CDR_Ret

Here is the instructional PDF for creating sockets in 3D objects.
 
Please let me know if there is anything that is unclear, and I will try to explain it. A real power-user of Sketchup may be able to come up with a quicker method. I've been using Sketchup almost as long as it has been around, and I'm afraid I've become entrenched with some habits picked up years ago.
 
Terry
Creating the Hub of a Ship's Wheel.pdf

Here is the instructional PDF for creating sockets in 3D objects.
 
Please let me know if there is anything that is unclear, and I will try to explain it. A real power-user of Sketchup may be able to come up with a quicker method. I've been using Sketchup almost as long as it has been around, and I'm afraid I've become entrenched with some habits picked up years ago.
 
Terry
Creating the Hub of a Ship's Wheel.pdf

Here is the instructional PDF for creating sockets in 3D objects.
 
Please let me know if there is anything that is unclear, and I will try to explain it. A real power-user of Sketchup may be able to come up with a quicker method. I've been using Sketchup almost as long as it has been around, and I'm afraid I've become entrenched with some habits picked up years ago.
 
Terry
Creating the Hub of a Ship's Wheel.pdf

Sailor1–0,
 
How familiar are you with the Intersection feature of Sketchup?
 
You might want to try creating models of the wheel hub and spokes, individually grouping each element and arranging them as in the final object. (Save a copy of a spoke for later.) Then explode the hub and intersect the spokes with it to define the spoke cutouts in the hub. Regroup the hub, then explode the spokes. Intersect the hub with the spokes to define the spoke socket walls inside the hub. Delete all of the spoke components except for the parts that lie inside the hub. Explode the hub and delete the surface areas inside the spoke sockets. If the work is done carefully, the hub now is solid volume with the spoke sockets arranged where they need to be. If needed, recreate the spokes from the copy and insert them into the hub.
 
The process is somewhat complicated but straightforward. I can provide a PDF with images of the key steps if that will help visualize the process.
 
Terry

Would anyone be interested in a detailed tutorial on Resin Casting ? Both 1 pc and 2 pc mold making ? If there is enough interest I will pull some equipment out and put something together.
 
- Joe

This is in the FWIW category...
 
The Curator of Navy Ship Models at Carderock provides the following guidelines for details to be included in their museum-quality models. Under Durability of Materials|Range they make the following statement:
 
 Generally, all items on the prototype twelve inches or larger for 1:96 scale (six inches or larger for 1:48 scale) will be reproduced.
 
I suppose you can continuously scale the detail sizes in relation to these two standards. In the end, we have to decide what we are making the model for and with what we will be satisfied.
 
Terry

Nuclear warships present a special problem as museums or for disposal. The reactor compartments retain radioactively contaminated systems, even after the nuclear fuel is removed, so containing the residual radioactivity and shielding the visitors from radiation is challenging. Sinking the ships presents the problem of releasing radioactivity to the environment, not to mention granting unrestricted access to classified hull construction technology to divers.
 
To my knowledge, the only complete nuclear warship accessible by the public is the USS Nautilus (SSN 571) located at its museum in New London, Connecticut, USA. It required special radiation shields to be added outboard of the reactor compartment, and the engineering spaces are not accessible. All other decommissioned US nuclear submarines have been sent through the "ship and submarine recycling program," where the first step after removing usable equipment is to cut out the reactor compartment (and the missile compartment in the case of boomers) and weld the two halves together for towing to the recycling yard if applicable. The reactor compartments are sealed and transported to the storage facility at Hanford, WA.
 
Fortunately, civic and military organizations have seen fit to preserve the sails of many important subs. Preserving the sails in lieu of the entire ship is a good compromise between economy and memorialization.:
 
USS Nautilus (SSN 571)—Entire ship, New London, CT
USS Triton (SSRN 586)—Sail, Richland, WA
USS George Washington (SSBN 598)—Sail, New London, CT
USS Woodrow Wilson (SSBN 624)—Bangor, WA
USS Nathanael Greene (SSBN 636)—Sail, Port Canaveral, FL
USS Sturgeon (SSN 637)—Sail, Keyport, WA
USS Tautog (SSN-639)—Sail, Galveston, TX
USS George Bancroft (SSBN-643)—Sail, Kings Bay, GA
USS Lewis and Clark (SSBN 644)—Sail & rudder, Mount Pleasant, SC
USS Grayling (SSN 646)—Sail, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, ME
USS Mariano G. Vallejo (SSBN 658)—Sail, Mare Island, Vallejo, CA
USS Hawkbill (SSN 666)–Sail, Arco, ID
USS Parche (SSN 683)—Sail, Bremerton, WA
USS Boston (SSN-703)—Sail & rudder, Buffalo, NY
(This list may not be up to date)
 
I am hoping that the last remaining Los Angeles-class boat, USS Bremerton (SSN 698), which I commissioned back in 1981, will be similarly preserved. She is currently homeported in Pearl Harbor, HI.
 
As a matter of interest, the only US nuclear merchant, the NS Savannah, has been designated a National Historic Landmark, and is currently moored at Baltimore, MD, awaiting funding to permanently provide a memorial park for her.

I think, on close inspection, that I see a line parallel to the painted(?) top of the dark area. Is that the top of what could be the copper?

Generally copper was laid over a layer of felt saturated with tar.  Could be what you see is the felt/tar layer before the copper plate is applied.  Just a guess.

Looking again on the images, I think in the area around the stem one sees copper sheathing. What is a bit strange is the somewhat fuzzy waterline that looks painted on. Perhaps she had a reddish boot-topping ?

Thanks for the comments, guys.
 
At the time the photos in post #1 were taken, the vessel's charter did not include entry into icebound waters, so no protection against ice floes was needed.
 
The photos themselves don't show enough details of the hull covering to draw any firm conclusions. However, the photo of the Pitcairn in #8 shows the distinctive rectangular blotchy appearance associated with copper plating. The plates themselves are of about the same vertical dimensions as the linear marks in the #1 photos, so I am going copper plates. The darkness of the hull in the old B&W photos is likely due to the color response of the film in use at that time, which wasn't sensitive to the red end of the spectrum.

Is it possible that what you are seeing in the photograph is thin wood sheathing painted over?

According to an old textbook on marine engineering (Steinhaus, 1870), antifouling paints were available at that time in a variety of colours, including reddish brown, green, black, white, yellow, and blue. Basically, you just add the pigment of your choice. Their biocide effect was based on inorganic lead and in particular copper compounds. Concerns over heavy-metal contamination in harbour muds and the search for a higher efficacy led to the development of tin-organic compounds. However, these are being phased out since the 1990s, when it was discovered that they act as 'endocrine disrupters', meaning that they lead to malformation in aquatic animals that come into contact with them. The problem is that antifouling paints not only act toxic to things that want to stick to a ship's bottom, but slowly wear off (which is part of the antifouling process) and become dissolved or settle in particles in marine sediments. Here their toxic or endocrine disruptive actions continue. I believe in more recent years antifouling paints put more emphasis on non-stick properties and slow wasting that detaches whatever tries to held a foothold.
 
I gather red(dish brown), green, and black were generally preferred colours, because these resemble the appearance of either coppered or tarred ships bottoms. Muntz-metal bottoms would have looked yellowish to green-greyish, depending on their age. The Austrian navy actually used a pinkish paint on their iron and steel hulls before WW1, btw.
 
Appart from being a waste of money, paint may not stick very well to copper because of the oxide layer that forms rather quickly on its surface. The picture in the first post is not very clear and I don't know anything about the vessel in question, but would it be possible that a protective sheathing of wood was applied on top of the coppering for travelling in areas where there was floating ice ? This sheathing in turn may have been painted.

The red came from Red lead pigment. Until recently Lead was replaced by organo tin compounds. Anti-fouling paints now make use of organic compounds which are more biodegradable after leaching (mechanism for fouling control for all). The Italian Navy did use a green anti-fouling paint but I do not know the Chemistry.
Jaxboat

Hi Terry. I came across your conversation completely by chance this eve. Am wondering if you were building a model of the Galilee? Am asking because we built two identical HO scale versions of the Galilee (the models depict her research years) and may be able to share some details (such as Galilee's name plate) which we came across by chance at the SF Maritime Museum Library. If so, give me a shout.

Good stuff, John. That information was the gist of what I was able to glean from several sources. I found the attached document especially helpful. Combined with the film characteristics mentioned earlier, I'm going with the red bottom (when the time comes). At this point, it looks like I need to go back to do some more work on the ship's main rail run and transom moulded outline—a never ending story.
 
Terry
Marine_Antifouling_c 11.pdf

Here is a post I made a while back on getting started in DelfShip Free. These instructions were based on the program several versions ago, so some of them may be out of date.
 
My biggest complaint to the company was that they don't clearly define the terms they used in their manual.
 
An abbreviated DelftShip Offset Table glossary:
 
X-coordinate—[Edited] distance forward from aft perpendicular. 0.0000 is the AP. Negative values are aft of the AP. [sorry about that. It's been over a year since I used the program. See the image from the DS manual below.] Y-coordinate—distance athwartships from the model centerline. 0.0000 is the centerline. Negative values appear on opposite side of the centerline from "face" of the hull. Z-coordinate—distance above the model baseline. For practical purposes, this should be at the height of the rabbet line for wooden ships. Making the baseline at the bottom of the keel really gets ugly unless you have a smooth, round-bottomed vessel. The "Draft" value should take this position into account. Waterline—self explanatory. Defined by a common Z-coordinate above the baseline at all stations. Station—self explanatory. Defined by a common X-coordinate at all waterlines or other longitudinal feature. Deck Line—defined by the highest X-coordinate at each station or other longitudinal feature. You can't have the "Deck Line" lower than the tops of the stations for this feature to work. Basically the moulded rail line in conventional drawings. Aft contour—the line defined by all the waterline/station points with a Y-coordinate of 0.0000 from the centerline at the aft end of the model. (It may also work for non-zero values if they define the distance of the rabbet line from the centerline. Never tried that.) Forward contour—the line defined by all the waterline points with a Y-coordinate of 0.0000 above the baseline at the forward end of the model. (Ditto as for "Aft Contour".) Flat of bottom—for flat-bottomed vessels like tankers, I think this tells the program to extend the bottom station Y-coordinate in the offset table to the centerline. Length—must agree with the Project Settings length (between perpendiculars) value. Beam—must agree with the Project Settings beam value. Draft—this is the setting that determines where the waterline is drawn on the hull above the baseline. It must agree with the Project Settings draft value. These are my best guesses, based on limited experience using the program. I recommend building the entire table in a spreadsheet, then exporting it as a plain ASCII text (.txt) file. Be aware that I had the best results by adding zeros in each column where there was no data. And you can't stick additional data between established waterlines to better define a sharp curve!
 
Page 35 of the current manual (manual_809_296_mc0.pdf) shows the file architecture. Waterline data are arranged horizontally; station data are arranged vertically.
 
Cheers!

Jud,
 
Setting your vessel's length to the overall dimensions is a good way to avoid negative axial coordinates. My drawings of Galilee were all dimensioned starting with the aft perpendicular, so, to avoid remeasuring all the stations, I just went with negative X values at the transom. The program can handle them. It's a computer after all.
 
Terry.

Here is a post I made a while back on getting started in DelfShip Free. These instructions were based on the program several versions ago, so some of them may be out of date.
 
My biggest complaint to the company was that they don't clearly define the terms they used in their manual.
 
An abbreviated DelftShip Offset Table glossary:
 
X-coordinate—[Edited] distance forward from aft perpendicular. 0.0000 is the AP. Negative values are aft of the AP. [sorry about that. It's been over a year since I used the program. See the image from the DS manual below.] Y-coordinate—distance athwartships from the model centerline. 0.0000 is the centerline. Negative values appear on opposite side of the centerline from "face" of the hull. Z-coordinate—distance above the model baseline. For practical purposes, this should be at the height of the rabbet line for wooden ships. Making the baseline at the bottom of the keel really gets ugly unless you have a smooth, round-bottomed vessel. The "Draft" value should take this position into account. Waterline—self explanatory. Defined by a common Z-coordinate above the baseline at all stations. Station—self explanatory. Defined by a common X-coordinate at all waterlines or other longitudinal feature. Deck Line—defined by the highest X-coordinate at each station or other longitudinal feature. You can't have the "Deck Line" lower than the tops of the stations for this feature to work. Basically the moulded rail line in conventional drawings. Aft contour—the line defined by all the waterline/station points with a Y-coordinate of 0.0000 from the centerline at the aft end of the model. (It may also work for non-zero values if they define the distance of the rabbet line from the centerline. Never tried that.) Forward contour—the line defined by all the waterline points with a Y-coordinate of 0.0000 above the baseline at the forward end of the model. (Ditto as for "Aft Contour".) Flat of bottom—for flat-bottomed vessels like tankers, I think this tells the program to extend the bottom station Y-coordinate in the offset table to the centerline. Length—must agree with the Project Settings length (between perpendiculars) value. Beam—must agree with the Project Settings beam value. Draft—this is the setting that determines where the waterline is drawn on the hull above the baseline. It must agree with the Project Settings draft value. These are my best guesses, based on limited experience using the program. I recommend building the entire table in a spreadsheet, then exporting it as a plain ASCII text (.txt) file. Be aware that I had the best results by adding zeros in each column where there was no data. And you can't stick additional data between established waterlines to better define a sharp curve!
 
Page 35 of the current manual (manual_809_296_mc0.pdf) shows the file architecture. Waterline data are arranged horizontally; station data are arranged vertically.
 
Cheers!

Nuclear warships present a special problem as museums or for disposal. The reactor compartments retain radioactively contaminated systems, even after the nuclear fuel is removed, so containing the residual radioactivity and shielding the visitors from radiation is challenging. Sinking the ships presents the problem of releasing radioactivity to the environment, not to mention granting unrestricted access to classified hull construction technology to divers.
 
To my knowledge, the only complete nuclear warship accessible by the public is the USS Nautilus (SSN 571) located at its museum in New London, Connecticut, USA. It required special radiation shields to be added outboard of the reactor compartment, and the engineering spaces are not accessible. All other decommissioned US nuclear submarines have been sent through the "ship and submarine recycling program," where the first step after removing usable equipment is to cut out the reactor compartment (and the missile compartment in the case of boomers) and weld the two halves together for towing to the recycling yard if applicable. The reactor compartments are sealed and transported to the storage facility at Hanford, WA.
 
Fortunately, civic and military organizations have seen fit to preserve the sails of many important subs. Preserving the sails in lieu of the entire ship is a good compromise between economy and memorialization.:
 
USS Nautilus (SSN 571)—Entire ship, New London, CT
USS Triton (SSRN 586)—Sail, Richland, WA
USS George Washington (SSBN 598)—Sail, New London, CT
USS Woodrow Wilson (SSBN 624)—Bangor, WA
USS Nathanael Greene (SSBN 636)—Sail, Port Canaveral, FL
USS Sturgeon (SSN 637)—Sail, Keyport, WA
USS Tautog (SSN-639)—Sail, Galveston, TX
USS George Bancroft (SSBN-643)—Sail, Kings Bay, GA
USS Lewis and Clark (SSBN 644)—Sail & rudder, Mount Pleasant, SC
USS Grayling (SSN 646)—Sail, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, ME
USS Mariano G. Vallejo (SSBN 658)—Sail, Mare Island, Vallejo, CA
USS Hawkbill (SSN 666)–Sail, Arco, ID
USS Parche (SSN 683)—Sail, Bremerton, WA
USS Boston (SSN-703)—Sail & rudder, Buffalo, NY
(This list may not be up to date)
 
I am hoping that the last remaining Los Angeles-class boat, USS Bremerton (SSN 698), which I commissioned back in 1981, will be similarly preserved. She is currently homeported in Pearl Harbor, HI.
 
As a matter of interest, the only US nuclear merchant, the NS Savannah, has been designated a National Historic Landmark, and is currently moored at Baltimore, MD, awaiting funding to permanently provide a memorial park for her.

SOS
I have visited Pearl harbor and the Missouri, several subs such as the Ling, the USS New Jersey, USS Texas, the Intrepid and a few others.   While I enjoyed the visits and can see a museum ship or two, they are a huge  waste of money IMHO.  I agree that truly historic vessels would be great to keep and see such as the Wasa, Victory, USS Missouri and a few others but how many is too many?
 
Jud, As far as mothballing and being available to re-activate, they are out of date well before they are set aside and could never be brought up to modern design and armament standards at a reasonable cost.  The new vessels are stealthy so the old designs would never be able to meet that criteria.  Better to re-use their steel and build from scratch with the latest technology than try to make a silk purse from a sow's ear.
 
I served and am very happy to have done so, but it was the people, not the steel that I remember most of all.   I would enjoy having a few beers with old shipmates far more than taking a tour on those ships
 
Just one man's opinion.
 
Allan   

Merchant vessels, mid 19th century through the early 20th century, smaller vessels in larger scales with plenty of detail. Having researched such vessels from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, I can tell you that there are plans out there and large untapped archival sources to supplement plans and builder's models from all parts of the US coastline. The material is there and such vessels would be good in POB for beginner to intermediate skilled modelers.
 
Russ

I checked out your site and it has great possibilities.
 
Make sure you provide links to the ship Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) web pages at the Library of Congress and National Park Service. For example, here is the schooner C.A. Thayer's HAER page.
 
Terry

Hi Wayne.
 
You are expressing the lament of all who attempt to categorize a diverse area of knowledge into searchable, logical bins.
 
One approach would be to use a keyword search, but assigning keywords to links can become very time-consuming and laborious.
 
Another would be to use something akin to the Dewey Decimal Classification system, or for us old navy folks, the SSIC (Standard Subject Identification Code) system.
 
In the end, no system is perfect.
 
Best wishes on your project!
 
Terry

Hi Wayne.
 
You are expressing the lament of all who attempt to categorize a diverse area of knowledge into searchable, logical bins.
 
One approach would be to use a keyword search, but assigning keywords to links can become very time-consuming and laborious.
 
Another would be to use something akin to the Dewey Decimal Classification system, or for us old navy folks, the SSIC (Standard Subject Identification Code) system.
 
In the end, no system is perfect.
 
Best wishes on your project!
 
Terry