Had a good day today with the ship projects. Iowa had it's final coat bondo putty on the main deck today. Hatches were trimmed and removed after sanding. Missouri's main deck was sanded to a smooth finish of the bondo putty of the main deck. Hull was sanded clean of excess. Both Missouri and IOWA had the superstructures placed on both ships for test fitting. Tom sheeted the top half of the o1 level of Iowa. Tirpitz. main deck is waterproofed and sealed to the hull. Bondo putty was applied to the main deck. This will be sanded smooth sunday or next Thursday. Nagato had it's main deck and lower deck sections resined and sealed to the hull. Need to sand and fill the gaps with bondo and sand to a smooth finish. Konig had it's main deck resin to the subdeck and sealed. Superstructure was test fitted and the barbette locations were marked out. Viribus Unitis hull had the waterline adjusted and checked marked. Almost all of the panels have been predrilled with holes in the corners of the panels in preparation for cutting out. Von der Tann- Nothing done today to it. Hope to resume work soon . Prince of Wales, Graf Spee and DUnkerque are awaiting their turn in the ship yard. Bismarck is awaiting Post IRCWCC NATS refit at the yard. Yamato is waiting for refit at the Yard. HMS EREBUS is waiting it's turn at the Yard.
The VU hull is cut out! Yayyy. Next Tuesday back to the Mighty Mo , Tirpitz, Nagato, Konig, Vdt. Shipyard #2 Bismarck, Yamato are undergoing refit. Also in Yard #2 Graf Spee and POW are awaiting their turn. Hulls are cut out. Dunkerque is waiting for orders to begin construction. Roma is docked
Wow, that's a lot of boats. It sounds like they are all going through the hull to deck process except a few.
Well actually there is...AOBA and the Montana. Hood I would like though. Bismarck and Hood, lke Batman and the Joker. Thier a pair.
Just remember zat ze Germans never Joke(r)!! Seriously Curt, you need a submarine to protect that monstrosity of a fleet!!!!. J PS I know where you can get one.
Mega build update. Started makring out the rib locations on the Mo. Sanded down the main deck of Tirpitz. Sanded decks of Nagato and added more resin to the deck . Filed out the ribs of burrs and crap from both VDT and VU. Removed more of the sintra decking from VDT Didn't get much time at it today. Hope to be more productive next Wed and Thurs.
Mega build update. Or in this case rebuild. Yamato has been skinned and gutted. The hull is empty of everything except for the drive system and steering system. The old water channelling has been removed(foam). The balsa has been stripped off the hull. Seeing that I need to upgrade the model to new technology it was time to get the plumbing checked out and upgraded along with the electrical system. Bismarck has been stripped out as well. The only model intact is ROMA. I'll be back in the yard tomorrow and Thursday to continue work on Mo, Tirpitz, Nagato, VDT, VU, Konig.
More progress today. Mo hull is ready for cutting out. Will do that tomorrow. Vdt main deck is ready for resin and then reinstalling back to the hull. Tirpitz had a thin layer of bondo over the main deck. I ran out of resin catilyst today so nothing done to Konig and Nagato. However I started installing subdeck edges on the VU. Back again tomorrow. I need to get pink foam insulation to layup the 01 level for Konig and the main deck overhang of Nagato. Tom made more progress on his Iowa today.
Well I suppose I should get in on this as well or people are going to think I have vanished. Today the Iowa had the last coat of putty sanded on her decks, at least until I get to final fit and finish. I also finalized my plans for the internals and began to install water channeling. My plans to continue working on the water channeling, then to install the armor and then begin on fitting the electronics. The building is going very well so far and I anticipate no major problems. In addition to my update I also want to comment again on the quality of the Iowa hull. Molded by Ralph Coles, it really is beautiful and will look great on the water. More to come! Tom
Looks like a good internal arrangement which should give the Iowa stability, power, endurance, and reserve buoyancy. Moving along smoothly now BigStick .
Mega build update. Well it was an interesting day today. After I got back from my Chiropractor I called Tom and we got started on the models. Vu had the subdeck hatch edging completed. Didn't get much further than that because I was informed that one of the tires on the car was nearly flat. Had to go to the garage and get it fixed but opted to leave the car there and get the snow tires put on. We also went to Cdn Tire and purchased a fanstastic new tool called a DREMEL MULTI-MAX. Got it for 30 dollars less and I got to tell you it is a Godsend. We tested it out on various materials and made cuts into the marked out panels on Missouri. We cut a very thick section of subdeck and decking on Konig and conducted trimming. We also cut off the overhang of the o1 level of Nagato. No more using fiberglass cut off wheels. The blade Ocilliates at various rpms depending on the job. We notiiced that there was barely any dust thrown up from the cuts. We could make perfect cuts and the blade didn't hitch or grab . Best of all no more of those cut off wheels breaking and flying at you . We were able to quickly go from any angle by a quick turn adjustment of the blade. You can also sand with this tool also. It fits nicely in your hand. Comes with a wide variety of accessory attachements for all job applications. Looking forward to cutting out the Mo next week and cutting out the deck hatches. On that note VDT and Konig had some fit issues with thier decks but those hurdles have been resolved nicely thanks to this tool. I'll be getting a scraper blade attachement so I can cleanly scrape the balsa and glue off the hull frame of Yamato and Bismarck. Looking forward to that actually. I also cut out a section of the o1 level superstructure of Konig made from Pink foam core. Using a special adhesive I glued this section and clamped it to the wood deck that came with the kit.
Well finally the work on cutting out the panels of USS MISSOURI has begun. So far the new Dremel is performing very well. I think of all the ships that I cut windows out the Mo will have the best clean cut panels out of all of them. No more predrilling the corners, no more changing out dremel cut off wheels, no more dust cloud, no more goggles as there is nothing spinning or throwing debris in the air. What littel dust is created falls like sawdust to the ground. Fantastic tool. We should have a section here on the forum for favourite tool of the month. There are so many tools we use in this hobby I bet there are a lot that we do not even know that are being used by some of the battlers here . Vdt 's new deck was installed and sealed with resin. It will get a second coat then putty and sand. Then cut out barbette locations and hatches. Konig 01 foam core supestructure was sanded smooth and trimmed. The bow section of decking was tacked to a subdeck rail and test fittted at the bow. I managed to brace the forcastle and strengthen the joint with resin. Test fit and got a nice fit finally. Just a matter of cutting the foc'scle deck foward of the bulkhead and seal it to the bow section. Tom's IOWA had more work. He cut sections of battery bracing mounts and waterchanneling. So far it is coming along very well. The center sectioin of hull has been laid out very well which will give stability and ease of access to the drive and co2 systems and pump systems. Tom also started shaping the smokestacks and their funnel caps. For what little time we have working on these models were making good progress. I will be focusing a little more on MO to catch up to Tom's Iowa. Were aiming to launch both of these for sea trials siimultaneously and then give them a shakedown and learn to operate as a team unit for prep for Nats in 2012. By that time both ships and ourselves should be very used to our new vessels and be ready to give the Allies heavy firepower support. Tom is going with 6 guns and dual pumps while I will be going with 7 guns and 1 pump same as Yamato. Were both using basically the same motors and direct drive with drag props and probalby ESCs later on. Our goal is to increase stability in the models for a better firing platform and so far the layout is working out well for that. Each ship will have 4- 6v 12amprh SLAs to power the drive and pump systems. I think Tom is going with a dual sysmtem for drive and for Pump or he may bank the battery system as one power unit and may even use addtional packs of battery power dedicated for the pumps or act as reserve power for the pumps. Not sure yet. We did a weigh in and we still have a lot of reserve buoyancy to work with. Goal will be to get the ships weighed in at 40+lbs at least. Bismarck weighed in at 38lbs at Nats this year so the Iowas should be going in on the light of 40+ to 42 .They can go up to 44 lbs max plus 10% but I always like to allow a little reserve buoyancy. Our pump systems will have redundancy switches as back ups to the float or water sensor switches plus we'll have a dedicated switch(s) as well. Tom will be using a manifold for the co2 plumbing and I know I will be using accumulator tanks for the Mo.
Well Monday I am off again and I am trying to get my sched changed to have Next Friday off instead of Tuesday so I can get my CT scan done. I am getting the Graf's plans resized and the Nelson's plans resized to 1/144 scale. I've gone through quite a bit of material getting the ships ready to this stage. Goal is to have them all running on the water. Some will have no bb cannons ready to install, others will have no cannons and others will be fully battle ready. It's an enormous task but I am up to the challenge. Curt
So the Yard is currently like this USS IOWA(TOM) construction USS MISSOURI - construction SMS KONIG - construction SMS Von Der Tan - construction Viribus Unitis - construction DKM Tirpitz-construction IJN NAGATO - construction DKM GRAF SPEE - construction FNS DUNKERQUE - construction HMS Prince of Wales - construction HMS Erebus - Construction DKM BISMARCK - Refit IJN YAMATO -REFIT
Good Lord Curt. That is a lot. I haven't looked at the Tennessee in a few months. It is time to get back to it. Although a new pump motor and wiring will be done. As well as some new servos and trays.
