Dr PR

Still here. I have been working out the supplies needed for my next model, the USS Cape MSI-2, and that has taken a bit of time. It is summer, and time for outdoor activities. Now I must do the taxes for a non-profit (I am the Treasurer). Then I hope to get back to the Albatros and finish the sails and start the rigging.

How do you implement those scarf joints? Very carefully!

John, This is a long shot, but you might find a patent for the winch in the US Patent Office archives. When I was working on the OK City model I found the patents for a couple of winches there, along with patents for the entire Talos missile launching system! Hundreds of drawings and detailed descriptions. Search for Biefort and winch - I think that is the name in the photo you show.

I love this build! You are so lucky to have the original vessel as a guide.

John, Those are awfully skinny smoke pipes! But at least there are four of them. But why are they broken up into two or three sections like that?

Steve, Good progress! I like the new 12 pounder. Historical records tell that the pivot gun on these small revenue cutters was often a 12 pounder. The short range carronade would have been nearly useless. They were OK on ships that had dozens of them along with a battery of long guns, where the carronades were used in the final moments before boarding. But the revenue cutters with a single gun needed to have an effect at longer ranges. Before starting on the rigging you might want to read though this link:

That makes two of us. And that is why it was so amazing to me!

bdg, Thanks for the link. The 1:48 scale prop should be 1.4574 inch (37 mm). The Bluejacket 5 blade prop is 1.5 inch (38 mm) diameter. That is 0.0425 inch (about 3/64" or 1.08 mm) oversize. I could probably live with that. It looks like the part is cast metal, and it will need some cleanup. That would be an opportunity to reduce the blade length (prop radius) by 0.021 inch (0.5 mm). But the Bluejacket prop blades are not shaped like the MSI propeller blades. That would be more noticeable, and to keep with the tradition of the original, there should be nothing noteworthy about it. The Bluejacket part is only US$5.16. That is a LOT cheaper than all the hours and frustration needed to produce the STL file for the 3D printer. I'll try to make a 3D print of the propeller, but if that fails the Bluejacket part is a backup. **** Thanks to everyone for the likes. But believe it or not, I am not exaggerating! After six months of McHale's Navy I went to the flagship of the Seventh Fleet - the largest fleet in the world at that time. There were nearly 200 officers in the wardroom and a disconcertingly large number of flag officers (Admirals, Captains and Colonels) roaming about. The other JOs (junior officers) were curious about my background, and I told them that I was glad to be in the real navy. One of them, Ensign Clancy Omberg, rolled his eyes and said "This is the real navy?"

One of the challenges for this model will be the propeller. The MSIs had a five-bladed propeller and I will need one for the model. I don't have a machine shop and the necessary tools to tackle this problem like Keith Aug is doing on his Cangarda build. I have designed three-blade props for my future 1:96 USS Oklahoma City CLG-5 build, and printed them with a 3D resin printer, so I guess this will be how I make the prop for the Cape. The blueprint for the MSI propeller is marginally clear - not very good images on the microfilm. But it does have all the necessary information to allow an accurate 3D CAD model to be constructed. I don't look forward to this because stretching surfaces over the twisted outlines of the propeller blades is a tedious task. But I only have to make one and then copy it five times! Here is the propeller blueprint with all the gruesome details. This leads me into some details of the Cape's engineering plant - another reason the MSIs were "special." Hey, I was Engineering Officer and this was my "turf!" We had two engine rooms. The Forward Engine room contained two large minesweeping generators to produce power for the "magtail" magnetic mine sweep. It generated a large current through the salt water and this produced a large magnetic disturbance that triggered magnetic mines. Each generator was powered by two GMC 6-71 diesel engines. The After Engine Room had four more 225 hp GMC 6-71 diesels ganged together with 900 hp driving a single transmission connecting to the propeller shaft to turn the propeller. The transmission had a clutch and gearing for forward and reverse. This was a very uncommon arrangement. Also in this space were two GMC 4-71 diesels driving two Ships Service Generators that provided electricity for the ship. That is a lot of diesels. The "-71" meant a 71 cubic inch (1.16 liter) cylinder, and there were either 4 or 6 cylinders depending on the engines. So many of the parts were interchangeable. These were similar to ordinary GMC truck engines, with one major exception. Everything was non-magnetic! Specially made of fantastically expensive alloys! **** I have claimed the Cape was the smallest ship in the navy, but this might not have been totally true. Technically, the USS Cove MSI-1 was probably the shortest ship in the navy. The Cape and Cove were built from the same plans, but due to propulsion plant design shortcomings the Cove was perhaps a bit shorter. This 900 hp quad 6-71 diesel power plant drove a 36 foot (11 m) long 4.5 inch (114 mm) diameter propeller shaft and a 5.83 foot (1.78 m) diameter propeller. The propeller and prop shaft weighed 1374 pounds (623 kg), several times the mass of the crankshaft and pistons in the engines. When the ship needed to stop we couldn't just shift into reverse. The propeller "windmilled" as the ship moved forward. If we shifted to reverse suddenly the propeller would just turn the engines over backwards, and they were quite happy to run that way! So we first had to "stop shaft." To do this everyone in the engine room pulled on a lever that tightened a brake band around the prop shaft. This slowed the shaft and propeller and eventually brought them to a stop. Then we could shift into reverse and start slipping the clutch to turn the propeller in reverse. This took several minutes, and meanwhile the ship's momentum kept it moving forward, so rapid maneuvering wasn't possible. Add to this that the ship lost steerageway (the rudder stopped working) below 6 knots (and the speed limit in harbors was 5 knots), and the MSI's were about as maneuverable at low speeds as the Rock of Gibraltar. With mine sweep gear in the water, running at full throttle, the ships went wherever the currents took them. A consequence of all this was that early in the USS Cove's career it was maneuvering into a berth at the stern of a destroyer. The CO ordered all back (reverse) to check the ship's forward momentum and the engines stalled. The Cove continued forward and rammed into the stern of the destroyer, cutting a "V" shaped notch about a foot deep in the tin can's stern. In recognition of this event, the destroyer's officers presented the Cove with a plaque dedicated to the officers and men of the USS Canopener. The Cove may have been a bit shorter than the Cape as a result of that collision, and, therefore, actually the smallest ship in the navy. But because this episode brought the Cove to momentary fame (or notoriety), I claim the Cape was the least notable ship of the two.

Kieth, I don't know if the attached drawing will be of any help, but I was getting ready to post it on my USS Cape MSI-2 thread. The MSIs had five-bladed propellers. From the photo you posted I think the shape may not be exactly the same, but the drawing does have information about the pitch and thickness of the proportional thrust blades. If you need higher resolution I can probably supply that. Send me a PM. The prop in your photo looks to me to be a more modern design with a bit of curvature to the blades (as seen along the prop shaft axis. The Cangarda may have had straighter blades when she was originally built. Your technique is very clever and it let you use all sorts of the tools in your shop. I am totally green with envy! I will 3D print the prop for the MSI (not nearly as much fun as what you are doing).

Valeriy gave some tips on electroplating in his Varyag post several years ago. He is an expert at this sort of thing. https://modelshipworld.com/topic/19333-varyag-1901-by-valeriy-v-finished-scale-175-russian-cruiser/?do=findComment&comment=590551

Thanks.

What resin are you using now. Is it flexible when hardened?

The metric system is far superior to random noggins and farthings, but the "abstract and idealized" definition posted above makes about a much sense as inches, feet and yards. I too despise the meaningless names - especially "famous man" monikers - used for the units. Changing from the logical "centigrade" to "Celsius" was pure stupidity.

Please post photos directly onto the forum.

I have been studying the blueprints and creating a set of plans for the model. I decided to use 21 bulkheads to give good support for the planking. Here is the center or "keel" piece. Black lines outline the part and the green lines show additional detail. The piece will be made of two 1/16 inch (1.59 mm) thick pieces of plywood laminated together. Most of the thinner plywood is available in 12 inch (305 mm) or 24 inch (610 mm) sheets, and the hull is 27 inch (685 mm) long. Each side will be made in two pieces, one with the break near the front of the hull. The other side piece will have the break near the stern. When glued together this will produce a six-ply part 1/8 inch (3.175 mm) thick. A 1/6 inch (1.59 mm) thick "foot" will be attached to the bottom of the keel. The bulkheads will be made from 1/8 inch (3.175 mm) plywood. In this drawing the solid lines outline the parts. The surrounding dashed lines show the outer edges of the 1/16 inch (1.59 mm) thick hull and deck planking. The red parts at the bottom of the bulkheads outline the center keel piece and the garboard strakes. The garboard strakes are not simple planks. They have a complex shape with a cross section varying from rectangular to trapezoidal, rotating with the curvature of the hull. They will probably be the most difficult parts to fabricate. The actual keel on the ship was 9 1/2 inches wide (0.1979 inch or 5 mm at 1:48 scale). That is close to 3/16 inch (0.1875), so I will glue two 1/32 inch (0.79375 mm) pieces on the sides of the keel piece below the bulkheads to create the rabbet for the garboard strakes to fit against. The foot piece will be 3/16 (4.76 mm) wide. The next job was to figure out how much material will be needed. I will use 3/16 x 1/6 inch (4.76 x 1.59 mm) basswood strips for the hull planking. The deck will be 1/16 x 1/16 inch (1.59 x 1.59 mm) basswood strips. I do not have a collection of tools to rip the pieces myself, so I will have to buy them commercially. Strips with these dimensions are readily available from many sources. Here is a drawing of the main deck layout. The many objects are the outlines of the superstructure, foundations for the mooring, anchoring and minesweeping gear, plus some hatches and scuttles. Most of these things were just mounted on top of the deck planking on the ship, so I will do the same. Here is a drawing of the deck planking - from this I can estimate the amount of planking strips I will need. I enjoyed nibbing the planks into the margin boards on my Albatros build, so I am looking forward to it on this model. However, the narrow 1/16 inch (1.59 mm) planks may pose more of a challenge than the 5 mm (0.197 inch) planks on the Albatros. The outermost boards around the sides of the deck are the planksheer boards. Forward of frame 51 this board was 14 3/4 inch wide (0.307 inch or 7.81 mm at 1:48). Aft of frame 51 the planksheer was 9 1/4 inch (0.193 inch or 4.895 mm) to the stern. Across the stern the planksheer was 11 1/4 inch (0.234 inch or 5.953 mm) wide. Life on the Cape The XO and I shared a 9 ft. x 5 ft. (3 x 1.6 meters) stateroom, with over/under bunks, four small drawers and two feet of closet space. Fortunately, this was considered to be too small for an officer in the US Navy to live in, so we qualified for rooms at the BOQ (Bachelor Officer's Quarters) on Long Beach Naval Station. Unfortunately, the officers of the Cape and Cove had acquired notorious reputations for exceptionally loud and raucous parties, with loud music and hot and cold running babes. This offended the more senior officers who lived at the BOQ, especially since they didn’t get invited to those parties. So they had the fellows kicked out of the BOQ and run off base, and they were told to live on the ship. But since I was just reporting, and the officer I was relieving was technically still “living on board,” I qualified for temporary lodging. My CO suggested I not mention the name of the ship I was on. I was begrudgingly allowed to have a BOQ room, temporarily. In fact, the fellow I was relieving had an apartment overlooking Zuma Beach, and what an apartment! From the balcony there were vistas of wave after wave of bikinis! But I didn’t tell the folks at the BOQ about this, and I managed to hold on to the BOQ room while I was on the ship. The senior petty officers had appropriated a minesweep and supply stores locker below deck on the stern as "Petty Officer Quarters." The remaining 15 men berthed in the bow. However, only two or three men actually lived aboard. Most had apartments in town. As a result, for breakfast and at evening meal only the duty section and a couple others were aboard. The full crew was aboard for noon meal, except some of us who went to the Officer's Club or Enlisted Men's Club for lunch. We were allotted three meals a day for each enlisted man from the Navy supply system, and received much more food than the crew could consume. Even though the crew dined on steaks for supper and bacon and sausage for breakfast we had a lot left over. This created an interesting problem for the Supply Officer – me. We managed to get rid of the excess food one way or the other. But the extra coffee and canned hams were saved for special occasions. McHale's Navy The Cape was McHale's Navy – for real. The ship was too underpowered to do any serious minesweeping, and just got in the way of the faster sweeps. The one time we went out on a minesweeping exercise the sweep gear got tangled in the mine cable and we had to pull out of line and let the "big boys" (MSOs) do the work. We had to haul in the gear, and the mine, and send a man over the stern to untangle things. On subsequent exercises we were either assigned to patrol the perimeter of the area, or just told to "go away and come back at 1600" (4 PM). On one of these occasions we told the Cove to go dead in the water and we then tied up along side. We dumped firefighting foam (congealed cow's blood) over the stern to attract sharks and fished with some of the excess lesser quality meat. The winches and davits on the stern made great fishing gear, with enough power to reel in a whale if we caught one. We caught a good sized shark and had a barbeque on the fantail with shark steaks for supper. We stowed excess 5 pound cans of coffee and canned hams in the bilges. This stuff was worth its weight in gold! When we needed something from the official Navy supply system or from the shipyard, we could submit the required paperwork and wait for it to be approved (or denied). Or we could send a man over with a 5 pound can of coffee and get what we needed immediately by cumshaw (look it up). For especially critical or costly items a canned ham delivered to the right person had a remarkable effect in speeding things up. Apparently this unofficial supply system had been going on for years by the time I came aboard. It had the effect of reducing the actual cost of doing business for the ship. And that led the Navy accounting people to reduce the ship's OPTAR (budget) to reflect the official expenditures. As a result, we had an annual OPTAR of only $1200! To put this into perspective, a single non-magnetic (it was a minesweeper) 10 inch crescent wrench cost $800, or 2/3 of the annual budget! We had no choice but to use comshaw and midnight appropriations to get what we needed! On one occasion a tachometer shaft broke in the main engines and we didn't have a tool to remove it. "Give me a canned ham" my leading engineman said, and he and another engineman headed over to the shipyard. A couple hours later they returned with a custom 4" socket that was 10 inches deep that fit nicely around the shaft. We had a very talented cook named Johnson. He showed up mornings to prepare breakfast for the crew, and made lunch for everyone. He prepared the evening meal for the duty section before going home ashore in the evenings. He managed to make very tasty meals from the Navy standard issue materials. One of his specialties was large cakes that he baked in the ship's galley. These were two to three times larger than necessary to feed the crew. But they were part of the ship's bargaining currency. I recall my leading electrician telling me we needed a part but the supply depot said it wasn't in stock. He took a good sized portion of one of Johnson's cakes and wandered off down pier nine toward the line of MSOs (ocean going minesweepers) tied up there. An hour or so later he returned with the part, and a few men on another ship got to enjoy Johnson's work. Maybe now you get the idea why I think this ship should be immortalized with a model. It was unique, and certainly fit the bill to meet Howard Chapelle's suggestion to model something different.

Andrew's sail does look very realistic! Nice work. I have given some thought to creating sails from strips of silkspan glued together, but it seems like a lot of work. However, it might produce more realistic sails than just penciling in lines. Gluing silkspan strips together with a 50:50 water to glue mixture is very easy. I use the little quilting iron to quick dry the glue.

Are you by any chance the NAVOCS A-6905 Dave Wood?

I used silkspan for sails on my current model. It was the first time I have worked with silkspan and it was very easy. I followed Tom Lauria's procedure mostly. I used a small quilting iron to iron the tablings and linings, and to iron the entire sail after everything dried. It can also be used for plank bending! https://modelshipworld.com/topic/19611-albatros-by-dr-pr-mantua-scale-148-revenue-cutter-kitbash-about-1815/?do=findComment&comment=1039363

Roel, When you are at sea what is your duty rotation - how many hours on and off?

For panted lettering you can first paint the desired letter color on the surface. Then use rub-on lettering to spell the name. After this paint over it all with the background color. Then, after the paint dries, lift off the rub-on letters. This produces lettering and background in any colors you want, and the letters won't yellow or peel off after time. You can do this on name plates, hulls, or anything.

Jacob, You are doing great for a first build! You seem to have a knack for model ship building. Don't sweat it if your model isn't perfect in your eyes. I started when I was a kid, working from scratch because I didn't know about ship model kits, and the results were far from perfect. I have been building ship models for at least 65 years now and none is "perfect" to me. After all, the builder scrutinizes the work much more than anyone else, and there is always something that could be improved. But I am satisfied with the builds. If you continue with the quality of workmanship you have shown so far you will have a model you can be proud of.

It wasn't just ancient battleships. Boat booms are common on more modern vessels - at least into the late 20th century. They were used to tether boats while they were not in use. There is a definite line leading up to the mast, so this is a boom rigged outboard, and the thing on the side of the hull is the attachment point.

Valeriy, The Cape hull will be 28 inches (71.12 cm) at 1:48 scale. That is long enough that I may try your method of building two half hulls and joining them. This makes it easier to get the frame/bulkheads identical on both sides. I will probably use single layer planking (with lots of bulkheads) because that is what I have always done in the past. I like the idea of individual planks because the planks were visible on the original hull.

Tom, I didn't get a Command at Sea star. I don't think they have a "Command at the Wrecking Yard" star. Roel, I just scanned the docking plan and I think I will probably put the model on the blocks for drydocking.