Just checking in. Haven't done the road work around the refinery yet (basically I'm procrastinating), but have been doing a lot on the turret project. Started to print stuff below the gun house level. The gun house is going to be screwed onto the base instead of gluing so it's removable in case something is amiss. I'm able to print many of the lower level decks and partitions and this will save asembly time, but increase painting challenges.
Meanwhile, on a completely different track (pun intended), I actually used my 3D printing skills to make a home repair. We have Waterpik Hand Shower that clips into a plastic bracket that's screwed through the wall tile. This was installed by the previous owner at least 13 years ago, but probably much longer than that. It fractured across the back shortly after we moved here and I repaired it with a couple of stainless steel threaded rods and nuts to pull the back together and provide integrity. Then one of the wings started fracturing and it wouldn't grip the shower head. I fixed this by drilled vertically through the back into the wings and used steel brads to reinforce it. I did that twice. Finally, as it continued to disintegrate, I resorted to large rubber bands to keep tension on the shower head.
This shows the extent of the damage.
I took pictures of it from various views and drew it on SketchUp. There were lots of compound curves so it took two tries to get it right.
Here's the new one doing its job. It could still be better, but I have to buy a new hand piece and I highly doubt that it will have the same handle dimensions as this 15+ year-old one, so I may have to re-draw another for the new one. These kinds of brackets are no longer used with hand showers. What I see now are those that slide up and down a metal pole for various heights. Those poles would require drilling in the tile and would mean we'd have two holes with screw anchors from the original.
The resin one I believe is stronger than the original. I'm using a 85/15% mix of Elegoo ABS-Like resin and Siraya Tenacious. Tenacious is a completely flexible resin and adding to the fairly brittle Elegoo produces a much more impact resistant product. I can drop most prints on the floor and not have them shatter as they did before I found this mix.
I apologize for getting off the train topic, but I've become a 3D printing prophet and like to spread the word of just how amazingly useful this invention can be.
This past Wednesday was the day I was supposed to be visiting the USS New Jersey for my private research tour. That didn't happen. in fact, the entire East Coast trip didn't happen. My daughter and son in law came down with COVID-19 and we had been directly in their company Tuesday weekk ago. They had cold symptoms and thought that's all it was, and my daughter kept testing negative. We all wore masks and my wife and I are double-boosted. The day before we were to leave, our daugther tested positive. Meanwhile our son in law had flown to California to visit his sister. He was with them for about an hour when his brother in law suggested he test, and he was positive too! 48 hours later, his sister and her husband were positive with symptoms. That bug is contagious!!
Meanwhile, my wife and I tested negative, no symptoms and are in good health. If we were going to get it, this would have been the time.
Here's a progress shot of the turret. The top's open now and I did a trial fit of some gun house stuff to see how it work. I've epoxied fitted blocks into the corners to provide some mass to accept small screws. I'm having to decide whether or not to enclose this opening with clear acrylic. Some of my blog fans say leave it open, others say close it. I've asked the curator to tell me how it's going to be displayed on board ship and how much dust protection it will get. I am going to make the partitions in the foreground out of clear acrylic so the side-gun details can be seen.
Have a nice Sunday!
