IT IS DONE!
There's a load of pictures today in honor of the model's completion.
Day started drilling the case for the two remaining clips. I use masking tape backing to help prevent cracking when the drill breaks through. i used a small pilot hole and then a drill sharpened specifically for plexiglass. The holes were clean.
I fastened the case on so I could tip it over for the wiring.
While it's a bit heavy and unwieldy, I was able to carefully tip it over exposing the underneath.
I use Euro-style electrical hookups with ferrules. I got into this habit when building my model railroad while working for Henkel living in Germany. I terminated all the wiring.
The first two I connected failed to work! I checked for correct voltage from the power supply and for correct polarity of the wiring, but they didn't work. I got a bit worried. These two weren't critical, being the lights under the main steam line that would give more light to the turbines and the other under the evaporator deck lighting up the lube oil purifier. Neither area is actually in the dark.
The next three connections worked perfectly… whew! Here's what they look like under lower ambient lighting. I love how the control console looks when lit.
The aux condenser piping was very obscure until the lights went on.
Even with the room lights on you can still see the illumination.
Here are three shots of the completed model with the case cleaned. The model is ready for delivery.
Here's the builder's plate.
And here's all the parts that didn't make it. Some of duplicates. Most are rejects. Lots of trial and error creating this.
So dear readers, let's summarize this undertaking.
The Good:
- Without the drawings this project would have been impossibe.
- The Swiss Cheese design of having the bulkheads there, but not there, worked better than I expected.
- Learning how to draw large herringbone gears, turbine blades, etc. pushed my creative envelope.
- The arrival of my Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra printer at the onset of the project was fortuitous, doing everything I asked it do and it never ceased to amaze me.
- Pre-planning the lighting—even though two ciruits didn't work—worked well and made my life easier.
- Laying out and fitting all of this machinery and piping is a small space was the biggest challenge that I overcame.
- Including the triple bottom, while a complete pain in the butt to execute, was an important feature of this part of the ship that needed inclusion
- The arrival of the vinyl cutter in the middle of the project solved the problem of identifying all the apparatus and striping the propeller shafts. I will find more things for this tool to do on future projects.
- The failed circuits were the least important.
- Using water pipe to simulate the other propeller shafts worked very well.
- Building a model like this from photos of the real engine room was almost impossible and yet, those photos were invaluable in creating the model. While I had a lot of drawings, I still had to design parts from photos only.
Ths Bad:
- My case building skills are still wanting. I think I'm going to outsource this on future projects.
- My Apple MacBook Pro 2019 is not up to the task of designing massive 3D models. I want to make an animated walk through of the model for uploading to Youtube, but this machine can't do it.
- Desiging the model with the full lattice bottom framing was overkill and could be greatly streamlined if ever make another one of these, which I don't think will happen.
- Hand cutting all the lattice pieces was far more effort than the value it created for the model.
- Even with all the drawings being checked and rechecked, I still missed things like that last stair.
- I'm not happy with the paint finish on a few things especially the piping. My airbrushing was inconsistent.
- Why two lighting circuits failed after checking them multiple times off the model is a mystery. It's possible that the brass tubing cut the insulation and shorted them out.
- Decal application was okay. Could have been better.
- There's excess glue in places that were impossible to reach, but are now illuminated and visible.
- Getting the sub-asssemblies to settle down was very difficult. There were times when I thought it wouldn't work.
In summary: Of all the spaces in an Iowa Class Battleship that would be difficult to model, the engine rooms have to the be the most difficult. So of course I chose to do one. Ship engine rooms have always interested me. I've even said that if I had a boat it had to be big enough to have an engine room. Engine Room #3 was chosen for two reasons. It's the master room where the chief engineer has visibility to the performance of the other three, and it's the only one that has square sides. All the rest are tapered to some degree fitting into the curves of the hull. The model would be difficult enough to not have to deal with those angles. At the onset, I had some very expansive concepts of what it could look like, but virtually no idea of how to execute it.
Three things seemed—at the time—to be show stoppers: the herringbone gears, the turbines and the gratings. I attacked these early on, even before I had John Miano's drawings. The red herring of having drawings at the National Archives that turned out to be the Battleship New Jersey BB16 from 1905 deflated my sails completely. No dimensioned drawings = no project. When John Miano came through with 40 detailed techincal drawings the project was possible; definitely not a sure thing, but at least there was someplace to start. As it came together, drawing-by-drawing, the possibility of a real model got clearer. When I finalized my drawings and produced renderings of what it would look like, all I had to do was put it all together so it came out like I pictured it.
Thanks to all who hung around this thread for 14 months while I ground through this. Your support, feedback and ideas keep me going. It takes about 1/2 hour per night to journal all of this, but it's worth it. I do this thread on four different forums, each with its own focus and participation. As a result, I have folks with whom I have a collegial relationship from all over the world including North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Of all the bad things you hear about the Internet, the ability to connect with folks like you overshadows all of the negative aspects.
So… what's next? I'm noodling doing the steering gear. It's an interesting and vital area that very few visitors ever see. It hasn't been modeled before, I believe, much like this one, and while less mechanically complex, it is far more geometrically complex which should make it interesting. For example: Do I model one side or both? They're identical. Do I include the rudders? If I include the rudders, do I include the propellers which are an integral part of the system? How do I draw the propellers? I don't know… that's the fun. It could be built on a mirror like is done with ship models all the time. Only problem is the hydraulic pumping units are not mirror images of each other. They are identical.
The other choice could be the Emergency Diesel Generating Room, fore or aft. Aft is a simpler space to model and is the only space in the ship where all four prop shafts are visible. I've already mastered how to support those shafts. The diesel engine, an ALCo 359, is a variation of engines that I've already drawn and printed, so this model could be a little less onerous than my previous forays.
Or perhaps I'll take a break for a while and build something for my train layout, which has been sad since I've been neglecting it all year. We'll see… Stay tuned.