The Ship Model Forum

While on board USS WISCONSIN (BB-64) during a 2019 ship's reunion, I took quite a few photos of the deck gear and equipment. Recently I became interested in the refueling stations that were installed on these ships in their 1980s refit. There are (4) of these stations located on the main deck - 2 on port side, 2 on starboard side. As I've discussed in other threads, these items are NOT identical but similar - again, I believe that the two primary yards involved in these rebuilds (Long Beach NSYD & Pascagoula, MS) took the general plans for the class and came up with their own construction. They are very much alike, yet not identical. As for the museum ship configurations, WISCONSIN has pretty much a complete RAS unit intact on her after portside station. NEW JERSEY, on the other hand, has only the F.O. riser and valve (blanked off) without any of the associated piping, tripod, flex hose and so forth. Due to having somewhat fairly decent photos of this unit on board WISCONSIN, that is the one I decided to model. In a 1/24 scale, this gives me a 17" long x 8" display area of the deck with all the fittings and equipment that appear in that area of the main deck.

So, here are a couple photos of typical F.O. RAS (replenishment at sea) stations on board USS NEW JERSEY (upper) and USS WISCONSIN (lower) -

(Thanks to Big Jim Slade for the photo)

(I believe I got this photo from Cliffy B several years ago) as my photos are all from deck level or from aboard the tour boat!

So at this point I have 3D designed/printed all the necessary parts for building this display. Here are a couple composite shots of my design. This does not include the wood deck which the display model will have - so, items may appear to be "hanging" in space -


Note - I have revised the angle & flex hose on the fuel station assembly since making these composite pictures.

I have done a couple revisions to the actual F.O. piping assembly as well as adding various connection loops & details to the basic H Stanchions & Closed Chock which I originally designed & printed. Tonight, I finished adding the decking, which is all individual wood strips glued to a built up display board of 1/16" thk. Plexiglass sheet (3 layers) + the 1 1/2" wide deck edge pieces which include the waterway and outer side of the hull. You can see this in the composite pix above. The smaller purple riser & valve is for the JPS aviation fuel piping which is also mounted in this area of the deck at each RAS Port.

While my photos were obviously helpful in designing this display, they were somewhat inconclusive in being able to determine some details of this area of these ships. One of Big Jim's illustrations in his USS NEW JERSEY book (Vol. 1) did clarify some sizes, etc. and I used that as a basis for the general height of the tripod and adjusted as needed. The unit on WISCONSIN I don't believe is as high as the one on NEW JERSEY.

Tomorrow, I hope to begin to install the deck equipment as I'm waiting on some paint that should be delivered early next week.

Here is another shot from the tour boat that I took of WISCONSIN's port side after station -

(My display will not include the nozzle blank that is installed as shown in the photo)

Hank

_________________
HMS III
Mocksville, NC
BB62 vet 68-69

Builder's yard:
USS STODDARD (DD-566) 66-68 1:144, Various Lg Scale FC Directors
Finished:
USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) 67-69 1:200
USN Sloop/Ship PEACOCK (1813) 1:48
ROYAL CAROLINE (1748) 1:47
AVS (1768) 1:48

Hank,

We had pretty much the same refueling equipment on the OK City, with a different arrangement of parts. Here is a close-up photo of the rig and my CAD model of it.





Phil

PS: I didn't model the "corrugations" in the hose, but just used a smooth hose. The ridges would have added many tens of thousands of facets to a drawing that already had 2.2 million objects and about 22 million points!

_________________
A collision at sea will ruin your entire day. Aristotle

Phil,

Thanks for the additional info/photos - I can use those as a confirmation of my design of the hose & nozzle apparatus. You took the same approach I did with how to design the flexible hose - those ridges, while different somewhat on the battleship rig, could have been a design killer to do in 3D. My print came out very nice without them and I'll use it as is.

One other (more historical in nature) item re. the rig on NEW JERSEY - Big Jim emailed me that the ship has stowed the additional flex hose, tripod, etc. so that equipment still exists, it just isn't installed on deck as it is aboard WISCONSIN.

Hank

_________________
HMS III
Mocksville, NC
BB62 vet 68-69

Builder's yard:
USS STODDARD (DD-566) 66-68 1:144, Various Lg Scale FC Directors
Finished:
USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) 67-69 1:200
USN Sloop/Ship PEACOCK (1813) 1:48
ROYAL CAROLINE (1748) 1:47
AVS (1768) 1:48

After a couple more redesigns & reprints, I've gotten this display fairly well in hand -

Now that the lifeline stanchions are in place I can modify the lifeline/connectors to fit - always a bit of a difference in reality and design. Will reprint those tomorrow. I hope my paint arrives so I can paint the F.O. unit and JPS piping - so, this is moving along fairly well; the tripod is already painted.

Hank

_________________
HMS III
Mocksville, NC
BB62 vet 68-69

Builder's yard:
USS STODDARD (DD-566) 66-68 1:144, Various Lg Scale FC Directors
Finished:
USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) 67-69 1:200
USN Sloop/Ship PEACOCK (1813) 1:48
ROYAL CAROLINE (1748) 1:47
AVS (1768) 1:48

Today/tonight I worked on reprinting a couple times the lifelines/connectors until I got them long enough. Then worked quite a while tonight on installing the several chains that go between the H Stanchion & Pipe Stanchion when the fueling station is not in use.

This was extremely tedious work and with the shop in the upper 80s tonight, not real comfortable to work in. As Mr. Skunk was out and about snorting grubs in the back yard, I didn't think it prudent to leave the shop door open. Tomorrow I'll check out the local feed & seed and see what they recommend to repel skunks from the yard - too bad because they grovel for Junebug & other insect pest grubs in the ground. When I went out to the shop after evening chow, we did have a distant encounter, but not of the 3rd Kind

Here is tonight's progress -



Tomorrow I'll paint the chains and begin getting the F.O. Station parts ready for installation.

Hank

_________________
HMS III
Mocksville, NC
BB62 vet 68-69

Builder's yard:
USS STODDARD (DD-566) 66-68 1:144, Various Lg Scale FC Directors
Finished:
USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) 67-69 1:200
USN Sloop/Ship PEACOCK (1813) 1:48
ROYAL CAROLINE (1748) 1:47
AVS (1768) 1:48

Hank,

Nice work!

I can sympathize with your skunk problem. We have one (some?) in our neighborhood. Seems it likes to wander past my bedroom window sometime after midnight. The stink is awful! I open the windows and run a whole house fan to draw in cool air to cool down the house at night and close up during the day. I don't need an air conditioner. But when the skunk is around I have to close the windows and shut off the fan. A real PITA, especially after I have gone to sleep.

Fortunately we have had a very cool summer - with one short hot spell a month or so ago. My cooling strategy sometimes works too well. I was cold all morning and finally looked at the thermometer in the house - and it was 61F! I was wearing winter clothes. It got up to 78F outside this afternoon, but is supposed to be in the low 90sF tomorrow. I really need to cool the house tonight so I hope the skunk doesn't come back!

Let us know if you find an effective skunk repellant!

Phil

_________________
A collision at sea will ruin your entire day. Aristotle

Phil,

Thanks! Too hot in the shop tonight but making progress. My F.O. RAS unit is finished and awaiting installation on the deck. I have a couple of things to do prior to locating & affixing the tripod, so I may get to that tomorrow.

On the skunk front, I may try the product Bonide Repels All granules - you apply it (spreader) to the yard and its ingredients are supposed to be repulsive to all rodents incl. skunks. So, we shall see. I'm also going to do a spreader run of anti-grub granules, something which I haven't done in 2 years, and more than likely the reason Mr. skunk has been making the nighttime back yard his dinner table.

Hank

_________________
HMS III
Mocksville, NC
BB62 vet 68-69

Builder's yard:
USS STODDARD (DD-566) 66-68 1:144, Various Lg Scale FC Directors
Finished:
USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) 67-69 1:200
USN Sloop/Ship PEACOCK (1813) 1:48
ROYAL CAROLINE (1748) 1:47
AVS (1768) 1:48

Hank:

The planked deck looks very good indeed. The give away was the model bench clutter! You might check, but my recollection was the waterway had a lip on the inside as well as outboard. Unfortunately on Missouri all the RAS equipment is stowed away. Some of it is secured to the bulkheads. Nice job on doing the curved hose in DSM, not the easiest evolution. Lifelines and turnbuckles, outstanding!

Cheers: Tom

Tom,

Thanks - as for the inside lip, you are correct, but I had to make some adjustments. I may be able to slide a very thin piece of styrene sheet along the outer deck edge, but I'll have to think about that first. At this point, the one photo that does show the lip simply didn't catch my attention at the initial design stage. I also left off the myriad of bolt heads that are on the surface of the outer angled surface of the waterway as this probably would have stopped DSM altogether if I had put them in.

Here is today's fitting of the F.O. piping - not permanent at this point:

I've still got a bit of work to do on the decking where the tripod is secured before actually adhering the piping in place.

Hank

_________________
HMS III
Mocksville, NC
BB62 vet 68-69

Builder's yard:
USS STODDARD (DD-566) 66-68 1:144, Various Lg Scale FC Directors
Finished:
USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) 67-69 1:200
USN Sloop/Ship PEACOCK (1813) 1:48
ROYAL CAROLINE (1748) 1:47
AVS (1768) 1:48

Hank:

The reason I remember the lip is being down on hands and (younger) knees holystoning Missouri's teak in a previous century far far away. Your Jim Saw did a great job milling the planking. Very new looking teak! I'll be interested to see if these details are at all reproducible at the scale of our respective Dreadnoughts.

My printer hasn't been shipped as yet. They say Prime is free shipping, but unless you pay extra they delay the initial shipping bay a week or more. They pulled this stunt before and when I went to cancel, it was amazingly enough shipped! This new one, the Photon M5s Pro has al. sorts of bells and whistles, hope I can figure it out. It does have a tank heater for people working in cold shops. Warning modes, low tank warning and some sort of phone app? Hope it's not connected to the "cloud".

An interesting set of larger scale projects which express a different view of the maritime world.

Cheers: Tom

BB62vet, is that somewhat similar to the ones used on some if not all of the Forrest Sherman Class destroyers? i noticed it on DD-938 USS Jonas Ingram Booklet of General Plans 1970.

I have no idea - it would be logical to think that these refueling stations are similar in layout/design although not identical. Space & location requirements probably dictate how simple or complex they need to be. I think Dr. PR's photos from OKIE CITY show that this is the case - minimum and basic, as would be found on a DD or CLG works just as well as a larger unit such as the ones on the IOWA class BBs. Also, the BBs needed to include other piping services as well; those were not required on the smaller ships.

Tom,
The inner lip is now in place but in doing so, I managed to mess up several of the chains and had to reprint (actually redesign new ones as I couldn't find my original drawing ) them. The new ones are close, but not identical. I may end up removing the remaining original ones and replacing so everything is uniform. The R.B. resin, while flexible, is still fragile and it doesn't take much to break something.

As for Amazon Prime, I know it's supposed to save money, but I've never subscribed to it. As you've found out, there's always a catch. Hopefully your new printer will arrive soon, and you'll begin to have "fun" again!!! I think the Mono 6 that I've got is sophisticated enough for me. But, once you've explored the new features on your new one, I'm sure you'll determine what works best for you.

Hank

_________________
HMS III
Mocksville, NC
BB62 vet 68-69

Builder's yard:
USS STODDARD (DD-566) 66-68 1:144, Various Lg Scale FC Directors
Finished:
USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) 67-69 1:200
USN Sloop/Ship PEACOCK (1813) 1:48
ROYAL CAROLINE (1748) 1:47
AVS (1768) 1:48

Hank:

The number of rabbit holes we can run down are endless, but the fire stations are a good one. I should go through my hundreds of Missouri photos and track them down. I have done a few but they are somewhat more generic than yours. As these models were built before we got into 3D, there are a lot of small upgrades we can do. So far it's been gun directors and radars for myself, though Alaska got a whole new light AA and secondary battery plus directors. Randal (APA) is a mixed bag, much traditional construction mixed with castings and some 3D. Especially the light AA suite and the 5" 38.

Tom

Still working on this mini-project from time to time - trying to get the figurines correctly painted and then things will be pretty much complete!

Hank

_________________
HMS III
Mocksville, NC
BB62 vet 68-69

Builder's yard:
USS STODDARD (DD-566) 66-68 1:144, Various Lg Scale FC Directors
Finished:
USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) 67-69 1:200
USN Sloop/Ship PEACOCK (1813) 1:48
ROYAL CAROLINE (1748) 1:47
AVS (1768) 1:48

Would you mind posting a picture of your stanchion CAD diagram?

Thanks,
Sergio

Sergio,
Here are a few screen shots of the .stl files for the "H" Stanchion w/pipe bar, plain "H" Stanchion, and Pipe Stanchion -






Hope these are what you were asking for!

Hank

_________________
HMS III
Mocksville, NC
BB62 vet 68-69

Builder's yard:
USS STODDARD (DD-566) 66-68 1:144, Various Lg Scale FC Directors
Finished:
USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) 67-69 1:200
USN Sloop/Ship PEACOCK (1813) 1:48
ROYAL CAROLINE (1748) 1:47
AVS (1768) 1:48