Come on Texas! (1/350)

[mconnelley]

Hello:

I'm working on the other side of the hull. I thought I'd show things a bit more step-by-step.

In the pictures above, I've done the cutting along the inside of the hull. The horizontal cuts were made with a cut off disk, and the vertical cuts were done with a round grinding burr. These cuts do not go all the way through. I then used my panel line engraving tool to deepen the vertical cuts to the outer surface. Final clean up was with an exacto blade. I widen the cut a bit so that the adjacent 'panels' don't rub against each other as I flex them inwards.

In the picture above, I've added the first two braces. These define how much the 'panels' tilt inwards, so they go on first. I don't just glue the 'panels' to the upper side of the hull (where the deck glues on). Since the upper hull is completely cut off, except at the ends, it's really floppy. We want the upper hull to say relaxed, and I don't want to flex it to meet the lower hull sides. Instead, we want the bring the lower hull to the (relaxed) upper hull. We still need the deck to fit the upper hull, so the upper hull needs to keep its shape. So, I tilt the side 'panels' to line up under the upper hull, then use the brace to 'freeze' that tilt in place.

Not sure how I messed this up. You can see how the bend of the hull side drifts upwards (from right to left) compared to the molded lines on the hull. That bend line should be parallel to those molded details (which I'll eventually remove). My solution is to cut in a second line on the inside, below the first, and bend the plastic about that lower cut.

Mike

[FFG-7]

do my 2 pictures show what you are doing?

[mconnelley]

do my 2 pictures show what you are doing?

Yup. I got that area fixed, and smoothed out with Milliput.

Mike

[mconnelley]

Hello:

The port bow is mostly the same as the starboard side. One thing I want to show is that Trumpeter has these stiffeners that go inside of the hull. The inside of the hull has these cast in pockets to receive those parts. In grinding through the side of the hull, I also ground through these pockets. Since they're just about the same size as the sprue, I glued in a hunk of sprue to plug the hole. After snipping it off and filling it down, it's nice and blended in.

Mike

[mconnelley]

Hello:

Lately much of the time has been spent on the turrets, and especially the catapult, but more on that later.

Now that the bow is (more or less) in shape, time to start putting details back on. First are the hawse pipes for the anchors. These aren't quite in the right place on the kit, so I decided to move the hole. I drilled out and then plugged the hole with some sprue. Then I marked and drilled a small hole at the new centers.

The 'rim' of the hawse pipes are two disks of sheet plastic, the larger one being thinner. Both were turned by chucking them into my dremel and filing the edges to the desired diameter.

I used the same dremel screw to screw the parts onto the side of the hull. I drilled out the pilot hole in the hull to be just a bit undersized (like you would for a tap drill), then applied some glue, then screwed it down. The screw clamps the part in place while the glue sets, and ensures that the center of the disk is right where I want it.

Cheers
Mike

[mconnelley]

Hello:

The hawse pipes are on and have been drilled out. I have not yet drilled out the two hole right at the tip of the bow. Before I do that, I'll put a wad of milliput behind them, and up against the deck, so that when I drill out those holes I'll also get the pipe the leads up to the matching hole in the deck.

In other news, I've been working on the turret 3 catapult. This is in two main sections: the catapult itself and the platform on the side of the turret. The Pontos instructions...let's say...could be more clear on how things ought to be bent and where they go exactly. While they do have several photos of the parts going together and the final assembly, I was still guessing in a few places. Their instructions on the USS Enterprise set were better, for example. Unfortunately, this catapult isn't there on the real USS Texas, so I can't go there for help.

I've painted the side of the turret in 5-O, since it won't be accessible after the side platform is installed. Similarly, I'll paint the rest of the turret (after the side platform is attached) before installing the catapult, since much of the turret won't be accessible once the turret is in top. My order of operations will be:

- Install side platform
- Install platform railings (connects platform to the lower side of the turret)
- paint the rest of the turret
- paint the catapult
- install the catapult
- install parts between the platform and the catapult
- repaint

Cheers
Mike

[FFG-7]

just to let you know that the model's main turret faces & roofs are the wrong shape as the turret faces are not flat & rectangular but more rounded as is the roof. Model Monkey(Steve Larsen) & I talked about it while working out the shape & dimensions of the Nevada class turrets.

[mconnelley]

Hello:

I decided to just go for it and glue the hull halves together. I was able to use the first of the hull braces, and the one closest to the stern, but the rest couldn't be used since the shape of the hull had changed so much. In the photo below, the little white bits are cross 'keys' to make sure that the two sides of the keel line up perfectly. One 'key' is glued to each side, and since the thickness of the plastic on each side is the same, that guarantees that the alignment of the parts is perfect. I cut the remaining hull braces in half, and glued them to the bottom of the hull to strengthen the hull and to help keep the bottom of the hull flat.

At the bow, I put in a few wads of milliput to make the hawse pipes. I used some superglue to stick each blob to the inside of the hull (which was already covered in milliput), then pressed the deck down to mash the milliput to the right shape. This way, the milliput is part of the hull but will go right up to the underside of the deck. You can even see some of the details of the bottom of the deck part that have been imprinted in the milliput.

Cheers
Mike

[JIM BAUMANN]

wow!

..... that is some reconstruction .....!!

I just did similar surgery on my 1/350 NRP Sagres hull....

I wish you perseverance , tenacity and much fortitude!
I am watching

Jim Baumann

[mconnelley]

Hello:

I primered the turret #3 catapult. It's easier to see what's going on with the primer on compared to looking at shiny brass. The catapult itself is dry fit on top of the turret for the picture. I'll paint both the turret and catapult separately, then glue the catapult on for good.

Moving forwards, literally, to the forecastle...

I got the Eduard 'deck' set to replace the AA gun bulwarks, as the Pontos set doesn't replace these. I've done one, seen here, as a test to see how it'll go. Gluing the two ends of the brass piece into a loop was tricky, with getting good alignment between the two ends. Getting the shape just right was also tricky, as it's hard to get the same curve on both ends, and keeping the middle straight.

Similar view, but with the bulwark primered. Now it's easier to see how the PE replacement compares to the kit part.

Mike

[mconnelley]

Work continues on replacing the AA gun shields on the main deck.

The oval shaped 20 mm enclosures are by far the most tricky. You need to:
1) Join the ends seamlessly.
2) Get the curves at the ends with the right radius, and the same radius
3) Keep the middle parts straight, and parallel
4) Make sure that the overall length and width is correct.

Getting the two ends to join perfectly is hard, as there are 4 degrees of freedom to control simultaneously. I help, I glued a joiner strip from thin sheet brass to one end, and used that to make sure the other end matched. This jointer strip will be mostly hidden behind the ammo box.

Mike

[mconnelley]

I've also started working on adding the scupper pipes to the sides of the hull. Looking at modern photos of Texas, it looks like they're hight above the hull is about twice their width, so I tried to match that. I started on the starboard side, as the drawings I have are on that side and I also found a few good photos of that side. I used a height gauge to get the bottoms all at the same height above the keel. I haven't added the scupper pipe under the anchors yet since there's going to be more sanding in that area. The starboard side is done, and I'm on to the port side.

One very important thing: the two sides are not the same! They're pretty much totally different. For the port side, I'm completely going off of photos that I've been able to find online.

Mike

[ModelMonkey]

Much improved hull shape. Well done!

[Killerbeans]

Nice work.

[MartinJQuinn]

Really nice work, especially on the PE splinter shields.

[mconnelley]

Hello:

It's been a long time, so here's an update. I finished the wind deflector thingie that goes in front of the bridge. The kit just has this as a lump of plastic. Pontos has this as 30 photo etched parts. It wasn't hard to put together, just tedious. Oh, and there are a few more of these things to make...

I assembled the wind deflector thingie first. Then I put the bridge deck part up-side-down on the table. I put the wind deflector up-side-down as well, and then glued them together. Using the table as a reference surface for both parts makes sure that you get the relative heights, roll angle, and pitch angles correct.

At the front corners of the bridge wings, the wind deflector didn't quite sit against the kit part. So I cut the brass wind deflector at that bend, glued the deflector to the kit parts, then glued that corner back together. Hopefully it'll be hard to tell anything happened here.

Mike

[mconnelley]

Hello:

I also did the funnel, as it's a nice, fairly simple, and stand alone sub-assembly. The 3D printed pipe leading to the deck next to the funnel isn't secured yet. As I recall this went together as expected, with nothing dramatic to report.

Mike