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

[mtaylor]

Wonderful looking launcher with lots of  very impressive bits of micro-plumbing.

[Kevin]

does it still fit in the housing my all the external plumbing is in position, lovely work, btw i am removing all the cannons of my build and fitting torpedo tubes forward and aft, you will not be holding Portsmouth harbour to ransom by blockading  - lol

Edited August 4, 2014 by Kevin

[Piet]

Hello Ian, yes fore sure, it's great seeing this thing close to being finished.  Just the door actuating mechanism and paint.  Then we have to tackle the deck structure where this thing will be located.

 

Hoi Sjors, yep, I sure know what I'm doing, it helps   I had to put my engineering heat on though   

There's a bunch of stuff I couldn't add, too small and it wouldn't add anything to the launcher model.  Thank you for your compliment, it's beginning to look a little like the original photo.

 

Hi Pete, thank you.  That's just a very quick sketch made to help clarify my attempt to describe what I'm trying to do.

Yesterday I mentioned abandoning the thought of making the sliding shoe, well, I figured I make another quicky sketch and the fabrication of the shoe.  Pic below.

 

Hi Mark, thank you, thank you!  :im Not Worthy:

 

Hello Kevin, right now, no, the deck structure still needs to me modified some.  I started with removing some plating from the bottom and sides of the opening on the port side but the starboard side still needs some surgery.  This'll be another tedious operation with little space to work in and have to improvise / make some tooling for that.

Hmmm, torpedo tubes on the Victory eh - - - - . You better have a few good minesweepers but they won't do you any good     My sub has 40 mines and many are of a very secret design, unique I might add.  I discovered that very rare smelling enzyme of the giant of the famous encounter with Jack and the Beanstalk.  That "sniffer" enzyme is 1000 times more powerful than a dog's.  Sooooh - - - I installed little sniffers with that enzyme in floaters on the mines and they will float up to the surface and start sniffing.  As everyone knows it's highly sensitive to smelling Englishmen - - - fee - fi - fo - fum - - I smell an Englishman.  As soon as your ships sail near and over my mines - - - kaBOOM and it's good buy all y'all - - - buwahahahaha hahaha haha               

 

Cheers,

[mtaylor]

 

Hello Kevin, right now, no, the deck structure still needs to me modified some.  I started with removing some plating from the bottom and sides of the opening on the port side but the starboard side still needs some surgery.  This'll be another tedious operation with little space to work in and have to improvise / make some tooling for that.

Hmmm, torpedo tubes on the Victory eh - - - - . You better have a few good minesweepers but they won't do you any good     My sub has 40 mines and many are of a very secret design, unique I might add.  I discovered that very rare smelling enzyme of the giant of the famous encounter with Jack and the Beanstalk.  That "sniffer" enzyme is 1000 times more powerful than a dog's.  Sooooh - - - I installed little sniffers with that enzyme in floaters on the mines and they will float up to the surface and start sniffing.  As everyone knows it's highly sensitive to smelling Englishmen - - - fee - fi - fo - fum - - I smell an Englishman.  As soon as your ships sail near and over my mines - - - kaBOOM and it's good buy all y'all - - - buwahahahaha hahaha haha               

 

Cheers,

 

And here I am following along this part and thought you'd found a way for a magnetic mine that would be drawn to wood.  Sniffers... I like that.

[Piet]

Hello everyone and thanks to all for visiting and enjoying my build.

 

This is my second attempt to write this post.  I completed my story on todays work and started adding e few pics when MSW froze 

I couldn't do anything to unfreeze it so I had to reboot my @*%^#$^ confuser and lost everything   

 

Okay, I'll start over.  Today I fabricated all the parts for the torpedo tube doors.  The first pic below shows all of them for one side.  The other side looks the same - - duh 

 

I was thinking about how to connect the articulating rod to the heavier piston rod of 0.8 mm.  Drill a 0.5 mm hole in it for a hinge pin?  Hmmm, perhaps but no - - - so I figured that if I pounded the end flat and then drill a 0.5 mm hole in it would work better and look better.

I took a ¼ inch drift pin and a gebanger (hammer) and put the rod end on a steel block of steel and gebanged the end flat.  I shaped it nicely and attempted to drill a 0.5 mm hole in it.  Hmmm, problem.  I have no more small drill bits around that size, just the leftover shanks.  Soooooh, I filed a triangular tip to ane end and proceeded to drill the holes.  It works, believe me.  Now, I mention this so that yuns can do the same thing with your broken drills.  It only works for wood, plastic and soft metals though.

 

I could now solder the hinge pins to the piston rod and the door actuator arm.  

Next I made two articulating rods with eyes on both ends but had to add solder to the piston rod that goes through the actuator to make it a little thicker in diameter. It was a bit too loos and I needed it stiff enough to hold the doors open.

 

When I had all the hardware completed I put everything together and did a dry run to see if it worked.  Eureka, it did - lucked out again!      The only thing I'm a little concerned about is whether the CA will hold up in cementing the door to the hinge shaft.  I made a test piece and so far it seems to work okay, keep our fingers crossed.

 

I hope to have everything completed by tomorrow afternoon but I need to mow the front lawn first though.

Then I need to give it an acid bath to etch the metal for the primer.  It'll be painted a darker grey then the rest of the upper works.

 

In one of my last posts I mentioned that I was not going to make the actual sliding shoe with it's guides.  Well, this morning I thought to show you with a sketch and one actual piece I started on what I had in mind.  I'm glad I abandoned it because it would have entailed a lot of work and rework.

 

When you see the photos of today's accomplishment you should agree that my simple way looks acceptable, not as authentic but just okay.

 

I'll be bacheloring it for the next ten days.  Gwen is driving up north to Coraopolis, PA tomorrow morning at oh dark hundred (0600) to help our daughter Marianne with some stuff.  Brave gall she is - - 900 miles in one day, 13 hours!

 

Well, here are the pics.

 

Here we see all the parts for one of the two doors.  I kinda laid them out in the way they should be mounted.  On the left is the door with its hinge shaft and arm.  It also has the hinge pin already soldered to it for the articulating rod.  This rod is positioned below that.  To the right is the piston rod with its articulating arm hinge pin and the small 0.5 mm tube pieces, one to help soldering it to the piston rod and the other will act as the locking nut.  You can see the locking nut (tube) below the articulating rod on the left.  The hinge pins will be dressed down of course after the nuts are soldered to them.

 

Here is the start of fabricating the slider shoe.  I made a sketch to show what I was talking about.  That small brass gismo is a U channel from 0.1 mm brass shim with the articulating rod end stuck inside it.  I was ready to solder the shoe-plate to the bottom of the U channel at which time I put a stop to it.  The sliding channel would be made in two parts.  Both to look like U channels and then solder the long parts together.  This would have to be soldered to the forward part of the torpedo tubes as shown in the original photo.  Would it have worked?  Most likely but - - - well, enough said.  Perhaps at some later date, who knows - - I may just be crazy enough to try it anyhow.   

 

This shows that sliding shoe arrangement seen from the top down.  You can clearly see the articulating rod inside the shoe.

 

Here we have all the door actuating parts loosely installed for the trial.  Looks okay to me and works as advertised.

 

Here we see it with the door open.  I'm a happy camper 

 

Cheers,

[Remcohe]

This is crazy Piet, you really pulled it off to make it work!

 

Remco

[SawdustDave]

Piet....you have now departed our earthly presence my friend. You are truly out of this world. This has become the most entertaining build on MSW.

Dave

[pete48]

Absolutly incredible Piet, Beautiful work

 

Best Regards,

Pete

[dgbot]

Piet, now you have to make the working torpedos to go with the launchers.  How are you going to make the arming device?

David B

[FreekS]

Hey Piet, those are MUCH nicer torpedo tubes than the two black ones I built for my KXVIII, at the same scale. Really I'm very impressed!

can I order a pair, working and able to fire my rubber band Torpedo's? Just kidding !!

 

Yours is the best combination of a superb build, great link to history and personal story - I read it every day!

 

Freek

Edited August 5, 2014 by FreekS

[Piet]

Thank you all for visiting and your compliments and comments.  I truly appreciate it.

 

@ Remco: Yeah, I guess I'm nuts going into all this detail but guess who's the instigator ????        Yep, after a few rejects and redo's it all came together okay.

 

@ Dave (Sawdust): Thank you but you are too kind and make me blush     I am happy with the fact that all y'all enjoy my efforts and hopefully are challenged at trying your hand at some out of the ordinary modeling.

btw, you are not a slouch yourself my friend, I have seen your work!

 

@ Pete: Thank you my friend, it's a great feeling when a plan comes successfully together.

 

@ Dave B: Hmmmm - - - working torpedoes ????  There are limits my friend but ask Freek about his launcher that fires torpedoes - - - albeit with rubber bands but he's not done yet and his mind is working overtime developing a better system - - - are you Freek???     Did you see his videos Dave?  

 

@ Freek: Wow, thank you for those kind words.  Mine, being a static model, I could concentrate on making it also a stand alone model in addition to also being able to mount it inside the boat.  Your aim may have been more on the practical side.  Either way, both of us are happy with the results and that's what counts.

I'm happy having you visit my shipyard any day my friend.

 

Cheers to all, 

[Piet]

Hello everyone and welcome to my shipyard.

 

My dear bride Gwen left this morning 0545 for Coraopolis, PA to visit with our daughter Marianne and grandson Troy Nelson.  Yep, he was also named after the great Admiral Lord Nelson.

 

In any case, my plan of mowing the front lawn had to be postponed because the grass was way too wet, we had an early rain this morning.  Well, that didn't really break my heart so I did some very productive work on the O19.

 

Instead of etching and painting the torpedo launcher I decided to start with the surgery on the torpedo launcher deck openings.  I needed to place the launcher inside several times for fitting purposes and that way the paint would be damaged.

 

I already knew that I had to remove some slivers of the bottom and top of side plating and the fore and aft parts of the opening so I just had to cut that away, VERY carefully, sliver at a time.  Checking with the launcher, marking where more of the plating needed to be removed.  Obviously I had to do this on both sides and also try to make it  even out.  

 

Not only the side plating was involved but also the framing materia insidel had to be cut back to allow room for the doors and the hinges.  For this I used a rotary file in my Poxxon had tool. This was slow going because the rotary file is for metal and cuts wood very slooooowly.  This is good though because I didn't want to remove a lot of wood at the same time and not damage the inside of the side plating.

 

After many, many times installing and removing the launcher for trying the fit I was satisfied with it.  I can now rotate the launcher into any direction and remove it for a show and tell

 

Now it was time to prep the launcher and paint it.  I had some acid and brushed a diluted mix over the poor thing and let it sit for a while.  Then washed it all of in hot running water and carefully hand toweled it semi dry, then put it outside in the sun.  Yeah, the sun came out and the grass was drying real nice so I planned on mowing right after lunch.

 

But before lunch I finally paint the launcher!  What a difference that made!  It looks really very nice all dolled up in a fresh coat of medium dark grey.

 

Now that the launcher is finished and the torpedo door openings are cut to size I started to make some plywood   I need two pieces for the door openings and don't want to spend an extra $15 dollars for a sheet, just for two small pieces???  Yeah, yeah, yeah, cheap Dutchman    No, just frugal and practical 

 

I had some nice ⅜ thick maple finished plywood and cut three pieces of 1 X 4 ½ inches from it.  Now I had to remove the nice maple veneer from the junk cores.  I placed each piece on it's side against the fence of my bandsaw that was adjusted to just inside the veneer and turned the saw on.  I very slowly and carefully pushed the pieces through.  And yes, I had an extra block of wood on the outside as a guid.

I managed all three pieces without losing any fingers, lucked out again  

 

Now I had to remove the rests of the core and used a sharp wood chisel and sandpaper.  The glue will be removed with acetone and a scraper.

I managed doing only one of the six pieces but hey, I'm having fun and again, it's a challenge to me, seeing if I can do it.

 

I don't recommend anybody doing this crazy stunt, it's better to spend the 15 bucks and safe a trip to the hospital emergency room - - - says he with a straight face after taking a chance of loosing life and limb  Well, crazy or not but I do know my tools and have confidence in my ability.  As noted already, I did have a block of wood on the outside of the piece as an extra guide though.

 

I'll show the pics in a follow-up post.

 

Okay, enough of my banter and it's time for a few pics.  I also took a few on the plywood project.

 

This shows the start of reworking the port side.  The biggest problem was grinding wood away from the lower side support structure inside without damaging the remaining side deck plating.  I really didn't want to replace all that too.

 

After many fit checks with the launcher inside I was finally satisfied with the way the launcher fit and rotated.  The following three pics show the different positions.

 

 

 

 

The painted torpedo launcher (uh oh, small divot in the paint, needs a touch-up)

 

 

Cheers,  

[Piet]

Okay, this is my plywood making project as part of the deck rework for the torpedo launcher.

 

I have already explained how I went about doing this in my previous post thus will only show the pictures with comments.

 

This shows my set-up and how I am carefully cutting just inside the outer veneer.  That way I didn't have to remove a lot of the core.  The glue they used is very tough and hard.

 

This shows all six pieces I need for the two doors. 

 

Here I am actually chiseling the core away from the wood.  the rest will be done with sandpaper.

 

Here I am using a sanding block with some 150 grit sandpaper. 

 

Most all the core is now removed and started the application with acetone.  More needs to be done.

 

When all pieces are free from the core material and old glue then I'll have apply TiteBond, mak a three layer sandwich with TiteBond glue and clamp it all together.  

 

Cheers, 

[SawdustDave]

Loads of fun watching you build the launcher Piet. Thanks again for sharing. Hanging around for whatever's next.

Cheers

Dave

[texxn5]

I've been watching as I have internet capabilities. very scarce in north Wyoming. currently in Sheridan, Wyoming, moving on day after tomorrow to see the Devil's Tower (yes, as in Close Encounter's of the Third Kind). As usual, you amaze me with your metal work. Look's ready to fire at any time. Hope all is well with you and Gwen.

Take care my friend, and keep up the good work.

Edited August 6, 2014 by texxn5

[Remcohe]

Piet the paint job makes it look awesome! I hope the hull won't hide too much of the details.

 

Remco

[Piet]

Thanks to everyone who visited my shipyard and hitting the like button!

 

@ Dave - Sawdust:  Thank you Dave and I'm glad to brighten your day with visiting my build.  The "whatever's next" will be the two deck side doors for the launcher. That'll be a real challenge because there is hardly any space below the launcher and I need to make them workable as well - - - fold down so the launcher can rotate out.

 

@ John - texxn5:  So good hearing from you and seeing that you and Diane are enjoying your trip.  Gwen and I are doing okay, I'm right now in the second try to eradicate the bladder cancer.  Thank you for your compliments and stay safe and in good health.

 

@ Remco: Thank you, yes it really brought it all together, it makes me happy.  Well, yes, - - - once the outer doors are installed and closed you can't see the launcher, but that's why I am trying to make the doors so they can fold down and I can rotate the launcher out.  At least we can see some of it, but I can also remove the entire launcher from the boat if need be for a show and tell 

 

I did not do anything today on the boat.  I had to mow the back yard and really attend to many weeds that are taking over with all the rain we have had.  There is a lot more that needs attention but if the weather is okay (no rain) I need to attend to the draining ditch next our front yard.  Sunday seems the right time 

 

Tomorrow is another day I'll spend cleaning off the plywood cores from the veneer strips I cut to make thin plywood for the deck side doors.  That in itself will be very challenging, to say the least.

 

Cheers to all,

[pete48]

Amazing Piet, The Torpedo launcher looks incredible . Hat's off

 

Best Regards,

Pete

[Piet]

Thanks everyone for joining me with this build, I'm having a ball.

 

Hello Pete, thank you and yes, the launcher did turn out okay, it's amazing what a coat of paint can do 

 

Cheers,

[Piet]

Hello folks and welcome to my shipyard, coffee is up.

 

Today I continued with removing the inner core pieces from the veneer strips.  Instead of using a wood chisel and a sanding block I changed over to a small sanding disk in my Poxxon hand tool.  That way I could also remove most of the cement they used to make the original plywood.

 

I had some plastic sheeting I used for gluing-up the strips of veneer.  Glue won't stick to it, not even CA.  No need to show all yuns the sequence of events in gluing three pieces of veneer together so I didn't take any pics of that.  

 

To keep the stacks nice and flat I folded the plastic sheet over them and then clamped this sandwich between two small flat boards.

 

After about 3 hours I was curious to see how they came out and so far it's okay but te glue was not set yet so I re-clamped it again and wait till tomorrow.

 

I know, this is not very exiting work but it's progress and is mainly ment for my own archive but like to share some of the rather mundane things too   

 

Here are two pics from my archive - - - ho - hum - yawn 

 

This shows my clamping rig as described above.

 

These are the two pieces of my own plywood, in a sneak preview.

 

Cheers,

[Sjors]

Piet,

 

Before you don't know it....you are working now with wood instead of iron   

 

[Remcohe]

Although maybe mundane, it's equally interesting to see how you go about it.

 

Remco

[DORIS]

Wonderful continuation of your work, the whole model and especially metal parts look amazing.
Keep up the work and have a great time
Doris

[Piet]

Hi Sjors, no wonder that stuff cuts so easy - - - wood eh?  Hmmm, is that the stuff that comes from trees?? and not from ore out of mother earth??  I'll have to shift mental gears now and not grab for the soldering iron or torch   

 

Hoi Remco, yeah, it's a little different then just running to the store and buy stuff.  For me it's a matter of 'can I make that' ?  Popeye is another one who's as crazy as I am     As it turns out my plywood is 1.4 mm thick, which is okay but would have liked 2 mm though.  

 

Hello Doris, so good to see you visit my shipyard, I'm honored.  Thank you for your very kind words and I'll try to do do honor to my father in who's memory i am building this model, his boat.

 

Cheers,

[Piet]

First of all I want to thank everyone who visited my shipyard and your likes, it's REALLY very much appreciated.  And not to forget all your kind remarks.

 

After the great fiasco I encountered this morning on my way to the clinic for my BCGI cancer treatment I didn't feel up to going into a hot garage to work on the O19.  You can read all about it in "What Have You Done Today."

 

Well, after a late lunch and reading my mail I felt a little guilty and mozied on into the garage anyway.  Yeah, it was hot but I turned the fan on and opened the doors.  Nice breeze and I was a happy camper.

 

So, I removed the two pieces of plywood from the clamping rig and started to clean the residu glue off and trimmed the pieces.  Didn't look bad at all.  So, now what - - - okay I put the build dock back on the workbench and started with fitting one piece to the port side.  Being careful not to remove too much all at once, trying to remember that I'm now working with wood - - right Sjors?     

 

After carefully and slowly filing and sanding away smidgin by smidgin of the wood It finally fit like a glove.  By that time it was past 17:00 hrs and it was time to quit.  

 

My home made plywood turned out to be 1.4 mm thick - - a little thinner then I really was shooting for but there is still a "steel" plate (file folder card) to be glued to the outside, which'll make it to the 2 mm.  

Next I'll have to make the reinforcing strips on the backside and also make the slight curve and twist of the deck structure.  Then the hinges and assorted hardware.

 

So far - so good.  I took one flash pic of the deck-door-to-be inside the opening.  Not much to look at but there was quite a bit of work involved getting it to this stage.  

 

Here you see my home made piece of plywood fitted in the deck side, to become the door to close it off when the torpedo launcher is in the stowed position.  Still a lot of detail work to be added.

 

Cheers,

[mtaylor]

Looks like the worst of the "grunt" work is over for that door.  And it looks like it's home and comfy.   Now it's just "fix up, paint up, and beautify" as an old Sgt. Major once put it.    I know.. you have the other side door to do... 

[Piet]

A day late and a dollar short on my response to you Mark    Saturday was my day of rest and today I had to first chase electrons and after I found them decided to pull a bunch of weeds from the side yard - - - in the rain.

We had a T-storm move through yesterday evening and I thought it fried the wireless router power supply.  Come to find out that all it did was trip the ground-fault braker for the unit   Okay, I'm back in business.

 

Yep, most of the work on that door is done, still a little tight but that's a good thing.  Next will be the added reinforcements to the back of the door, shaping it to the same contour as the deck side and the other small stuff and hinges.

Oh yeah, then the starboard side yet.

 

Cheers 

[popeye the sailor]

Piet.......all I can say is....WOW! you really put some mileage on that launcher! it looks so awesome! I liked the idea of your home made plywood.....neat idea if you only need a little....why spring for a whole sheet simply super workmanship Piet.....it was shear joy to catch up!

 

I'm looking forward to try something with metal {when the need arises}......I'm taking lessons from you!

[Piet]

Thanks to all for following and your likes.

 

Hey Popeye, great to see you again - - thought you may have fallen off the cliff.  Thank you my friend for your compliments and yes, the launcher was a challenge but a lot of fun doing.  Yep, making plywood for such small pieces seems logical but time consuming.  Just remember to place the grain of the center piece 90 degrees to the others   

 

Working with metal is no different then paper or styrene, just a little harder material 

 

Cheers,

[Piet]

In case yuns think I have been sitting on my hands I can assure you that I have been very busy - - - not so much with the O19 but playing "home maker" is a very tough job   

With Gwen being away for two weeks I have to do laundry, ironing, vacuuming, washing windows, cooking meals etc.  Oh, I forgot shopping for fittels - - - a man's got to eat 

 

Well actually I did some house work and yard work and yesterday and today planning a menu for the weekend when Gwen'll be coming home.  That'll give her a reprieve from cooking. She likes my cooking and kinda complains that I don't do it often enough.

 

However - - - I managed to make both side doors in the deck to fit and have glued the back-up strips to the back of the doors, the handholds and the "steel" plating.  Next will be the hinges.

 

I still plan on making the hinges from card stock.  There is no way to make them from metal at this stage of the game.  I just hope they'll fold down enough so that the launcher can rotate over them - - - keep my fingers crossed and hope I luck out.

 

Well, here are two pics from my archive to show the progress to date.

 

This shows both doors in the stage of receiving the "steel" plating.  The top door has the hand-holds and the card stock cemented to the wooden door.  The bottom door is ready for the card stock to be cemented on.  The card stock is just from an ordinary file folder.   I have sealed the top of the card with clear poly.  That way I can safely sand it smooth without it unraveling and for a smooth paint lay-up.

 

Here are both doors completed and ready for paint and the installation of the card stock hinges.

 

Cheers,