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CDR_Ret

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About CDR_Ret

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
  • Interests
    The physical sciences; Worldview, science, and education; Technical and educational writing; Reading: Accurate historical fiction, classical science fiction, biographies; Wood carving and ship models; research projects relating to landform origins, especially the US East Coast Carolina Bays.

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  1.    mtaylor reacted to a post in a topic: 3 D Laser cut file
  2.    CDR_Ret reacted to a post in a topic: Small pieces of Boxwood
  3. CDR_Ret
    Mike, as others have said, laser cutting in conventional use applies only to cutting essentially 2D objects from 2D patterns. The 3D model is constructed from these parts. If 3D laser ablation is actually a thing, it is a very specialized process. Computerized 3D manufacturing involves either additive (i.e., 3D printing) or subtractive (i.e., multi-axis milling) processes. Shapeways offers photoactive additive manufacturing methods involving lasers, but I suspect that isn't what you are looking for. Terry
  4.    CDR_Ret reacted to a post in a topic: 1/250 Destroyer Escort USS ENGLAND (DE-635) by HMV - CARD
  5.    CDR_Ret reacted to a post in a topic: Making frame drawings and its adoption to laser cutting
  6.    CW_Tom reacted to a post in a topic: CG Model of the Sturgeon-Class Short-Hull Submarine
  7.    CW_Tom reacted to a post in a topic: CG Model of the Sturgeon-Class Short-Hull Submarine
  8.    CW_Tom reacted to a post in a topic: CG Model of the Sturgeon-Class Short-Hull Submarine
  9.    CDR_Ret reacted to a post in a topic: USS Tinosa (SSN 606) by CW_Tom - 1:200 scale - Thresher / Permit class submarine
  10.    CDR_Ret reacted to a post in a topic: Making frame drawings and its adoption to laser cutting
  11.    CDR_Ret reacted to a post in a topic: Exploring FreeCAD for ship modeling
  12.    mtaylor reacted to a post in a topic: Exploring FreeCAD for ship modeling
  13.    ccoyle reacted to a post in a topic: CG Model of the Sturgeon-Class Short-Hull Submarine
  14. CDR_Ret
    Working on the escape trunks, now that the grandfather journals have been delivered to all the cousins and siblings... The Sturgeons had two escape trunks. These acted like airlocks in spacecraft to allow emergency egress in case the boat was bottomed for some reason. The only difference is that there is high-pressure sea water outside instead of a vacuum. Basically all US submarines following WW II had the capability to mate with the McCann rescue chamber. This required a flat surface surrounding the upper escape hatch fairing, which was equipped with a haul-down bale,
  15. CDR_Ret
    Tony, that looks simply ... agonizing. I can appreciate how much labor went into those lines. Terry
  16.    CDR_Ret reacted to a post in a topic: Ships vs Boats
  17.    CDR_Ret reacted to a post in a topic: Ships vs Boats
  18. CDR_Ret
    Keith, are you a lawyer by any chance?
  19. CDR_Ret
    Just don't call a ship a boat, unless it's a submarine! I don't know how many articles I read over the past several weeks about the "boat" stuck in the Suez Canal! 🤨
  20. CDR_Ret
    Yes. It was quite the educational experience. In particular, going back into 100-plus-year-old documents to understand some of the terms he used, the people he met, and to verify the national and local names actually in use at the time. The big players then were Imperial Russia, Imperial Germany, the Ottoman Empire, and Austria-Hungary. Not to neglect the British Empire. Britain managed most of the modern infrastructure (telegraphs and railroads) in Egypt, the Persian Gulf, India, and the Indian Ocean littoral. I learned that most nations today use the same main railroad routes tha
  21. CDR_Ret
    Hi, Steven. The "map" is the Google Earth image that includes the paths that my grandfather followed during his travels. I used the highest resolution available in the GE desktop application to produce that image, so the paths appear as very thin lines. If you click on the image in the post, it displays in a separate window that you can zoom to examine the tracks. Here is a lower resolution image with the modern country boundaries added to see where he went. It may seem that the paths don't follow a pattern and cover the same territory in some cases. D
  22. CDR_Ret
    I have mentioned a number of times in my posts here at MSW how my work transcribing my Grandfather Pearson's journals of his travels during 1908–1910 through pre-WW I Europe, Turkey, Egypt, Persia, the Western Indian Ocean, and Asiatic Russia, have frequently usurped my work on ship-related projects. This project began more than 20 years ago when my mother allowed me to read one of her father's journals. After the death of my father, I inherited the remaining 11 journals and other materials my grandfather had retained from his journeys. So for the past ten years or so, I have been working on t
  23. CDR_Ret
    Continuing to work from aft to forward, today is the towed sonar array tube and faring. The Sturgeons were already being constructed when the US submarine force received their towed arrays. These sonars were towed a long distance behind the ships to remove the receivers from the vicinity of the largest sound source in the area—the towing submarine itself. So the early towed array systems were add-ons for the Permit-, Sturgeon-, and the Los Angeles-classes. (The towed array systems for the Sea Wolfs and Virginias are totally internal.) The handling gear for the array cab
  24. CDR_Ret
    Took a few hours this weekend to build the submarine rudders and the stern light. The Sturgeon balanced rudders acted together on a single shaft. The lower rudder worked as a standard rudder when the ship was surfaced. Submerged, the upper rudder added twice the turning leverage. Let's just say that these SSNs were pretty nimble when submerged. At a flank bell, you had to hang on during the turn! Sturgeons had a single, combination stern light housing. The lower enclosure provided the screening needed for the 135-degree stern light used underway. The upper
  25. CDR_Ret
    Yeah, I've heard these stories even back when I was still in the Navy. The circumstances change every time I hear it. The one that was popular back then was that President Clinton had authorized the sale of a poly-axis propeller milling machine to the Chinese even though it was on the strategic items restricted list (or whatever it was called).
  26. CDR_Ret
    Rather than continuing to clog up a thread on the features and foils of the DELFTship modeling software with my personal project, I decided to move the relevant posts regarding the project to a separate thread. If Admins can move the original posts and responses to this thread, that would be appreciated. Otherwise, not a biggie. The original posts can be found at the following links: Hull against background plans. Seven-bladed screw. Stern Planes and Control Surfaces. Follow-on progress will appear here. Does t
  27. CDR_Ret
    Taking a break from editing the final drafts of the transcriptions of my grandfather's diaries. Added the Sturgeon's stern planes and control surfaces. Started using some of DELFTship's useful tools, like the Mirror tool. This way, you only have to create one-fourth of the complicated curvy surfaces, such as the vertical stabilizers. Then you can mirror the part across the vertical longitudinal plane and the horizontal plane. Only a quarter of the work! Those vertical slabs really weren't stabilizers. They were originally intended to house the aftermost set
  28. CDR_Ret
    Hi Rubkvi. Nice looking vessel! Actually, getting the vertical scale for waterlines is pretty straight forward if you have a good set of plans and 2D software. First, you take the profile plan and find the dimensions of either its overall length (93.40 m) or its LPP (82.20 m) using the drawing software. This will be a certain number of inches/centimeters. (I noted that the numbers along the keel appear to be frame numbers, not length, nor are they station lines.) Then you divide the drawing length by the hull length to find the scale inches
  29. CDR_Ret
    Great stuff, Kiyoo! DELFTship exports curves in the DXF format and, as you said, the curves become polylines. The number of line segments depends on the precision level used in the program. I use CorelDraw for the 2D part. It has a feature to convert the corner nodes to smooth nodes, like Bezier curves. The downside is that there are a gazillion nodes, which interferes with creating smooth, fair curves. So far, I'm with you! Terry

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