Piet

Hello Daniel, good to see you back in my shipyard. Yes, I like to make sketches of things to visualize them. However, I really don't do it all the time because I already have a good idea how certain items look and work. This does not apply to sailing ships of long ago though I need help with that from the experts here. Among the many certificated technical trades, at last count about 13, I am also a certificated draftsman but never earned a living with it, just drawing for myself, like extensions to our house in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. When I was Director of Engineering for an airline I designed a cargo interior for two of our aircraft and made all the design drawings. I also had to redesign a major modification to one of the aircraft that was botched up by a real certificated engineer and had to submit my drawings to the Government inspector for approval. It also helps that as part owner of an aircraft repair business I had to work with many similar structural items as was used on my father's submarine. Aircraft control systems use pulleys and similar associated hardware. I started out being an aircraft mechanic and worked on many different types, from small single seat airplanes to large commercial aircraft, I also furthered my education here in the USA and am just 15 credit points away from degree in aeronautical engineering. I gave up attaining a degree when hired on by our Federal Government as an Airworthiness Inspector for large airlines. I made the same amount of money but had a lot more fun. I was on the road a lot flying all over the country and Europe instead of being locked up in an office. As far as de loading gantries on my model being workable, yes, up to a point. I will not make the final connection to a workable electrically powered winch that's below the deck. Instead I'll leave the cables loose in the dingy compartment a can actually demonstrate loading the torpedoes and the dingy. Cheers,

Thank you all for visiting and your likes, it's much appreciated. Well, today I found a "fly in the ointment." In a PM from Renco he wondered of that 8 mm pulley for the torpedo tackles are not a little too large. That made me think and drove me back to the drawings and actually remeasuring everything. Eagle eye quick brain Remco saw immediately that 8 mm pulleys were way too large. Yes, I agree that a scale 8 mm pulley would indeed be much too large. Rechecking the photos in my archive they do look quite large but not to the size of 4 dm or 16 inches! I don't know where my brain was - - - please don't tell me - - - Soooooh - - - debating with myself I thought that for this application a pulley between 9 to about 11 inches or 5 to 6 scale mm would be okay. The smaller pulleys could be half or less that size but now I'm running into making them that tiny The "come-along" I have has a pulley of 2 inches, which calcs out to 1 mm in scale. Now that would be almost impossible to make so I have to fudge it. I'm assuming that they used a similar device with most likely a larger pulley. What I mentioned to Remco is that I'll make the larger pulleys either 5 or 6 mm in diameter and 0.5 mm wide, give or take a fraction. I don't think that a pulley between 9 and 11 inches is unreasonable. My come-along pulley looks kinda fat, but when I consider the 3/16 inch cable it kinda works out that way. The smaller pulleys will then be about 3 mm but with enough width to still show the cable groove. I checked my drawing in the center of the sketch page I posted and that turns out to be at 1:45, close but no cigar For your information I have taken a few shots of my "come-along" so people who may not know what I'm talking about can see one. The one I have is rated at 2,000 pounds with a 3/16 inch steel cable. Yup, that pulley is 2 inches or 50 mm in diameter and a little better then ¾ inch wide. Cheers,

Hey John, good to see you in the shipyard and that yuns are doing fine. Thanks for the hint on the wire rope at Wallmart. I made a note of it and check it out. Say hi to Diane! Cheers,

I went to the local Ace hardware store to see if they have the brass tube I think I need for the gantry posts and the brass rod for the pulleys. Well yes, they did on both but the rod cost $25 for a 4 foot length and for a max length of 1 foot I need for the pulleys that was a little too steep a price to pay Sooooh - - - I'm back to square one on the pulleys. It's either looking for plastic rod or boxwood. I'll be shopping at Evergreen or some other places to see if they have short pieces of the size I need and for a reasonable price otherwise it's going to be boxwood. I decided to try making the post where the boom is attached as the drawings and photos show. After I completed these and stuck them to the deck of the boat they did look okay to me. So, I'll keep them. The posts on the other side are smaller in diameter and I also made these today. I was now in a quandary as to how the cross beam was attached, although I had some idea how I would do it if I were the engineer but thought it better to look for some close-up photos I have in my archives. Didn't really find much in enough detail but think I figured it out and will proceed from there. This'll be quite a challenge I did notice though when browsing through the many pics that the older boats did not use a "come-along" allowing the boom to be raised and lowered. They had a fixed length of cable and just one pulley at the end of the boom to raise and lower the torpedo. Other subs seem to have a smaller, portable lift. I'll stick with the design I have from the original drawings as shown in yesterday's post, with a few minor changes. Okay, I made the four gantry posts today and will try to make a few of the other items. There's a whole bunch of models here Here are the pics. This shows the aft gantry posts, just temporarily stuck into the deck. Eventually they'll be epoxied in. The port post will have a diagonal brace aft to the deck for extra support. This is just the beginning. My best bet is to make the complete assembly off the model and cement it into place after it's finished. This shows the forward gentry posts. This one will be slightly different because it'll have small extra pieces on top of the crossbeam for antenna wires, at least that's the plan for now. Cheers,

Thank you all for visiting and like what I'm doing, I truly appreciate it very much. @ Popeye: yup, a lot of detail in these seemingly simple gizmos. But as our good friend Remco states, treat each part as a model. This'll keep me busy for a while. @ Mark: Love the pun Oh yeah, the boom will be stromg enough to hold the torps. I'm using 3/16 stainless steel 7-19 wire rope, it should have a 30,000 lbs tensile strength Actually I don't know yet what I'll be using to simulate steel cable. Wizard eh - - - you mean the one with a dunce cap??? That fits me to a tee All y'all have fun now - - - modeling Cheers,

Hello everyone, the Piet is back Yeah, I took a few days away from the dockyard for other pressing things and besides that I made a few working sketches for the torpedo loading gantries. It seems that I need some additional material. I thought I had everything but it turns out that I need one piece of 5/32`` ID brass tubing and of course the 8 mm brass rod for the pulleys. That large size tubing is for the lower part of the boom pole to be in scale for that part but it seems to make that upright too bulky. I need to think about it some before I commit myself. As yuns can see on the below pics there are quite a few parts to it and I have to make two of these suckers, one for the forward end and one for the aft end. Then there is still the dingy loading boom to do. After I made this sketch I already started to change a few things which I have annotated on the drawing. It always seems to go this way, after looking at it you begin to see certain details that can be done simpler. The detail sketches surrounding the center assembly sketch are not to scale. The center assembly sketch is to scale. I have not given every part a name or their measurements yet on this sketch. As noted above, the sketches are not to scale so I plan to do that as I go along. Here you can also see why I'm still a little apprehensive to make the upright post of the port assembly that heavy. It seems a little too bulky, what are your thoughts? This shows the detail of the boom attachment and pulley assembly. All this must be able to rotate and the boom must be able to be lowered or raised. It'll be a tricky thing to do. This shows the detail on the top of the boom. The top triangular part of the plate is to secure the boom to the deck fixture when not in use. The other two are to attach the pulley brackets to. The two pulley brackets are identical. This is another intricate detail that'll give some work. The part where the "come-along" and the stationary cable are attached to must also rotate with the swing of the boom. The one change I'm making is the top cable attachment. Instead of a clevis I'll be using a thimble like the center cable attachment. And no, I'll not be making a miniature "come-along" to lower and raise the boom - - - what d'you think - I'm a magician?? Cheers,

Nice ironwork bro Cheers,

Hi Andy, I guess I didn't understand what you meant by your comment about hurting your arm. I do have several photographs of the KM (Royal Navy) submarines used at that time and tried to make my model as close to them as I could. So, to me then, my model comes close to the real thing and therefore I didn't understand. I believe that with the pics Freek and I have already posted this should have been quite evident. Now that Jan has added a few more I didn't have and his input about the breach, there should be no fear of of getting your hand or arm tangled up in the breach I am not an ordinance guy but an airplane guy, so my knowledge about guns etc, is close to nil. Although I did place second in a sharp-shooting contest among all the armed forces in the Netherlands when I was a draftee aircraft mechanic in the KL (Royal Airforce) I even beat the Marines! Well, I had a good instructor, he was a sergeant in the Royal Marines and was part of a group that defended the bridges over the Maas river against the German paratroopers at the start of the war. Hoi Jan, thanks for the links and the great pics of guns and your input. Yes, I knew that the gun Freek send me the pics from are from the O24 and I do have a few of the pics from the links you added. I believe that the O19 and subsequent boats had the same type gun. Like I mentioned above I have no clue about guns and how this particular gun is loaded. The pics show the breach in the closed position but how it is opened to shove the round into it and then closed to make it ready for firing I have no idea. I assume that the discharge of the casing is gas operated. I hope that someone knowledgable on these 88's can shed some light on this, just for curiosity sake Hello Popeye, thanks you for your compliments. Yeah, I think too that I came close to make it look like the real gun. As an afterthought, I could have added a few more small things to it and perhaps make the breach area a little more refined, which I can still do. Cheers,

Fantastic work Kevin !!! Cheers,

Hello everyone and my thanks to the many who visited and liked my deck gun progress. I was kinda a little apprehensive tackling this gun but when I started it all fall into place. I only had a few remakes, nothing serious though. @ Mark: Thank you Mark and yes, I had a pleasant although very quiet day. Family lives too far apart and busy with work and school to get together. Gwen and I had a glass of wine and toasted to each other's health and a few more years. We'll drive up north and visit when summer recess is here. Right now she's planning on driving up help move our grandson out of his dorm in college for the summer recess. That's 900 miles one way !! A real sailor's daughter she is, with a can do attitude but, then again, she's a bit younger then I am, only 73 @ Andy: Thanks for the compliment but you've got me wondering why your arm hurts when looking at the breach. Did you have at one time a run-in with an 88 when loading ????? @ Remco: Thank you as well for your kind words - - - all I'm trying to do is follow your motto, treat each part as a separate model - - - or something like that. Hey Popeye, well, you were wondering how the gun would look all dolled up in a coat of paint - - - now here it is, finally. I took it easy today. For some reason this last BCG treatment for the cancer bothered me more then usual. Fever, headache and more of a discomfort when peeing . The bright side of all this is - - - it's the last treatment session - - - hurray May 29 we'll go in for an biopsy to see if the treatment did its job. In the meantime I'm looking at what to do next. I like to build the torpedo loading gantries but I need a gezillion small pulleys and I mean small. There are two sizes, small and smaller 7 and 4 mm. Fortunately all are single sheave but the associated hardware is equally small. Now I have to look for brass or aluminum rod in the largest size. If I can't find it in our local hardware store I'll have order it from my regular source in Canada. I could make a start with the dingy though while waiting for the rods - - - or the propellers - - - hmmmm decisions, decisions. Cheers,

This morning I managed to finish the deck gun before Gwen and I went to my birthday party thrown by our financial advisory company. I made the simulated elevation adjusting rack and cement that in place. I'm happy with the way de gun came out and it looks quite menacing when viewed head on. Below are the pics. Cheers,

Hoi Jan, no sooner said then done, a picture of a gunner on the seat, thanks to Freek!! Well, if I decide to venture in making people figures then it'll be when the boat is completed, much like the final project. As far as removing seaweed from the works - - I hope for their sake that they don't run into seaweed This particular boat had a elevator that brought the shells up from below, at least that's according to the drawings I have. Actually, that is a question I was asked just today, about seaweed and seawater. He asked if they somehow retracted the gun into the hull. So I just gave the guy a swag at it No seaweed and lots of grease or cosmoline and not retractable. Hello Freek, thanks for the pictures, great stuff. I had only two of these but saved the rest to my collection, much appreciated. I have no idea how this seat works and how much space the guy has to operate the hand wheels. My model of the gun is most likely not quite right but it'll suffice. It's close enough for government work It doesn't seem very comfortable, just as the cockpit jump seats in our commercial aircraft. I found the Boeing 777 the most comfortable and the B 747 one of the worst. Cheers,

Hello everyone and a special thanks to all for your birthday wishes on my 80 years on this planet. Also my thanks to the many who clicked "like" when visiting, it's really appreciated!!!! Hello Remco, Popeye and Freek, thanks for your comments. Yeah, Freek, i didn't forget the foot rests! But didn't make the other small thingies on that rod - - - just too much for now. Hoi Sjors, thank you too - - - you mean - - real grenades????? Hmmmm - - - now I have to make grenades too ??? in addition to mines and torpedoes ???? I'll never get done with this thing if yuns keep pushing for more stuff You want to see an old Dutchman tearing his hair (singular! ) out as he runs for the hills ??? Come to think of it, not many hills in Florida And no, that sign won't go on it - - hmmm - - is that what it says ??? grapjas Well, just one more item to make for the canon and then I can paint it. Yes Popeye, it'll look great all painted up, at least it'll hide some of the roughness. Now, if I had the talent Doris has in making people figures then I may be tempted to make a gunner sitting on that seat Cheers

Continuation of the deck gun saga Hey Freek, look what I found in the con storage area - - - the gun operator seat !!! No, really, I couldn't resist trying to make the seat anyway. After i cemented the seat to the gun base I noticed it wasn't quite the way i wanted it but I'll correct it tomorrow afternoon after my doctor visit. I made the foot rests too and that's now cemented on. We are making progress I also made a start with the barrel elevation rack. Not a simple job now that the barrel is mounted but I'll have work around it somehow., we'll see. And Amateur Jan - I have made a brand new eye bolt for the front of the gun, much better this time, agree?? Okay, here are the few pics showing the seat installed to the gun. Cheers,

Hello Freek, That looks very professional and such intricate detail, very nice work !!! Cheers,

WOW, I'm overwhelmed with all the responses, about 23 or so, thank you all for visiting ! @ Remco: Thanks !!! Well, before I installed them I thought that the tiny bronze nails were too thick and I hand filed them down to a much smaller diameter. I'm happy with the way they came out but don't ask how my poor fingers are @ Daniel: Yes, the deck gun will also be painted in the same grey as the rest of the upper works of the boat. I'm going to attempt to still make the rack and other parts below the barrel and the exposed parts of the gear of the rack will probably be black. The two AA guns are 40 mm Vickers and the deck gun is 88 mm. It did do a great job in actually sinking a few Jap freighters, denying them to resupply their troops. @ Jan (Amateur): Thank you so very much for your compliment, I love the challenge in trying to make things as small as possible and Remco is an inspiration. Yes indeed, the larger parts begin to look LARGE in comparison and yes, I'll be remaking the eye bolt up front, it's too large. Thanks for bringing that my attention. No problem, just a few minutes. @ Freek: thanks !! No, I don't think I'll make the seat, I pretend that it's stowed away in the forward part of the conning tower, under the forward AA gun. Hmmmm, he says with a straight face I figure it's in the way, especially when submerged it's more of a drag. The crew can retrieve it when they must use the gun. @ John (Lad): Thank you John. Remember that a few posts ago I mentioned that one of the gun pivot pin bearing caps just "twanged' away and I had to make a new one? Well, yesterday, when working at my computer during my lunch break, I just happen to look down on the floor and guess what??? There was the missing part! My guess is that it must have dropped on my moccasin that I normally wear. Well, okay - - - now I have a spare. Okay, enough of the small talk and thanking everyone for your comments, it's now my bed time for my beauty sleep Hope to do some more work on the gun, I like to see it finished and go on to the torpedo loading gantries. I with all y'all happy modeling and, Cheers,

Hi Sherry, sterling !! Cheers,

Hoi Remco, looking really good !!! Cheers,

Well. the saga of the deck gun continues but first my thanks to all who visited and clicked on "like." Oh - I guess I could have finished the deck gun today but I wanted to read some more from the book I bought about the "Battle of the Java Sea" by Jeffrey R Cox. I learned quite a lot on the details that lead up to this battle and the actual action. It took Mr. Cox several years of research that took him to Japan, Australia and Indonesia as well as here in the Naval Archives to put the puzzle pieces together. It's a shame that he left out statements from the surviving crew of Hr. Ms. Java, the cruiser my father lost his life on. My father was mentioned where they were looking for him. However, I do have a draft copy of that chapter where he is mentioned and will put a copy of it in the book. It's a very good read and am glad I have the book. So then, after lunch I again ventured into the garage to continue work on the deck gun. I installed the hand holds but they are not cemented in yet. I also need to make and install the foot pedals and the simulated elevation mechanism under the barrel assembly. After that's done then I think the gun is pretty well complete and can be placed on it's mounting plate on deck. Over all I'm quite happy with it and am confidant that all the file scratches will be hidden with a coat of paint Here are a few pics I'm putting into my personal archive. Cheers,

Good evening or morning to all. After a simple dinner with my dear wife and watching a nature show on TV I'm back to report what we accomplished today. I could only do some work in the PM because this morning I had my fifth cancer treatment and the aftermath was a little uncomfortable and needed to stay close to the crapper After lunch things kinda felt better and I was able to do some assembling of the deck gun. And - - - wouldn't you know it, I lost one of the gun pivot bearing caps, it went flying to somewhere and I had to make a new one This time I decided to forego the epoxy cement and just nail the suckers to the mount body. This worked quite well and then I cemented the two hand wheels also to the gun mount body and the central pivot pin with the turn plate. Of course I forgot to paint the inside but that's not a real problem, I still have enough access to it. Next I started to make the 4 hand holds and the pedal rod at the lower front of the gun mount. I used the tiny bronze nails for the posts and 1.5 mm brass tube s to shove a 1 mm rod through as the hand hold. The pic below shows it better then i can describe it. Well, that's it for today and I hope to get a good night sleep Deck gun in profile, ⅔ finished - is lacking the hand-holds and a few other details and paint. This shows a close-up and yes, it may look a little rough but the pic is taken on a macro setting. You can see how I installed the two pivot pin bearing caps with the tiny bronze nails and the heads acting as bolts. Yeah, I could have filed hexagonal heads on them but, but, but - - - hmmm, maybe later??? At least I inserted pieces of wooden dowels in the pivot pins to act as the locking nuts and yes, they have the spanner groves in them . This shows the aft end of the gun, we can see the breech and some more details The shows the front view of the gun assembly as it is as of this evening. I hope to complete the deck gun tomorrow, if not then there is always another day. This shows one set hand-holds. It worked easier then I thought. I first filed the bronze nail heads flat on top and "tinned" it. Then I cut 2 mm pieces off of the 1.5 mm brass tube. I inserted the nail into a block of wood so the head was kinda flush with the wood surface. Then I picked each piece of tubing up with a pointed toothpick and placed that on the tinned nail head and soldered the two together. Worked like a charm. Cheers,

Hello everyone and thanks to the many who dropped by and clicked "like." Hey Sjors, believe me my friend, that small stuff is a bear to make with a lot of tries and scrap and loosing some pieces that just "twang" away out of my tweezers or pliers. Hmmmm, if Mr. Wilton were alive and heard my name he'd be turning red with anger My father sure gave them a hard time during the build of the real boat and her sister the O20. Hello Paul, welcome back and welcome to my dockyard. Yup, I made some progress since your last visit, but that's what you get when being busy with other pressing things in life. Yes indeed I do have a Unimat DB 200 lathe and use it quite a lot. The barrel was made on the lathe and as I mentioned in a previous post I used both hands to make the taper. One to gradually feed the tool in and the other to gradually back the slide tool holder out. The final shaping was done with 320 grit sand paper followed with 400. The wood is box thus nice and hard. I just didn't want to shift the Head Stock to make the taper. Well, I'm afraid that a 3D printer is out of the question as are a few other nice tools like a mini table saw, planer and whatever. I have to make due with what I have and hand tools. This takes a little longer but I like the challenge and have nowhere else to go. Good luck with the adoption process !! Cheers,

Hello Ed, I have been silently following and admiring your build. A note of interest on mineral spirits. As an artist (among many other things) using oils and now also permanent museum quality colored pencils I use Gemsol. Yes, some makes of colored pencils can be softened with mineral spirits and use it like tempera paint. This is a truly odorless mineral spirit that dries up clear and leaves no residue. It's not cheap $16.99 for one pint (473ml), but I don't use it a lot, so it last me a long time. Cheers,

Hello Nenad, your Cutte is looking fantabulous and I expect it to be even better after you have sanded the decks, great Job. Hmmmm, engineers making things complicated - - - well I try to make things simpler, but that's just me. I use the KISS principle - - - keep it simple stupid Cheers,

Hello Paul and welcome back !!! Your boats look wonderful - - - which is to be expected from you. Great work station you have there, looks like an old (new?) desk. Looking forward to more of your marvelous work. Cheers,

Thank you all for visiting and your like votes. John, Popeye and Mark, thanks for your encouraging comments, really appreciated. After spending a few hours in the front yard trying to remove some pesky and stubborn ground cover that has crept into my grass I ventured back into the garage aka shipyard. I decided not to overdo the hard yard work because my back is still not back in good shape and won't aggravate it. I made a jig to solder the hand wheels together and proceeded to cut the spokes from the same brass rod as the wheel rims. I used a tiny bronze nail for the wheel shaft. I removed most of the head and put the nail in a hole at the center of the jig with enough space so I can slide the spokes under the nail head. Next I used a couple of clothes pins to hold the spokes to the jig in their assigned location in the jig so that I could solder one spoke at a time to the nail head in the center. After this was done I cleaned all extra solder away and clipped the spokes to fit inside the rim. Next I placed the rim on the jig surrounding the spokes and clamped a steel office clip to hold it all together and also act as a heat sink. It required just a light touch with the soldering iron to solder all the spokes to the rim. Now came the job of adding the tiny handle to the rim and clean it all up from the extra solder. This doesn't look like a lot I accomplished but it was time consuming and between losing a few spokes and some that were not cooperating it still took a few hours, including the cleaning up of the extra solder. The spokes are not quite at the correct angles, they must have drifted out of place when clamping them with the clothes pins. But as we say in the aviation world - - - You'll never notice it from 10,000 feet I know, I know, that's not really Piet's way and who knows - - - I may remake them later with a better jig and clamping arrangement. I also drilled a few small holes in the barrel assembly pivot pin bearing caps for the simulated bolts. I'll use tine bronze nails instead after I epoxy them to the base unit. Hmmm, I probably need to paint the inside of the base and the gun grey before assembling it. There are a few more details to be made and installed but the gun is getting close to be placed on the boat. Okay, time for a few pics of today's effort and for my own file. This shows my jig. A piece of soft wood whereon I scribed groves for the spokes and the rim. I drilled a small hole in the center for the wheel axle. I didn't notice that two of the spokes had drifter out of their groves and proceeded with the soldering. After all the spokes were soldered on the pin and took it out of the jig I noticed it and tied to redo the two culprits but started to make a real mess and had to start over. Then I just gave up and cleaned the center before soldering the rim to the spokes. This shown my heat-sink arrangement. This worked quite well. Here is the completed hand wheel on the jig before cleaning the extra solder away. Here I am holding the finished hand wheel. Sorry about the dirty wingers, that's the sap from the ground cover I was pulling out of the lawn grass Cheers,