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

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Thank you!

I was going to try and paint outside again today, but there was way too much wind, and I still had a lot to do in preparing the parts for paint. Again, I had to make a decision about what got glued before paint. And I chose to build up as much of the gun house as possible. It would be very hard to finish and fill joints if it was all painted, besides the difficulty of making a clean joint. Before the roof can go on I had to glue in the upper framing. Instead of using CA I chose to use Gorilla Glue construction adhesive. I wanted something that was multi-material and had some decent working time to position the part. It takes 24 hours to totally cure.



I did get the port side wall finished with all its rungs and made the faux backing piece with the bolt holes (like the other side) so I can pose that side's access hatch open as well as the starboard side.

While this cures (over night) I first glued the rear roof to the curved back. Here I used Bondic since I was gluing resin to resin and it looks like a weld bead when it was applied.

I realized that there was a problem putting in all those ladder rungs. Any pressure I put on the walls during the gluing created a wonderful opportunity to break them. I didn't! But I did break off that door which I was sure that I would. I hate being right! I'm leaving it off and will re-attach with wire reinforcement. Any thoughts of attaching the little cartridge chute door are now dispelled. That will also wait until further along.


If I can get the walls all built, I will probably be able to paint tomorrow. Maybe… I have a urology appointment. My PSA took a jump and we're watching it.

Today's work is a clear description of the difference between kit and scratch-building. There's no instructions telling you what goes on before what. You're constantly building it in your mind hoping that you're not overlooking anything. Don't worry… you will be.
 
I love showing all to you!

Urology appt was nominal. We'll recheck PSA in 3 months. Right now the results are anbiguous since everything else seems pretty good.

I woke up this morning realizing that I better not do another assembly op until I install the gun house lighting. If I glued the rest of the walls, light installatoin would be much more difficult. Like I said, "No Instruction book!" I use the copper foil-surface mount-LED method of lighting a lot of my builds. I don't like putting foil directly on resin, and especially not on styrene. It melts at solder temps. I use thin 1/64" ply off the model, and then use 3M Transfer Adhesive Tape to attach that to the model.

I used a paper template to shape the ply and cut it with scissors. I tested the fit with the roof beams and it will work.



I've described my soldering method for attached the SMLEDs to the foil tape in other threads, but briefly, I make a 1mm gap in the foil with a sharp #11, put a reasonable amount of solder on each side of the gap, hold the SMLED so the two poles underneath are properly position with a light touch of a tweezer, and then heat the solder NEXT to the LED. Once I see good flow, I get off. The heat can destroy the chip. I test the chips off the foil, then after soldering, a lastly after the circuit is complete. I use CL2N3 LED driver chips exclusively.

Two leads are on this board. I also have to make another set for the front part of the gun house. I have a limitation having a 12 VDC power supply. The CL2s don't like parallel circuits limiting the circuit to three LEDs in series. These SMLEDs drop 3.3 volts, so three of them in series is 9.9 volts. Adding a fourth brings the total to 13.2 volts, exceeding the 12 volt supply resulting in dimly lit LEDs. Generally I limit three LEDs in series and then set up another circuit with another driver. The 12 VDC power supplies have a ton of amps so I can run many parallel circuits each driven by its own driver chip. In the 16" turret I had nine paralllel circuits. The gun house is going to have four LEDs. I may try and see just how much light I get with the four in series. If it's not sufficient, I will have to run one LED down one deck and combine it in series with LEDs with two others in the Upper Handling Room.



I tied the loose leads to the substrate with some Bondic "cable clamps". I started using this method a couple of models ago, and it works really well. While it works on styrene, it's really super on the ply.



My roof didn't quite fit the rear wall. The roof was about 1/32" too wide. Instead of forcing anything and getting some splayed walls, I scribed off the amount that was excess and, using a fine razor saw, carefully excised the extra.



I was rewarded with a good fit. This was a bit harrowing since any false moves could have meant a ton of rework. It's hard enough building this once, I really don't relish doing it again (and again, and again).



I still have some more trimming to do on the curved gun shield sides (inside the glacis plate). Right now they're interfering with some of the complicatd stuff at the front of the mount proper. I have to fit those before paint also.

I had toyed with the idea to 3D print scale-looking armored light fixtures to install micro LEDs within, but have dispelled that as overkill creating little value and a lot of potential problems. I want people's attention drawn to the guns and their supporting machinery, not to neat light fixtures.
 
While watching a very boring Superbowl game (until the last 2 minutes in overtime), I worked out where the the cutaways would go. I also played around with using Vray rendering with the interior lighting, but I have a lot to learn about this product.







Look closely at below and you can see the rifling in the gun barrels. The curved gun shields are not shown in these drawings, but they are in the actaul model.




The lighting power I was using with Vray wasn't enough. The LEDs I'm really using will be much brighter. I will be creating parterns from these drawings to accurately make the cutaways without damaging anything… or at least that's the plan.

Watched "Greyhound" with Tom Hanks last night. Heck of a WW2 naval movie. Surprised how inaccurate their gunnery was when trying to shoot U-boats when they were on the surface. It was harrowing and fighting in the North Atlantic in winter was very difficult.
 

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All looks good and one gets the impression you are a happy chappie after your Chiefs pipped the 49ers at the post. Not that it worries me, I'm Aussie but some here are a;so very say, so my condolences to you 49er fans.
 
Thanks. The reasons my wife and I were for the chiefs are a) Andy Reid was previously a Philadelphia Eagles coach… who we do support and b) Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are vaccine supporters and backed President Biden. NFL can tend to be pretty conservative. It's refreshing that they all aren't. Enough politics...

After flattening the drawing of the cutaway areas in SketchUp, I moved screen prints of the individual cut faces and imported them into CorelDraw. I then combined them in the configuration resembling a box unfolded and printed it out.



I tack glued this page to heavier stock paper abd cut the opening so I could trace the pattern onto the model.



I added some pressure sensitive adhesive to the pattern to help hold it to the model for tracing, but it really didn't do so well. I just held it in place during the trace. I had to pay attention to the lighting in the rear and be particularly careful around the ladder rungs runner up the side.



The above took place on Monday.

Today, I loaded a carbide router in the Dremel and went at the model. This was one of those scary kinds of modeling tasks where a false move could be a ton of rework. Since it's a complete scratch build I do have the ability to re-create all the parts, but I don't want to.

Before doing the cutting I mounted the rear lighting in place with the 3M Transfer Tape. Cutting went well. Actually, better than I expected.







The cuts, of course, were a bit ragged. I then used the Dremel with a diamond burr to refine the contours, and finally, files, sanding sticks, and my Micro-Mark power sander to clean them up further.











A lot of the roof is now Swiss Cheese and finding purchase for the front ceiling lights is now more of a challenge than I anticpated.

I needed to make some relief cuts on the roof beams where they cross over the rear lighting system. It's a bit rough, but it's the upper side and will not be visible.



I'm just about ready to prime this stuff. Today would have been a perfect day; 60 degrees, sunny and no wind, but alas, I'm not ready for that. The hobby shop has a spray booth in the back work room which I have access to. I may use that if the weather is not cooperating. Primer painting is on the critical path and I'm getting to the point where it will stop work if I don't get it done.

You'll notice that I whacked a couple more ladder rungs in all the rough handling during today's session. Not to worry, I have another dozen or so printed and ready for installation. Drill out the old and install the new. Can't do that with a kit. You break critical parts and you have to get customer service on the line to get a replacement.
 
Amazing!
 
Thanks guys!

In a short session today I got the light installed in the front of the gun house roof. That gives three relatively bright LEDs in a small area, so I think I have enough light there. Remind me to remove the tiny chunks of masking tape on the LEDs after I paint the gun house interior.



Running out of time, I just put the GH together to see how it will fit together. I had to remove a bit of the roof girders at the rear where they impinged on the raised rib that supports the rear, semi-circular roof piece. This assembly is so critical I need to take my time. I'm going to use the Gorilla construction adhesive so I'll have some working time to get everything in perfect alignment. The reason for the fancy curves where the roof meets the sides was to leave enough meat for the structural integrity of the gun house when glued together.


It fits together okay and will glue up as expected. I replaced the broken ladder rungs and broke two more 0.020" carbide drills in the process. These holes are getting expensive. I bought re-sharpened drills this time since they're cheaper, but they seem to break more readily so the reduced price may not be meaningful in the long run.

And I finally decidehd how to get the gun house together. There were two problems. The sight telescopes stick out and prevent the walls from sliding down into position. And the guns! In the 1:1 world, they fully elevate the guns and drop the entire shield over top. I suspect that the telescopes aren't even installed yet. In my case, the guns are going to be fixed at 0º elevation. Getting the gun house over the level guns would be difficult if not impossible.

Answer: Clip the telescopes at the position at the edge of the base, glue the outer portion into the blisters. You will have difficulty seeing the joint between the two parts. They're a little long anyway and the cut can remove some of the excess length.

As for the guns, I'm going to insert them into the slides after assembly just like they do in the 1:1 world when they have to replace the barrels. Incidentally, the barrels are held with a step thread joint with a retaining bolt, so they can be removed at sea with just a half turn. I had to further reduce the slide end diameter so they will slide in easily and not cause any damage by using excessive pressure. They will be painted and may have bare metal foil on the slide area that adds some thickness.

I got a communication today from the USS New Jersey Museum that the ship will be moved to the Philadelphia Navy Yard dry dock on March 26. Bottom refurbishment will be complete some time in May. Visitors will not be allowed on board during repairs due to none of the safey systems being active. That means my deadline is now in May or later. That's actually good. I've got a lot to do and rushing never works. I have other projects in the wings too, so I will be busy.
 
I don't know. I haven't gotten anything specific other than Ryan, the curator, didn't hesitate a second when I offered the 5" project to him, and we've been in constant contact during this proiject. I got a private invitation to the towing of the New Jersey down the Delaware River to the dry dock in which is was born on March 26. The bottom refurbishment is taking place (per US Navy regulations) and it will be finished around the end of May. Public will not be allowed aboard ship during the dry dock work so I now have a good idea the earliest the job should be finished. I'll need all the time I can get. I started this project is August and I'm barely halfway through. While I won't be allowed onto the ship, I'm wondering if I couldn't get a VIP pass to see it in dry dock. It's one thing to look at pictures and another to see it in person.
 
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