The Ship Model Forum

Thanks, Pascal - I have those photos from the BB-55 website - they all help, but having readable drawings is what I'm lacking at this point. I may be able to enlarge the plan drawings I have in my FLETCHER Plan Book but haven't looked into that as yet.

Hank

Interesting photos. I hadn't realized that the 1.1 mounts had a slewing feature. This would be useful at very high elevation where small corrections would otherwise require very large rotations. This in practice may or may not have proved useful as it doesn't seem to have been duplicated in other USN weapons.

Cheers: Tom

Some pictures in HD:

USS North Carolina.

Clic 2 times than save picture with the right clic:

[url=https://postimg.cc/67grB37r][img]https://i.postimg.cc/67grB37r/2952154288-91199951b1-o.jpg[/img][/url]

[url=https://postimg.cc/Yj16wttF][img]https://i.postimg.cc/Yj16wttF/47737103741-2eb89a1551-o.jpg[/img][/url]

[url=https://postimg.cc/21HdXTrX][img]https://i.postimg.cc/21HdXTrX/50639683941-b8236b2aa1-o.jpg[/img][/url]

[url=https://postimg.cc/fShY0rfk][img]https://i.postimg.cc/fShY0rfk/2780880715-f722566124-o.jpg[/img][/url]

I am more than likely going to halt design work at this point until I can come up with more useable, readable, and accurate drawings of this gun mount - I can't see moving forward and accomplishing my goals with the limited info I have to work with - so, this project will take a pause....!

Hank

I'm thinking that this gun mount is going to need a lot of work on it before being really usable, at any scale. In addition, orientation for printing is another consideration after seeing how these early prints have turned out. Always an experiment.

Hank

Hank:

Will be interesting to see if these can be printed successfully in smaller scale often used by modelers!

Best regards: Tom

I've printed a couple of the last modified gun assemblies and have one fairly well (but not completely) cleaned up:
[attachment=0]Gun Assembly_2.jpeg[/attachment]
A second assembly is now waiting to be de-supported and cleaned up. I'll hold off any painting until I finish the mount chassis and see if the two fit together - that's still an open question at this point!

Hank

Phil - Thanks for the pipe railing refs. - always good to have that sort of info on hand when making visual "guesstimations", etc.

NS - Thanks for the nice comment!! Much appreciated! This is quite a complex design and with very little actual detailed info to go on, I'm surprised that it's turned out as well as it has so far. When I did the original layout, everything was in one design file; I've since moved things into separate files and now have 4 files. I laid the items out in the original file and once drawn up to an actual "part", moved them for detailing into their own file.

So, to answer your question - the gun assemblies were laid out exactly where they should be within the framwork of the mount chassis and THEN moved into a new file for detailing. This way the center of the pins on either side that hold the guns in place are the same centers that the pin holes have on the chassis. I highlighted the entire gun assembly and then from the side view rotated it to make sure it would do exactly that and then made the move. By "copy/paste" you are in essence moving from one file to another in the SAME design location. Always leave the part in the new file where it appears and DON'T MOVE IT - you can work, rotate, spin, whatever from that location in the new file. If you do move the objects, then you will need to re-orient it back in the original file if that were necessary to do so.

I am now printing the gun assemblies for the 3rd time with minor modifications on each print run due to items not printing. So, this morning's print will hopefully come out complete and I can then return to the mount chassis design.
[attachment=0]1.1 in Mk. 2 Gun Assembly_2.JPG[/attachment]


Hank

That's a really well done model.

Question - do you use DSM to test articulation of the guns in the cradle/mount? IE, do you see if it will elevate properly on the pivot point using software tools, or do you print an example and do a physical fit/function test for that sort of thing?

I'm a neophyte with DSM and am still learning a lot of aspects to it - but I see that there appears to be the ability to test 'mechanical' aspects like that, but I'm not sure how yet.

Great work!

NS

Hank,

For a lot of things I have used "photoguesstimation" to determine size. One handy vertical size reference is pipe railing with three horizontal pipes. Standard Navy railing in the 1930s and 1940s had 12 inch spacing between the top three rails with 15 inch below the lowest rail (12-12-15). However ships often had 3 inch high coamings around the deck edges, so photos show a 12 inch gap between the lower rail and the top of the coaming.

Occasionally you find two pipe railing or some other non-standard type so all bets are off. And you do have to allow for perspective distortions.

Horizontal size references are more difficult to find.

Phil

[quote="Fliger747"]Hank: Coming along nicely! Perhaps I scanned over it, but what scale are you doing your prints at?
Regards: Tom[/quote]

Tom,

Thanks! I appreciate the comment!! Once again, I'm using the Mount & Turret Catalog cut sheet for this gun mount (pg. 16) and dimensioning it off that drawing. So, this works out to be approx. 1/50th scale - doesn't come out exactly. The Mk. 49 is based loosely on eyeballing the relative sizes of the two items in photos and then "guesstimating" how large to make the base plate & base ring.

Hank

Hank:

Coming along nicely! Perhaps I scanned over it, but what scale are you doing your prints at?

Regards: Tom

Back to working on the gun mount & gun assemblies (I had separated these into 3 different files to make it easier to work on individual parts) tonight and have the 4 gun assemblies about ready to run a test print -
[attachment=0]1.1 in Mk. Gun Assembly_1.JPG[/attachment]
These include the rather complex cooling lines & piping that took a while to get designed. I've noticed in quite a few photos from different ships that the lines were not all identical in their layout and as such there is some room to play around with this arrangement. This also allows for some simplification in how this all connects. Trying to do this exactly as the originals were probably piped, is almost impossible to do with the available information.

Now working back on the mount chassis to get it to where I can add the upper elevation/training apparatus & parts (also in a 3rd design file for simplicity). A slow, but logical way to get the entire mount to come out and fit together. I do want the gun assemblies to be able to elevate so this was one of the motivating factors in getting it completed in its own design file.

Hank

Over the last few days I've printed 2 sets of the 2nd edition of this, one set that was usable. So, one of the two pieces has been cleaned up & painted -
[attachment=1]Resized_20221022_134543.jpeg[/attachment]
[attachment=0]Resized_20221022_134532.jpeg[/attachment]
The color scheme based on the photo of this director installed in USS PHILADELPIA (CA-41). A bit of touch up to do, but otherwise completed. The 2nd unit has not been cleaned up or painted as yet. Probably try to do that this weekend, as well.

Still working on the 1.1" gun mount design as this is quite a mix of complex parts to be designed and fitted into one complete unit.

[quote="MartinJQuinn"]Dunno if you saw these pics over on Navsource: http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/57mk.htm[/quote]

Martin,
Thanks for the reply & comment!! YES!!! That photo and its accompanying second view I have downloaded and am using as reference. At this point I have printed one further edition and will do another this morning because I broke a couple parts on the original print. Here is my latest version -
[attachment=1]Mk. 44 Gun Director_2nd Edition_2.JPG[/attachment]
[attachment=0]Mk. 44 Gun Director_2nd Edition_3.JPG[/attachment]
Again, without complete dimensions and further photo backup, this will be a "stylized" version of this equipment. However, I think it's "as accurate" as the versions being offered commercially as neither of them appear to be identical.

Once I have the gun mount finished, I'm thinking of something in the way of a display similar to the fantail photo of these items as installed on USS ASTORIA.

Tom, Pascal -

Thanks so much to you both!! Yes, documentation and visual evidence is key to making things out of thin air (or in this case, resin.... :doh_1: )

I've also been working a bit on the STODDARD stacks in between working on these two designs. First possible frost tomorrow a.m. so getting the shop space heater going tonight on low to try to keep a bit of warmth for tomorrow.

This gun director will need to be simplified quite a bit in order to get something reasonable as an end result.

Hank

Dunno if you saw these pics over on Navsource: http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/57mk.htm

Good job! :thumbs_up_1:

Hank. That’s an issue with the drawings is you really can’t tell the shape of many parts. Those 3 d drawings in manuals are good for that but not dimensions.

Good work so far! Tom

Back to working on the 2nd Edition of the Mk. 44 Gun Director. This is a very complex piece of equipment and the two products available commercially I don't believe come anywhere close to being correct. The two photos I have to work from are very difficult to discern as to exactly how this all fits together, so my current modifications will also be somewhat "conjecture" in appearance. I've got this so far on 2nd Edition -
[attachment=0]Mk. 44 Gun Director_2nd Edition_1.JPG[/attachment]
Perhaps another day or so of design to get this to where it can be test printed to see what it looks like. Again, not an accurate representation, but a closer one hopefully!

Hank