted 3m Blue Tape and it worked better. What didn't work so well was when I filling a pipette to transfer liquid solvent to the needle tipped bottle. I had my reservoir at the back of the table and after I filled the pipette and attempted to bring to the bottle it unloaded a splash onto the interior plexiglass. It happened again I had a spurt come from the needle applicator. I didn't touck the solvent and let it evaporate. It didn't mar it too badly. Luckily, one area is where the key is going and won't be visible. The other areas of trouble was a little bit of seepage under the tape. I'm not sure what to do about that. I will let it cure totally over night and see what I can do tomorrow. I have plastic polishing materials. The case fit nicely. And I did mount the key with 3M Transfer Tape. The key is double sided and it can read from both sides of the case.



The glue up of the upper main reduction gear case when very well. Today I glued up some more for the lower part of the asembly and will put the unit into the model next session.



The rest of the session was spent wrestlng the startboard floor and the evaporator/main gauge panel decking to play well together. They weren't! Chris and I spent a lot of time yesterday trying to align the flooring with the columns and locate the pin holes. Today, nothing fit and I had to do more surgery cutting away portions of the flooring so the columns could find their respective holes. I think I got it figured out at the end of the session and will get it all buttoned down next session.

I'm thinking about model #4 and could most likely do the steering gear. I did a quick drawing and scaling of the rudder and, yest, it can be printed on my printer as a single part. That helps a bit. As with the engine room, the project will hinge on getting good drawings from John Miano. John owns many microfilm reels of all the New Jersey's engineering.

All looks to be coming together rather nicely, hope you manage to sort out the little mishaps.

Have you asked the plastics supplier if they can assemble the unit without blemishes? They may have assembled projects for other customers that you can see for reference.

Next model I will find someone. General Rubber and Plastics does not build cases.

Since many of you have been following my pursuits in model making, you also know that I often have to deal with calamities. Yesterday was no exception. That said, progress was made. First the progress. I got the starboard floor in and the evaporator decking that sits over it. I installed the lube oil purifier and the lube oil settling tank. And most importantly, I got the main reduction gear installed. I also spent a lot of time finally getting the turbines and MRG shafts to align properly.

Before I got started, I needed to adapt how I was supporting the model to have access to the bottom. In addition to getting all this stuff positioned and glued propperly, I have to feed all the LED leads down through the base. I took another stool of the same size, screwed a board across it to match the height of the other, and clamped the model across the two leaving a gap wide enough to expose the entire underside of the base. Notice the protective paper I was thoughtful enough to put over the delicate woodwork. What you can't see is the one end (left end) that I didn't do this, based on the erroneous assumption that it was such narrow area, what could possible damage. Hmmm….you can see where I'm headed here.





Gravity clamps ATTEMPTED to hold the floor in place while epoxy was curing. See that exposed wood...



To hold the upper level in place I also used gravity clamps (not shown). Then two things happened. One of the angle blocks fell off and dinged the wood base. And then the extension nozzle on the CA bottle blew off and a huge glob a medium viscosity CA landed directly on the wood. I wiped it, but it did damage the finish requiring work to restore. And to make matters worse, a thread of epoxy ended up on the base as well. All this because I was stupid enough to leave one area exposed. I can fix all of this damage, but I didn't need the extra work.



Notice that the floor legs ended up off the hold floor. Nothing I could do could get them in proper position. The floor was bumping into some part of the MRG structure. What madeit so frustrating was the time Chris and I spent aligning everything before gluing down the MRG foundation. And yet something had to have move about 1/8 to 3/16" to narrow the flooring space. I have two choices. Leave it as it and just hope people don't fixate on it—like I am, or rip out the floor and redesign it so it can be inserted in sections and fit around the columns, which aren't going anywhere. I'm going to do the redesign and see if it makes sense to do.

Gluing down the MRG started by gluing in the lower portion. Again, gravity clamps help it in place until epoxy set.



When set, I added the bull gear and then screwed (not glued) the upper works in place. One corner was sitting high and the tiny screw was stripping the resin threads so I added some more and it's holding. It was much easier screwing this together than epoxying. I thought of doing both, but the screws seemed to be holding well. The turbines and crossover pipe and not permanently installed yet.



To get the LP turbine to align I had to add another 1/8" shim on the bottom. Again, I don't know why this shift happened. Previous fitting sessions had it aligning without this shim. A similar issue occured with the HP turibine, It was interfering with the torque tube and I had to grind off part of the HP Shaft and surrounding shell. I also had to slightly modify the HP frame, but as you can see by the above, they are aligned really well.

I permanently installed the strbd prop shaft including its bulkhead seals. And did the same for the MRG prop shaft seal. That's all done!



Here's a view across the back of the MRG and a comparable view of the real thing. The resemblance is deliberate and gratifying.





I just noticed that the lower foundation is gray not red. In my engine room it's now RED!

The lube oil settling tank is in and the pipes lead down below… somewhere.



And lastly, here's an overview shot of the assembly so far.



There's some more touchup painting on that extra shim under the LP turbine and then I'm gluing down both turbines and the crossover. BTW: that crossover fit was one of the key parameters that I had to hit. Another thing that did not go wrong.

No work today. It's Yom Kippur. Work will begin tomorrow.

3D printing is changing the modeling world.
What fantastic work.
But now, can you get it thru the door????

Sure. It's only two feet wide and a bit over a foot deep. It's pretty heavy. Just the acrylic is heavy.

After spending about an hour attempting to design a new floor system that coule be inserted from the edge, I realized that, while I could get the left-most part to do that, the rest, especially the right-most portion would not and I scraped the idea turning to plan C. Plan C, suggested by Chris, is to make a small extension to the floor and fasten the overhanging legs there. This actually worked okay. It's not real pretty, but the legs hanging over were just plain ugly, so it's a definited improvement.

In order to give it strength I made the bottom piece 3/4" wide and notched it to clear the longitudinal frame members. I initially used Testor's styrene tube cement, but had to add Tamiya liquid cement and then rubber-infused CA to deal with stubborn areas. There was a glitch that was causing the trouble; the pins from the columns, although I clipped them shorter, the were still protruding a bit and were keeping the styrene from adhering to the styrene decking.





The finished job could be better, but it solved a problem and the outer floor supports are now grounded on something solid and not just hanging out in thin air.



I'm detecting a patten… Somehow, the MRG foundation and/or the main condenser about 1/8" off of the ideal position. That 1/8" has been repeating itself everywhere and causing all sorts of things like the fit of the flooring, fits of the turbines, and fits of the catwalks that surround them. I can't fix it, so I have to adapt to it. The units are very well epoxied in place—as they should be—and can/will not be removed.

On one of my other forums to which I post this thread, one of followers was an electrician in… guess what… the Battleship New Jersey Engine Room #3 from 1967 to 1969 when it was activated for Viet Nam. He was guided to the thread by a friend and offered some comments and congratulatory statements. While he found a couple of inaccuracies, he thought the overall venture was wonderful. He's going to be at the ship for the 250th anniversary of the US Marines and it may coincide with my trip to deliver the model. I would like to meet him.

I painted the LP turbine shim and fixed the broken relief valve. I broke off one and had spares. It's ready for installation. Before doing that I started fitting the various catwalks and found that 1/8" error causing some weird fits. Nothing too critical! In this image, the forward platform in front of the LP turbine is protruding past the bulkhead by 1/8" or so. It's supposed to lie just behind it.



But, before going further with the propulsion plant, I installed the central column. The 1/8" again showed with the upper part of the entry hatch floor 1/8" offset to the port side. I could still epoxy it in place, but it's not exactly placed as per the plan. I needed a little shim under one angle support under the column, but will be invisible after painting and all the rest of the starboard side equipment goes in.



We leave on vacation next Friday, but I should get plenty done from Monday thru Wednesday. I think all the goodies will be in place in a couple more work sessions. That's assuming nothing breaks or I have to redo something to get a better fit.

Have a nice weekend.