Having completed the USS Wolverine Project in 11 months time, pretty good if I may say so, and delivering her to her new home at the Kalamazoo Aviation History Museum, it is time to get the Indy out of mothballs. She has been sitting for over a year. I don't typically like to stop a project to start another one. That's a good way to lose track and concentration on any givin subject. It took me a little while to get back on track with the Indy project, plus there were some malfunctions with the build of the hull that materialized while she sat in the mothballed state. I'll detail those problems as I go along here. These first pictures I am posting go back to the beginning of the build of CA-35. There were a lot of pics posted here on the project, but this site got hacked real good and all was lost so I will not post all the original images, only the ones I feel will get all of you back up to snuff on the project. I also got a new camera, so new images will be posted here very soon. I am trying a new approach to scratchbuilding on the Indy project. I will use a card model to assist in fabricating the many parts on a cruiser. The card models printed parts were blown up from 1/200 scale to the 1/96 scale I have chosen. As a result, some clarity is lost during the conversion of the scales. I also have three sets of plans from the Floating Drydock, Steve Wipers great Warship Pictorials book on the Indianapolis and Portland, and a Profile Morskie book on the Indy. The plans were also modified to 1/96 scale. By combining all these different elements together, I hope to get a more accurate replica in a shorter build time. Let's look at the build!![img]http://warshipmodels.com/~users/Bill-W/DSC01386.JPG[/img]
Here is the beginning stages of constuction of the hull. I liked the way the card model laid up all the framing members and the keel so I used that procedure here. The hull is actually four separate sections, all tied together. I attached all the card model drawings of the various parts to poster board with spray adhesive. I then cut out the parts I wanted to use and tranferred them to whatever material I happen to be working in, in this case balsa and plywood for the general framing of the hull areas. The main keel and the center longitudinal sections here are 3/16" plywood, while the frames are 1/8" balsa, doubled where hull plating butts together. Note I have started to cover the hull in 3/32" sheet balsa.
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Same stage in constuction here, only a top view. Note the decks have been installed using 1/8" balsa to add rigidity to the structure.
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Stern view here, stb. side. Note I have added some stiffeners from balsa stock. The rudder post and the skeg are part of the large keel part, not added later.
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Port side of the bow area here. Again note the stiffeners.
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Stb. side full view here. Things are still a bit rough at this stage!
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Having sheeted off the entire hull with the 3/32" balsa, I normally would proceed with coating the hull with several coats of epoxy marine resin, sanding bteween each coat. I mentioned earlier about trying new approaches to scratchbuilding, here is one of them. I decided I would try to cover the balsa with a layer of .010 sheet styrene, most of which you can see has been added in this shot. By using the styrene, I reasoned that I could eliminate the resin coating step, which is time consuming, messy and expensive. I felt that the styrene would better represent all the welded steel plating along the ships hull. I did several test pieces attaching the styrene to the balsa sheet to see if it would work. All seemed good as I could not separate the pieces once glued together with contact cement. So, I decided I would proceed. I got it all done, finished out the hull smooth as glass, and the weld lines looked good. I then added the planked wood deck on the forcastle area, all the railings and other details and did all the paintwork before I put the Indy into mothballs to start the Wolverine project. I really goofed up!! Upon taking the Indy out of storage, I found that the styrene was separating at the joints in a few areas. Now I had a real mess!! It was either scrap the hull and start over using my tried and true method, or try to fix this problem. I decided to try to fix it. I did three things wrong. #1- I did not seal the hull well enough before applying the contact cement, thinking that the cement would do that. #2- The adhesive was not strong enough. #3- I forgot to take into consideration that styrene does shrink!!! Keep in mind I had problems only in a few areas. The general covering was still very good. Only a few butt joints were bad. Bad enough that I had to strip all the details off, a costly measure, and cut out all sections of these butted joints that were bad. I then used gorrilla glue to retack any loose areas of styrene. The sections I cut out were filled back in with fibreglass embedded auto body filler. After repairing everything, I took the hull in and out of high humidity and high temps here outside, then back inside where the temp is a constant 72 degrees and about 35% humidity to see if the changes in these temp. and humidity factors would affect the repairs I had made.I did this for a week. So far so good. I have not seen anymore problems so far. I don't think I will use this method again. It is a question of longevity. I can't have the replica in a museum, and have it blow apart in five years. That don't look good for me. I thought I would illustrate this problem for all of you. Scratchbuilding can sometimes not be a exact science.
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Heres another angle of the styrene being applied. Note that the bow is now formed in.
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Hull upside down here, fully sheeted off with the styrene.
A study in scale here. The CIC is 5' 8" tall. This will give you an idea of the realative size of the Indy. I had to beg to get her to do this!! Hee- Hee!
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In this photo you can see I have added the armor belting and the bilge keels. The armor belt is 3/64" sheet balsa topped with the .010 styrene again. A used a pounce wheel to simulate the rivits on the styrene part of the belt before attaching to the balsa base. It was then glued to the side of the hull in the correct position. Bilge keels are shaped balsa strip, sealed well, then attached. Note hull is fully primed now.
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Hull taking shape. I have added the prop shaft exit housings and the rudder here. If you look close you'll see them.
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A little better view of the rudder and the shaft exits here. Rudder is shaped and sealed balsa. Shaft exit housings are a resin casting I made.
Time to add prop shafts and struts. Note the beautiful turned brass shafts made for me by Steve Nuttall. He will be doing all the many gun barrels on the ship,too. Struts are made from styrene strip.Note four need to be added yet.
Aft view of the shafts and struts.
Here is the forward 8" 55 Cal gun turrent. Barrels by Steve Nuttall again. The range finders, main turrent body, the barbette, and all life rafts are all resin castings I made so all three turrents are exactly the same. Ladder rungs are formed copper wire and placed on one by one after drilling locater holes. Note the railings along the deck which I had to remove during repairs to the hull. That cost me a few bucks!!
Here is one of the 40mm quad AA gun mounts. The kit is from John Haynes from the UK. The barrels were replaced with Steve Nuttalls. Note he even has the recoil springs added. Just Great!!! Haynes fitting is very good,too. All I need to add is the coolant lines to the barrels. There a six of these mounts on the Indy. Let's get back to the hull............
Now that all repairs have been completed, I repainted the hull and re-stained the forcastle deck to the correct color. This is a shot of the fwd. port side. Note very fwd. end not painted yet. I'll add additional details here first. Indy camo scheme is MS.22 consisting of two vertical colors, Navy Blue 5-N and Haze Grey 5-H. All decks and horizontal surfaces will be Deck Blue 20-B. This camouflage was to present the appearance of a smaller target, or to confuse the distance to a target, from any aerial observers. Note #1 turrent.
Heres the stb. side fwd. Note I have added the degaussing cable. Made from styrene rod. Anchors are cast metal from HR Products.
Port side midships here. I have added the scupper pipes, made from formed styrene tube.
Port side here again, a little farther fwd. Note the portholes. P/E brass from Tom's Modelworks. A bit challenging to install as they are very delicate. Boom made from tapered wood doweling with auto pinstripe tape to simulate steel bands.
Port side aft here. Note the prop guard. Again fabricated from styrene shapes. I laid out a pattern on the hull where the guards will go and then drilled holes to accept the styrene shapes, then assembled the guard right on the hull. All struts on propshafts completed also.
Dead-on bow view here. Note the knife like shape of the cruisers bow.
Stb. side aft here showing the business end of the Portland Class Cruisers. Four screws developing over 150,000 HP driving the ships to 32+ knots, thats fast! Props are solid brass and are to scale from LH Dockyard.
Another pic of stb. side aft a bit further away. Note I have started on the aft superstructure. More on that coming up.
I have had some questions on how I built the 8" 55 Cal. Main Turrents. I'll try to illustrate that here in the following photos.............
As I have previously stated, I am using a card model as a guide to construction. Here is the pattern for the turrent from the card model. You are sposed' to bend and fold this into a reasonable shape that looks like a turrent.
What a pain!!
I give credit to the card modelers!! Anyway, I'll fold it up and see what I get. Since I want to create a master part to mold the turrents out of resin, this is a good starting point to get the general shape of the turrent.Note the range finder patterns here too.
Here I have folded up the paper pattern of the turrent and I have begun to shape it up a little more with some autobody filler. Balsa stiffners were also added inside the turrent to keep things from moving about. I have also done a mock-up of one of the range finders, also in paper, which you see placed here. I'll use this assy. as a guide to make the actual master for the mold for the turrents.
Using the above prototype from paper, I now have made a new one from styrene and balsa, using the first as a guide and comparing the new one against the drawings I have. All looked pretty good, so I added some details. Note the locater holes for the ladder rungs and the w/t doors. Also note depressions where range finers will go. Also details on the front of the turrent. This master, after a bit more fine tuning will be placed into a leakproof box, four sides and a bottom. I'll tack the master as you see it into the bottom of the box and then pour silicone rubber RTV into the box to form the mold, and let cure for 24 hrs. The RTV compound will not stick to the master.
And here is the mold, with the master removed. I'll now pour three turrents using casting resin. These cure fast, 10 minutes or so. The resin is mixed in two equal parts, then poured into the mold.Note that the RTV pics up EVERY DETAIL in the master part, including imperfections. Make sure your master is correct and as free of flaws as possible before you pour the resin into the mold. This will save you some work after you "pull" the part from the mold. Note the "box" shape of the mold.
Here is the mold for the barbettes. Same procedure here except there was no paper pattern for the part. I made my own master part using styrene stock material and following the drawings and photos to fabricate it.Same procedure used for the range finders, again using the paper part for a prototype.
Here is the completed turrent. There are four molds used here. The main turrent body, the barbette, and the left and right range finders. Liferafts are another mold I made from vac-u-form plastic. There are other materials you can use to make a mold other than the RTV rubber, such as clay or vacform plastic to name just two. Note I have added Steve Nuttalls great CNC barrels. Also added ladder rungs and grab rails made from formed copper wire. Periscope is a small piece of styrene rod. Note the small eyelets on top of the turrent.These were used on the real ship to tie down the rafts with rope, securing the ropes to the eyelets.Can you guess what I used for these?? The answer would surprise you!
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Here is a size comparison of the eyelets. Note they have long stems on them and they have small barbs on the shafts so they wont pull out when placed into a drilled hole. A great little item for rigging. Note there are two sizes. Shafts can be cut to length and superglued into your locater hole to hold rigging lines securely.
Here is a series of pictures of one of the completed turrents on deck.
It's now time to start building the superstructure of the ship. There are two main sections to the superstructure, one fwd. and one aft, with the hanger/catapault deck in between the two. I decided to start with the aft section as is illustrated here.
Again using the card model parts and checking them against the plans, I started to fabricate all the different sections to form the aft superstructure. Note here there are six different sub-assemblies to make up this one large section.Each sub-assembly was built one by one and details added as I went along. Then these assemblies are stacked on top of one another. Material is sheet styrene with balsa stiffeners inside structures where needed.
Heres a close up of the fwd. section of the structure shown above. Note I have added numerous details in cast metal, p/e brass, resin, wood, etc. Of interest are the accordian doors to the hanger bay, again fabricated from styrene. Note the orange material on the top edge of the splinter shields. Telephone wire used here. Mushroom vents between 5" RS lockers are made from dollhouse parts.
Here's another view of the same section as above pics. Note all the "boxes" on deck. They are 5" RS lockers, ammo hoists,etc. These are illustrated in another photo below.To fabricate these box assemblies, I first cut and shape the correct configuration of any givin box out of balsa stock material, then wrap each box with .010 sheet styrene, adding any details last, such as doors or hatches, etc. I then glue them to their appropriate locations on deck.
In this sequnce of constuction I have added the midships gun director / searchlight platform and the aft funnel assy.Note the blue areas on the funnel. These are parts I made from balsa masters and then vac-u-formed.Funnel was built up from a frame consisting of a
center section of styrene and then balsa formers added to that. Sheet styrene at .010 was then used to cover the frame.Vac-u Form parts were then added along with other details.Note detail inside the funnel.
Same section as above at a different angle. Note the four splinter shields aft of the funnel assy.My trusty toilet paper roll holder used here! Exact diameter as compared to the plans. I just cut to the correct height, and attach.
A close up of the above photo.Again notice all the different materials used in the detail parts. P/E brass, cast metal, wood forms, etc. Ladder rungs are HO freight car parts.
The aft mast construction is now underway as you can see.Styrene tube and sheet used here. Photo illustrates where radars and other details will go.Note railing around SK radar mount location. This is incorrect and will be removed.Oop's!!!
Another view of the SK radar platform. Again, the railing is incorrect and will be removed.Ladders from Plastruct, Inc.
Another view of the aft mast assy. A rather complicated structure. I pulled out some hair over this!!
Yet another view of the mast here. A few more details to add, but it is nearing completion.
[img]http://warshipmodels.com/~users/Bill-W/DSC02238.JPG[/img]
This photo shows the entire assy. of the aft superstructure. I have illustrated the photo to show what is already placed and where future items will go. Note that the sections of the stucture are not all permanantly attached to each other yet. Paint work first. Then,I'll assemble and attach this whole thing to the deck and start on the fwd. section of the superstructure.
Looks as good as I remember it, I'm looking forward to more.
