5" 38 Mark 28 Twin Gun Secondary Battery from Iowa Class Battleships

While I can't specifically do a video on construction since I'd need a time machine. However, I am going to produce and AV program to show parts of the model that are now hidden and/or give more inforation about the gun, its history and the system. Trying to do this with traditional graphics didn't seem to be abe to do the job. My shop (and my work habits) don't lend themselves to videoing my work.

Tom, that's a good idea. I only need large plans a couple of times a year, and if I can get good accuracy by taping together the sheets, I'm okay with that. That said, Louisville is a big enough town that there are services to do what you suggested and I will keep it in mind going forward.

Again, a short session. Between taking walks with my steadily improving wife (up to two miles now), and a haircut, got less than an hour in the shop, but I did do something. Finished putting all the multiple sheets together and now have a full set of plans for each deck. The reaons these are so important is the openings for the hoist trunks.

And I found that my relief cuts that I drew into the splinter deck are not aligned with the trunk. It was the way I decided to create the modules. I will have to cut them by hand anyway. The plans are very close to the actual size of the objects.



I cut the door openings old school using the Dremel with a carbide router. I had tried to use a brad-point drill bit to cut the corners, but it tore out on exit and destroyed the piece. I also got very nice prints of the slightly modified Magazine Access Doors. These have bigger dog bosses so I should get a more secure attachment for the wire handles.



Here's another example of plans all taped together. I have circles drawn for alignment tubes that will keep all three decks in registration, again for those trunks. It must have been fun building the real ship figuring out their pathway through decks and bulkheads as they wend their way from magazine to upper handling room.



I hope to have a longer session tomorrow. I did order the nameplate and have final measures for the plexiglass. I know from experience that it takes on day to do the electrics, one to do the outer case, one to do the deck planking, and I have probably 10 or more hours to finish the model. I should be done by May 18.

Great work so far!

Construction has begun on the Magazine proper. I should say, construction, then de-construction, then construction again, and another de-construction and so on. Yesterday I go the Mag''s walls done with all of their cutaways. One set was supposed to be three walls with identical cutaways. I first tried to use a jewelers saw to cut them laminated together. This wasn't working. I then resorted to using the Dremel with carbide routing bit. This was a multi-step process: Routing, small drum sandings, hand sanding, and some more power sanding.

I reprinted the doors and added all those little handles. That took almost an hour.



That brings us to today. I was anxious to get started gluing walls together. Maybe a bit too anxious. I didn't make one mistak, or two. I made three. It's my ADHD kicking in.

All the walls had angle stock glued to give more strength. It sure did! When I needed to take things apart (with more to come… unfortunately), they were very difficult to take apart. I have a steel plate with special magnets for building model structures purchased from MicroMark years ago. This is a good use for it. I got the first wall glued in nicely.



I then glued in the second wall. Only much, much later I found that I glued it in reversed. Remember those three walls with the same cutaway, well… the outermost wall opening should be on the left (looking at the wall). The result is the cutawys don't align as I wanted them to do. And there's a little partitiion wall which you now see its exposed edge. My first dumb mistake by not paying attention to my own planning. It's not a critical error because I kind of like that you see on both sides of that little wall which shows the door to enter the magazine.



I then glued it all up and found my second screw up. I put the rear wall in upisde down. I noticed this when I took a picture and saw the door sill was now very high. It's supposed to be 16 scale inches, and it was more like two feet. I ripped it out and re-glue it correctly.

I got all the walls in and then found two more errors. The first doesn't matter much at all. For the left blank wall I used a piece that was almost exactly the same size, but cut from the wrong thicikness stock. It's also not as perfectly fit at the "real" one. I'm not doing anything about it. The next one is more seriious.

In this image you can see the rear door sitting much to high on the wall.



The fourth screw up is I forgot to cut the openings in the front of the powder room to include the spaces for the scuttle doors. These are an esesntial part of the magazine and I printed them. I've thought about how to modify the wall without ripping it out, but am coming up short. I think I have to make a new one and reinstall. DOH!

I want to put in some ceiling beams and cobbled one by hand to see how it will work. I was satisfied with it, but crafting them this was was taking way too long. Besides, they have lightening holes to pass piping and wiring, which was much harder to do in styrene. Answer: Draw and 3D print them.



I don't know the spacing between them and asked Ryan if he can provide that. Speaking of Ryan. He's geting his 15 minutes of fame. He was mentioned a lot in a New York Times article this week on the Battleship New Jersey's makeover. It a big …. Deal. Ryan thinks the spacing is the same as the ship's framiing… 4 feet.
)

I put some furnishing in the magazine and took some pictures. They look like my drawings. When painted and lit, it will be interesting.




In this next image looking in the front, the large opening into the powder room should have the scuttle doors in it. Now it's just a big hole.



It should look like this.



Had an "interesting" experience yesterday. I was using the 0.015 carbide drill to make the holes for the dog levers on the reprinted doors. These tiny drills are ground on the ends of 1/8" carbide shafts. I reached into the special box they come in, only to have one impale itself on the second finger of my right hand… DEEP… all the way in. I ranked my hand off and the drill came out of the case with it. Then I shook it and the drill flew onto the floor. Hurt like heck! When I looked at the drill, it was missing the bit part. Was it in my finger? I swept the floor to find since they always break when dropped, but couldn't find it. Meanwhile, it's not hurting any more, Tungsten Carbide is effecetively inert and won't degrade in my finger, so we'll see what happens. It was very surprising!

My this is a lot of work going on and it's just mind boggling and great to watch. As for the drill bit, I know the feeling having impaled my fingers often with fine carbide drills. I hope your finger is okay.

Thanks for the concern. It's not hurting at all, so I suspect, there's no carbide hiding in there.

Another problem solved! Whew!

I went to sleep last night working through the various ways to fix that wall without ripping anything out. I came up with laminating an new wall on the front with the proper cutouts for the scuttle doors. Actually, it looks like the powder magazine walls are very thick and may be filled with concrete. Doubling the walls thickness isn't so far fetched.



To do this I traced the cutaway on the existing wall and matched what I was opening on the repair so they would look okay. I traced the scuttle door and between router and sanding got a very nice, close fit; much better than my previous attempts.

I glued the new all in place with good old Testor's tube cement since it gives more working time. The cutaway needed some fine touching up and I was able to reach through the front wall's opening with the Dremel Flexishaft and cleaned it up.



The new opening give less view than before, but those doors had to be there. They are an essential piece to isolate the powder from the rest of the ship.

I printed the first set of long roof girders. Ryan answered me by suggesting the spacing is the same as the ship's frames = 4 feet. I'm going to enlarge that for a couple of reasons, mostly to ensure that the hoist trunks have a straight shot out of the magazine, and not cast too many shawdows from the ceiling lighting. Prints are essentially perfect. Sure beats cobbling them together by hand.



Asked for a quote for the Plexiglass, my friend's putting the laquer on the base, and the nameplate is ordered. If I get the plexiglass by end next week, I will finish that on time. Takes one work session to build the case.

I'm also making a good start on the AV program.

These girders look good.

Looks great so far!

Excellent work!

I still follow you in silence, your work and prints are outstanding, really a plaesure to read

Thanks all! I often wonder how many folks read, but don't comment. I was told only 15% respond. It's hard to tell.

The end is near… in a good way. The nameplate is finished and ready for pickup. The plexiglass is ordered and will be ready on Friday. I got the 2nd deck compartments glued up and ready for paint. I had to modify the wood decking. I'm reprinting a modified ceiling beams, and changed my strategy for the hoist trunks.

Here's the fully built 2nd deck compartments. I added corner bracing to help hold it square. It's rather flexible. It won't be when fully glued to the decks on top and bottom, but I want it to be stable as possible, so that goes well.



I'm adding mounting blocks for the styene armor deck below, and the wood main deck above. For the styrene armor deck, I've glued styrene 1/4" sq. stock. For the wood main deck, I'm going to glue in 1/4" sq. basswood blocks using CA, so I can get a better adhesion to the wood decking.



After further analysis, I changed the positioning of the 2nd deck structures which changed the shape of the main deck. The cutout portion in the right rear was now too small. I'm good at doing "Board Extending" and had not one chance to do it today, but two. A twofer if you will. When I measured for the first extension, I hadn't positioned the cabins properly. I needed to add more. Luckily, I had more of the ply, and used epoxy to hold on the biggest part, and then med CA with accelerator to glue the smaller piece. I filled any gaps with CA and then went back with Bondic. When all was hardened I sanded it flush. When finished the repair will be invisibe.



I had to make relief cuts on the lap bracing so they cleared the styrene compartment walls.



Here's the modified deck properly fitted on the cabins. I also did the cutaways on this structure. The reason for the cutaways is just to show the pathway for the ammo hoist trunks. I'm not doing any detailing of these various compartments. They are not the focus of the model other than to show that the magazines are not directly below the gun mounts.



Things are moving quickly. I have to put in the lighting for the magazine before I get any further. I changed the scheme for the hoist trunks. Just like on the big gun model, getting the hoist part to thread through all the decks and bulkheads was just not working when I mentally constructed the model. As in the big gun, I'm separating the hoist into pieces that will glue in seperately between the decks and buikheads. The viewer doesn't care if they're actually contiguous, just that they're there. For their passage through the Splinter Deck lattice, I'm just going to remove the lattice completely, rather than try to cope in a precise path. You won't see it and it greatly complicates the installation.



There's still a lot to do, but I'm on a roll and all the critical path items are on track. There could still be nasty surprises, but hopefully not as heart-stopping as I had with the final asembly of the big turret.

The hardest of all part is when you put it all together, is it going to work. I recon so.........................

I thought Mount Block was in France.

Great engineering!

Actually, it's a pretty nice ball-point pen…. I know… I lost two of them.

Work continues.

I glued in the screw blocks in the 2nd deck structure and then drilled and applied small, flat head, brass screws. I'm not going to use any glue to hold the parts together. This way, it can all be disassembled should some catastrope happen. I got the lighting installed for the magazine, and that was a significant step. I'm ready to do the painting of the remaining structures and building the real wood main deck. That could take a couple of days. I need a full day to build the showcase, and at least a day to bring it all together. Tomorrow I will build the power supply board. There are only four lighting circuits to be powered.



I was originally going to glue the styrene Splinter Deck floor to the Magazine, but seeing how well the screws worked on the main deck, I chose to add wood blocks to the magazine upper wall edges to capature the screws. I won't be doing this for the splinter deck, but will use epoxy instead. This part of the model doesn't have any functional components and should never have to be disassembled.



It took me literally three attempts to layout the lighting circuit on the Magazine celing. I was working with the structure upside down on the work bench and just couldn't get the orientation right. My first attempt was completely wrong. My second only partially wrong. Finally, I got it correct and was able to first use 3M transfer tape to adhere the thin ply to the styrene and then apply adhesive copper foil ciruit runs. The fun didn't stop there.

I tested the Surface Mount LEDs before installation and again after soldering them into the circuit. I mark the + and – polarity so I can solder them in correctly. Works great, especially when I pay attention to it. In this case, the first LED was in correctly, but I reversed the second. So they worked when I applied power individually, but didn't when I applied power to the circuit. LEDs are Diodes, and therefore, block current from the opposing polarity. In my desoldering I overheated them and they were scrap. I replaced them and my test rig failed. I had salvaged some CL2N3 LED driver chips from a previous project, which I had tested and they worked okay. My test rig has an unprotected 12 VDC lead for protected LED circuits and another with a CL2 in the line to apply 12VDC at 20ma for the unprotected LEDs. It was failing and over-drove the circuit blowing out all three LEDs. After redoing the test rig and applying all new LEDs, I got good tests on all circuits. With 12VDC applied, I'm limited to 3 LEDs in series since they each drop 3.3 volts. A fourth LED would be 13.2 volts which doesn't work with a 12 v power supply.

Here's the bare circuit. This will all be painted ceiling color and won't be very obvious.



I used Bondic as a cable clamp and combined the negatives in parallel, but each positive circuit will go to its own CL2N3 driver in a little circuit board below the base. I scuffed up the styrene where the Bondic was going so it had more grip. Remember the thin ply protects the styrene from the soldering temperature. I've soldered foil directly on styrene, but it gets a little squirrely.



I installed a 1/4" brass tube to act as a wire conduit for these wires and those coming down from above. I have drills sharped to drill plastic. It's a much sharper angle than standard 135º point angle. They don't grab on exit and can drill plexiglass and down shatter the plastic on exiting.

Big day! It was the kind of day that gave me confidence that the model will be completed on schedule. Only had one catastrophe which I sort-of corrected. We were supposed to have wild weather, but itw as sunny and warm so painting outdoors worked fine. I had to prepare some stuff before painting. I joined the gun house shell to the base and continued working on the wiring harness.

I didn't use screws to hold the armor deck to the underside of the 2nd deck cabins. I glued it, and I'm going to glue the Splinter Deck lattice to the underside of this part since there's not good place to put the attachment blocks on the Splinter Deck. When the glue set it was ready for paint. I printed the now-fragmented trunks, and painted them metal color, mostly so they're show up when people peer into the spaces to see their path.



While all this was drying, I started to put the gun house together. It just about fit, but there were still some problem areas. All of the fit problems stem from one error that I suspected, but didn't take any action about. The sub-floor under the GH frame was too far back…about 1/16 (or more) rearward. It may have been a drawing error. Some things about the shield design changed throughout the various iterations of the project.

This error caused a lot of troubles that didn't really appear until now. For example, it pushed the sight scopes rearward. This put stress on the sight checker's scope, which decided to break off when I was working on another fit problem. Oh… and I also broke off two more resin footrungs. I think I've replaced half of these already. Getting very good at it.

The scope broke out here...



And this is what the chunk looked like. Even with my resin mix with Tenacious (a flexible resin) small cross-sections are still very fragile.

I had a spare that I used as a guide on how this thing went back together. I got it into place with Bondic, but it's aligned poorly. There's not much I can do about that since it's the base position problem that's causing the alighment problem.



I didn't want to remove the shell to get it fit better. I had some difficulty with the screws not establishing solid threads and removing them would basically make them useless. I'm hoping that it won't be so noticeable.



Another problem caused by the plate position: the front frame girders were sticking out beyond the base plate and were distorting the front lower edge of the gun shield. I power sanded the excess to make it flush with the base plate so the front panel was no longer distorted.



Similarly, about a 1/16" of the base plate was sticking out behind the curved rear wall. After taking this picture, I sanded that off too.



The gun house light circuit is now combined with the UHR light circuit with all the leads dressed and ready to go further down into the model. They are running down the back of the UHR, nestled into the veritcal support beam, and won't be very visible. I joined the negative leads from both circuits since the negatives will be on a common bus.



Here's another image of the gun house in place.



Tomorrow, I will airbrush final coats on all the parts, and do detail painting on all the various hatches. Then I'll get to building the main deck superstructure and planking the main deck. With that the model will effectively be complete. I'm looking forward to doing this last part since it's just traditional model making and shouldn't cause too much anxiety. This gives me three to four more days of solid work time to get it all done. I have a couple of doctors appointments next week, but they're not long ones.