Roger Pellett

Add that to the “Why didn’t I think of that category!  Very good!

Go to the Byrnes Saw Reference thread.  It is “pinned” and is right above your post.  It is on page 2 of the thread.

Roger

The carrier that I referred to was Taiho.

The best way to diagnose the saw is with a dial indicator.  These cost anywhere from around $20 to a Sterrett for about $175.  Like most tools, you get what you pay for, but an inexpensive one will probably be good enough for the purpose; just don’t expect long life.

You can use one of the miter gage slots as a datum.  I made an aluminum bracket that fastens to my miter gage to hold the dial indicator.   Sliding the indicator attached to the miter gage along the slot allows you to check alignment of the rip fence and the blade.

Elsewhere in this forum category Jim Byrnes provides an alignment procedure for the fence.  In the case of my saw it was necessary to align the rear fence hold down as well as the one at the front of the saw as tightening the rear one was pulling the fence out of alignment. 

Ripping with the wood trapped between the fence and blade is especially difficult with blades without “set” used in the Byrnes Saw.  The current best tool deal is the NRG’s thin rip guide that allows the piece being ripped to be “outside” of the blade.

Roger

Lou,

I have also read about the Japanese having to use raw crude oil as fuel.  This was a major factor in the loss of a carrier at the Battle of Philippine Sea.

As it comes out of the ground, crude oil is a mixture of several organic compounds.  Some of these are light enough to vaporize at atmospheric pressure.  The refining process removes these light fractions which are sold as byproducts.  

At Philippine Sea, a Japanese carrier was torpedoed by an American Submarine and a fuel bunker ruptured releasing these volatile fractions within the ship.  An ignition source touched them off and the resulting explosion caused the loss of the ship.

Roger

I just finished reading Paul Kennedy’s new book Victory at Sea.  Buy it for Ian Marshall’s great paintings, not Kennedy’s narrative.  He spills a huge amount of ink about how the battleship was obsolete.  IMHO the carrier was a great offensive weapon but was vulnerable defensively.  I believe that the integrated task group; carriers, destroyers, and big guns- battleships and cruisers were a major reason for the US Navy’s success. And, to defeat the Kamikazes, these big armored ships made great platforms for anti aircraft guns.  With this mix of ships, the navy had the confidence to go anywhere.

Question:  At Samar did Yamato actually fire her main battery at the American Taffy task force?

Roger 

Wonderful work as usual!

The MicroMark Catalogue always seems to have several “tools” like this; cutting  jigs, etc.  I always wonder why people just make something similar themselves as the need arises.

Roger. 

Oil canning was primarily caused by welding- specifically shrinkage of heavy fillet welds attaching plating to frames.  Although there were some welded ships built as early as the 1920’s it really only came into common usage during World War II as it was needed to mass produce the huge number of ships required by the allies in a short period of time, often in “cornfield shipyards” with newly hired labor.  In some cases the results were just barely good enough to fight the war- Liberty Ships and T-2 Tanker hull failures.

Roma and her sisters would therefore have had riveted hulls and no oil canning and of course, armored areas would be too thick to oil can regardless of the fabrication technique.

Roger

A wonderful job on an interesting subject!  The painting technique of using darker primer on the riveted seams is interesting. Maybe it might work on ship’s hull plating as well?

As I have been watching you build this I have been struck by how similar these tanks were to the big gun battleships of the period with designers competing to see how much firepower they could stuff into an armored box.  Also, main battery, secondary, and small caliber armament in one package.

Roger

While I don’t have the T shirt to prove it, that was my job during my summer Midshipman cruise aboard USS Loyalty MSO457.  This was before computer chart plotter technology.  Minesweepers worked in groups, steaming in echelon when sweeping mines- think of several lawnmowers cutting grass. One boat acted as a guide with each successive boat maintaining station on it.

Underway, I stood watch as Junior Officer of the Deck (JOOD).  As this was my first time “at sea” I assumed that my job would be to just stand there and look important!  When I reported to the bridge, I was stationed at the pelorus with a hand held range finder and told to maintain a certain range and bearing on the guide.  This involved measuring range and bearing, and then figuring out in my head how to adjust speed and heading to maintain correct station in the formation.  Engine orders and heading corrections to do this were relayed to the crew in the pilot house below via speaking tube.  Needless to say, the first few tries were a disaster and in the several weeks at sea I never became as proficient as the captain would have liked.  During foggy conditions which were not uncommon off the coast of Northern Japan we did the same using radar.

While my Midshipman training included maneuvering board calculations, I never saw one used in practice as there was no time to do so.  The experienced ship handlers aboard could order maneuvers including station changes in the fog by visualizing the tactical situation in their heads.

Roger

The “thing” atop the Pilot house is most likely a speaking tube and a pelorius to take bearings. The man conning (directing) the boat would have stood inside the railing where he had a 360 degree of things going on.  He would have relayed commands to the helmsman within the pilot house.  On the larger MSO’s the same system was used.  The watch officer was on the open bridge the helmsman and lee helmsman below in the pilot house.

The engine room telegraph did not directly control the engines; it relayed engine commands, speed and direction, to engine room personnel who would carry them out.  On a small vessel like this, the engine room would have probably been unmanned while  underway with engines controlled directly from within the pilot house.  An engine room telegraph, therefore, would not have been used.

The larger MSO’s were equipped with controllable pitch propellers.  This allowed the engines to be run at a constant RPM.  Both speed and direction were controlled directly by the lee helmsman in the pilot house.  This is a distinct possibility for these smaller MSB’s too.

Roger

Ian,

The little bottles with the brush in the lid of clear lacquer based fingernail polish are convenient, and readily available.  It dries almost instantly and will secure knots without building up the bulk of the knot like glue.

Standard caution:  try on something else before using.

Roger

I believe that the arms on the pedestal on the boat’s stern are for handling cables to sweep Contact Mines.  Attached to these cables were a series of U shaped cutters.  The opening of the U faced in the “upstream” direction of the towed cable.  One leg of the U held an explosive charge that propelled a chisel to strike the other leg of the U (called the anvil).  The outboard end of the sweep cable was attached to a duck board designed to splay the cable out.  A float controlled the depth of the cable.

As the boat moved forward, the sweep cable would hit the moored mine’s anchor cable.  The mine anchor cable would slide along the sweep cable until it became trapped by one of U shaped cutters. A trigger mechanism in the cutter would fire the explosive driving the chisel through the mine cable.  The mine would float to the surface to be destroyed by gunfire.  A good marksman might hit one of the mine’s contact horns causing it to explode.  Otherwise a hole in the mine’s shell would cause it to sink harmlessly to the bottom.

Unlike contact mines, magnetic, acoustic, and pressure mines did not float.  They laid on the bottom.  

Roger

What do people find so fascinating about these ships?  Compared to the Iowa’s they are rather ugly with their humpbacked sheer.  Both were sunk by aircraft and neither distinguished itself in battle.  And, they didn’t represent what many would consider to be a good cause.

My last comment would apply to Bismarck and Tripitz too.

Roger

My electrical engineering knowledge is almost 60 years old, and so is the technology in at least some of the Dremel type tools.  There have been some tremendous improvements in electric motors lately, that I don’t pretend to understand.  Electric propulsion of ships was tried and largely abandoned in the 1920’s and 1930’s.  Now with improved electric motor technology it is making a comeback.  Maybe this improved technology will or has resulted in improved miniature rotating tools.

Roger

Nice Job!

If I were building this and considering staining the basswood I would use Ohio State Football Coach Woody Hays’ logic-  When you pass the football three bad things and only one good thing can happen.

Seriously, your basswood frame looks fine as is.  I would leave it alone.

Roger

If you are going to put the time and effort into building a ship model you should plan to build or buy a case for it.  Over the years I have built 10 or so glass cases for my models and have come up with a standardized design.  When we moved from Southeastern Ohio to Northeastern Minnesota the movers put my cased models into regular cardboard moving boxes.  There was no damage to any models when the were unpacked at the new destination.

Roger

Power, measured in horsepower or watts, is the rate at which work is performed.  In a piece of rotating machinery, power is torque x RPM or ft-lbs/min.  Bob is exactly right, a manufacturer wanting to promote his product by advertising that it “has a powerful 25 watt motor” can do so inexpensively by using a high RPM low torque motor.  There are also possibly some advantages to the customer too.  The tool can be much lighter.  The Dremel type tools were originally sold for light duty polishing, wire brushing, and grinding; all applications where high speed is desirable.  Trying to use them for low speed high torque applications is something for which they are ill suited.

Roger

If you like pin vices, how about an Archimedes Drill?  It has a swivel on top that you hold with one hand and a slider that you work with the other hand.  Look for one on Jewelry supply sites.

Ian,  instead of clove hitches how about simple overhand knots secured with a tiny dab of fixative; shellac or my preferred clear fingernail polish.  Should go quickly.

Roger

Jerry,  Apology accepted, but no need for you to have done so.  I thought that the boat was flying an American flag!  Your picture is much clearer.  Although lines drawings are available, other boat information can be hard to track down.  In one of the appendices to Brady there are some further information about boats.  US Navy launches of the period were fitted with trunks or copper funnels for handling anchors. An interesting detail.

Roger

Very nice work on an interesting subject.

Unfortunately mine warfare seems to be one of those things forgotten about by our navy until there is a crisis.  The fleet of minesweepers from the 1950’s was built in response to the Navy being stymied by mines sowed by North Korea off Wonson during the Korean War.  I spent the summer of 1964 as a Naval Reserve Midshipman aboard a coastal (MSC) and an Ocean Going Minesweeper (MSO) operating in the coastal waters of Japan.  

The large reel on the boat that you are modeling held an electric, not an electronic cable for sweeping magnetic mines.  The idea was simple;  an engine powered a generator that passed a current through the cable towed behind the vessel. The field from the electric current set off the mine- hopefully far enough behind the ship to avoid sinking it.  The passage of the “ship” and its supposed size could be mimicked by varying the voltage or current in the cable; I don’t remember which.  This was done by varying the speed of the engine powering the generator with a cam that varied the throttle setting.  I believe that there were different cams to mock up different situations.  When sweeping, the sound of the engines running the generators speeding up and slowing down in the cam driven pattern could be heard throughout the ship.

Roger

The fog on the surface is obviously off gassing from the resin.  I would let it cure completely.  Before pitching the bottle, I would try several things all based on the Chicken Soup remedy for curing illness. “It can’t hurt and it might work.”

Put a shop vac hose over the opening to draw a vacuum in the bottle.  At a lower pressure the fog might vaporize and be sucked out.

With a low heat source gently raise the temperature within the bottle to see if the fog vaporizes.

Put the bottle in the refrigerator.  The fog might precipitate.

With the bottle rolled over so that the resin is on the top, was the affected area with soap and water.  Rise it out and dry it with a hair dryer.

Roger

Jerry,  the boat is in the foreground so probably appears larger in relation to Constellation.  I have never heard of the US Navy using cutters as commissioned warships.  You may certainly be right, but I believe that Constellation has rigged her Launch  to lead her into the anchorage.

US Navy launches of the1860’s were sloop (or Cutter) rigged.  See the drawing of a launch in the 1860 Ordnance Instructions. See also, illustration on page 243 of William Brady’s Kedge Anchor.

Roger