Tom, that’s a good point. I’m thinking about a way of securing it. I came up with a couple of different ways. I should have some time to fuss around with something. We’ll see…
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maybe some nice brass screws?..
A reader in another forum asked about the cement I’m using for the plexi case. The Plexi cement is a special formulation for acrylic. It’s not cheap and evaporates very fast, but it is essential.
The best thing I did with the plexiglass was a) getting the measurements right, and b) having the plastics house cut the piece on a CNC mill leaving edges ready for gluing with no sanding. If you cut your own, either scribing and snapping (which I find very touch and go) or sawing using a special plastics blade, leaves and edge that needs sanding to both smooth and square the edge. While it can be done, it’s a lot of work and ripe for mistakes.
Onto today’s activities. I finished up the vent changes and added all the remaining parts, but most importantly mounted the model on the base.
I did the trim work on the vents and I’m glad I stopped when I did last night. I was rushing and getting frustrated and that leads to trouble. By doing it first thing today, it went quickly.
And the other side… Notice the errant floater net basket has been put back where it belongs. I had to fake the right side bracket since part of it got lost when it failed.
Now that I could turn it all right side up, it was time to mate the model and the base… and it WAS A BEAR! That pesky center column again caused trouble by being painted.
I put the bulkhead shells in place so I could gauge the depth of the insertion.
When I inserted the model in the socket, the center column went in too deeply… about a 1/4" or so. It wasn’t easy getting it in for the aforementioned paint problem. I had to do a lot of twisting and pushing, but not to hard, since there’s almost nowhere to grab on the model without potentially breaking something. The depth was a big problem! It forced the upper works (gun house, pan and e-decks) to drop below the top race of the roller bearing where the pan deck should be seated. I had to raise the column upwards, and in attempting to get this stubborn pole moving, I broke the mounting flange out of the bottom of the e-deck. To repair this I had to pull the top three high enough to turn them over, and had to pull the wiring harness up without having to refish the whole mass later. I was able to successfully do that and then had to go to plan B to raise the column.
Once I got the depth right I drilled pilot holes and screwed the bulkheads to the base so they would stay put.
I had the base stretched over two, equal-height worksurfaces so I could get to the undersides. I resorted to a pin punch and soft hammer to drive the column upwards in its socket WITHOUT damaging any wires. By raising it I was able to get the bottom edge of the pan deck to sit over the upper race. It needed some coaxing and a clamp to hold it for CA gluing. I glued around the backside as well.
Once this was glued I was finally able to install the turret clamps now that I had the exact location of their seating under the ring gear. They are doing for the model the exact same function as the real ones do. They preventing the upper works from rising off the seat and provides additional security to holding the model in place. That ragged paint is the result of scraping the paint to the base UV Resin for a better CA joint. It looks pretty real actually.
With the clamps in place I was finally able to install the last two parts: the buffers and positive stops. The buffer sits under the now-hidden ring gear, and the stops are on the barbette inner wall about 180 degrees around.
I don’t like tht they’re a bit crooked. i may have to fix that…
The last thing I did was add the guns. I glued the bloomers in first with Testor’s tube cement. The guns are not glued. If you have to take off the gun house top you would have to remove the guns. But the fit was too tight. My machining tolerance was very close and the paint buildup in the bore was just enough to make them a press fit. I didn’t want to press too hard for fear of breaking something unfixable inside, so I stopped, wrapped some med grit sandpaper around that pin punch and lightly sanded the bores. It worked and the guns are a firm sliding fit in. They seated perfectly and none of the elevating screws were damaged. Whoopee!
So… dear readers, the model is complete except for the lights and that takes place tomorrow. I’m still working on the lighting and that will be done tomorrow. I don’t think I’ll break anything else, but you never know.
My #1 genius grandson, revised my data sheet, making it more user friendly for museum visitors; more of a narrative rather than a technical list of items. It now describes what takes place on each deck rather than a list of item found there. He also suggested, which I have accepted, to add a QR code that directs visitors to one of my build thread on the various forums on which I post all of this. I’m going to make a separate tag with info. This way, so one so inclined can learn about the entire agonizing process.
Now for some fun pictures.
And with the case lid in place. One of my readers suggested devising a way to secure the enclosure and I’m noodling some ways to do this.
Here’s my design drawing of the same.
Tommorrow, if and when I get the lighting working, I will take some more images… and then I’ll take some more when the graphics are mounted. I will wait until all this is done for my formal end-of-project dissertation with all the lessons learned. I really need to understand all the stuff that I did wrong, especially in the desgin area. I will need all this if I’m tasked with making another one of these for anyone, including the other battleship museum ships. The turret desgin on the South Dakota class ships is almost identical other than the longer barrels on the Iowas.
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Fantastic ! Great job. 
A couple of thoughts on securing the top… hard to tell in the picture if the top sits deep enough on the base to use “Very Small” screws for security purposes. Possibly use small escutcheon pins that would be a press fit into the base ? Hard to suggest without standing in front of it. Last resort might be small dabs of a clear silicone / rvt ? Removal would require judicious use of of a very thin blade. Just some thoughts.
It is amazing to see the complete model with all of its hundreds of parts! I hope you get real satisfaction and pleasure when looking at it. The knowledge that, over time, many thousands of people will see your model in-person and gain some understanding of the battleship’s main armament - much more than meets the eye - should also be a source of pride. Well done, Myles!
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Thanks guys. It was enjoyable in the deepest way… attempting something that I had literally no idea how it was going to play out and just keeping at it until it resembled the thing in my head.
Today I built the case fasteners that secure the case. It secured it so well that I could tip over the model and do all the soldering, without putting any lateral pressure on the delicate model.
I bought a strip of 1/2" brass, shaped it to conform around the base’s ogee curve drilled it for the hardware and mounted it on holes drilled in the plexiglass. I have a few drilled sharpened for acrylic drilling. This is essential. A standard 135 degree drill point will bind on exiting the hole and 50/50 will fracture the valuable plexiglass.
With the case secured I had to prepare my primary work surface to hold the model lying down. I put a damp towell down to kill any static charge that would attract the clouds of dust that are contained on that workbench. This used to be where I did active building, but for the past couple of years, I use my IKEA roll-around bench mostly, and the big bench became a catch-all…but not today. That dirty tray in the front is my attempt to replicate a jeweler’s work bench belly tray to catch stuff that’s heading south. It works!
I gingerly laid the model over on its side and was rewarded with nothing on the model moving or falling off. This neatly exposed the belly for wiring hookup.
This is the mass of wiring coming down from the nine LED circuits. I had no idea if they were all intact after all the manhandling. I did periodically test them during all the other build steps when I was still able to made corrections if necessary.
I needed to tin all the leads before circuit board insertion and did so en masse. BTW: that Panavise with the wire loom dates back to 1975 when I was training about 1,000 people on precision electronic soldering. It was one of my gifrs from the program. And I’ve put it to great use ever since.
I inserted one red lead next to the CL2N3 LED driver and the other black lead onto the ground bus and soldered them. I had no idea what circuit this was but I was eager to test it. And EUREKA! it’s ALIVE!
With that encouragement I terminated the rest of the bundle and powered it again. And once again, I was very pleased that every circuit lit as it was supposed to.
It was truly a Hanukkah miracle, which after all, is considered the “Festival of Lights”.
All that was left was to re-attach the circuit board on its standoffs and dress the wiring bundle.
The last thing I did was affix the “Builder’s Plate” making the build official.
I put the model back on the photo stand and took some more images. I will take another set when the graphics are mounted on the case, and that, as they say, is that.
The case screws are loose since I will have to remove it tomorrow to install the graphics. The curator asked me today “how much time did it take?” I have not kept an accurate time log since I wasn’t billing anyone for this, but I estimate somewhere between 400 and 500 hours. Drawing time alone was probably 100 hours. If I was going to do it for fee, even at $20 and hour, we’re talking $10k. It’s why it’s hard to make a living making models. If any other museum ship wants one, I’m going to have to charge them something for it. In the next post… the last one for this project, I’m going to try and list all the things that went right and those that didn’t and the lessons learned. If I’m ever doing another I want to make it a lot easier.
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Congratulations on literally a “museum-class” model!
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Beautifull work!!
Absolutely stunning…
Congratulations !
The hours are important! Assuming the museum is a 501c3 organization, the model is probably deductible on your taxes.
No clue what hourly rate to assign - best to ask a tax professional for that.
Thank you for the wonderful comments and support. Obviously, it was a bit of a stretch to post a build thread of this magnitude on SketchUp’s forum, but it seems like a consensus that it represented a pretty significant booster for what SketchUp is capable of. Furthermore, much of my challenge in building the model was drawing it, and in that regard, this was exactly the place for this topic. I’ve been modeling since my 9th birthday and I’m 77. That’s a lot of models and this one represented the most challenging and comprehensive that I’ve ever attempted. With the new technology at my disposal, the challenge is no longer, “How can I make that?”. The question is now, “How can I draw that?” With 3D printing, if I can draw it (correctly) I can make it. We also know that 3D printing has its own set of parameters that make many of the wonderful models in the SketchUp 3D Warehouse non-printable without extensive editing. That said, I’m happy that you folks stuck with it for the year its taken.
This project couldn’t have been accomplished without the help of others. It really does take a village. Special thanks go to Ryan Syzmanski, the Big J’s curator, who not only got me some critical measurements that I needed just to get started, but also the special tour I took where I got access to the non-public areas and did those amazing 3D scans with my iPhone 12 Pro. The other person is Jim Slade. Jim is doing the near impossible. He’s making 3D CAD drawings of every frame of the Iowa ships based on the actual engineering drawings that are on microfilm at the National Archives. He gave me those accurate drawings of the pan and electric decks and the outer bulkheads. Without them I was completely lost.
Here’s the final, final images. I redid the graphics to my grandson’s approval and produced them to look like the placards that adorn the guns and gun compartments. I did the faux frames in CorelDraw.
Now for the “After Action Report”
The Good!
- Getting it finished where it actually exceeds my expectations. That’s really not that hard since I expected nothing in the beginning.
- Creating a very good rendition of the complicated and elusive Mark 7 16"-50 cal gun including the tiniest details of the massive yoke and breach.
- Designing and pre-installing all the surface mount LED lighting and the use of the circuit board to contain the nine CL2N3 LED drivers making hookup fast and error free.
- All the lights working after all the yanking and pulling I did to assemble the beast. The true Hanukkah Miracle of Lights!
- Machining the back ends of the after-market aluminum gun barrels to 7/16" so I could produce the resin gun slides with sufficient wall thickness with the mating part of the gun slides to support the guns
- Finally figuring a way to print the entire gun slide assembly in two parts (yoke and slide) fianlly resulting in a warp-free product.
- SketchUp’s ability to produce an accurate flattened-out shape which enabled me to get the circular bulkheads made out of styrene with minimal guessing.
- My iPhone 12 Pro’s LIDAR which enabled me to 3D scan the projectile hoists and lower powder hoist areas answering some major questions
- My special private tour of the ship where I finally could figure out the nooks and crannies in the gun compartments and surrounding area.
- Nailing the detail painting.
- The intricacy and beauty of the long-base range finder and how close it is to the prototype.
- Producing really small details in 1/72 like the powder scuttles, the inside periscopes, the auxiliary computer and all the pumps and machinery on the e-deck and elsewhere.
- How well the roller bearing/ring gear came out… finally.
- The stunning piece of furniture upon which the model sits crafted by one of my oldest friends and bass player from my college R&B band, Bryant Mitchell.
- Even though it was an awful experience, the way the open bulkheads worked out as a way to display the innards of this complex machine.
- Mastering the creation of a large Plexiglass enclosure with a minimum of screwups… which is a first for me. Had extra help with all the good advice.
- How the graphics finally turned out with my grandson’s input. The kid’s terrific!
- How the metal guns really highlight the turret.
- Getting the elevating screws reasonably right… still not perfect.
- And finally, having the tools, skills, know-how and physical faculties at 77 to pull this off.
The Bad!
- Having to produce the detail that would be on the back side of the officer’s booth bulkhead on a separate piece that is the rear gun compartment. This was necessary as a function of the 3D printing process to avoid supports on details that would have been wrecked by them. It complicated the build.
- Not drawing the plastic parts in the SketchUp modeling. This came back to bite me right at the end with things like the decking no fitting on the model (among other things)
- Starting the drawing process with little or no dimensions only having to redraw-reprint more times than I’d like to mention.
- Attempting to 3D print the thin circular bulkheads on the lower decks. 3D printing doesn’t like thin sections.
- The inaccuracy of tracing part foot prints on non-dimensioned illustrations. Some of my equipment is probably overscale due to how tightly things ended up fitting.
- Having to make the annular decks into 1/4" thick assesmblies to resist the constant stress of the styrene circular bulkheads trying to straighten themselves out. Besides stressing glue joints that kept popping, the thick decks created assembly challenges at the end.
- Specing the central column holes too close to the column’s diameter. They didn’t have to be press fits.
- Making the cradle assemblies too close to prototype proportions leading to constant breakage and three reprints.
- Not having a good idea of how some of the parts would assemble in the real world when drawing them, necessitating lots of custom fitting.
- The constant repainting caused by the late changes.
The Ugly!
- That collosal error of assembling the armor barbette at the wrong height and having to almost destroy it to fix it.
- The printing of the ring gear wrongly only to find this out when I was fixing #1.
- The final misalignment of the projectile flats with their respective annual decks. Maybe people won’t mind, but I do. This is due in part to the thick annular rings problem.
- Getting the spacing wrong between the guns on the gun girder. This caused lots of problems. And that was the 3rd girder I printed.
- Not having a clue about how long the elevating screws really needed to be and still not happy with the installation.
- Having to redo the side sighting compartment designs and the telescopes due to not understanding the geometry.
- Painting the central column only to have it all scrape off as I manhandled it into position and then touch it up two times reaching into the model.
- Reprinting and breaking the back bulkhead three times.
- Getting the long-base rangefinder optical ends too short, again becasue I didn’t draw the actual plastic parts when doing the design. I took my lengths from line drawings.
- Dropping important things on the floor and having to repair them too many times.
- Screw up the projectile hoist fits right to the end.
- Relying on CA to hold stuff when it’s totally unreliable, especially gluing styrene to resin.
- Having the audacity to think I could create this thing and almost not making it.
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I hope that you take and post some photographs of the model as installed within the battleship, so that we can see the model in its final home.
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I’m hoping for more than that. I’d like something formal about the handover. The curator understands the value of what they’re getting. He does a vast series of videos (probably at 100 now) on every aspect of the ship into places that no one ever goes. I’m imagining that he’ll do a video about this too. The only drawback is most of the crew is on vacation next week.
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The model made it from Louisville, KY to the curator’s cabin in PERFECT SHAPE! Nothing fell off! I brought a box of emergency tools and glue just in case, but didn’t need them. What I did do is forget them when I left and Ryan’s going to have to ship them to me.
Ryan was impressed and it exceeded his expectations.
These pictures were taken by my younger and stronger nephew who did the honors of carrying the model to the ship and down the companion way ladder to Ryan’s office. We discussed where it should be displayed and decided the ward room probably would work. It’s the place where Anyone with a disabilities can go to the wardroom and get educated about the ship. I also asked if he communicates with curators in the other three Iowa museum ships? Yes! And they might be interested to have a model of their own. These would not be donated and shipping would become a challenge. I could drive a model to the Winsconsin in Norfolk, but Iowa in San Pedro and Missouri in Pearl is another story.
We spent about a half hour with me explaining the fun and challenges of building a one-off custom model. Ryan is a model maker himself so had no trouble empathizing with the challenges.
Good News Aaron Skinner responded and said FSM would like to publish an article about it. He gave me some requests which I will comply with. I’ve already started writing an article, but already have way too many words.
It was a very good day! The fact that the model made it to the ship in perfect condition was a real joy.
When the model is in it’s final position I will post that also. Stay tuned.
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Whew! Super good that the model arrived completely intact.
Well done
Congratulations with the safe delivery of the model!
I will inform everyone when and where it will go on display. Later in the afternoon it was being photographed and catalogued. Donating to the Big J is a formal process since the ship is property of the State of New Jersey.
I’m going to order those 1/72 WW2 sailors and bring them to the ship during our Spring trip. The model needs some people to lend a sense of scale.
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The model’s in its “almost” final position. The ship is closed to the public until March, but they were having a board meeting and Ryan wanted them to see it. It is now on temproary display in the ward room. It’s sitting on an end table between two couches and it’s not a secure place. It’s eventually going onto the bookcase in the background… a much better location.
The board members were not told that I was building this model and were duly impressed.
Ryan’s also going to see if he can get some higher resolution images for me.
Now you’re all up to date.
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