The Ship Model Forum

Today's progress. Note the sky lookouts and 26' MWB's. Also 2.5 M rangefinder and Mk51 Director on the bridge. Later the MK51 was replaced with the MK 52 with MK 26 radar attached.

An idea of the size of this "ship"

Cheers: T

Yet again under the "Wah hail" modeling clause the drawings showing the arrangement of the boats and davits appear to be misleading. The issue is the drawing shows a strong back with two bumpers, being on the inside of the davits and helping to secure the boat when swung inboard. So far I can't find a single photo showing the strong back. In fact most of the DE photos only show the starboard boat shipped. Redrawing the boats, or boat and davits.

Until more info becomes available on the power reel setup I have installed (easily removable) triple torpedo tubes. Still have to cobble up the crane, no sweat.

Cheers: Tom

Tom,

Really looks super!!! for a miniature model, that's got quite The Bling!!!

Hank

Tom,

This is just a wild guess about the strongback under the motor whaleboat. Below are some images showing how the strongback worked on the OK City.

Here is a picture of the strongback in the raised and lowered position. It pivoted on the short arms at each end. When raised it was held in position with lanyards tied to cleats on the uprights and a cable attached to the deck. When lowered it rested on supports on the uprights. Although the cruiser had gravity davits and the DE had swing out davits the strongback might have worked the same way.

In the nextpicture the strongback is raised to support the boat and the boat is lashed to the davits. In the third image the strongback has been swung down to leave the boat supported by the davits. The last image shows the boat lowered outboard to the boarding position. As I said, I really don't know how the supports worked on the DEs but this gives you an idea how at least one support worked.

There are a few more pictures here that show the single bank, double arm, trackway gravity davits working with the whaleboat:
https://www.okieboat.com/CAD%20miscellaneous.html

Phil

Phil:

Thanks for the info! Certainly a lot of innovation went into davits, the gravity davits were capable of quick deployment, which is why they were especially useful on the APA's. For whatever reasons, probably weight and space, the WWII destroyers stayed with traditional old fashioned davits dating from the days of sail. Not seeing the strong back in any photos and I don't recall seeing any on ship, though they could be of use. The ability to lower them clears up how the boat got from one side to the other. Looks like Whitehurst at the time carried just one boat, starboard side at the time in question. Hank Strub who was assigned to Stoddard's boat crew for plane guard duty only recalls the strapping.

Today I added the Torpedo crane and the MK 52 Director with the MK 24 Radar unit. Currently the proto model is only carrying a MWB on the starboard side with no davits to port. I tried adding the secondary steering station just behind the aft MK 51 director but all three example flew off into tweezer hell.

A fun tiny project, learning a lot. Not sure about the lifelines as yet in this scale, it's pretty tiny and the resin isn't that fun for small bits.

Best regards: Tom

Minor progress today, while managing to break off the torpedo crane and secondary steering station. Added main deck life lines, which the forum troll would correctly criticize as being two wire instead of three wire. Best I could get away with at 1:514 A real modeler would have both the three wires plus the netting. How to pull off the O1 level pipe rail, TBD... Then there is the mast. I can print a satisfactory vertical ladder n this scale, but it's not at all rigid length wise, a issue to be dealt with. Some scars remain on the hull, from the collision with the surfacing USS Bugara in Hawaiian waters. Interesting as I had been at sea on both of these ships. As Bugara survived she didn't get credit for a second sub sunk. She did sink the U boat in Enemy Below via ramming! I am strongly leaning toward a brass wire assembled mast as a printed one would be far too rubbery at this scale. Adding the printed ladder may be real fun! I may be able to pull off a rudimentary version of the Radar. The Hot Shots can rig a ship at this scale, I'll do what I can. The DE markings can be replicated but beyond my ability to do draft marks this small, let alone see them. I'll do some more hull work before adding the props and shafting, and looking crosseyed at bilge keels.

Tom

Current progress today, a few more items in transit and not yet aded.

Added Shafting, surprisingly the struts printed with useable passages for the .5 mm brass rod I am using for shafts. One could print the shafting, but small diameter resin lacks rigidity. Currently the props not installed as they hang below the base line and would be vulnerable to damage without the ship being installed on a base.

The question I posed over on the DE CASF forum was with regards to appropriate camo measure. The Navsoure photo allegedly post war shows her in Measure 21 with tubes still installed. Since she was converted at Pearl post Kamikaze damage to a power plant, the Measure 21 would be sometime before this. The inclining photos at Pearl show a repaint toMeasure 22. The question revolves about what the date of repaint to measure 22 was? Prior to the Kamikaze damage or at the time of the repair work? Apparently I offended some by posting photos of this build over there, though the photos accumulated a lot of views. I was hoping for some knowledgable information there but so far no luck.

I ordered Valley-Jo paints for the Measure 22, so we shall see.

Cheers: Tom

Doing some work on the mast today. To affect a taper the vertical has two different sized sections of brass rod. A crosstrees of the smaller diameter is soldered to the vertical. I have added printed radars and platforms. Perhaps the SA radar can be improved marginally though it's not bad. Rigging may resemble a dark female horse at night, learning many things in working at this small scale. The excellent FDD DE Disc does have rigging plans for the mast etc and I'll give it a thrash.

Rick E Davis did reply about what he knew about the pre Kamikaze Pearl Rehab paint job. Photo evidence shows her in Measure 21 early in her Pacific Career. Documentary evidence shows she was supposed to be painted in Dazzle but not known if this actually happened. Dazzle was actually less effective against aircraft, maybe only good against submarines and incidence rangefinders. Certainly after the Pearl refit she was in measure 22, but when that was applied, and if before the refit, so far unknown.

Cheers: Tom

This is a really cool project!

Thank you Martin!

Today working on the mast which is almost ready to fit. Will install the bilge Keels (if I can) before I fix the mast, which might take damage otherwise. I expect if I paint her in any particular "paint job" that information about the correct measure will then come to light. Such happenings make the use of a protoyype model useful!

A matter of minor import is the color of the small SL Radar dome. Slater shows a black dome with white stripes, I do not believe this was a wartime measure. The one on the DMS I painted a dirty white.

Cheers: Tom

As a reminder David P is not welcome posting here, whatever it was he said.

Answering my own question about the SL dome, the Navsource photo of Whitehurst in measure 21 does show the dome in 5N.

In the vein of the Ah Ha moment, plowing through NAVSOURCE does have benefits, if tedious. USS Marsh, DE 699 had also been converted to a power plant with the large spools and has several decent photos. I'll keep looking and see what else I can find. I remember seeing some other photos of such conversions at some point. Oh well, one learns a lot from such research.

Bilge keels tacked in place and mast stepped but not secured.

A note on the bilge keels, these ships had a relatively low CG, unlike most WWII warships. A low metacentric height however had a disadvantage in decreasing the period of the roll and increasing the accelerations. I can testify that these DE's tended to bob like a cork, for a sometimes less than comfortable ride.

Brilliant.

Thank you Steve!

I found a photo in a floating dry dock of one of the screws and rudders which shows both the three blade props, direction of rotation (typical for destroyers) and the method of pivot for the twin rudders. I haven't yet gotten any sound dome info, though at this scale it is grain of rice in size. For a larger model these are constructible details.

After re reading some airbrush experts opines on dealing with acrylic paints, I added a bunch more flow aid and retarder. The retarder helps with the fast drying induced clogging that can be troublesome. The mast, not yet attached, can do with some more detailing. Trying to see what I can get away with at this scale. I can print vertical ladders but they tend to curl up when removed from supports. What seems to be working is using untwined acrylic brushed onto both sides and removing from supports after drying. The old joke about the Four Piers during WWII was they were held together by the paint. At this scale the paint actually has a great effect. This mast is a little unusual in having the vertical ladder held off to the starboard side on standoffs. The most likely way to achieve this will be by adding standoffs from sprue and after they have cured in place, adding the vertical ladder. New to this scale, but able to get away with more than I had estimated, so far.

Cheers: Tom

I ended up attaching several horizontal standoffs on the starboard side of the mast and attaching a length of my printed ladder. This was entirely feasible and looks OK, This was a somewhat unique ladder attachment, but avoided having to maneuver around various accessories attached to the mast. If I was going to do this again, I would attempt to design the standoffs as part of the ladder. However at the time I was quite happy to not have the ladder roll up into a ball and remain straight. On a larger model, I should be able to print the mast hollow and insert a stiffening piano wire as I have previously.

I also attached the props, perhaps a mistake, but I can always print more if i knock them off.

Tom