Hi everyone!
First, let me send out thanks to Capitão Norbert and Russ for visiting and posting your comments.
As always, it is great to hear from you! I will be the first to admit that the methods I use and the accuracy I strive to achieve means that progress proceeds at a snail's pace on my projects. Fortunately, I'm not working to a schedule like some of the master modelers who post on ModelWarships. Hopefully, my arcane practices will help others discover a different approach around a roadblock on their projects!
Since returning from Virginia, I've been working very long hours, which hasn't left me much time to do anything other than tinker on the 59.
Despite the demands of my job, work is still slowly continuing on the fire main risers and this week, I'm going to show you work in progress on another piece of topside equipment that I'm working on; the superstructure deck CO2 fire extinguisher reels and nozzles.
While researching LSMs, I was surprised to find that in addition to fire hoses, they were equipped with pretty sophisticated firefighting equipment. Besides your typical fire hoses and portable fire extinguishers, LSMs were equipped with chemical fire extinguishing systems consisting of a fire-fighting-foam system and a CO2 system. The foam system had four dispensers: two in the upper level of the engine room, port and starboard; one in the windlass machinery room, port side forward; and one in Boiler room, starboard side. The CO2 system had three dispensing nozzles: one in the lower level Engine Room, starboard side; and two on the superstructure deck, port side, between frames 15 – 16 and frames 23 -23. The reels for the two topside CO2 dispensers are the subject of this update.
Here is a photo of the forward port CO2 dispenser on the LSM-56:
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File comment: A screen shot of the port forward CO2 reel on the LSM-56. Photo captured from a WW2 US Navy training film on LSMs
CO2 station.jpg [ 111.26 KiB | Viewed 1806 times ]
The hose reel design varied over time; some hose reels didn't have the spoked design shown in the photo. However, the rest of the CO2 dispenser installation was the same on all ships. Since the photo is from a video taken aboard LSM-56, a sistership of the 59, I chose to go with the spoked design.
To replicate the spoked design, I decided to use some spare PE handwheels. It may be possible to purchase hose reels from a vendor, but for the sake of a challenge, I thought I'd see what I could do by bashing together some PE parts. It will take a bit longer this way, but I think I'll like the results better.
The spoked reel design I want to replicate had 6 spokes, so I took two 3-spoked handwheels and cut them as shown in the photo below:
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File comment: Two 3-spoke handwheels will provide the parts needed to make one 6-spoke reel.
Initial cuts.jpg [ 34.21 KiB | Viewed 1806 times ]
Then, I combined the parts together as shown:
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File comment: At this point, the components are loosely in place. The next step gives them strength.
Handwheels combined.jpg [ 27.7 KiB | Viewed 1806 times ]
Next, I added another ring to the reel by cutting the spokes out of a smaller handwheel and joining it to the 6-spoked handwheels I'd created. This achieves the appearance of the actual reels and adds strength to the assemblies. Here's how one assembly looked at this point:
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File comment: Everything in place and joined with CA.
Final step.jpg [ 74.7 KiB | Viewed 1806 times ]
Finally, I built the drum for the reel using styrene and aluminum tubing, and added the 6-spoked reel ends. Here's everything turned out:
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File comment: The reels for the two topside dispensers. Next step will be to build the support frames and paint the assemblies.
Assembled reels.jpg [ 111.93 KiB | Viewed 1806 times ]
In coming days, I'll build the support frames for the reels and apply paint, and then decide upon what to use to replicate the hose and nozzle.
That's it for today's update. Thanks for checking in!
John