1:72 Complete Iowa Battleship 16"-50 cal Turret with interior down to the magazine

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Thanks! What I learned created hours and hours of drawing revisions. Here's some of them. I've gotten a pretty good version of the projectile hoist. It's the right size and geometry now. I added some more support between the members so it will have some structural integrity coming out of the printer. Unlike the prototype, it will not be fastened floor and ceiling, just the floor. I'm really happy how the operating console came out in the drawing. Whether it prints well is another question that hasn't been answered yet. I'm showing the hoists with the spring-loaded doors closed.



Here's the mysterious alcove in the center gun compartment. This detail is never shown in any of the drawings or photos. It's the blank space where the missing powder hoist trunk would be. There are three hoist trunks; right and center are back to back and the center is single so there's space next to it. This is where the gun captain's controls are and a place to stand out of the way of the recoil. I'm not done detailing it, but I have excellent photos of the space. There's a strange hatch in the gun girder in that little enclosed space on the left. It almost looks too small for a human, but I think it is a manway.



Lastly, there's the massive changes I had to make on the powder flat. I now have the actual geometry of the lower end of the powder trunks and their integral operator's booths. I still haven't decided how I'm going to display it so some of the inside booth details will be visible. You can see the cutaway that's going to be printed in rather than cut out afterwards. I'm going to do the same thing for the operator's booths. I still have to detail the powder cars. I also now have the integrated powder loading trays. My center column is oversized since I'm using a piece of 3/4" copper tubing for it. I'll solder the foot rungs onto it. BTW: the only way to reach the projectile flats before they modified this space with real stairs was up those ladder rungs. In Turret 2, there is a one deck mezzanine above the powder flat since this turret is one deck above the main deck. So these rungs go up more than 20 feet. My 76 year old bod wasn't about to make that trek, but I didn't have to. Turrets 1 and 3 have not had this modificatoin nor are they slated to, so access for folks that aren't 18 year-old skinny sailors would be greatly restricted.



That brings you up to date.
 
Welxome to my world. I fall asleep at night constructing it in my mind and often wake up in the morning thinking about it again. It's where I do most of my problem solving. Once I have all the parts successfully printed it will become more like a traditional model with assembliy and painting. Right now it's a product design project, and I have great sympathy for the modeling companies.
 
There will be some minor adjustments, but this is how the stack will be cutaway for viewing the innards.



There are partitions that go to the pan floor. I'm going to attempt to make them out of clear acrylic so you could see all the way across to the left gun in the elevated position. I have to make some minor size changes to the powder trunks (they're still a little too thick), the rear gun compartment assembly since it's thick bottom was extending through the pan deck walls, and I still have to sort out the height of the sighting stations. They should be resting on the turret bottom plate, but they need to extend high enough for the telescopes to poke out of the armored blisters on the turret sides. We're almost there.
 
Thank you!

I was wrestling with the powder trunks for literally days! Besides the fact that three trunks have slightly different trajectories, they do not go straight up from the powder flat to the gun compartment.

This is a drawing provided to me by Jim Slade shows the center trunk path (green lines) for #1 turret. It not only gives the outline, but also 1:1 datums from the centerline to get the sizing correct.



I was attempting... unsuccessfully... to open holes in each of the decks that th trunks pass through, but was constantly wrong, and worse, each time I had to adjust the trajectory I had to attempt to close the existing opening and draw in another. Each time this happened the part's complexity got worse. A slight change in trunk position would have some part of the trunk penetrating the outer walls of the projectile flat cores. I needed to reverse my thinking.

There was actually no reaason why my trunks had to actually penetrate each deck. To the viewer it didn't matter if it really went through just as long as the trunk under the deck and that above looked like they were a continuation of the same part.

In SketchUp, instead of intersecting the trunk with the decks and openning the rectangles in the deck corresponding to the trunk path, I did the reverse. I intersected the deck with the trunk and removed the material in the trunks that corresponded to the space occupied by the decks. The result is a series of trunk pieces that, when placed properly on each deck, will appear as a continuous channel from the bottom to the top, and I no longer have to worry about the angular trunks fitting through the parallel walls of the deck openings.



This reversed method also makes it easier to assemble the stack as each segment can be installed while each deck is open and before the next deck goes on top. I still have to modify the gun girders to accept the new trunk designs. I was hoping not having to reprint the gun girder, but I also have to change the deck height under the sigter's telescopes, so it was inevitable that a reprint was going to happen. Each time I think, "Oh well, that probably won't be seen by anyone," I change my mind. I'm spending so much time attempting to get it right that fudging really bugs me.

I printed the first trunk, the single one on the right gun, and was really happy with how well the lower operator's booth/load trays came out. One door lug game off, but they're microscopic and not worth a reprint. They're too small even to fake with wire, although I'm crazy enough to try. The wall appliances print too! This was before post-hardening and final cleanup.



To avoid having to reprint perfectly good decks to close the trunk holes, I resorted to filling them with CA'd styrene. This is the turret-connected projectile flat. Its center will be filled with the core print so the tops of the filled holes will be covered. I'm reprinting the cores anyway since I've now drawn the cutaway sections that I want to be printed in.

I also didn't feel like reprinting the entire, perfect, officer's booth floor to close up that extra passage that doesn't exist in real life. Here too I closed it with some fitted styrene. When painted it will be invisible. The patches are dead level with the surrounding surfaces.



Just for fun, I moved the viewpoint into the powder flat area and did some screen prints. Remember, what you see on SketchUp is exactly what you will see in the model since the parts are faithfully reproduced from these drawings. Some of these details are oversized by 1:1 standards since they must be able to exist in 1/72 world.







I have to figure out how to install those foot rungs on the center column. To install the foot rungs I will have to install them to the pre-drilled holes in the column before each deck goes in place on top. I will be able to put the wires in and then the deck on top. If I install the rungs before installing any decks, the decks won't be able to slide on top. Unless I would gun a relief slot in the deck and then filling the slot after installation. I'm literally thinking this through as I'm writing this. Pre-installing the rungs would enable me to solder them in place and paint the column. The column is 3/4" copper tubing. I could also use 3/4 plastic water pipe if the o.d.s are the same. If I do that I would CA the rungs in place.
 
Thanks you.

Qucik Status Update:

Completed making all the drawing changes derived from the tour. Plus finished drawing all the remaining pieces. I then got ALL the remaining/re-do parts set up for printing. This activity took many hours and days since I got home. I now haw 13 separate print jobs that need to be done ranging from 1.5 to 11 hour printing time. I estimate about a week to two weeks worth. When done, I will have all the printed parts ready for paint and assembly. I still have to prepare all the flat parts out of styrene and clear acrylic. Lots of work left to do!

The changes included:

  • Newly designed gun girder to accept the revised powder trunks and mount the sight stations on the turret base plate
  • Gun compartment rear assembly modified for new wall openings and correct access ladder arrangement.
  • Completely revised Powder trunks and several reprints to fix drawing errors that crept in after print failures.
  • Print all the powder flat appliances gleaned from tour
  • Revised all decks from powder flat to pan deck reflecting the new trunk arrangement
  • Revised sighting gear reflecting mounting 30" lower on turret plate and not the girder
  • Finalized elevating gear so the tilting box will actually move making it easier to adjust screw angle during installation.
  • Adjusted and redrew all the lower deck partitions
  • Added the curved bulkheads in the turret side chambers
  • Modified the loading trays on the lower powder trunks to make the powder bags a separately added part. They weren't printing correctly.
 
Well... your reaction is exactly why I post all this stuff. Thanks!

Had a brief trip to Michigan to attend a memorial for the wife of the great fellow who played drums in my epic R & B band at Michigan State in the mid 60s. I have two very close friends from that era living there and was able to see both. Wish it could have been a happier occasion. They're both suffering the effects of age, and that's upsetting to see also, but what can you do. Just be there and support them.

When I got back I got into action again processing more changes, creating print files and starting to print the vast quantity of work still needing production. I'm also beginning the design process for the display and have enlisted the help of another band member. My bass player lives in Albuquerque and is an exceptional wood worker. He's offered to make the base for the model.

What you see here is a smattering of the parts count needed to build this beast. I have successfully printed the lowest level of the double powder trunk with the control booth. I lost a couple of the door latching dogs and may replace them with wire. They measure about 0.010" and I have both wire and drills of that size. I printed more powder scuttles so I now have enough good ones for both the inner and outer powder flat rings. I have enough doors now. And reprinted successfully the gun rear compartments with the changes in the rammer operator's seat and removed those clunky steps that I had placed in version 1.0.

Overnight, I printed the separate pinion gear and carriers for the traversing gear. This way I was able to better control the attachment points of the supports. Right now, as I've designed the cutaways, the traverse pinions are not visible. I may add more cutouts to display them. Slowly but surely I will get the stuff printed. I believe I have enough resin to finish the job. If not, Amazon delivers in one day with Prime.

In this image you'll aslo see Chobani Yogurt cut upside down. I use these for everything and found that putting a glob of Bondic (CA, PSA, etc.) on it and using a toothpick applicator I get a very clean job. The cups are polypropylene and are impervious to solvent glues and CA.
Note: that I printed the powder bag sets separately. They were causing print failures in the powder trunk prints. This way I can add them more randomly.

As I've noted before, but I think it's worth repeating, the biggest challenge for me in scratch-building complex models is there are no instructions. No instructions means you have to develop the build sequence entirely in your head. I don't have difficulty doing this, but I imagine that it's a talent more than a skill. It's very hard to teach it to someone else. Jack Nicklaus used to play the entire golf course in his mind before a tournament. He'd walk the course and play each hole in his head. I do the same in modeling, usually as I'm going to sleep or just when arising.

The build sequence in this model is daunting. There are plenty of parts that must go on in the right order or you will be snookered.

Here's my first rendering of the display. I wil be adding numbers to each major component and have a key on the back or flat surface under the guns explaining what they're looking at. The back will be mirror and possibly the base so the rear can be viewed too. I started adding the numbers in SketchUp, but it wasn't worth the effort since they aren't being created integrated with the parts, but will laser cut and added afterwards. For the details that are in the gun house and viewed from the top, I'm thinking of using some stiff wire to have the number suspended above the part in question. Examples: ramming machines, charging cradle, gun slides and breach, etc.

The central tube is 5/8" o.d. copper tubing that I will solder to a screwed flange. The flange will be solidly attached to the base board for a rigid connection. Right now I don't have the outer shell touching the base, but I suppose I could lengthen it to add more support. Since the parts are created exactly from the drawings you see here, the finished model will look pretty much what you see here. There are pieces missing on the gun house, but that doesn't matter to convey what I'm designing here. I'm really itching to reach a point to start building and painting.

Speaking of painting. Interior walls are white. Exterior I'm making haze gray since this is the WW2 configuration. Decks in the gun house were linoleum. Decks in the projectile flats was greased steel so I'm going with burnt iron color. Decks in the powder flat I'm assuming were linoleum also. Guns were haze gray and I have good color pictures of them at least, although it's their refit 1980s color.
 
Whoever you work for ain't paying you enough.
 
this looks awesome and I see the time you used for drawing and printing back in the details. But, maybe I am a "Mierenn*uker" ( It's dutch so please, you can search for it, the star should be an "e" )

Is it possible for you to raise every deck and put it on some holders ? Couldn't find a pic to show, so maybe.....

deck --> |_______________|
| |
pins --> | |
Deck --> |_______________|

So you can more seen of the interior and stil its the hole section, just cut apart


You see it often at shipsmodels
 
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