USS Whitehurst One to who knows DE.

[Fliger747]

Troll not welcome

[Fliger747]

Added a few more items, port midships bulwark installed but not finished as yet.

Tom

[Fliger747]

Troll not welcome here

[Fliger747]

Eye pad (as opposed to pad eye) photo this morning. More items from the Pissantium ship works added and more to go. Next to add, forward rafts on the side of the bridge structure, supports for the midships Orlikon tubs, bow jackstaff and chock, bow towing pad, make aft raft racks, vents before and aft of stack loudspeaker and light to front of bridge and on and on.

Be time soon to dig out the stencil machine for hull numbers etc. Always a little bit of a task to get it adjusted such that it barely but completely separates the small hull markings without over penetrating and curling the tiny characters.

Best regards. Tom

[BB62vet]

Tom,

That certainly looks nice - coming along quite well. I would hope you move that off the railing before it does a nosedive into the staircase!!!

Hank

[Fliger747]

Hank:

It's out in the workshop at the moment, test wearing a few new items. That rail is where I park my morning coffee cup. I suppose the greatest danger to any of the models is an earthquake, an occasional occurrence.

Having to decide whether or not to repeat the printed masts with piano wire reinforcement or build from Brass. Because of the small scale the 1:514 version was a brass mast.

Cheers: Tom

[Iceman 29]

A bear !?

Very nice Tom!

[Fliger747]

Pascal:

The bears have pretty much gone to hibernation for the winter, but the foxes, coyotes, moose and wolves still roam around. The Fox and Moose being fairly common.

That Hank and I got into 3D printing is probably because of your bad influence!

Be digging out the stencil machine later.

Best regards: Tom

[Fliger747]

Small progress, added the hull numbers (634) fore and aft, port and starboard. These had dropped the earlier war DE and just had the numbers, enough of these were around that the were easily identified as not being a DD. Use scale 2' high white numbering. The smaller draft mark numbers will need some fine adjustment of the cutter as not quite enough penetration to cleanly separate. Too much and the numbers will detach and curl.

Also added aft rafts and racks and some helmet racks. Some DE's were fitted with a forward towing pad though Whitehurst in 1945 does not appear to be so equipped.

[Fliger747]

Added a few more small items, progress is a thousand baby steps. Part of the day was spent getting my Cameo 4 Stencil cutter to connect via blue tooth to my laptop to work on cutting very small (about 0.08") numbers for draft marks. I did get it going but the exact settings to achieve clean and removable tiny characters has to be quite exact (and found by experimentation).

Anchor windlass and starboard anchor chain plus chain locker hawses, small O1 level rail section, a main deck steam cutoff wheel and began final fitting work on the midships bulwarks.

I did find a good photo of the starboard midships of one of the Buckleys that had the same power cable conversion. This and some other info will let me begin sketching the power spools and their transformer cabinets.

I would like to simulate the netting along the main deck lifelines. I did this as a kid when I made a PC from mosquito netting. Neither of the fabric stores in town has a currently satisfactory inventory of suitable open ribbon. Skeeter netting is a bit too coarse.

Cheers: Tom

[DrPR]

Tom,

Finding suitable "scale" netting for models can be a challenge. I just checked a mosquito net I got that fits over a hat and down to the shoulders. It has hexagonal openings! The net is necessary if we go into the Oregon Cascades in July. Without it you run the risk of dying from blood loss! Actually, wee just go in June or wait until August.

But I found in my stash a bit of veil that my wife used for a gown or costume she made for one of her sisters. It has a square mesh with 0.372" per 10 openings, or about 0.0372" square openings.

That is equal to:

3.72" at 1:100
5.36" at 1:144
7.44" at 1:200

I'm not sure what the actual opening size was on the nets on the flight deck lifelines on the OK City, but it looks like it was about 3" (guestimating from photos). So this net will work OK when I build my 1:96 model. It would be too coarse for 1:200, but it might be OK at 1:144.

I have also seen fine mesh netting used to wrap floral bouquets and often lilies come with a net tube around them that is pretty small openings when not stretched.

You might find some veil material on Amazon or sewing supply places. Another place to look would be scientific supply places. Different size nets were used to separate granular material into different size classes.

McMaster-Carr always seems to have just about everything so it would be worth a try.

Phil

I checked McMaster and they have plastic netting in 23 sizes with opening sizes from 0.0944" down to 0.0011".

3" at 1:144 = 0.0208"

McMaster has a 30x30 net with opening size 0.0236" and "wire" diameter 0.0096" and 51% opening. It is $17.09 for 1 foot by 45". 0.0236" = 3.34" at 1:144. That's just about perfect! But the "wire diameter" is a bit coarse. 0.0096" = 1.38" but that's a lot better than nothing!

https://www.mcmaster.com/netting/plastic-mesh-7/

[Fliger747]

Phil:

That's good info, I did see some veil material at the fabric shop that might be suitable. What I don't know is whether or not she had netting on the lifelines or not late war. At the inclining at Pearl Harbor after the Kamikaze repairs she wasn't so equipped, but such equipage may have been normally accomplished by the Bosun's and sailmaker aboard after the yard period. Peacetime such netting was usually white cordage, was this material dyed to match superstructure color?

McMaster-Carr is a useful resource for many items, I have bought hard to find items such as rolled FEP and 22 mm crush washers from them before.

Printed some pelican hooks and associated hardware to secure the anchor chains, see how that works out. Wonder how the extra anchor chain was warped around the windlass when necessary? Most of the destroyer types were so managed with a single windlass.

Cheers: Tom

[BB62vet]

Tom (Phil) -
The info on the netting is duly noted - and Thanks!! I'll be needing the same stuff on STODDARD at the same scale, so this helps out quite a bit. Tom, you and I have discussed this and I still have the netting you sent me, so we shall see how this develops...! I'm glad the link to the item at McMaster-Carr was also provided - saves a lot of time scrolling thru stuff!!

Hank

[Fliger747]

The mast will be in three pieces, two sections are between the O1 and O2 and the second topped by the O3. These were fitted into locations in the decks and aligned and held in place by a hefty piano wire, which protrude 27 mm above to align the top mast section, which will also be reinforced by a smaller diameter wire.

Upper mast and yards printing currently, a 17 hour effort.

Cheers: Tom

[BB62vet]

Tom,
I'll email you what I have in the way of FLETCHER class SONAR dome drawings, WWII version. Do you have the USS OSMUS (DE-701) BoGP downloaded? that may show what you need as far as a general idea of shape/size & location.

Your mast construction will be interesting to see once it's printed and assembled, etc.

Hank

[Fliger747]

Hank:

Will get to see in a bit if the mast print came out. I decided to print it as one piece, vertical. As you well know the first run of an item is often a prototype, but at 17 hours to print one hopes for the best. When making a hollow mast or boom the most important part is using a wire to thoroughly clean out the interior form any debris, the RB resin tends to make bubbles which if not cleaned out block the change. A clear channel is needed to install the essential reinforcing wire to achieve satisfactory turgidity. This worked out OK on the ARL, the DMS and the LSM.

I haven't added the extra fueling hoses yet to the inside of the midships bulwarks. A curiosity, on your Fletcher class Stoddard, you have the same 26' MWB and davit arrangement, are you boats hanging from the falls or mounted some other way? On the DMS I was able to park the boats in cradles, but not such and arrangement here!

Cheers: Tom

[Rick E Davis]

Guys,

The USS OSMUS (DE-701) BGP drawings are an interesting example. The BGP dates from 1958, but she was decommissioned in 1946, so basically shows her at the end of WWII (minus 20-mm and single 40-mm guns). She was one of the BUCKLEY class units upgraded at the end of WWII with 5-in guns and a whole lot of AA guns. The sonar looks to be a retractable type, which is reasonable given he late war conversion. But, as is typical no label as to which sonar system was installed. The inboard profile shows the sonar (on the centerline from the lower deck plan, Plate 10) was located between frames 15 and 17. A good possibility where the earlier sonar systems were installed.

The two primary Retractable Transducer/Dome systems being installed on BENSON-GLEAVES-FLETCHER's and likely many DE's at the end of WWII were QGB and QJB (also installed on Submarines!!). Good reference ... https://maritime.org/doc/sonar/chap6.php .... The SUMNERS (Short-Hull and Long Hull) were designed for the QHB sonar.

[Fliger747]

Thank you Rick! Interesting discussion. I have no idea what Whitehurst (DE 634) had though she was retained into the mid-late 60's as a Reserve training ship.

Here she is this morning ready for a sideways launching though these ships were built by Bethlehem Shipbuilding San Fransisco so probably had a natural birth.

Mast print was mostly a failure, bottom portion looked like it had arthritis (bad case).

[Fliger747]

Masts seem to have printed OK at about a 60 degree angle, advantage to this is it is easier to arrange supports which will not interfere with the actual object. First thing I did after an initial rinse was to run a piano wire through to ensure a clean bore. Both masts have a small parting of the vertical ladder at the same point, but I printed extra ladders so it's a minor repair. Drying over the heater vent, which seems to be an effective method. The thin rapid black resin can form bubbles of resin in the hollow mast, preventing the supporting wire from passing all the way through unless it is carefully cleaned out.

Stern draft marks have been placed, which seem a little odd, indicating draft to the bottom of the hull, not the keel, which is only a couple of feet here. Waterline being at 3'.

Postscript (doubling a post) : Basically de platformed the mast and stepped it in place, looks good. The cross piece that locates the signal yard has a small hole that needs to be drilled, such holes tend to fill in. The yard is printed in two pieces and joined by a piano wire that passes through both and the mast hole. For printed parts, the lack of turgidity suggests that yards also need a reinforcement.


Cheers: Tom

[Fliger747]

Mast stepped and yards added, contains piano wire inside for mast and yards.

Tom