1:72 Complete Iowa Battleship 16"-50 cal Turret with interior down to the magazine
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Vic Balshaw
Major General
This is just so intriguing and mind boggling. 
- Thread starter
- #103
Builder 2010
Staff Sergeant
Thanks. It boggles my mind also… hundreds of parts and not a single part number among them.
I got a really nice rendition of the air bottle sets that line the outer ring on the powder flat. I made four complete sets that will be in the foreground. Those that will be obscured by the rest of the turret will be left out. I based this drawing off of the pictures I took on that deck during the tour. I was happy that the piping survived the cleanup.
I also finished up the fitting of the traverse B-end. I had originally printed all of this machinery as part of the pan deck, but the results were sub-par and didn't meet my standards. By separating them into separate prints including making the pinions movable, produced a much better job overall.
And I made one of the stupidest mistakes I ever made. I was all excited about getting that "last print" done. I emptied the machine of the previous parts using the very convenient Wham-Bam spring steel build plate. You pop it off the magnetic holder, bend it as for as it will go and the parts pop off of it. I give it a quick cleaning of IPA and then put it back on the magnetic sub-plate and you're back in business in less than five minutes and you don't have the slop of removing the entire plate assembly.
I started the printer and the job would take an hour and fifty seven minutes. I had a lot of other stuff to do and the printer was humming away. When it was done I looked at the job and my heart sank. The job was 80% off the build plate, just hanging there. Most of the parts didn't even start to form. What did was almost unrecognizable. The it hit me...
I left the spring plate on the table behind me after cleaning it. I was attempting... unsucessfully... to print on a 3M rubberized magnetic surface, which, the last time I looked, was not compatible with printing anything. I removed the whole build plate assembly, cleaned it all off and restored the magnetic surface to what it should look like, and then put the spring plate back on. I had to empty the vat and pop off all the malformed pieces of semi-hardened resin that were stuck to it. The nice thing about the FEP2 film that Elegoo is marketing is its ablilty to recover after screwups like this. Stuck material just pops off leaving no damage. You don't even have to clean the film, just wipe the slop off the sides, but it back on the machine and refill. I reran the job and it's now finished.
The parts printed perfectly, and I'll show them tomorrow. Meanwhile, I realized that I have just one more job to produce; the channel for the shell hoists that goes from the electric deck to under the cradle in the gun compartments. They're already drawn. I just have to scale them and ready them for printing. Tomorrow!
I got a really nice rendition of the air bottle sets that line the outer ring on the powder flat. I made four complete sets that will be in the foreground. Those that will be obscured by the rest of the turret will be left out. I based this drawing off of the pictures I took on that deck during the tour. I was happy that the piping survived the cleanup.
I also finished up the fitting of the traverse B-end. I had originally printed all of this machinery as part of the pan deck, but the results were sub-par and didn't meet my standards. By separating them into separate prints including making the pinions movable, produced a much better job overall.
And I made one of the stupidest mistakes I ever made. I was all excited about getting that "last print" done. I emptied the machine of the previous parts using the very convenient Wham-Bam spring steel build plate. You pop it off the magnetic holder, bend it as for as it will go and the parts pop off of it. I give it a quick cleaning of IPA and then put it back on the magnetic sub-plate and you're back in business in less than five minutes and you don't have the slop of removing the entire plate assembly.
I started the printer and the job would take an hour and fifty seven minutes. I had a lot of other stuff to do and the printer was humming away. When it was done I looked at the job and my heart sank. The job was 80% off the build plate, just hanging there. Most of the parts didn't even start to form. What did was almost unrecognizable. The it hit me...
I left the spring plate on the table behind me after cleaning it. I was attempting... unsucessfully... to print on a 3M rubberized magnetic surface, which, the last time I looked, was not compatible with printing anything. I removed the whole build plate assembly, cleaned it all off and restored the magnetic surface to what it should look like, and then put the spring plate back on. I had to empty the vat and pop off all the malformed pieces of semi-hardened resin that were stuck to it. The nice thing about the FEP2 film that Elegoo is marketing is its ablilty to recover after screwups like this. Stuck material just pops off leaving no damage. You don't even have to clean the film, just wipe the slop off the sides, but it back on the machine and refill. I reran the job and it's now finished.
The parts printed perfectly, and I'll show them tomorrow. Meanwhile, I realized that I have just one more job to produce; the channel for the shell hoists that goes from the electric deck to under the cradle in the gun compartments. They're already drawn. I just have to scale them and ready them for printing. Tomorrow!
Vic Balshaw
Major General
Those bottles turned out great.
BertUS
Senior Airman
So, expensive lesson learned in time, 1.57 to learn to place the plate every time
Well, it's right about the Elegoo FEB, the other FEB will be torned
But, I recjonize the bunch of files, last day I took a long sit the archived all the parts again in several maps and secure them on a USB stick
Well, it's right about the Elegoo FEB, the other FEB will be torned
But, I recjonize the bunch of files, last day I took a long sit the archived all the parts again in several maps and secure them on a USB stick
- Thread starter
- #107
Builder 2010
Staff Sergeant
Thanks guys! You learn the most by the screw ups you survive.
The "Final Print" completed nicely. The quotes denote that it was not quite the final-final print. I realized this morning that I neglected to print the projectile trunks. These were already drawn so all I had to do was scale, export as STLs and slice. They finished tonight and are being cleaned in the ultrasonic. In that print also was a reprint of the missing air bottles on one of the projectile flats. For some reason, I got the scale wrong. That's now fixed. I also lost one of the gun trunnion caps. I have to have 6 or them and only found five. They're printing as I write this. The beauty of having this tool and the drawing skills is if a part is missing or broken, you just make another. I don't erase any of the drawing files. Today, I did organize about 1,000 files into sub-directories in preparation to archive them at some point.
Here's a perfect example of what a 4k monnchromatic LCD screen can do resolution-wise. I found a nice grating that I inserted into the drawing of the ventilator units that are in the side passges. I didn't know if these small features would resolve. They did! So who needs PE? It still amazes me that this technology works and is available for a few hundred bucks. Just four years ago, it was $3k and higher... much higher. The monstrous Xacto blade shows the scale. I will fill the spaces with flat black and then dry brush the grills and they will look spectacular.
Another example is the tiny interior perscope units. There is actually a gear rack in the circumference of the mounting ring. You can just make it out. Again, the Xacto shows scale.
While the projectile trunks were printing, I arrayed all the parts save those few missing pieces to show the whole deal. It kinda blows my mind. Each one represents a drawing that had to be made and scaled, sliced and then printed. The number of parts is probably 50% more than you see from the extras and rejects. I have a pile sitting on the side of my work bench and a lot went into the trash.
I haven't counted them. It's well over 100. And not a single part number or instruction as to where to put them. It's all in my head. Thank goodness at 77, the head is still sort of working. There are a few duplicates floating around in this pile, but not many. This project was not for the faint hearted.
What is not shown in the above are the sheet stock parts including all the gun compartment partitions, the outer shells, the pan deck walls, and the non-rotating platforms of the two projectile flats and powder flat.
The rest of today's session was spent restoring the powder flat. For the massive missing area, I made a styrene backing
and then appliled Milliput epoxy putty to create the missing wall.
It will be fully cured tomorrow and I will sand it to the proper contour. I also filled the discontinuity that ran down the side in another area. In this case I used Bondic in four applications hardening each layer with the UV pen. When painted it will be invisible.
Lastly, I applied some Tamiya filler to the few depressions in the Powder Flat decking. It took a ton of elbow grease to level all that overgrowth out of the part, but it all went away. I went around and fine tuned all the square openings to fit the exterior portions of the powder scuttles so they all fit nicely. Tomorrow I'll finish this part and get working on finishing up the electric deck adding some missing partitions.
Hard to believe that the above looked like this. If I had any chance of re-printing and having more success I would have done that. But it used a ton of expensice resin, and I have the skills and materials to restore it, so I chose that route. I'm not disappointed.
Works continues apace.
The "Final Print" completed nicely. The quotes denote that it was not quite the final-final print. I realized this morning that I neglected to print the projectile trunks. These were already drawn so all I had to do was scale, export as STLs and slice. They finished tonight and are being cleaned in the ultrasonic. In that print also was a reprint of the missing air bottles on one of the projectile flats. For some reason, I got the scale wrong. That's now fixed. I also lost one of the gun trunnion caps. I have to have 6 or them and only found five. They're printing as I write this. The beauty of having this tool and the drawing skills is if a part is missing or broken, you just make another. I don't erase any of the drawing files. Today, I did organize about 1,000 files into sub-directories in preparation to archive them at some point.
Here's a perfect example of what a 4k monnchromatic LCD screen can do resolution-wise. I found a nice grating that I inserted into the drawing of the ventilator units that are in the side passges. I didn't know if these small features would resolve. They did! So who needs PE? It still amazes me that this technology works and is available for a few hundred bucks. Just four years ago, it was $3k and higher... much higher. The monstrous Xacto blade shows the scale. I will fill the spaces with flat black and then dry brush the grills and they will look spectacular.
Another example is the tiny interior perscope units. There is actually a gear rack in the circumference of the mounting ring. You can just make it out. Again, the Xacto shows scale.
While the projectile trunks were printing, I arrayed all the parts save those few missing pieces to show the whole deal. It kinda blows my mind. Each one represents a drawing that had to be made and scaled, sliced and then printed. The number of parts is probably 50% more than you see from the extras and rejects. I have a pile sitting on the side of my work bench and a lot went into the trash.
I haven't counted them. It's well over 100. And not a single part number or instruction as to where to put them. It's all in my head. Thank goodness at 77, the head is still sort of working. There are a few duplicates floating around in this pile, but not many. This project was not for the faint hearted.
What is not shown in the above are the sheet stock parts including all the gun compartment partitions, the outer shells, the pan deck walls, and the non-rotating platforms of the two projectile flats and powder flat.
The rest of today's session was spent restoring the powder flat. For the massive missing area, I made a styrene backing
and then appliled Milliput epoxy putty to create the missing wall.
It will be fully cured tomorrow and I will sand it to the proper contour. I also filled the discontinuity that ran down the side in another area. In this case I used Bondic in four applications hardening each layer with the UV pen. When painted it will be invisible.
Lastly, I applied some Tamiya filler to the few depressions in the Powder Flat decking. It took a ton of elbow grease to level all that overgrowth out of the part, but it all went away. I went around and fine tuned all the square openings to fit the exterior portions of the powder scuttles so they all fit nicely. Tomorrow I'll finish this part and get working on finishing up the electric deck adding some missing partitions.
Hard to believe that the above looked like this. If I had any chance of re-printing and having more success I would have done that. But it used a ton of expensice resin, and I have the skills and materials to restore it, so I chose that route. I'm not disappointed.
Works continues apace.
Vic Balshaw
Major General
N4521U
Colonel
Holey moley Builder 2010!!!!!!
Being an old board drafter from the 60's, retrained Cad drafter in the 90's, again as a 3D drafter around 2010 using Inventor and loving all of it.
You! are inspiring. I had Inventor on my home computer and around 2011 when I drew up jack stands for my 1/32nd Mustang. I contacted a shop that made Printed Proofs to see if they could print my stands................... sure $150 each!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ever since I have wanted to do Bazackley what you are doing. My home copy of Inventor went South with my laptop long ago.
But I, like many others am just Gob Smacked at the level of expertise and stick with itness of what you are doing!
Most of the tech stuff all I hear it "blah blah blah Spot"! But you are giving us a real lesson in 3D magic. I just wish I had Inventor back, but alas it's been a long time.
Mesmerizing stuff "B-2010"......... just keep us guessing what you'll do next!!!!!!
Cheers, Bill
Being an old board drafter from the 60's, retrained Cad drafter in the 90's, again as a 3D drafter around 2010 using Inventor and loving all of it.
You! are inspiring. I had Inventor on my home computer and around 2011 when I drew up jack stands for my 1/32nd Mustang. I contacted a shop that made Printed Proofs to see if they could print my stands................... sure $150 each!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ever since I have wanted to do Bazackley what you are doing. My home copy of Inventor went South with my laptop long ago.
But I, like many others am just Gob Smacked at the level of expertise and stick with itness of what you are doing!
Most of the tech stuff all I hear it "blah blah blah Spot"! But you are giving us a real lesson in 3D magic. I just wish I had Inventor back, but alas it's been a long time.
Mesmerizing stuff "B-2010"......... just keep us guessing what you'll do next!!!!!!
Cheers, Bill
BertUS
Senior Airman
In every post of you, I reconize a lot. Also working with just the plan into your Head, but the plan is growing, page by page, during the proces. On a shelf above my workspace, there are many tiny zippers with small spare parts, I copy just the small parts and print them, so, when I damage or lose on of the originals, I have backups. I just thinking to buy a filament printer to make easily bigger parts without details (and can make parts for my Harley
Bill, why trying to draw with Fusion, Sketch up, or maybe you "find" Inventor or Solidworks. You do have the skills to draw, buy a second hand printer to learn the proces and start. Some guys called it, something with a rabbitwhole, I don't really get the expression, but image the mea
ning. But really guys, it's not rocketscience, there are a lot of people who can help with tips&tricks
Bill, why trying to draw with Fusion, Sketch up, or maybe you "find" Inventor or Solidworks. You do have the skills to draw, buy a second hand printer to learn the proces and start. Some guys called it, something with a rabbitwhole, I don't really get the expression, but image the mea
ning. But really guys, it's not rocketscience, there are a lot of people who can help with tips&tricks
N4521U
Colonel
Finances. Lack of money and time. Too many years have past and there is not much I need to print any more. I will just have to watch B-2010 do his magic.In every post of you, I reconize a lot. Also working with just the plan into your Head, but the plan is growing, page by page, during the proces. On a shelf above my workspace, there are many tiny zippers with small spare parts, I copy just the small parts and print them, so, when I damage or lose on of the originals, I have backups. I just thinking to buy a filament printer to make easily bigger parts without details (and can make parts for my Harley
Bill, why trying to draw with Fusion, Sketch up, or maybe you "find" Inventor or Solidworks. You do have the skills to draw, buy a second hand printer to learn the proces and start. Some guys called it, something with a rabbitwhole, I don't really get the expression, but image the mea
ning. But really guys, it's not rocketscience, there are a lot of people who can help with tips&tricks
BertUS
Senior Airman
Okay, clear and understandable
- Thread starter
- #114
Builder 2010
Staff Sergeant
You can get the Mars Classic for about $150 USD new. You can get free SketchUp use on the cloud, but not sure about exporting STLs from that. The graphics software costs more than the printer! Slicers are available for free from both ChiTuBox and Lychee. The free versions have a little less flexibility than the pay versions, but they're still fully usable. My entire rig when starting 3 years ago, was just about $500 USD including the ultrasonic cleaner and the home-made UV curing box. Standard resin is $40 USD/kilo, and the Tenacious is double that, but i only use 15% in he mix so it lasts a long time. Doing the prints yourself is very, very much cheaper than having parts done outside. If I was to have all this stuff printed by Shapeways, it would probably top $2k. Procrastination is the enemy. The learning curve is steep so if you're planning on doing this, you better get started.
N4521U
Colonel
Finances. Lack of money and time. Too many years have past and there is not much I need to print any more. I will just have to watch B-2010 do his magic.In every post of you, I reconize a lot. Also working with just the plan into your Head, but the plan is growing, page by page, during the proces. On a shelf above my workspace, there are many tiny zippers with small spare parts, I copy just the small parts and print them, so, when I damage or lose on of the originals, I have backups. I just thinking to buy a filament printer to make easily bigger parts without details (and can make parts for my Harley
Bill, why trying to draw with Fusion, Sketch up, or maybe you "find" Inventor or Solidworks. You do have the skills to draw, buy a second hand printer to learn the proces and start. Some guys called it, something with a rabbitwhole, I don't really get the expression, but image the mea
ning. But really guys, it's not rocketscience, there are a lot of people who can help with tips&tricks
Understand. However you can multiply that by 1.5 to figure Aussie dollars, it's where I am. Postage would strain a NASA budget. If I could get all that here perhaps double all the pricing.
Very unfortunate. Posting a kit from Texas was $50 AU. PFFFT. Makes me cry.
Vic Balshaw
Major General
Postage same from UK GBP17 (A$29) just for a small envelope type parcel and like the US GBP50 (A$85) for a sizable model kit. So basically were stuck with what can be purchased on the local market.
- Thread starter
- #117
Builder 2010
Staff Sergeant
No doubt that it's a real investment, but with the projects I'm doing lately, it was the only possible way to do it. When w the price dropped in 2019 from above $3,000 to $350, to quote my son, "Dad, what do you have to lose?" Boy he was right! It literally changed almost every aspect of my model creation over night. The learning curve was very steep, but fun. I remember when I first got the Machine, I immediately chose to print a model engine lathe for the engine house project I was engrossed in. It was a ridiculous choice since I didn't know a darn thing about what made this process work, and the results were a joke, but… it still produced a remarkable item even though it had some errors. It showed just what it could do when I finally figured it all out. In this image, everything you see was a 3D printed object; some were edited downloads from the SketchUp 3D Warehouse, but others were drawn by me.
Today's work:
Now the printing is really done (I think or until I break something and have to remake it.). There is one more small detail in the ofc's booth that I may add. It's small handwheel and linkage that opens and closes the armored shutter that closes off the long-base rangefinder's outer door. It's really tiny and may or may not be noticeable. I also still want to see if I can make a reasonable rubber rangefinder bloomer. For that, I'm going to form the diaphrams shape out of Sculpey and then apply layers of black, liquid electrical tape to create a real rubber bloomer. It will be an experiment.
The repairs to the powder flat are complete and did the job. I can now continue with the painting and installation of the scuttles (front and back), quench tanks, and the lower leverls of the powder trunks. I'm going to paint all these pieces BEFORE attaching them whenever possible. The surface doesn't look smooth, but it is.
I also printed the projectile trunks that run from the electric deck through the pan deck and terminating at the base of the cradles in the gun department. I chose to hollow these parts using this feature in the slicer which reduces resin use. You also put holes into the part at the top and bottom so the non-cured resin inside can be flushed out. The software created holes okay in one end, but I could seem to get them in the other end and chose to drill a vent hole after printing. The drilling went okay until it broke through into the hollow space and caught the drill momentarily. This shock broke out chunks in the two trunks with the curves. I glued them back on, filled any remaining spots with Bondic, finish sanded them and they're like new.
With ALL the parts printed I actually got started building something. I started fitting the trunnion caps onto their bases now that I have a full set (they were printed last night too). My caps are not prototypical. The actual caps would have been too insubstantial to build in this scale with resin. They just close off the very top of the bore. I chose to make a full cap which would work in this scale. To fake the bolts (aslo different than the real one) I'm filing the tops of some brass brads to form a hex head. I had to open the holes in all the parts to a #55 drill to match the brads' diameter. To file the hex I'm holding the brad in a pin vise which in turn is held in my bench vise.
Here's what it looks like assembled. This part will be somewhat hidden under the remaing turret roof.
And here's the left gun in place with the first two trunnions. Nothing here is glued. Lots of painting has to take place first.
While I was fussing with the gun I had to be very, very careful I didn't damage this...
The elevating scews ARE permenantly attached and I don't want to break them. Thank goodness for my resin blend that does have a lot of resilience and bends a lot before breaking. Without this blend, I would have broken that lead screw today, I'm sure.
Everyone have a nice weekend. It sure feels weird not having to draw or print anything like I've been doing since January.
Today's work:
Now the printing is really done (I think or until I break something and have to remake it.). There is one more small detail in the ofc's booth that I may add. It's small handwheel and linkage that opens and closes the armored shutter that closes off the long-base rangefinder's outer door. It's really tiny and may or may not be noticeable. I also still want to see if I can make a reasonable rubber rangefinder bloomer. For that, I'm going to form the diaphrams shape out of Sculpey and then apply layers of black, liquid electrical tape to create a real rubber bloomer. It will be an experiment.
The repairs to the powder flat are complete and did the job. I can now continue with the painting and installation of the scuttles (front and back), quench tanks, and the lower leverls of the powder trunks. I'm going to paint all these pieces BEFORE attaching them whenever possible. The surface doesn't look smooth, but it is.
I also printed the projectile trunks that run from the electric deck through the pan deck and terminating at the base of the cradles in the gun department. I chose to hollow these parts using this feature in the slicer which reduces resin use. You also put holes into the part at the top and bottom so the non-cured resin inside can be flushed out. The software created holes okay in one end, but I could seem to get them in the other end and chose to drill a vent hole after printing. The drilling went okay until it broke through into the hollow space and caught the drill momentarily. This shock broke out chunks in the two trunks with the curves. I glued them back on, filled any remaining spots with Bondic, finish sanded them and they're like new.
With ALL the parts printed I actually got started building something. I started fitting the trunnion caps onto their bases now that I have a full set (they were printed last night too). My caps are not prototypical. The actual caps would have been too insubstantial to build in this scale with resin. They just close off the very top of the bore. I chose to make a full cap which would work in this scale. To fake the bolts (aslo different than the real one) I'm filing the tops of some brass brads to form a hex head. I had to open the holes in all the parts to a #55 drill to match the brads' diameter. To file the hex I'm holding the brad in a pin vise which in turn is held in my bench vise.
Here's what it looks like assembled. This part will be somewhat hidden under the remaing turret roof.
And here's the left gun in place with the first two trunnions. Nothing here is glued. Lots of painting has to take place first.
While I was fussing with the gun I had to be very, very careful I didn't damage this...
The elevating scews ARE permenantly attached and I don't want to break them. Thank goodness for my resin blend that does have a lot of resilience and bends a lot before breaking. Without this blend, I would have broken that lead screw today, I'm sure.
Everyone have a nice weekend. It sure feels weird not having to draw or print anything like I've been doing since January.
Excellent work so far!
- Thread starter
- #120
Builder 2010
Staff Sergeant
Thanks guys!
I finished up making the faux bearing bolts and then line bored the trunnion bearings with a 1/4" reamer. There was some slight misalignment with the trunnion lower and upper portions. Don't know why... possibly some slight deviation in the scaling factor. No problem. The guns aren't moving anyway.
I found some slight variations in how each cap ended up so I marked them so they'll go back in the same place. I then CA'd the "bolts" in place and will simply drop them down and glue them AFTER the guns are installed. That's a ways down the line. I will put them in place for gun girder painting (but not glue them).
Then I got down to some serious work and it was a joy. I needed to build the complete pan deck because I needed it at full height to fit certain items. These items are the powder trunks and that have to pass from the pan deck base to the top of the gun house minus the thickness of the planned acrylic roof. This required creating and attaching the conical wall. I had created its pattern in SketchUp and test wrapped the paper around the rim on the pan deck base. I adjusted the diameter to get the best fit.
I then applied a light coating of MicroMark Pressure Sensitive Adhesive (PSA) around the pattern perimeter and stuck it to a sheet of 0.040" styrene. I aligned one straight edge with the styrene edge and used a steel straight edge to scribe the other end so they would butt up decently. I then hand cut the perimeter with a #11 blade, going it over about 4 times and then snapping off the part. Notice that the cutaway areas are already noted on the plan and I cut them out with the same method BEFORE forming the cone.
I made a splice plate out of the same material and clamped it with two hemostats and test fit the plastic part on the pan deck base. I was rewarded with a PERFECT fit. That's when the joy began. Of all the work on this project, making these cylinders and conical shapes AND getting them to fit was one of the most anxiety producing aspects for me. I have a friend from a model railroading forum, Al Graziano, who produces refinery and chemical engineering models as a business and builds cylindrical shapes all the time out of styrene. He's a master! I am not.
Here's the forming of the cone with the forceps holding it in place. The splice plate doesn't go all the way to the bottom since it has to clear the fatter section of the pan deck base.
The moment of truth was when I was able to install the cone on the base. I engineered a little ledge to catch the cone and it worked as planned. The part fit like a glove. There were some irregularities in the bottom and top edges (they were cut by hand), so after the glue set (helped along with a little CA) I trued it up on my flat surface sanding rig (a piece of sand paper glued to a granite surface plate. The mini-C-Lamp is there to compress the center of the joint which needed a little more glue to fully seal.
The PSA left some residue in spots around the part which I removed with a rag and some Goo Gone. I sprayed the inside of the joint with accelerator and then went around with thin CA for the first application. Since the wall is actually a shallow cone, it did not fully snug up against the upper edge of the thick part of the base. I filled this opening with some medium CA. I then went around the outside of the joint with med CA and accelerator to further seal that edge. Finally I filled any remaining imperfections with Bondic.
The next "Moment of Truth" was how the now-assembled pan deck interfaced with the Takom turret house bottom. Again I was rewarded when the cone slipped perfectly inside the large raised kit rim. With that, I could move on to the next task; fitting the upper portions of the powder trunk. I am not ready to glue these two major components together yet. Painting must come first.
The trunks appeared short to me... a lot short. When drawing them, I never was sure just where they were supposed to end up, and they ended up about 6 scale feet short.
Before I could place the trunks I had to final fit them to the slots in the gun girders. The single trunk pretty much dropped in. The double trunk slot needed some surgery to get it right. I had to remove the center bar between the slots. I knew this had to go during design, but left it in for printing to give more stability to the part during formation. I also had to reshape the angle on the rear wall of the slot and removed some material. Once fitted, I taped the double trunk into the desired position (about an 1/8" before the uppper gun house edge). I then measured how far it was floating above the pan deck base with a dividers, transfer this dimension to some styrene and cut out the parts to make a parallelogram box. I traced the trunk itself to establish the angles. I'm pretty good at extending things that are too short. It's an essential scratch build skill.
I needed to add and subtract some material in various spots to match the actual contours of the double trunk since the two sides are not symetrical. I then finished sanded and filled any spots and this one was ready to install. i then got to work on the single trunk. it too needed an extender, but it was slightly shorter that the double.
Here's a shot of both trunks test fit with their finished extensions.
Here's how the height works out.
Here's a finished trunk. You can't really make out how nicely I was able to blend the new to the old. The extension is being held with Gel CA and then some thin. (plus accelerator).
With the two trunks ready to go, I had to do the final fitting of the powder cart operator's booth. With these parts too I was unsure of how they would fit when I had actual parts. I was expecting to do some surgery.
I put all the parts in place for the right side gun back area, aligned the booth to the trunk, scribed the overlap, and then cut the trunk to mate with the booth.
The upper arrow shows the interface. The lower arrow shows I still need to move it forward needing about an 1/8" ledge to mount the rear bulkhead. I will remove more material from the trunk wall to get this extra space. The trunk and the alcove panel next to it will be glued together in the final assembly.
It was a nice long work session and in summary a very eventful and successful one!
I finished up making the faux bearing bolts and then line bored the trunnion bearings with a 1/4" reamer. There was some slight misalignment with the trunnion lower and upper portions. Don't know why... possibly some slight deviation in the scaling factor. No problem. The guns aren't moving anyway.
I found some slight variations in how each cap ended up so I marked them so they'll go back in the same place. I then CA'd the "bolts" in place and will simply drop them down and glue them AFTER the guns are installed. That's a ways down the line. I will put them in place for gun girder painting (but not glue them).
Then I got down to some serious work and it was a joy. I needed to build the complete pan deck because I needed it at full height to fit certain items. These items are the powder trunks and that have to pass from the pan deck base to the top of the gun house minus the thickness of the planned acrylic roof. This required creating and attaching the conical wall. I had created its pattern in SketchUp and test wrapped the paper around the rim on the pan deck base. I adjusted the diameter to get the best fit.
I then applied a light coating of MicroMark Pressure Sensitive Adhesive (PSA) around the pattern perimeter and stuck it to a sheet of 0.040" styrene. I aligned one straight edge with the styrene edge and used a steel straight edge to scribe the other end so they would butt up decently. I then hand cut the perimeter with a #11 blade, going it over about 4 times and then snapping off the part. Notice that the cutaway areas are already noted on the plan and I cut them out with the same method BEFORE forming the cone.
I made a splice plate out of the same material and clamped it with two hemostats and test fit the plastic part on the pan deck base. I was rewarded with a PERFECT fit. That's when the joy began. Of all the work on this project, making these cylinders and conical shapes AND getting them to fit was one of the most anxiety producing aspects for me. I have a friend from a model railroading forum, Al Graziano, who produces refinery and chemical engineering models as a business and builds cylindrical shapes all the time out of styrene. He's a master! I am not.
Here's the forming of the cone with the forceps holding it in place. The splice plate doesn't go all the way to the bottom since it has to clear the fatter section of the pan deck base.
The moment of truth was when I was able to install the cone on the base. I engineered a little ledge to catch the cone and it worked as planned. The part fit like a glove. There were some irregularities in the bottom and top edges (they were cut by hand), so after the glue set (helped along with a little CA) I trued it up on my flat surface sanding rig (a piece of sand paper glued to a granite surface plate. The mini-C-Lamp is there to compress the center of the joint which needed a little more glue to fully seal.
The PSA left some residue in spots around the part which I removed with a rag and some Goo Gone. I sprayed the inside of the joint with accelerator and then went around with thin CA for the first application. Since the wall is actually a shallow cone, it did not fully snug up against the upper edge of the thick part of the base. I filled this opening with some medium CA. I then went around the outside of the joint with med CA and accelerator to further seal that edge. Finally I filled any remaining imperfections with Bondic.
The next "Moment of Truth" was how the now-assembled pan deck interfaced with the Takom turret house bottom. Again I was rewarded when the cone slipped perfectly inside the large raised kit rim. With that, I could move on to the next task; fitting the upper portions of the powder trunk. I am not ready to glue these two major components together yet. Painting must come first.
The trunks appeared short to me... a lot short. When drawing them, I never was sure just where they were supposed to end up, and they ended up about 6 scale feet short.
Before I could place the trunks I had to final fit them to the slots in the gun girders. The single trunk pretty much dropped in. The double trunk slot needed some surgery to get it right. I had to remove the center bar between the slots. I knew this had to go during design, but left it in for printing to give more stability to the part during formation. I also had to reshape the angle on the rear wall of the slot and removed some material. Once fitted, I taped the double trunk into the desired position (about an 1/8" before the uppper gun house edge). I then measured how far it was floating above the pan deck base with a dividers, transfer this dimension to some styrene and cut out the parts to make a parallelogram box. I traced the trunk itself to establish the angles. I'm pretty good at extending things that are too short. It's an essential scratch build skill.
I needed to add and subtract some material in various spots to match the actual contours of the double trunk since the two sides are not symetrical. I then finished sanded and filled any spots and this one was ready to install. i then got to work on the single trunk. it too needed an extender, but it was slightly shorter that the double.
Here's a shot of both trunks test fit with their finished extensions.
Here's how the height works out.
Here's a finished trunk. You can't really make out how nicely I was able to blend the new to the old. The extension is being held with Gel CA and then some thin. (plus accelerator).
With the two trunks ready to go, I had to do the final fitting of the powder cart operator's booth. With these parts too I was unsure of how they would fit when I had actual parts. I was expecting to do some surgery.
I put all the parts in place for the right side gun back area, aligned the booth to the trunk, scribed the overlap, and then cut the trunk to mate with the booth.
The upper arrow shows the interface. The lower arrow shows I still need to move it forward needing about an 1/8" ledge to mount the rear bulkhead. I will remove more material from the trunk wall to get this extra space. The trunk and the alcove panel next to it will be glued together in the final assembly.
It was a nice long work session and in summary a very eventful and successful one!
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