Pick up any nice jewellery while you were in Paris?
1 Like
We didn’t get any “jewelry”, but we were sitting in a cafe having breakfast across Rue Rivoli from the Louvre literally at the moment the hesit was occurring. We did take some nice shots the night before, but we weren’t casing the joint, I can assure you.
My cold morphed into a normal cold on its way out and my energy level was high enough to get to work on the beast. And, believe it or not, there is only a single part that needed design and printing to finish it off on Monday. The missing part is this ladder that goes from the mid-level to the lower electric mezzanine. Not only hadn’t I printed it (looks like 7 rungs), I really didn’t plan well for it’s installation as you can by the master drawing. The drawing shows a ladder that’s interfering with the framing next to, and there’s nothing supporting the free end.
It’s going to go here.
To facilitate installatin, I drew and printed the ladder with a bit of framing and grating. It printed right at the end of the session and the print looks successful. I printed only one as I wasn’t sure how successful it would be. With its success, I should have printed multiple copies since I invariably break on (or more).
I got the remaining interior ladders installed. I actually didn’t need the ones I just printed. The previous ones worked okay.
And the longer Center Ladder (hard to photograph).
From the outside:
And from the top:
But the biggest thing today was getting the electrical decks and the auxiliary air ejectors permanently installed, and with them the model IS COMPLETE—except for that one front ladder.
Tto install the aux AEs, I had one more pipe to connect. I had pre-pinned the pipe end and drilled an appropriate hole in the aux steam header.
And attached. The ejectors themselves are epoxied to the rear bulkhead. I used various spring tweezers to hold until epoxy cured.
Took a little while to get the electrical loft into its drilled holes. I had to slightly relieve the rear bulkhead so the escape trunk would pass by the prop shaft seal. Once I found that interference, the unit dropped into place.
When the ladder is in, I will remove the coverings on the base, do the touch up work on it, finish the case and hook up the wiring. Before closing it up I’ll take the final “builder’s photos” with good lighting and backdrop paper. Meanwhile, enjoy the eye candy. I can’t believe when I look at it that I actually drew, printed, painted and aseembled the whote thing. I had about a 30% confidence level going into it.
I added the QR code label to the lower front left corner that steers interested viewers to one of the web forums where I’ve blogged this entire build. As all of you that have read this from the beginning, if you really want to know how this model came to be, you can find it in the thousands of words in this thread.
I can predict with reasonable certainty that the model will be totally completed by the end of next week. I’d like to schedule delivery sometime in early November before Thanksgiving or early December before the holidays. We’ll see how that works out. Once models like this are finished, I don’t like keeping them around. I get superstitous about bead things happening to them. That’s not to say that wouldn’t like to have it around forever, but that’s not what this deal was all about. This is not a “private” model just for me to enjoy.
7 Likes
Really appreciate you sharing the whole process. Thank you!
Thank you very much for appreciating that!
Today is the official day that the MODEL IS DONE! Not the entire display, but the model itself. I started the process of fixing the display base and will complete that tomorrow and later. According to my friend who crafted the base, the finishing process is somewhat slow involving several coats of satin clear and guitar color with 1/2 hour dry times between coats. I bought some more fancy, oval-head brass screws that will hold the brass case clamps in place. I also created one more graphic that now adorns the case. It shows the position of ER #3 relative to the other three. I felt it was needed to add context to the model. The main thing done to day was finish and install that last ladder. It went on much more easily than I expected. Now… that’s a surprise!
After cleaning and post-curing, I spray canned Tamiya Silver Leaf for the ladder. When dry, masked and airbrushed Tamiya Semi-gloss Black and then hand brushed the foundation red to the underframe. When all this dried I epoxied it in place and IT’S DONE! The stair is in the foreground on the port (right) side. It needed a little platform to tie it back into the rest of the flooring system. I should have designed that bit in, but alas, did not.
For the refinishing… I had to scrape more of the epoxy strands on the left and fill the ding hole in the middle with Bondic before saning everything smooth. I masked around the Bondic patch so I could use the electric sander, but still caught some of the adjacent woodwork. It should finish pretty well. I’m going to decant the spray can products and use the airbrush to limit the area that’s going to get new finish. I’m worried about the blend line.
The graphic that’s now on the case is this:
I printed duplicates and adhered them back-to-back. I then attached it to the case with the 3M Transfer Tape as I did with the Item Key. The actual graphic is about 6" wide and a couple deep. It’s not going to block viewing anything important. It’s quite dramatic about how much of this ship’s interior is taken up by propulsion. That’s about 300’ feet of engines and boilers. Interestingly, the drawing has the layout of ER 3 incorrect. That doesn’t matter since the correct one is sitting right in front of their eyes.
The entire model will be finished next week. I’m getting some help to manipulate it since it’s big and will be heavy when the case is al closed up. It has to be flipped on its side so I can hook up the LED leads to the power board. The model is pretty strong and should make the journey well, but it can’t really handle shocks, so when flipping it, it shouldn’t be dropped.
When it ALL done, I will make official builder’s photos then open a bottle of Bourbon.
5 Likes
With the model done, the only thing going on is fixing my destruction of the wood base. I put on three coats of finish. First a satin lacquer, a light sanding after 1/2 hour. Then a color coat of Guitar Finish Tobacco Brown, and after another 1/2 hour another coat of satin laquer. I may end with that, although Bryant put on two more satin coats. There’s already finish there except for where I sanded it. Depending on your view, the fix looks either good or not-so-hot. My Bondic fix is not completely flush with the surface and the sanding error next to it is a little depression. I am hoping that folks don’t even see the base and are fixated on looking at the model.
This is the good view:
And the bad one:
I may try one more coat after another light sanding…
Here’s the ER location diagram on the enclosure back wall. Remember it’s double sided and can be viewed from both directions.
Tomorrow should have the base fixed and I’ll be working on the enclosure locks. I’ll be able to take nice images of the model on the base.
5 Likes
Well deserved, Myles!
Thank you!
IT IS DONE!
There’s a load of pictures today in honor of the model’s completion.
Day started drilling the case for the two remaining clips. I use masking tape backing to help prevent cracking when the drill breaks through. i used a small pilot hole and then a drill sharpened specifically for plexiglass. The holes were clean.
I fastened the case on so I could tip it over for the wiring.
While it’s a bit heavy and unwieldy, I was able to carefully tip it over exposing the underneath.
I use Euro-style electrical hookups with ferrules. I got into this habit when building my model railroad while working for Henkel living in Germany. I terminated all the wiring.
The first two I connected failed to work! I checked for correct voltage from the power supply and for correct polarity of the wiring, but they didn’t work. I got a bit worried. These two weren’t critical, being the lights under the main steam line that would give more light to the turbines and the other under the evaporator deck lighting up the lube oil purifier. Neither area is actually in the dark.
The next three connections worked perfectly… whew! Here’s what they look like under lower ambient lighting. I love how the control console looks when lit.
The aux condenser piping was very obscure until the lights went on.
Even with the room lights on you can still see the illumination.
Here are three shots of the completed model with the case cleaned. The model is ready for delivery.
Here’s the builder’s plate.
And here’s all the parts that didn’t make it. Some of duplicates. Most are rejects. Lots of trial and error creating this.
So dear readers, let’s summarize this undertaking.
The Good:
- Without the drawings this project would have been impossibe.
- The Swiss Cheese design of having the bulkheads there, but not there, worked better than I expected.
- Learning how to draw large herringbone gears, turbine blades, etc. pushed my creative envelope.
- The arrival of my Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra printer at the onset of the project was fortuitous, doing everything I asked it do and it never ceased to amaze me.
- Pre-planning the lighting—even though two ciruits didn’t work—worked well and made my life easier.
- Laying out and fitting all of this machinery and piping is a small space was the biggest challenge that I overcame.
- Including the triple bottom, while a complete pain in the butt to execute, was an important feature of this part of the ship that needed inclusion
- The arrival of the vinyl cutter in the middle of the project solved the problem of identifying all the apparatus and striping the propeller shafts. I will find more things for this tool to do on future projects.
- The failed circuits were the least important.
- Using water pipe to simulate the other propeller shafts worked very well.
- Building a model like this from photos of the real engine room was almost impossible and yet, those photos were invaluable in creating the model. While I had a lot of drawings, I still had to design parts from photos only.
Ths Bad:
- My case building skills are still wanting. I think I’m going to outsource this on future projects.
- My Apple MacBook Pro 2019 is not up to the task of designing massive 3D models. I want to make an animated walk through of the model for uploading to Youtube, but this machine can’t do it.
- Desiging the model with the full lattice bottom framing was overkill and could be greatly streamlined if ever make another one of these, which I don’t think will happen.
- Hand cutting all the lattice pieces was far more effort than the value it created for the model.
- Even with all the drawings being checked and rechecked, I still missed things like that last stair.
- I’m not happy with the paint finish on a few things especially the piping. My airbrushing was inconsistent.
- Why two lighting circuits failed after checking them multiple times off the model is a mystery. It’s possible that the brass tubing cut the insulation and shorted them out.
- Decal application was okay. Could have been better.
- There’s excess glue in places that were impossible to reach, but are now illuminated and visible.
- Getting the sub-asssemblies to settle down was very difficult. There were times when I thought it wouldn’t work.
In summary: Of all the spaces in an Iowa Class Battleship that would be difficult to model, the engine rooms have to the be the most difficult. So of course I chose to do one. Ship engine rooms have always interested me. I’ve even said that if I had a boat it had to be big enough to have an engine room. Engine Room #3 was chosen for two reasons. It’s the master room where the chief engineer has visibility to the performance of the other three, and it’s the only one that has square sides. All the rest are tapered to some degree fitting into the curves of the hull. The model would be difficult enough to not have to deal with those angles. At the onset, I had some very expansive concepts of what it could look like, but virtually no idea of how to execute it.
Three things seemed—at the time—to be show stoppers: the herringbone gears, the turbines and the gratings. I attacked these early on, even before I had John Miano’s drawings. The red herring of having drawings at the National Archives that turned out to be the Battleship New Jersey BB16 from 1905 deflated my sails completely. No dimensioned drawings = no project. When John Miano came through with 40 detailed techincal drawings the project was possible; definitely not a sure thing, but at least there was someplace to start. As it came together, drawing-by-drawing, the possibility of a real model got clearer. When I finalized my drawings and produced renderings of what it would look like, all I had to do was put it all together so it came out like I pictured it.
Thanks to all who hung around this thread for 14 months while I ground through this. Your support, feedback and ideas keep me going. It takes about 1/2 hour per night to journal all of this, but it’s worth it. I do this thread on four different forums, each with its own focus and participation. As a result, I have folks with whom I have a collegial relationship from all over the world including North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Of all the bad things you hear about the Internet, the ability to connect with folks like you overshadows all of the negative aspects.
So… what’s next? I’m noodling doing the steering gear. It’s an interesting and vital area that very few visitors ever see. It hasn’t been modeled before, I believe, much like this one, and while less mechanically complex, it is far more geometrically complex which should make it interesting. For example: Do I model one side or both? They’re identical. Do I include the rudders? If I include the rudders, do I include the propellers which are an integral part of the system? How do I draw the propellers? I don’t know… that’s the fun. It could be built on a mirror like is done with ship models all the time. Only problem is the hydraulic pumping units are not mirror images of each other. They are identical.
The other choice could be the Emergency Diesel Generating Room, fore or aft. Aft is a simpler space to model and is the only space in the ship where all four prop shafts are visible. I’ve already mastered how to support those shafts. The diesel engine, an ALCo 359, is a variation of engines that I’ve already drawn and printed, so this model could be a little less onerous than my previous forays.
Or perhaps I’ll take a break for a while and build something for my train layout, which has been sad since I’ve been neglecting it all year. We’ll see… Stay tuned.
8 Likes
Congratulations on a job well done. 
Thank you!
But, work is not quite done. I’ve been working with Kostas Kokkonis fom Hellenistic Models in Greece to create some appropriately garbed crew for a US Navy engine room. Kostas has a line of figures he sells on Etsy and EBay, but they were not dressed correctly. I asked him if he could produce some with naval work outfits that are typical on interior work crew and he agreed. I sent him photos of engine room crew that Ryan got me. He’s been running a little behind and he agreed to sell me the STL files and I would print them myself. He had never done it that way, but it was the fastest way for me to get the figures into the model. He sent me one figure to test the system. Today I printed the figure.
I had first tried to modify its posture digitally, but found that rotating limbs created some much chaos in the skin texture that I gave up and decided to do it old school. I cut the limbs with a razor saw, re-positioned them and glued them in place with Bondic. For the hands that needed rotating, I wired them with 0.010" guitar string. The results aren’t great. I have to work on the geometry. It’s not so simple to move arms and legs and have them come out where you want them.
Here is the figure that he sent. I printed 6 of them. As usual, the beauty of having the STLs is I can print an infinite amount of them. I promised Kostas that I would not share the STLs and am sticking by that agreement. The figure is pointing straight out which is not the most useful post.
I’m attempting to bend the figure so it can climb a vertical ladder. I got it close, but not right… yet. The legs akimbo are a problem making the angularity when bent not right. i will have to bend and rotate the leg. What was good was how well the repositioned joints look. Any gaps were filled with Bondic and sanded.
I did abother figure with both arms out straight and both hands rotated in a grab position.
The arm spread was too narrow for the railings on the ladders.
Here’s the three of them.
This image shows the problem of simply rotating and STL mesh figure. When you rotate it, the mesh stretches into a mess. You have to cut away the mess and redraw all the vertiexes that are now missing and it’s painstaking and takes a long time. That area of orange is the back side of the chest. Any holes in the matrix will result in a failed print. It’s why it was easier to work in the real world and cut the prints and reglue in the new positions.
Kostas is sending a whole set with different poses which will simplify my work. I gave him a deadline of the 2nd week in December since it will take me some time to modify any of them and paint them all. After that I don’t want to worry about it. Delivery is scheduled for Christmas week.