USCG Pequot (WARC-58) by Cap'n'Bob - 1:96 - Finished

[usedtosail]

Happy belated birthday, Bob.

[captainbob]

Thanks to all my friends for the birthday wishes.  I had a fine time with family and friends.  Too much cake and ice cream.

 

Bob

[Mahuna]

No pie??

[captainbob]

No pie??

LOL

 

Bob

[captainbob]

I'm sorry for the long delay in anything new from my boatyard.  I just looked back.  It was March 8th when I posted the wheelhouse. 

 

A while ago I saw some ship vents that a modeler made that had a flared bell and looked real.  The caption said he molded and plated low temperature metal and then melted out the inner metal and was left with the hollow vents.  This is all new territory for me.  First learn how to make a mold.  Then melt and pour the metal alloy.  The hardest part was the heavy copper plating, referred to as electroforming.  There is no one around here that is even plating let alone electroforming.  So it was searching the web and trying to figure out what to do.  Here is what I ended up with.  The wooden model, the raw formed copper and the finished part.

 

Bob

 

 

 

[Jim Lad]

That looks first class, Bob - how the heck did you do that?

 

John

[Canute]

Like John said. The parts look good.

[mtaylor]

Very nice work, Bob.  I'm with John.. how the heck did you do that?

[Mahuna]

Look real good, Bob.  I'm with Mark and John - would like some details on how they were made.

[steamschooner]

Bob, If you have access to old NRG journals In the 2001 vol 46 no2, under (Building a Model Of USS Bennington) by Philip T Mattson with Irwin Schuster.. On pgs 75-78 he describes making cowl vents just like you mentioned. Something I plan on doing  on one of my projects.

Steve

[captainbob]

Bob, If you have access to old NRG journals In the 2001 vol 46 no2, under (Building a Model Of USS Bennington) by Philip T Mattson with Irwin Schuster.. On pgs 75-78 he describes making cowl vents just like you mentioned. Something I plan on doing  on one of my projects.

Steve

I do not have access to the journal but I would like to see those few pages.  He ma describe it better than I could.

 

Bob

[popeye the sailor]

very unique Bob..........and it makes a fine looking part like that?!?!?!   way too cool!

[Gerhardvienna]

Look real good, Bob.  I'm with Mark and John - would like some details on how they were made.

 

ME too.............

That vents look more than just good! I would need some for my CAIRO build

 

Regards

Gerhard

[Mirabell61]

Hi Bob,

 

sounds an interesting technique for making those vents, can imagine once it works the way you want it to, there will be many other items to use that methode on....

 

Nils

[captainbob]

Thanks All, for the kind words and likes.  A lot of you have asked how the cowls/vents were made so here goes.

 

Electroforming is an old process, played with by Faraday and Edison.  There are several ways to do it: cheap or expensive, safe or dangerous.  Since I only had a vague idea of what I was doing I started cheap and safe.  Electroforming is electro plating to the extreme. That is to say in plating only a few microns of material are plated to cover the base metal.  Electroforming is much thicker and the base metal is usually removed. 

 

Here’s what you need:

 

A beaker of glass or plastic

1 gal.  distilled water.  Get it with a screw on lid, you don’t want the top to come off whan you are mixing it.

 A power source, batteries or power supply

Copper wire, both light and heavy.

Scrap copper

Mold making material

Copper Sulfate

A low melting temperature alloy.  There are several on the web. I bought a 158F alloy from Amazon.

 

Copper sulfate is available at chemical supply houses, or you can go to the hardware store and buy a drain cleaner such as Root Kill just be sure the label says copper sulfate.  Buy two pounds.  To mix the copper sulfate pour out and save about one third of the distilled water and pour in the blue crystals of the Copper sulfate.  Shake it well.  Not all the crystals will dissolve but the liquid should be saturated.   Now fill the gallon with the water you saved.

 

You need a model of what you want.  In this case the vents.  I want the wall of the finished part to be about .015 - .020” so make the model smaller by that amount.  I then made a mold of the models.  I only had enough mold material for one mold so I had all three in the one mold.  In making the mold make sure there is an opening at both ends so you know when the mold is full because it comes out the other end.  Once the core models are made you need to fasten a wire to them.  I drilled a small hole in the sprue and attached a 22ga. wire about three inches long.  All that is needed is electrical contact. 

 

It is time to set up the equipment.  This can be done as simply putting a scrap piece of copper tubing in the beaker.  That is how I started; the pictures show how I ended up.  What happens is the plus side of the power source is connected to the scrap copper and the negative is attached to the part to be plated.  The current will flow through the bath taking some copper ions from the scrap copper with it into the bath and copper ions from the bath will be attached to the part to be plated.   

 

I started with two “D” cell batteries.  And the platting was fast but it was quite rough.  I then played around with various batteries and found the one “AA” cell was pretty good, but I wanted more control and I wanted to know what power I was using.  So I bought a power supply.  Those on the web that tell about plating say you should have 0.1 milliamps per 1 sq. in. of plated surface.  The voltage doesn’t seem to matter because some say low some say high.  I set the power supply for 0.3 Ma. at 3 volts.  It took about 24 hours.

 

I used calipers to periodically measure the part to know when the plating was thick enough.  I then rinsed the plated part in water.  Then I cut the spurs from both ends and put the plated parts in boiling water.  As they got hot the core material drained out of them and I was left with the hollow part.

 

Some that seemed to know what they were doing said to add sulfuric acid to the mix (I said it could be dangerous) so I did. This did seem to make it a little faster and smoother, but I'm not sure it was worth it.  When mixing the bath before you re-add the water you saved, pour in 2/3 cup of the sulfuric acid.  ALWAY ADD ACID TO WATER, NEVER ADD WATER TO ACID.  Here again you can buy the acid from a chemical supply house or you can go to the auto supply store and but battery acid.  It's the same acid and much cheaper.  Battery acid and Root Kill may not be as pure as what you get from a good chemical supplier but they seem to work just fine.  When disposing of the bath the copper sulfate without the acid can be poured down the toilet, that’s what it is made for.  If you added the acid contact the local authorities to see what must be done.

 

If you have any questions please ask.

 

Bob

 

 

 

Molded cores

 

My beaker  Oh yes you will need a funnel for mixing and pouring.

 

This is my set-up. Copper sheet on the plus (red) side and the cores hanging from the negative (black) side.  This would then be filled with the bath.

 

The bath chemicals.  I like to mark them.

 

The cores after plating.

 

Parts ready for finishing.

 

 

 

[michael mott]

Bob, thanks for this, I am always happy to learn something new each day and this is a prize. i shall file this one away for some future projects for sure.

 

Michael

[captainbob]

Michael,

 

Google copper electroforming and see what artists are doing with it.

 

Bob

[Keith Simmons]

Hi Bob, that is one good looking ship. I am quite sure you will create a wonderful model of her. Good luck on your build, will be watching the fun.

 

  Keith

[Jim Lad]

An abslutely facsinating process, Bob.  Thanks for sharing your method.

 

John

[mtaylor]

Thanks Bob.   I'm bookmarking this just in case....  very interesting process.

[Gerhardvienna]

Hi Bob

 

Thank you, saved this for later use.............

 

Regards

Gerhard

[Mirabell61]

Thanks for sharing this copper electroforming methode Bob,

 

very inspiring work indeed...  

 

Nils

Edited May 14, 2016 by Mirabell61

[IgorSky]

Bravo, Bob! You started using a high-tech in your build!

 

Best Regards!

Igor.

[Mahuna]

Thanks for the explanation, Bob.

[captainbob]

Thank you all for looking in.  Now it's back to the wood.  Let's see where was I.

 

Bob

[popeye the sailor]

super process Bob!     

[ggrieco]

Great post Bob!

 

I've wanted to try this in the past but thought it might be too difficult. Your description is very clear and makes it seem more approachable.

Thanks!

[captainbob]

You're right.  It's not hard but I was wishing I had someone to ask questions of.  So if you get stuck or just need reassuring feel free to ask.  That goes for anyone.

 

Bob

Edited May 8, 2016 by Cap'n'Bob

[captainbob]

Thank you Lawrence.  Glad to see your work on the Bounty.

 

Bob

[captainbob]

We will leave the vents while I build the parts the vents mount on. Finally back to wood. 

 

The forward deckhouse, attached to the wheel house was living quarters for the Master and the first and second mates, in three separate rooms. This deckhouse, about twice the size of the other, is living quarters for the Commanding Officer.

 

I do not know the history of the Coast Guard during WWII but I find it interesting that there were two each, sleeping quarters, heads, galleys and mess, on the plans, one marked crew and the others marked soldiers.  Was the Coast Guard not considered a fighting unit at that time?

 

Anyway, here is the CO's quarters. 

 

Bob