Hr. Ms. O 19 1938 by Piet - FINISHED - scale 1:50 - submarine of the Royal Navy Netherlands in service 1939 - 1945

[mtaylor]

Looks like it belongs there, PIet.    Got another one of my "I know diddly about subs question".  Did the gantry stay raised all the time or did it fold down to the deck?   

[Vivian Galad]

Great details!!!

[popeye the sailor]

nice bit of progress........the detail your putting into it is really neat!

[Jim Lad]

Just catching up, Piet.  That's coming along really well.

 

John

[Piet]

Hello everyone and thanks to all who visited and left a "like," much appreciated !!

 

Ahoi Marc, thanks for dropping in and a great question.  As an aerodynamicist, among other things, I have been questioning the same thing and shaking my head in disbelief at the lack of reducing drag on these boats.  That's why the submerged speeds were so pitiful.  But then again, they were primarily surface vessels that were capable to submerge to nominal depth for a limited time.

No, these gantries were fixed.  At the refurbishing of the O19 in Scotland in 1943 they removed the rear gantry and supplied them with a portable hoist with block and tackle.  To use this portable hoist they just stuck it into a tube in the deck.  They had to leave the front gantry on the boat because it also served as the radio antenna support.

The shipyard in Scotland removed some other superflous stuff to lighten the boat a bit.  What's normally not knows is that later in the war the Germans developed and build a large submarine that was truly a very modern design and was very clean on the outside with the result that she could sail very fast while submerged.  

 

Hello Vivian!  I'm glad to see you here in my shipyard and trust you are recovering quite well.  Thanks for your compliment and stay well!  I truly understand what you had to endure and I speak from personal experience.

 

Hi Popeye, good to see you here as well and yes, we are making some progress but it's slow going though.  I had to redo some of these little buggers and had to buy some more flat stock brass sheet.

 

Hello John, glad seeing you here as well and yes, things are beginning to take shape.  I'm happy with the results.

 

Cheers,

[realworkingsailor]

 What's normally not knows is that later in the war the Germans developed and build a large submarine that was truly a very modern design and was very clean on the outside with the result that she could sail very fast while submerged.,

See...... I knew that!

 

The Type XXI.

 

In the last days of the war, in the race to snag as much German tech many where taken intact. The soon to be NATO countries ended up with about pair each (most ended up being used for research or testing before being decommissioned). The Soviets ended up with four, and they must have managed to capture the plans, because it was discovered within a couple of years,they were building more of them. The boats then became the subject of the immediate post-war NATO anti-submarine effort.

 

Andy

[Piet]

First of all I want to thank everyone for your "like" votes.

 

Hello Andy, good to see you and yes, that was indeed the Type 21 boats.  The German engineering were way ahead of any other country.  Not only in subs and surface ships but in aircraft, armor and rockets.  Brilliant minds.  I think that some time ago I did mention the Type 21 subs from the Kriegsmarine.  Thanks for the input, great stuff.

 

Well, today I continued with the small stuff for the gantries.  It was not easy and then to think that I have to yet make another set for the front 

As mentioned above, I had to remake a few pieces because they either didn't turn out to my liking or I cut too much away or some other goofy reason.  In any case, the rear gantry assembly is now mostly done except for the "come-along" and the pulleys with their brackets. 

 

I also forgot that my drawing was a little larger then my scale so I had to cut the gantry posts down a few mm's and I'll also need to shorten the boom some.  Oh well, that's what happens when you are not paying attention, being a "domkop" as the Dutch would say   

 

I made a bunch of pictures for my own records and share a few with yuns here.  Unfortunately some are a little out of focus or I moved the camera but you get the idea.

 

This shows the gantry boom attach bracket being made ready to solder.  I cut a small strip of brass shim to add some material to the bottom so I can solder the pivot pin securely.  The pin protrudes a few mm into the wood of the jig / holding fixture and this way the solder could creep under the small plate and into the other side of the bracket.  I actually had to ad some more solder to the inside of the bracket though and machined the excess of the pin away with a narrow Dremel cut-off wheel.  After everything was securely soldered I trimmed the whole thing to make it look goed.

 

This shows the completed boom attach bracket.  Yup, it's small.

 

Here I have temporarily attached the boom to the bracket and then stuck the assembly to the post bracket. Later on I also removed some of the excess epoxy cement because it interfered with the rotation of the brackets.

 

Here I started with making the pulley bracket.  This is one of the parts I had to remake because as you can see it is wider then the 2 mm for the pulley.  However, it's the idea behind it in how I bend the pieces of brass shim into a U form.  After this fiasco I shaped this piece of wood to 2 mm wide and bend a new piece of brass shim.  This piece of wood also functioned as a jig and holding fixture to make the pulley bracket like I did for the boom attach bracket, except of course for the pivot pin.  That was still going to be a real worry in how to solder the two together with the post bracket between them without desoldering the whole mess but It worked out okay.

I had to assemble everything on the gantry and clamped a small steel office clip to the boom bracket as a heat sink and a wooden clothe pin under it to keep the boom bracket tight against the post bracket.  Then, with the gantry upside down and in a small vice I soldered the pulley bracket to the pin while gently pushing it against the post bracket with a toothpick and guiding it in line with the boom bracket.  It worked without a hitch, which made me smile and gave myself a high-five   

 

Here I am holding the pulley bracket with the dummy wooden pulley in it, looks rather neat.  That's a 6 mm pulley.

 

Here I have both brackets successfully installed to the post bracket and just for fun I have installed the boom and the pulley.  Yes, that whole assembly does pivot too, wonders are not out of this world yet   

 

Here is another out of focus close up looking diagonally aft.  The cable for this pulley is the actual lift cable for the torpedoes and runs down below deck to an electric winch.  I'll have to take a look tomorrow and see if I can thread a "cable" to the loading tube access hatches.  That way I can demonstrate the operation with a model torpedo.  

 

Cheers,

Edited May 1, 2014 by Piet

[texxn5]

As usual my friend, you keep me in awe of your metal work (all the rest too) but metal is wild. Very nice. All is well here, leaving in about 10 days for the west coast. I pray for you daily dear friend, and hope you are ok. More later.

[mtaylor]

More amazing metal work.....  wow.

 

I knew about subs and even the one they were designing or building (or maybe there were a bunch) that were extremely large for haul cargo and troops.  As I recall from my old defense contractor engineering days, there was more stuff still classified (back in the 70's) than unclassified.

[Sjors]

I just love that like button Piet !

 

How can you make all that tiny stuff.....

 

[popeye the sailor]

you do make this look easy.......but I know it's not your giving me such an itch to try this stuff out

 

simply wonderful work!

[Piet]

Hey John, good to hear from you and your kudos for my work, much appreciated my friend.  Hmmmm yeah, metal work.  Well, all this is rather simple stuff to make but it becomes tedious because of the size.  I lack a full machine shop, have only a mini lathe and the rest is small hand tools.  Next post I hope to demonstrate how I made the pulley brackets that are attached to the top of the boom.  

Have fun on your trip to the West Coast and drive defensively and carefully.  We expect a travel log though.  If my memory doesn't fail me there is supposed to be a ship model museum in San Diego right on the shore.  I visited it many years ago and there was a large model of the KXVIII submarine.  Thanks for the prayers, yuns are also covered from our end, say hi to Di 

 

Hi Mark, thank you very much for visiting and your appreciation.  Yes, the German Navy had a bunch of large subs made specifically to resupply the subs far away from home with fuel, ammo and provisions.  These were called "milchkuh" or milk cow.  The Type 21 was an attack sub bat came in too late to make any difference in the final outcome of the war.  

 

Hoi Sjors, my Dutch friend and thanks for visiting.  Yes, I like the like button too and know you have been showing up in my shipyard because of it.  How to make that tiny stuff???  Very carefully        No really, it's not all that difficult, just knowing metal and what you can do with it.  Having the right tools helps too and sometimes we have to invent a tool to do a job or improvise like I had to do today.  This tiny stuff is challenging though.

 

Hello Popeye, thank you for your compliment.  Yeah, after it's all made it seems easy but you are right, it's not as simple as it looks.  Oh, just take a piece of brass sheet, bent it this way then that way, file some here and there, drill a few holes and presto, done - - - NOT!    I could have  added this to Sjors' answer, it helps having worked with metal all my life, having been a mechanic, certificated tool and die maker and etc. helps.

Like with everything new or different, there is a learning curve and we must expect having to scrap a lot of either wood, plastic or metal.

Yes, you should gat your hands on metal work, it's a real challenge but fun.  You'll waste a lot of metal at first but once you get the hang of it it'll work out.  I am having problems with styrene and am in awe at Andy with his Great Lakes ship and Kevin with his Bismark and not to forget paper!!

 

Okay, dinner is ready and then I'll post today's progress, which is not much.

 

Cheers, 

[Piet]

Hello again everyone and after dinner I watched a Greenland fishing trawler catching prawn in the Arctic Ocean south of Greenland, very interesting.  

But I also want to thank all those who visited and clicked the like button.  It does give a warm fuzzy knowing that all y'all like my efforts.

 

Today I spend quite some time shortening the booms and the forward gantry.  I could then start making the 6 mm pulley attaching hardware that are fastened to the top of the boom.  Instead of making them the traditional way I decided to make them in two pieces, each one with a joggle so the pulley can be pinned in between and the other end pinned to the boom bracket.

 

The question was, how to make this joggle small enough for a 2 mm wide pulley and also have enough space for the two plates to slide over the top bracket that sandwiches in between.

I have no box and pan brake nor a regular sheet metal brake, these parts are too small anyhow for that sort of equipment.  So, I took an old duck-bill plier, squared the ends on my bench grinder and used that as my brake.  See pics below for the process.  That was okay for one bend but now I had to make the next bend in reverse order.  So, I reversed the plier and fitted a 0.8 mm wide brass bar between one of the plier ends and the sheet metal.  I used the bar as the blade of a brake and bend that part down to 90 degree.  

There is of course a lot more to it with some additional handling between these bends, like tapping the bends with a small hammer to make the corners of the bends as sharp as possible.

 

Then it was just a matter of filing these peaces into what the drawing tells me they should look like.  

 

I had an additional problem in that 0.4 and even 0.3 mm brass sheet was too heavy for these tight 1 mm joggles.  So, I made the pieces from 0.1 mm sheet by 5 mm wide and soldered then together making one piece.  This also stiffened them due to the solder.

 

Okay, it would be better to show this process with pictures.

 

This shows only one half of the assembly and magnified too.  I used a tiny brass nail for the pin and the pulley is still that wooden 6 mm one I now use as a guide.  The holes are 0.5 mm.

 

This is another shot.

 

Here I have laid it next to the image on the drawing.  They can still be filed down some more and prettied up before primer and painting.

 

Here is the sequence of my method.

 

I started out with a strip of 0.1 mm by 5 mm wide brass sheet.  I drew a rough outline of the shape of the part.  The two straight lines indicate where to about put the ends of the plier.

 

Here is my pair of pliers with the ends nicely ground flat and true.

 

I placed the plier ends and the furthest away line for the first bend.

 

Here I made the bend a little beyond 90 degrees.   Now, what's not shown is that I tapped the bend with a small hammer against the plier to make the radius as square as possible.

 

Next I reversed the part to be bend and placed the plier close to the second line.  The final position here is determined by holding a 0.8 mm by 4 mm brass bar between one leg of the plier and the upstanding sheet.  see next pic.

 

Sorry, I moved the camera, it's difficult to hold the plier with one hand and shoot extreme close-up with the other hand.  In any case, you can see that I have placed that 0.8 by 4 mm brass bar between the plier and the sheet.  Now it's just a matter to use that brass bar as a part of a bending brake and holding everything as tight as possible twist the bras bar down against the bottom leg of the plier.  It should come out with a nice enough bend.  I put my small flat file against this joggle and tap it with a small hammer to flatten the joggle.

 

Here is final joggle, it looks quite nice and measures 1 mm, just enough for a 2 mm wide pulley with the second part on the other end of the pulley.  Now, remember that I had to make two of these to make one of the two pieces that holds the pulley, thus a total of 4 of these buggers for one pulley.  These two parts will be soldered together to make the one piece.

 

Here are the two pieces soldered together and ready to be shaped into that part as shown in the top pics.

 

Simple but very time consuming.

 

Cheers,

 

 

[mtaylor]

Nice work on small tricky piece, Piet.

[Piet]

Thanks to all for visiting and your likes!

 

Hi Mark, "small tricky piece" is a royal pain in the neck      And then to consider I have to make 4 of these 6 mm buggers and 8 of the 3 mm ones.  Can you just imagine working in a smaller scale, like I initially thought to do, 1:100 ???

 

It took me better part of today to finish just one pulley assembly.  In order to keep these halves together I soldered a spacer between then where the joggle is.  I used a 0.3 mm brass rod for the spacer but now was the trick to hold these slippery little buggers together and all in line      

First I tried pinning everything together with the small brass nails and small clothe pins but they kept shifting on me.  No way I could keep that piece of brass rod in between the two halves and everything lined up.  

Sooooooh - - - I put two small steel office clamps to one half and soldered a length of rod to this half, holding it with tweezers.  It was nicely tinned and now I made a 0.3 wooden spacer for one end and a 2 mm space for the pulley end and clamped it together with small wooden clothe pins, making sure that both halves lined up.  Then a touch of heat and presto, they were solidly connected.

 

I could now carefully dress them up and file them a little smaller yet.  The pulley fits nicely and rotates smoothly, even though it's from wood.  It also slides nicely over the bracket on the boom and swivels.  One down and three more to go of the 6 mm pulley assemblies.

 

At this rate I'll be 90 years old   No, I'm kidding of course, now that I have a routine it should go relatively quick and I say relatively.  It all depends what "relatively" means in this case 

 

It actually looks quite respectable, even in the unpainted condition.

Okay, here is a picture of today's accomplishment.

 

 

Cheers,

Edited May 2, 2014 by Piet

[popeye the sailor]

billing's carries small pulleys.....it would save you time making them from wood.

[riverboat]

That is some pretty astounding metal work Piet.... and I thought working with wood is hard

Frank                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

[Remcohe]

The pulley is looking very realistic. Thank you for sharing how you assembled the little marvel, sometimes a picture does not tell the whole story what tricks you need to employ to get the job done.

 

Remco

[Piet]

Thanks to everyone for visiting and your likes!

 

Hi Popeye, yes, I could buy a lot of things already made but then I miss the fun in making these things myself and time is not an issue with me.  Besides, this is a scratch build from raw materials        I think the only bought items are a few small nails and some N gauge railroad track.  I have a Unimat DB 200 lathe and as soon as I have the 6 and 3 mm brass rod I'll be turning the pulleys, so there won't be any wooden pulleys.  I just made the one for checking size for my scale.  Actually I did think about buying the pulleys and railing stanchions but thought the better of it.  Not only that there are no stanchions available that look like the ones on the original boat and also the challenges in trying to make everything myself, when possible. 

 

Hello Frank, good to see you and thanks for your compliment.  

 

Hoi Remco, thanks you too for the compliment, appreciate it.  Well, yeah, I thought that showing my method in making these parts would entice others to do the same.  It's really not all that difficult, just very tedious.  I'm looking forward to making the pulleys from brass, they'll look even better.  I guess I'll blacken them as well before assembling them in their brackets.  I think that the 6 mm is about the right size for the 1:50 scale.

 

Cheers,

 

 

[Piet]

Hello again all y'all and thanks to all who visited and liked my efforts, much appreciated!

 

Well, we'll continue with the saga of the pulleys.  Today I completed one more 6 mm pulley assembly and one 3 mm pulley assembly.  That 3 mm bugger was a real doozy to do but after a few tries I think I got it.  I may remake this one after I try another method tomorrow.  I'm not quite happy with it but we'll see.  

 

Here is a picture of it and you should realize that the pulley inside the brackets is 3 mm in diameter and 1.5 mm wide for comparison to the size of the brackets.  I also mounted it temporarily to the three way junction unit.

 

The brass nails are 0.6 mm in diameter.  I made the brackets from 0.1 brass shim but that's too flimsy and difficult to file to size.  I'll do the same as with the 6 mm pulleys and solder two of the 0.1 shims together for one bracket to make it stiffer, that way it's easier to file without it twisting out of shape.  

 

Cheers,

 

 

[michael mott]

 

 Oh, just take a piece of brass sheet, bent it this way then that way, file some here and there, drill a few holes and presto, done

But Piet after I read this that you said I then proceeded to follow the bend this way and that, and yes you do make it look easy, because this is exactly what you did.

 

Michael

[Piet]

Hello Michael, you see, duck soup baby!  It IS easy, once we know how.  Have I ever lied to you???  

It becomes more interesting when we have to bend thicker and harder metals.  Then we need to calculate the bending radius on what material and thickness other wise it will certainly crack at the outside of the bend.  

 

That's why we had several blades with increasing radii on a rack near our bending brakes.  Oh well, there is a lot more to bending sheet metal then meets the eye and fortunately we don't encounter this much in ship model building     Yup, there's math involved being a good "tin pecker."  

 

 

[Piet]

Again my thanks to everyone for your like votes, I'm overwhelmed.

 

Today I had to split my time in doing some needed garden chores till my back told me to quit before it caused roubles, and the sgipyard.

 

After lunch I tried my other method in making the 3 mm pulley brackets.  I soldered the two strips of 0.1 bras sheets together, making in 0.2 mm.  The joggle had to be narrower of course because the 3 mm pulleys will be 1.5 mm wide.  So instead of using the 0.8 brass bar to bend the sheet I used a knife shaped file.  This really worked great.  Hey, you have to use whatever works 

Next I soldered the two pieces together and started to file the brackets into shape to what the drawing shows.  I had no longer the problem of them twisting when filing them crosswise.  However, I still had to be kinda gentile with it though.  Now I also could make it a little smaller, which really tickled me, I'm a happy camper  

 

Okay, three more of the 6 mm pulley brackets and 4 or 5 more for the dingy gantry and then making the pulleys

 

I think that I'll use the front torpedo loading gantry operable with a torpedo in a sling because other wise the aft part will be too busy with the dingy hanging in its tackle.   Hmmmm, the dingy, that's another model to be made      

 

Oh, btw, I also reduced the diameter of the brass nails to 0.5 mm and reduced the diameter of the head as well.  Now it looks mucho better.

 

No more pictures till all these pulleys are done and the gantries put together.  Yuns are sick and tired by now looking at nothing but pulleys and their brackets     

 

Cheers,

Edited May 6, 2014 by Piet

[Remcohe]

"Please Sir can I have some more pulley's" [O. Twist]

[amateur]

Perhaps the others are sick and tired, but not me

 

Jan

[popeye the sailor]

photos are the window of the mind.....they are about as  'real time'  as you can get    any closer,  and you'll have a bunch of guy standing and looking over your shoulder.   looking at the crowd you've amassed,  there wouldn't be much room  

 

hypothetical,  I know.......but that's what makes this site so great.  it allows us to see what your thinking........I like the way your thinking

[Piet]

Thanks to everyone for your likes!!

 

Hoi Remco, Oh boy, Oliver Twist, that brings back memories.  Yup, I read many of the classics, even have the complete set of all Shakespeare's plays!   More pulleys eh??  Well, have patience my friends.  I have been working on three more 6 mm brackets and the triangular shaped "come-along" boom lifting interconnect and - - - a surprise 

 

Hoi Jan, thanks for your encouraging word!  Actually - - - it's I who's getting tired of working on these little hummers, they are all the same.  Okay, as soon as I have something worthwhile to show I'll post a few pics.  Ah yes, the surprise I'm working on, hopefully tomorrow.

 

Hi Popeye, thank you too for your encouraging words, appreciate it.  And everyone is more then welcome to visit in real life, there's plenty of space.  Yeah, I like taking pictures, not only for my own archive I can look at way after the model is completed - - - and sharing with all yuns good friends.

 

Well, as mentioned I started with putting 3 more 6 mm pulley brackets together for the forward side, they just have to be filed into what should look like the brackets for the pulleys.  I also started on another project, another model - - - no, not a new ship model but as Remco so aptly says, treat each part as a model.  This is just another part for the O19 and it's a "proto type."  If it works out to my liking then I'll have to make one more, and pictures.

 

Doing this small work and mostly all by hand, I "gravely" injured my left hand index finger   First I burned it with my soldering iron and then filed right through the skin next my nail - - - blood all over the place, auch, auch, auch.   Oh - please - - stop laughing - - it hurts - - - nah, not relly.

No, it's not all that bad, I'll live     I'll just grit my teeth and keep working, blood or no blood 

Reason being that these things are too small to clamp in anything to hold them.  They are smaller then my thumbnail, to give yuns an idea what I'm working with.  I found the best way for me is to hold these little parts between my thumb and index finger and then use my finger as guide for the file.  

 

The surprise I'm working on may force me to make another "model" (part) , we'll sew.  Yupper Popeye, always thinking and I bet you have no idea what it is 

This thing is getting way out of hand with all the extra details I initially had not even thought about doing.

 

Okay, enough of my banter and time to prep for my beauty sleep.  Keep tuned for the surprise - - -   

 

Cheers,

[popeye the sailor]

no.........your model is doing exactly what it is supposed to do    all this means is that you've picked a good subject.........and if you do this well on a sub,  I can imagine what you would do with aircraft!   :D    I await this wonderful surprise you have in store......at this scale,  anything is fair game and possible.     remember the mantra...........the larger the scale,  the more detail that comes to light.........and with more detail,  the happier the modeler will be

 

I remember the models of earlier days.......no lines or rivets......just a conical tube with wings stuck in it!    

[Piet]

Thanks to everyone for visiting and your likes, it's really appreciated.  This sounds like a broken record but I want to show my appreciation, if only through words.

 

Hey Popeye, surprise is coming babe      I lucked out making the prototype, wonders will never cease.  Even at this "large" scale of 1:50 the details can be rater small.  I know how big some of these things can be and then divide by 50 and wow - - - that small???    

 

Okay, the surprise is the "come-along" ratchet device to raise and lower the boom.  Once I figured out how to make it I started making all the parts and pieces.  Sorry, I did not make a picture of all these parts before assembling them, got too engrossed in getting it all together.

It also actually works     No, I didn't make the racheting part but when I fasten a "cable" to it I can rotate it and actually make the boom go up or down and that should be good enough for a demo.  I'll try to make the second one a little smaller, if that works then I may make a third one to replace this prototype.  I'll have to wait till me left index finger heals some 

 

I also completed all the 6 mm pulley brackets and a few hooks.  I think it was a very productive day and I'm a happy camper.

 

I also tried making a thimble and got one that looks like it but is not the pretties thing though.  But, it's just a prototype for me to see if I can make one at this scale and the answer is - - - probably not.  I may have to think of something else that looks better at this scale.  I used a 1 mm brass tube and bend it into a thimble shape.  Then ground off the outside till I had a U formed shape that actually looks like a thimble but it's too big for scale.  I may just have to use a thin brass rod and cement the "cable" to it, making belief that it's a thimble.  No, you cannot just bend a cable around a pin and seized or spliced together like you do with hemp rope.  Steel cable needs a larger diameter in the bend, that's why a thimble is needed and then it can be seized when it comes around.  My guess is that they used at least 5 mm steel cable.

 

Well, here are a few pics for all yuns to see what we have accomplished. 

 

This shows the "come-along" ratchet fully assembled and ready to receive the cable.  The hook is just temporary so i can hang it to the swivel attachment on top of the port side gantry post.  As you can see it's about half my thumbnail, not counting the ratchet handle and I have small, slender fingers.

 

This shows the "come-along" hooked to its swivel attachment bracket.

 

These are all the 6 mm pulley brackets, one is already installed to the gantry, and the two triangular interconnect brackets for the "come-along" with the 3 mm pulley brackets.  One for the rear and one for the front.

 

This is the prototype thimble, not very good looking up close.

 

Cheers. 

[Remcohe]

Wow Piet what a great display of miniature hardware. When bending the tube for the thimble, did you insert a rod into the tube to prevent it from 'collapsing'? Or did you bend it around a small shave...

 

Remco