NavyShooter

We had our monthly Guild meeting yesterday, and I wheeled the model into the museum to let the group have a look at the progress. She's huge...and starting to look more complete. (Yes, I do use a lightly modified baby stroller for moving the ship. Our Guild President uses a 4 wheel camping dolly thing, but I found it very unstable when he top-loads it. This thing folds up small, and with a wide wheel-base, it works well for stability.) After I got her home, I started doing a bit more tidy-up painting. There was a bit of red that overlapped the black on the hull, so a bit of tidying and spraying there to get sorted out. Then I looked at the superstructure, and decided to get some more white and some gray on around the funnel bases. Good news is that the gent from the Guild that's working on the lifeboats and davits took on the task of tidying up and painting the funnels for me as well, so he has those in hand now. I'll see what I can get done over the next few weeks. NS

Some white paint applied to the hull...still some touch-up to do.

Some work on the Focs'le and the superstructure.

Here's 25 pounds of lead shot epoxied into place along the keel. A start to what we'll need. She'll probably take another 150+ pounds.

OK, so, sometimes one thing leads to another....and I got a request for assistance from staff at a local museum. They're having to adjust their internal aircraft layout, and I have offered them a complete set of the aircraft they have in their collection 3D printed in 1/96 scale, assembled, wings folded as necessary, and primed with a layer of grey paint. I'm almost half done - I expect I'll probably have them ready to drop off to the museum later in the week. This is related to the Bonnie because they're mostly aircraft that flew from Bonnie in the museum.

A comment - I recall that in advance of the invasion, many of the road signs were said to have been torn down. This was an attempt by the Germans to prevent easy navigation by the allies if there was a landing. Can I suggest - take a few of the signs, paint them up, and put them in a messy pile beside the road with some broken up concrete bits/bases and such? Then there's an obvious reason for the tank commander to be seeking directions from the soldier on the ground? NS

And, whilst I was waiting for the paint on the hull to dry, I glued together the remaining parts of the superstructure, and put a layer of resin and some strengthening swaths of fiberglass on the joints on the inside.

OK, so, a bit of puttering around over the weekend, and the hull is now masked and painted. I learned that her 'waterline' is not actually flat - as can be seen from the attached "Antifouling" attachment, it angles up to the bow and stern. That has been replicated to the best of my ability.

BTW, here's a great little video about using a miniature lathe for parts cleanup:

I've owned a number of lathes over the years. Unimat, Sherline, South Bend, Precision Matthews. I've used Standard Modern at work. There is the basic underlying question for you to consider here. Are you planning to work on your lathe, or do work with your lathe? I built a functional firearm with my Sherline a few years ago. (3 meetings with the Chief Provincial Firearms Officer, registrations, license checks, etc. LEGALLY DONE.) It took me almost 50 hours of machine time to make the bolt with the Sherline. I bought that lathe for probably $500 off e-pay, ordered new parts to expand the capability and size, make it capable of milling, drilling, and so on. And it was still a tiny little lathe/mill combo that while modular, was not rigid enough to do actual machine work effectively. So. I upgraded from that to a SB 10K lathe that I bought out of an old technical high school. It was great - but it needed a lot of work. It came with a 3 jaw chuck and after 35 years in a school, it was worn beyond repair in the first 6 inches of the bed. I put a lot of work into trying to fix it up, new parts, repairs, etc, but in the end, the bed wear and damage was impacting my tolerances too much. I have since upgraded from that to a newer Precision Matthews of similar footprint. (10x30) I haven't had to make a single part for the PM. I have used it to MAKE parts for other projects. I will suggest that the lathe you have (Atlas/Craftsman) is great for you to repurpose into a wood working lathe. But, if you find yourself needing to do actual precision machining, you might find yourself having to throw a lot of money at repairs, particularly if you have issues in the headstock or bed wear. Do a cost analysis of what you're going to spend to get this one running and doing what you want with it before you get yourself too deep. I will observe that when threading, I do miss the Quick Change gear box on my SB. My PM does not have that. I have to deal with manual change gears. Last observation - what is the largest size item you are considering working on with your lathe? Are you going to do a prop shaft? Are you going to do a rifle barrel? Are you going to be doing a ship's mast? How big a lathe do you NEED to have for your planned projects. That's a big factor. I got a lathe a bit bigger than the maximum I thought I'd go, and I'm happy I did. It's let me do slightly larger projects (Tripod legs, etc) that I hadn't considered in my original planning stages. NS

And here you see the superstructure assembled into two halves, with the funnels set into place. Once I've got the hull complete, I'm going to worry about the superstructure and how to bolt it on. I have an idea for that though...more to follow.

Here you can see the bolt holes - somewhat irregularly spaced, but one per 3D printed segment. You can also see the eye bolt that I installed that we will attach the anchor to. There is a rubber washer/spacer between the strip and the keel, with a dollop of silicone sealant applied underneath the spacer/washers. Lastly you see the whole external keel strip in place - I ended up running a bead of sealant down each side of the aluminum strip as well. Every little bit helps I guess.

OK, so having carefully fiberglassed the keel and sealing things up nicely...now is the time where I go back and start drilling holes. The fact that this model will likely see some rough handling over years of use means that having a full length keel strip to protect and strengthen it is a very good thing. To accomplish that, we're going with a 1" by 1/4" strip of aluminum, one on the inside, the other on the keel. I've got the holes drilled, and if I'd been smart enough, I would have measured the length of the stainless steel screws I needed first...but I didn't, so I need to go back to the hardware store tomorrow after work. Note, I intend to have the 2nd screw hole back setup with an eye-bolt rather than a bolt, that way there's a ring to attach the anchor line to below the waterline. I have 4 cans of fiberglass resin, and 50 pounds of lead shot. My intent is to pour the resin along the edges of the interior strip, and put a layer of lead shot in it along the length of the keel. The estimate is that it will require 200 pounds of weight to get her down to the right waterline. Putting 50 pounds of lead shot inside will help a bit I hope.

OK, here's the draft version of 4 and 5 decks, with some bunks and the diesels in place. Lots of printing left to do, and I've still got to test fit the 4 deck module in place to see how it fits in the hull. It will get re-printed after the test.

Liberty Ship (RC) - Revision 5 by JohnButtery - Thingiverse I think it's about 1:160 scale or so.

I'm working on a Titanic model as well (other thread below) but mine is no-where near this level of precision or detail. I'm literally building a pond-float display model that'll be seen from 50+ feet away. Your model will stand up to 50mm away inspection. Impressive work, and well done on the hawse-pipe! NS

Your brasswork and soldering is incredible. I love following your build progress!

Rabbit holes are fun...here's where I'm at now...I have to print the bunks as separate items that I'll end up gluing into place, but I can do the lockers in situ. Here you have 4 deck on the left, and 5 deck on the right.

After a hiatus, the Bonnie came down off the wall today for a little visit. A friend of my wife had her dad along for a visit today, and he sailed on the Bonnie, he was an Electrician's Mate and had some great stories to tell. He really enjoyed going through the ship with me. Turns out he slept in 5D2 Mess....so...I spent a bit of time looking at the plans, then dug into DSM and did some 3D design work. I'm going to try out 'organic' supports as I 3D print his former mess deck. Here's what the model looks like:

I picked up some tan (sand) paint to use for the decks. We'll see how that works. I laid on the superstructure and the funnels...just to see how things look. She's massive!

Thanks gents. Dad had a brain bleed last year which he recovered from - I looked at every day we had him since that time as a bonus. We got an extra year with him, and he ended up recovering almost 90% from the brain bleed (Subdural hematoma...he got it when he fell off his bicycle during a 10km ride he did one day.) In terms of additional progress on the Titanic...she's now got 3 layers of resin on the coamings sealing them up, which looks pretty good. I decided to put on a shot coat of black on the hull to see how she looks. I LIKE IT.

With the planned launch into the park being several months away, the thought occurred to me that the model should be on display somewhere other than in my garage sitting on a table-saw. My son went to a presentation at a local veteran's organization, and while they had some 'army' stuff around, for this being a Navy town, they had very little in terms of Naval hardware on display...so...they now have a model ship on temporary loan that, if I might say, looks quite good on a live edge table display. Also, before I headed over, I added a few pieces of line to act as a basic form of rigging for the model. Now I'll call it done.

Here are the final versions. I had to reprint the test one at 20mm height, and the other 4 were split into halves which I had to glue together before I glued them in from below. Once they were glued in place, I put a layer of fiberglass resin overtop to seal them, and fill the holes/gaps. I'm generally pleased. Needs one more layer I think then it'll be good to go.

Well, life is...life. 5 days after my last post, I had to head up to see Dad as he was admitted and intubated at the hospital. He passed on the 29th. I got to see him, he recognized me, and family, and he passed surrounded by those he loved. So. Suffice to say there's been a pause in the build whilst dealing with the immediacy of that. For those of us who are over a certain age, I will strongly suggest that you make sure your plans are in order. You never know when things will go wrong, and it's extremely unlikely that you'll have a family that actually gets along enough not to fight over the inheritance. That said, I got home and have been getting caught up on things here, and finally have had time now to head out to the garage to get things going again on this project. Over the past few days, I realized that I needed to have a raised coaming around each of the 5 holes on the upper hull. Having the superstructure sit down on them for alignment is good...but having a coaming to route water away is more important. So. I took some measurements, and made a 'draft' copy. It was 14mm high, and that wasn't enough...but it gave me a good idea of what right should look like, so here's the draft. This one is in the rear-most hole, and it's small enough to print in a single piece on my printer, so I did that. It's got a lip that locks up underneath, and basically is a press-fit in from below.

I had the 1/35 motorized Jagdtiger many moons ago. Built that up as a kid and loved it. I also found the 1/35 RC Flakpanzer Gepard - I sold it a few years ago - new in the box. Box was open, but never assembled. All the sprues were still sealed in plastic bags. I've built the 1/25 Panther that Tamiya made in full RC along with the 1/35 Tiger. That was back in about 2001 or so. Kept me busy while at sea in the Persian Gulf for 6 months.