APA project

[Fliger747]

The new boat winches all in place. I have printed the appropriate number of cargo winch controls (designed for ARL 12) and will replace those as they are much more svelt. However long needle nose pliers will be necessary to extract the old ones. A much more serious extraction would be to replace the paper Gravity (Whelan) davits with printed ones. Haven't decided on this as yet.

Cheers: Tom

[Iceman 29]

This is the proof that warships are very regularly updated!

[Fliger747]

It is a "mistake" to compare the analogue components to what is printable. On Alaska and Missouri it resulted in whole replacement of many items. On both those ships the exception was the main battery turrets and associated MK 38 directors. There was a story in the news about an English Gentleman who rented a large building and spent 330 K pounds building a 200' long model railroad. The funny part was he told his girlfriend that he was a wine merchant and that's where he kept the wine. Apparently the discovery went better than one might expect as being an artist she appreciated the craftsmanship.

I still enjoy working with traditional methods, so larger models of composite construction suit me well currently. the 1:120 scale allows decent detail but models that aren't inconveniently huge.

Cheers: Tom

[Fliger747]

Stern of Randall. I replaced all the Sky Lookout chairs. This is the third iteration of these items. Randall had 12 of them, in six twin tubs two fore, two aft and two abeam the stack. A lot of lookouts! The ARL had only two. In this case you can see the sets between the 40 mm's on the fantail deckhouse.

A total mix of constructions of wood, paper and styrene along with resin cast components and 3D printed items. The LCM's are from basswood, styrene and paper, the rafts and ammo boxes cast, Bofors, 3D etc. Deckhouse is wood and paper.

Tom

[Fliger747]

The sky lookout, all the substance of a dried mosquito! I just replaced all the chairs on both the APA and ARL with this item/

Tom

[Fliger747]

More really dinky work on the APA. Some time back I added helmet racks for the 20 mm tubs. Today I added short stacks of the USN version of the gray GI helmets. Pretty darn dinky! For the ARL am printing some with the racks already on since I haven't added any helmet racks as yet. Easier to print them as one piece. More to add to the Mk51 directors and the Bofors, though I have to ferret out where these were located. It would be barely possible to print these in 1:192 for Alaska.

Tom

[Fliger747]

Stern mount 5" 38 with crew added. Note hot case man wearing the long white asbestos gloves.

Ship is about 70% crewed so far with light AA people, sky lookouts and some bridge personnel.

Tom

[Fliger747]

Randall stern, light AA crews manned.

[Iceman 29]

Really very realistic, I like it a lot.

[Fliger747]

Randall bridge area. Some crew remains to be added.

[Fliger747]

Thank you Pascal!

[Iceman 29]

When I see the complexity of the deck of these ships, I tell myself that it's a headache to design in scratch and in 3D.

[Fliger747]

Pascal:

What I found out was there was almost no tolerance for errors in layout as even a mistake of a scale foot would mean something else would not fit!

Cheers: Tom

[BB62vet]

Tom,

Your crew is quite the compliment (or would that be complement??) to the details of the model - all fit together quite well.

I'm sure in another week or so, you'll have a fully augmented deck force to "cast off all lines"!!

Hank

[Willie]

Hi there Tom and all,

What I found out was there was almost no tolerance for errors in layout as even a mistake of a scale foot would mean something else would not fit!

Absolutely true. Not only that in this scale every section you build is a small model by itself, but also that one single mistake that you make in your calculations can ruin an otherwise detailed work, that simply will not match the rest of the elements around. It has happened to me more than once.

As for the rest, this model of yours will be a reference for many modelers for years.

Nice going from the other side of the oceans,

Willie.

[Fliger747]

Thank you Willie!

As the constructor I am familiar with every error or shortcoming. I built all the masts and booms and rig before I began 3D printing, some improvement could be made with current technique. Some original traditional components were replaced with 3D items.

Cheers: Tom

[Fliger747]

The Fore-Deck is the portion of the ship when in Airforce service is allocated to the golf tee.

Another view of the bridge crew.

The magic of photography allows me to re visit every error and omission! A note on photography, taken with a 50MB Canon 5DsR and a Canon L 100 mm macro at F20 using dual studio strobes and soft boxes. 8 raw images were merged in Photoshop using photo stacking to get most everything in focus. Then everything thrown away to get an image I can post here!

Tom

[DrPR]

Tom,

Nice photography. I use a similar setup with a Nikon 105 mm macro lens and stack multiple images in Photoshop.

The crew figures do add a lot to your already highly detailed model!

Phil

[Iceman 29]

Nice shot.

I see that some decals are peeling off. I usually apply a coat of matte varnish to seal them in the paint and protect them.

[Fliger747]

Pascal:

Those are press applies that I made on my stencil machine. Many of the boats were glued down when I went through and changed numbering to masked painted on ones, so about half the boats don't have painted numbers. The humidity indoors here in the sub arctic often good below 3%, even kiln dried lumber shrinks! Yes I did overspray with a matt varnish, looks like a "booster" is needed.

For small paint jobs the new IWATA air brush seems much superior to the gravity fed brushes, in a long project using new (to me) techniques a big learning/experience happens.

Cheers: Tom