USS New Jersey Engine Room #3 Model for Permanent Display Onboard Ship

[mmarcovitch]

I sincerely hope that the fog of Tamiya Gloss White airbrush overspray is not toxic, because the basement was full of that stuff this afternoon. And I’m also glad that a) I wear “shop clothes”, b) I wear “shop shoes” and c) that it has a bare concrete floor with years of paint, etc. splatters all over it. I say this because, I was about to stir in some thinner in the last bit of gloss white paint I had, lost grip on the glass paint spray bottle and it hit the floor, broke and spilled that precious white paint all over the place. Anywhere and wearing anything else, that would have been a catastrophe. In this case it was just a pain the in the butt and a bit of a mess to clean up.

I finish painted all the bronze main condenser parts. I happy with the results. Part of the assembly can be glued together now, but one end needs to go on when I’m installing it on the base floor so the pipe can position properly.

I finished the central column with a coat of gloss white on the upper parts. The paint ran out (read “spilled”) half way through painting the main steam header. I will be buying more paint tomorrow, and may get some time to use it. The entry hatch floor will be expoxied to the cross-supports on the top of this column. I limited the amount of paint on the gluing surfaces.

I got the red base painted on the main gauge panel. The next steps are picking out all the details. Not all of the gauges have the same colored bezels, so I will be using the pictures of the real on to do it as it appears in life.

I am in the process of redesigning the entire 1st level floor system, making all the sub-frames as a single printed part. My original idea of having little 2’ X 4’ self-supporting frames was untenable and would be an installation nightmare. I drew a flat piece on top of the existing frames and intersected the faces to identify where all the apparatus penetrats the floor. I then took that pattern and rebuilt the floor system underneath it. All the myriad of legs are now cross-braced so they’ll be very stable.

Here’s a sample of what I’ve done.

I have three of these systems; two are finished and printed and the 3rd is almost done drawings. The port side frames are split done the middle to facilitate installation. The starboard frames are a single and I will install the evaporator deck through this floor. Here are the first two out of the printer and cleaned, but not removed from the forrest of supports nor post-cured. I made sure that all the joints were in full contact with each other so there shouldn’t be any printer glitches.

I love the the new printer can print objects this large as single printed object. Both of these were printed in one load.

I’ll have some work time tomorrow, but be gone for a little over a week for a trip back East. I probably won’t get to the battelship this trip. I don’t really have anything I need for this project any longer. Of course, I could always visit the ship… it truly enjoy it.

[mmarcovitch]

I didn’t have much time today after going to the hobby shop to replace the lost white paint, but that didn’t stop me from getting something done. I finished painting the white paint work including the escape trunk, piping around the air ejectors (small and large), and miscellaneous other stuff. Notice that I white painted the numbered studs that are going to go in each identified piece of apparatus in the final display. There are still many loose pipes that need white paint. I will get them later.

I detail painted the lube oil purifier.

The escape trunk and large air ejector white piping.

Notice painting the underside of the entry deck. The lighting circuits are now fully camoflaged. The upper surface will be linoleum brown. There’s gray detail painting on the evaporators needs to be done. I like detail painting. The small air ejectors are sitting there also.

The electrical tape on the main steam pipe that’s wrapped around the middle is almost invisible now that it’s well-coated with Tamiya gloss white (As planned).

Then I did the first coat on the red valve bodies on the lube oil pump manifolds. After finish painting the red, I will paint the top of the box-shaped thing insignia yellow with black warning stripes and the valve handles yellow.

​I painted the new electrical cabinets sky gray. I will pick out details later, hopefully without breaking any of those cute little hand knobs on the bottom.

Before I went upstairs I sprayed the insides of both the low and high pressure turbines Tamiya spray Silver Leaf.

We leave tomorrow for Philly. I won’t be going to the ship this trip. Nothing to learn. But I will be going back in the Fall to deliver the new model.

[TDahl]

All those parts look great with your nice paint jobs.

[mmarcovitch]

Thanks Tom!

Got back from the trip on Monday, but didn’t get into the shop, per ce, until today. I was doing some design work and had some doctor’s appointments (follow-ups.). During the trip I did some re-thinking about the flooring system. I hadn’t even removed the supports from the last print of the port side flooring, but I wasn’t looking forward to several aspects of them. I didn’t think the angle iron framing was going to work well for gluing to the base. Additionally, I wasn’t looking forward to gluing the individual diamond-plate segments onto this deleicate frame. Lastly, I had way too many supports under it. It would be out of view and just complicated cleaning up the print. The re-design entailed, using H-Beam structures for most of the frame, reducing their number by 2/3 and then installing all the flooring plates and printing it as a single, integrated unit. I didn’t know if it would print well, but as usual the printer came through. Here it is hanging on the printer after finishing tonight. There is a vast amount of supports to remove because I chose to print with the delicate diamond plate pattern. Support debris would destroy thosse details, but required more supports becausse of all the cross-bracing below that was lying horizontally to the build plate. Horizontally aligned surfaces always need lots of support since the resin doesn’t bridge across horizontal surfaces only for short distances.

The floor is nice and flat. All the openings are for lube oil purifier, prop bearing pedestal and columns supporting the evaporator foundation.

Here’s the drawing showing the revised under structure. Compare this to the previous design on the port side floors. With this print success I’m going to revise the others to do them the same way. The heavier H-beam legs gives more substantial gluing surface.

Trimming, cleaning and painting will happen over the next few days. Tomorrow is the 4th of July when the USA became a free democracy and I may not be working in the shop. We’re not going anywhere, so who knows…

While the printer started working, I did the first round of painting the little callout sticks that I’m contemplating adorning all the pieces of interest to conform to the printed key. There’s a few spots that need to be touched up. I was more difficult painting the numbers that lay between the sticks.

I’m now looking to expand my shop’s capability. First, I was told that you can use a 5 gallon paint pail filled partially with water as a means to capture and filter out fumes from a small paint booth. My favorite hobby shop owner told me that one of our club members has been using this method for years with good succees. The only reason I didn’t get a booth was the outside venting it would require. This method solves that problem. I viewed a video of how to do it and it’s quite easy and I happen to have some of those paint buckets lying around. I’m going to buy myself a paint booth for my 80th birthday that’s the 30th of this month.

Next, I was also told by one of our club members that you can effectively use a digital vinyl cutter to make painting masks and other items for model building. They’re not just for crafting… I started exploring this and knew that my very talented and techie daughter in law had one. On our trip we stopped at my son’s house in State College PA on our way back from Philly to Louisville. I only wanted to ask her about purchasing advice. Instead, she gave me a spare, brand-new, Sihoulette Cameo 3. Yesterday I bought some materials at Michael’s and am reviewing how these things work. I have some uses for it for the engine room project. I’ll you informed.

[mmarcovitch]

Worked on the model yesterday and today and am making 2 steps forward and one back. When I tried to assemble the new floor with the lube purifier that must penetrate through it, I couldn’t install it since the valves and plumbing wouldn’t fit through the rectagular opening. I then dropped the unit on the floor breaking it in half at the base junction. Instead of being annoyed, it answered the question of what to do next. Next was re-drawing it as two parts and ending the piping at the floor diamond plate level since you won’t see any of it underneath anyway. So that’s slated for printing tomorrow.

I also found out that the duck under cutout and floor are in the wrong place (about .75" too far aft (19mm). I also forgot to open one relief hole for one of the evaporator deck columns that must pass through. Furthermore; I set the job up in the printer with the front facing edges getting most of the supports. Even after cleaning and sanding it looks a bit ragged. So I’m re-designing and re-printing the part to solve all of these issues.

I thought it would be interesting for my followers to see just how many supports were on this piece of flooring. it took more than a half hour to get rid of them. I sawed off the base which made it a little easier to get into the morass and cut them loose, but here’s what it looked like after the raft was removed. When I reprint, I’m going to adjust the density setting. I don’t think the job required that many.

The bottom of the part after support removal.

And what was in the trash can. Uses a lot of resin. I amd sure there was more resin consumed in the supports than the part itself.

I had to be careful in not using too much brute force. Sometimes the cross-linking from one support to another capture some of the model such as the cross-bracing on the legs. Pulling the supports off without tracing their path can lead to ripping the part itself in the process.

​This shows how much off the duck under is. It also puts one of the support columns into the duck under instead of next to it.

Yesterday I started masking the base for the white paint. I had to stop since I’m going to added some I-beam supports on the bulkhead where the entry hatch and deck are being installed. Wanted to paint the white with the decks in place, but can’t glue them in yet. I’m going to notch the deck to install them over the I-beams.

The diamond plate pattern shows up nicely under magnification. It’s small, but it’s there.

The port side forward floor assembly printed well and I fit the ladders into the duck under to see how they fit. i needed to thin the ladder’s sides to gt the fit right.

Trim painting continued with picking out valve handles, and painting the cutaway areas. To do that red paint I used a Testor’s paint marker. Easier to control than a brush.

And I continued working on the main gauge panel. The bright brass behind the throttle wheels is metal vinyl that I’m going to use for this purpose with the new vinyl cutter. I didn’t use that cutter for this since I don’t know how to work it yet. A lot more work to do on this before it’s done.

The vinyl cutter now has a place on my work bench system.

I had a load of stuff in this spot and nohwere to put it. There was a spot in my storeroom that was occupied by too large boxes of sprues left over from many plastic kits built by me and the grandkids. I don’t know why I saved it, but had used any of it. So it all went to trash and there was space for all the bottles and spools of wire.

I wrote a note to Reskit asking if they had any figures I could use to populate the engine room. They are a really neat Ukranian after-market supplier of highly detailed cast resin (and now 3D printed) detail parts. I used them on my award winning Sikorsky Seahawk. They wrote back today saying they were really happy with my project and will look into this. He asked me to describe the clothing worn in the engine room, and I reached out to Ryan. He sent me three images today showing their garb and I forwarded this to Igor. The fact that Ukranian companies like Reskit and ICM are able to continue working during this miserable war is remarkable. I noticed in this image that that the throttles have nice chrome acorn nuts holding them on. I will add that.

[mmarcovitch]

Painted pipes today, and continued picking out the small details. Got the third floor system printed and post-cured, and redrew the first one and it’s going to be printed tomorrow.

As I noted on my last post, the supports had some wrap-around which pulled one of the legs and cross-bracing off in the cleaning process. I’ve often said that removing supports is the #1 failure mode of 3D prints, especially when they’re as complex as some of these are. Since I was scraping the first one printed, I was able to scavenge some pieces to graft them to this, otherwise perfect, floor system.

More to come tomorrow. Please ignore the slight size difference of the front portion between the two sides. When installed, it will not be noticeable and I didn’t want to reprint just to fix that.

[mmarcovitch]

Painting continues and is almost done. If I get a good, long session tomorrow I could get it all done. We had a break in all the thunder storms and I got the base red done on all the decks and deck supports. I have a couple more red parts to paint, but probably won’t have to do it outside. On the right is the newly-printed main floor replacement.

I detail painted the HP throttles. There’s some painting to do on the upper quandrant of the LP turbine, a few tiny details on the turbo-generators and painting the replacement lube purifier. There’s some touch up work on the various air ejectors, but that’s all minor stuff. Once all this is done, the last painting is the white bulkheads. When that is done equipment placement will begin sometimg this week. The throttle springs are molotow chrome base with Tamiya clear blue overcoat.

All the railing I have to solder are 32" high. Instead of soldering a retainer at the bottom to hold the correct depth, I drew and 3D printed a bunch of scale 32" spacers that I will use to set all the railings at the same height during gluing. The little frame next to my power sander is the last catwalk support for the very narrow grated walkway between the HP and LP turbines. I think it’s the last support piece I need to design and print.

[mmarcovitch]

Detail painting continues…

The turbo-generators are for all intents and purposes are finished painted. There may be a touchup or two I have to do, but they’re done. I had to replace one of those vertical guard poles with wire when one broke off at some point. 600 pound steam lines connect to those two valve bodies. The “copper” color was created by a chrome cylinder base covered with a mix of Tamiya Clear Red and Clear Yellow in an imprecise ratio.

The main and aux air ejectors are also just about finish painted. I hate brush painting white paint!!! Valve handles need painting/replacing where missing.

And, except for some very minor touchup, the main gauge panel is done. Wish I could have done decals for the gauge faces, but inkjet decals just don’t work in this size.

Here’s the composite photo I used to paint it.