Thought I'd give an update. Michele's chemo finished one month ago and she's steadily getting stronger. We're walking over a mile now. No sure hair has started growing again, but we're sure it will.
Work continues on the turret. I'm assembling the upper parts and still designing all the below decks stuff. I know this ain't trains, but it is modeling and it is O'scale (1:48).
Gun house shell is done waiting to be joined with the innerds. The ladder rungs are 3D printed, but kept breaking all the time. As they broke, I'm replaceing them with phos-bronze 0.015" wire. There are no drop rungs that I could find in 1:48… HO yes, O no!
The box that the turret sits on is the upper handling room. This assembly is also finished waiting for final assembly.
This space receives projectiles and powder cartrdiges from the magazine two decks below. There is also 50 rounds stored here, which is the other name for the space "Ready Service Room".
The powder brass cartridges are store in sealed aluminum cylinders. They are stripped of the storage container and then set up in another hoist to the gun house above. The cases are dropped down a hole in the floor to compartments below to get them out of there. I still have to made that hole.
The is the projectile hoist fully painted that moves them from the UHR to the gun house. One side is up and one down so there's always a shell waiting to be loaded. They load between 15 and 22 rounds a minute (every 3 to 4 seconds).
I finished adding the hoists to the gun house yesterday. It was very tricky and I had to keep trimming their floor panels so they would sit properly. I printed the 1:48 diamond plate. It was an experiment that worked.
The left side is the pointer's station (elevation) and the gray machinery is the motor/pump hydraulic set that drives a hydraulic motor that drives the elevation pinions for both guns.
The right side is the trainers (traverse) station with it's motor/pump unit. Everything in these turrets and the big guns are hydraulically powered.
Between the 2nd and 3rd decks is this… the splinter deck. It runs over 300 feet between the 2nd and 3rd 16" turrets. It's only 3 feet high. I modeled just a small sample that sits below the guns and above the magazine I'm building. The curator says it's a "lot of fun" crawling through that space. I can just imagine. It's purposed is to capture any spalled shrapenl that can be created if the heavily armored bomb deck above is hit. It prevents the debris from penetrating to the magazines and engine rooms.
I'm now laying out the decking and compartment partitions old school scribing and snapping styrene sheets of various gauges. This is the magazine floor.
This is the final design. I've sent the base measurements to my friend in Albuquerque. When I get this base I will order the cut plexiglass.
The porthole designs are wrong. On the ourside, they just a raised gray rim with an drip catching eyebrow over top.
Lighting will be really important to show the hidden spaces. It's also why I'm doing an AV program to show WIP pictures to identify things people can't see well.
I printed a really neat ladder for the upper deck decoration. This was another experiment since I perforated the steps and they printed. I thickened the railings so it would survive better. It was hard to find a good reference on this. Most of the museum ships' ladders are no longer WW2 vintage.
You're all up to date. Rest assured there's a model RR Project coming. I still wish I had my own laser cutter. The wattage needed for cutting appears to be 40W and above. Solid State cutters are still in the $1,000s and too rich for my blood.
