I've hesitated beginning a new thread with 2 others in progress, but Wha Hail!!! as Tom says!! So, here is the scoop -
With two 1/144 scale models in progress, I thought a tanker might just be interesting enough to do as a long term project (well
- all my projects are LONG TERM!!!) If they weren't, I'd probably croak....
So, over the last few months I've been collecting plans, info, data, whatever on USN 1940s era T-3 fleet tankers and have been doing 3D design/printing of various parts intermixed with some LSM/R stuff and DD-566 stuff. Of course with NARA closed to the Taxpayers (but NOT to the Brandon staff and their kindred loonies in their constant pursuit of going after anything/everything sacred to our nation), it's rather difficult to find pertinent drawings/plans, etc. for various parts of these ships as quite a few of the regular modelers on SMF (not the forum trolls) are also finding out.
In spite of this politically imposed imposition, I've settled on one particular ship and having secured a scaled full size drawing (actually downloaded from NARA online - take that Brandon!!!) of said vessel, I've proceeded with designing and printing various parts as described above. For security reasons (trolls abound, take caution
) I will refrain from mentioning the ship in question at present. It is however, a T3-S2-A1 fleet tanker, CIMERRON class laid down in 1945. If this comes to fruition, it will be depicted during the 1950s as I'm not into the WWII era period of modeling (except for the LSM/R).
So, just a few of the parts I've been designing/printing and stowing away are:
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2-Roller Chock_1.JPG [ 63.44 KiB | Viewed 2343 times ]
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144 scaled T-3 Gasoline Scuttle wVent.JPG [ 36.97 KiB | Viewed 2343 times ]
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T-3 Bridge Deck Sgl Drum Winch_1.JPG [ 64.27 KiB | Viewed 2343 times ]
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T-3 Foc'sle Deck House.JPG [ 55.98 KiB | Viewed 2343 times ]
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T-3 Stm Pwr'd Deck Winch Final.JPG [ 86.77 KiB | Viewed 2343 times ]
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T-3 Stack_2.JPG [ 39.67 KiB | Viewed 2343 times ]
I have quite a few more completed, but this is a good sampling of completed and printed parts. Sorry, my actual parts photos are not quite presentable but I'm working on that. Also, I have in hand a couple of the gun tub assemblies (minus the mounts) which were rather involved in design -
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T-3 Fwd. 3in50 Gun Tubs.JPG [ 30.03 KiB | Viewed 2343 times ]
Tom Falley has been consulting with me on these designs and we exchange designs as needed, so his work on 40mm gun assemblies has come in handy. Slight modifications are usually rule of thumb in addition to rescaling as we build in different scales. NOTE: if some of these items seem out of scale or parts of those items seem a bit large, there's a reason for that and it has to do with 3D printing. Along those lines, I'm now on board with the use of Rapid Black resin as I'm finding out (Tom has been using this all along) that it produces a higher degree of detail than the other two gray types of resin I was using - most of my parts are printed in the older resin but that's ok - they are still acceptable, but the newer parts will have a higher degree of detail in them. And, with Tom's help I've finally achieved Anchor Chain Nirvana
- printing a fully flexible, individually linked anchor chain - sized both for STODDARD and the T-3 to boot!
I will update this thread from time to time, but don't intend to constantly update this as that would tend to get way too involved at this stage.
Hank
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) - I have come across online a series of 1940s era cargo ship drawings that can be found on NARA - if you are building a model of such. I stumbled across this a couple nights ago and (of course!!) didn't take the time to write down or bookmark how I arrived at this locale, but at least SOME info had been digitized prior to the Curtain of Doom coming into play. 
)
