1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 57

Having changed the periscope hoist cylinders so that I am reasonably satisfied with them, I decided to add whatever the object is at the top of the forward side of the forward shear. This object is shown in the pictures below (from Tom and Scott). Does anybody know what it is?



To make this object, whatever it is, I started by using the pictures to approximate the size and shape of the object.



I then extruded the shape that I thought looked about right.



The forward face of the object has a round protrusion, that appears to be open on the inside, so I extruded a circle for the protrusion…



…And then subtracted a smaller protruded circle from it.





The pictures show an open top so I duplicated as close as possible, using an extruded circle and polylines.



I am still undecided as to whether I should make it part of the piece or keep it separate, and maybe make it out of PE, so I am leaving it red for the time being.



CHEERS!!!

[scott t]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

My guess on the round object is some kind of speaker horn, like a klaxon horn they blow when preparing to dive.

You are getting quick at making these different parts. Still looking good.

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 58

A speaker of some sort was my guess too Scott. They had to have one somewhere, and I don’t see anything else that looks like a viable candidate.

I think I am getting faster because I have had a lot of practice redoing things I do wrong, thanks to you pointing them out to me. ) But that is why it looks as good as it does. If you hadn’t been keeping me on track when I stray, who knows what it would look like? Actually though, the reason I am getting faster is because I don’t have to redo things as much, when I do them. I am getting better at knowing the best way to make an object, as long as I see it correctly, which is a challenge itself. I’ve been doing so much from pictures that it almost seems like having plans would be cheating. Not really, but designing from pictures has been an enjoyable exercise in observation (not one of my strong suits), spatial relations and perspective (which I have always been good at. I digress but I owe this to Mr. Rich, my geometry teacher in 10th grade at Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster, California. It was 1972, and I kid you not Mr. Rich was a dead ringer for George Carlin, and was every bit as clever and entertaining without any of the 7 words you can’t say on television. He would drag in Monday mornings sunburned and looking rather haggard after a weekend skiing at Mammoth Mountain, a good 8 hour drive at the time. He was cool and everybody liked him, but he was also demanding, and you couldn’t help but learn from him. The first day of class he assigned names to the corners of the out trailer that the class was held in, and put cups over them, with their names written on them. He did the same where lines from the various corners intersected. He would be teaching something, and he would suddenly call on a student and say. “Draw a line from Bob to Carl then from Carl to Dan. What is the angle between them?” The questions became more complex as the semester went on and it really taught me to visualize patterns and shapes in 3D. Here’s to you Mr. Rich, wherever you are.)

Where was I? Oh yeah, modeling. After looking at the dive horn/speaker(?) I decided to make mine hollow, more like in the pictures.



Next I added the bolts to the circular face. I maintained the bolts at 0.06’ diameter (inscribed) and because of space I was only able to make 8 bolts instead of the 12 shown in the pictures.



I then decided to make the bracket that attaches the horn to the shear. To do this, I first copied the shears and the horn off to the side and extruded a rectangle the size of the forward face of the horn into the shear…



…And used the intersect command to make the wedge to be used for the flange. The blue line is for reference in moving the shell out, which I did next.





The flange isn’t on the top part, so I sliced it off.



At this point I thought that the wedge was a little too wide, so I sliced a little off the ends and rounded them to 0.06’ (0.05” at 1/144 scale) radius.



Next, I added bolts to the flanges…



…Joined the bolts to the flange and copied it back to the original shear.



With the horn assembly completed, I decided to attach all but the top “cap” portion to the shear to be made with the part. The main assembly has dimensions that I believe are within the capability of SLA printing, but the cap is too thin and would look better if made with PE, so I sliced it off before attaching the rest of the assembly to the shear.







CHEERS!!!

[salmon]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

I do not think it is a speaker.
I believe it is an APR stub antenna.

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 59

Thanks for clearing that up Tom, and thanks for the picture showing the antenna.

I was able to get a bit more done last night, but was too tired to post it. One of the things I added was the platform on the starboard side of the upper shear support bracket, which started as an extruded rectangle.



Side supports were then added and the inside edges were rounded.



To make the round coupling on the underside I extruded 2 circles with different radii and rounded their edges.



To make the nipple on the end I made 2 more circles and lofted them.



I then joined the nipple to the other parts of the coupling and rounded the corner at the nipple/coupling interface, and joined the complete assembly to the shears.





The other thing I did was add the grabs on the forward starboard face of the aft shear. I started by getting the proper alignment for the rungs, rotated my coordinate system to match and then copy/pasted the grab from the grab drawing as I have done before. Initially I pasted it up out of the way (but on line)…



..Then I copied the grab down to the proper vertical positions.



At this point I realized that a support bracket for the observation platform(?) rails from the forward shear had mistakenly been copied to the aft shear, so I had to slice it off. To do this I first drew a polyline around the area I needed to remove…



…Extruded it…



…And subtracted it.



With this corrected, I moved the grabs into the proper positions.



The upper grab protruded into the cylinder cavity, so I had to slice it off, which was done by extruding the circle made to create the cavity…



…And subtracting it.



CHEERS!!!

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Are you OK Scott?

[scott t]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Everyone in the family is fine. Went north of the kids home by 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile. They live at the Hillsdale campus by I-35.
Alot of there friends from college did not fair so well.

Thanks for checking.

Scott T

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Good news Scott. I was (and am) so happy to hear that you and your family made it through OK. We are both fortunate. I, being in central Norman was never threatened, but my parents and brother were. Below is an image of the damage path of the tornado I found on the Internet, with my parents’ and brothers’ houses shown by red stars. It went a little over a mile south of my parents’ house and about ½ mile north of my brother’s.

Thanks to incredible video from a news helicopter, I watched the storm go from a wall cloud, to sporadic funnels, to a hopping tornado that then got on the ground and grew and grew, all in about 5 minutes, when the storm was down near Bridge Creek. Even out in the country, it was tearing things up and I couldn’t help but cry, knowing what was about to happen. The “right turn” as they call it, spared by parents, but made the storm grow larger. Once it cleared my parents, who I knew were safely in their cellar, I called my brother to make sure that he knew it was coming, and he was out in his front yard, with his next door neighbors watching it approach him, with the cellar open and waiting if needed. When I hung up he said that it looked like he was going to “dodge the bullet”. With the technology now days, you know right where it is and where it is going, more or less, but it was still not certain if he was going to get hit or not, when our cable went out. When we finally got through to each other an hour later (due to the phone congestion and damaged towers) he told me that he watched it all from his yard and that there was small debris flying everywhere, and that he had a lot of cleanup to do, but received no damage. The direction it was going when it formed in Bridgeport, it had to thread the needle to not hit either one of them. They really did dodge a bullet.



If you have been following this build, I apologize for the lack of progress recently. I decided to start building my 1st generation 3D printed USS Greenling, but I will return to Batfish soon. I’m thinking that I might need to add the vertical weld seams on the shears and aft mast.

Happy modeling everybody and be thankful for what you have! Thousands in Moore and OKC don’t any more.

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 60

After a week of no activity on Batfish, I returned to her today and put the vertical weld seams on the periscope shears. I started by drawing a vertical line up from the centerline of the ship, and used the projectgeometry command to project the line onto the shears.



Because the line projected as a series of smaller lines and arcs, I then drew a line (green) from the top most point to the lowest most point of the line projected onto the forward side of the forward mast.



I then drew a circle with radius 0.06’ (0.005” at 1/144 scale) on the lower end of the line, rotated it 90 degrees and extruded it using the line for the path.



I then copied the extruded circle from the forward shear to the aft shear…



I then mirrored the lines individually to the other side of the masts. (In hindsight, it would have been easier to mirror it first, and then copy the two together to the rear shear, but “All roads lead to Rome.”)



Next, I deleted all of the projected lines and joined the extruded circles to the shears.







Hmmmm, what next?

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 61

I decided to look into how I wanted to do the search light, just aft of the shears.







My original thought was to only build the post and buy an after-market search light. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find a 1/144 scale search light. I found both 12” and 24” lights in 1/350, but none in 1/144, so I decided to try to build the whole thing. Due to the scale, I couldn’t include some of the features, but tried to match the photos as much as possible. I started with a 6” (0.04” at 1/144 scale) square…



…Rounded the corners…



…And extruded it.



I then drew a slightly smaller circle on the top of the extruded shape and extruded it up a bit.



Next I started the lower plate by drawing a circle…



…Which I then extruded.



Next I made the flanges for the bottom, which I did by first drawing a triangular shaped polyline in the center of the port face of the post, moved it slightly to the side, mirrored it and lofted it.



Then I rotate/copied it to the aft and starboard sides of the post.



After this, I added the top plate which was created with two circles of different sizes and lines tangent to them. After trimming and joining, the shape was extruded.



Next I extruded a circle up from the bottom plate through the top plate and past the top part of the plate slightly,…



…joined everything together and recolored it. Note that even though the post is colored the same as the rest of the model, I DID NOT attach it to the rest of the shears.



After making the nut seen on the bottom, I made the bracket between the plates. It is not exactly like the photos, but it gives the basic shape.



Next I made the searchlight itself, which is 12” (0.083” at 1/144 scale) in diameter, the support arms, and the searchlight light lens…



I then joined everything and recolored all but the lens that I left yellow for effect.



With the search light completed, I decided to make the guard rails, which I did by first drawing two circles with the correct diameters and vertical position. This was a trial an error process using the photos for reference. I then drew a 2” (0.014” at 1/144 scale) diameter circle on the lower circle, rotated it 90 degrees and extruded it using the circle for the path.



I did the same for the top circle, and the (somewhat) vertical supports bars. The photos also show two vertical pipes extending from the lower bar, so I added these as well (yellow).



The ends of the top rails don’t tie in to the shear, and instead bend down to connect with the lower bar, so I trimmed the top rail, and added a sphere to provide a smooth transition from the horizontal bar to the (somewhat) vertical bar.



I next added collars to the vertical pipes and joined everything together. I suspect that this part, like others before, will not be printed, but instead will be added during construction, so I am leaving it red.







I believe that this concludes the detailing on the shears, unless you guys see something I should add or change. If so, let me know and I will add it or redo it as required.

Happy Memorial Day!

[scott t]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

This looks aaaaw-some!
You might think about detailing the deck plate below the light with some dimples to represent tread
or drain holes.
Two other things for the shears would be the periscope tops. Maybe printed as a seperate piece.

Scott T

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 62


Thanks Scott!

I really like the suggestion about adding drain holes. At one point I thought about shelling the platform and using some perforated photoetch, but decided against it. I think I’ll try your suggestion. As for the periscopes, I am already considering them as separate pieces. Early on, I was just thinking of using appropriately sized wire for the periscopes themselves, but recently I have decided to try to print them.

Well guys, I lied about being finished with the shears, because even though it may not end up being part of the model, except as an add-on, I decided to add whatever that gismo is on the platform leaning out forward from the forward shear. My guess is radar?





I started by drawing an octagon that filled the space on the platform…



…And shelling it to 0.12’ (0.01” at 1/144 scale) thick.



I then sliced it to form the forward plate seen in the photos.



I essentially repeated the process for the aft plate that is taller.







I then started on the central cylindrical object, which I did using an extruded circle...



…Then another larger extruded circle…



…Which I cut a rectangle out of the forward section. I then added the bolts seen in the photos…



…Joined it all together and recolored it red.



Next I capped it off with lofted circles, with filleted edges.



These too were joined and recolored red.



Last I added the slanted support bar under the platform and joined it to the assembly.







I’m pretty happy with the way these last features turned out. They might not ever be printed and be scratch-built during construction, and although I am not yet going to rule out the possibility that I may be able to get them printed at some point, I am going to leave the uncertain parts and assemblies red for the time being.

I think next I’m going to try to add the drain holes as Scott suggested.

CHEERS!!!

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Good news and bad news guys!

The bad news is that I probably won’t be working on Batfish any this week. The good news is why. Pavel, of Admiralty Models contacted me about doing some CAD work for him, so I am going to do it in exchange for him printing my parts. Good deal!!! That means that both the detailing Greenling model and this Batfish model will get printed.

YEEEAHHH!

My first project is a Goalkeeper CIWS. If you are interested, I am keeping a build log at: http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/vi ... 7&t=152674
CHEERS!!!

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 63

Hi Guys! I’m Back!

I finished the Goalkeeper, or at least the first draft of it (click on the image below to see it rotating). It was a lot of fun and some of my parts for the detailed Greenling are on the way, and Pavel told me that the “mast”, which I assume is the snorkel inductor because that is the only mast like part I sent him, came out good. That means that all of the detailing I am doing on Batfish will print and that I have a means of getting it done, without it costing me a fortune. Yeeeaaaahhhhhh!!!!!



I am sure that I will be doing more items for Pavel in the near future, and I am really excited about it, but for now I am returning to Batfish. I think that everything is done on the periscope shears, so decided to ease back into it and make the guard rails for the forward gun platform. Like other items I have made, I am not sure that it will ever be printed, and may be made out of PE, but I am adding them all the same. Who knows, I may decide to print them. Pavel’s new 3D printer is a brand new state-of-the-art ProJet 3500HD Max, a very expensive Rapid Prototype machine that will do 16 micron layers. It can probably print the rails fine. It is just a matter if they would be durable enough to survive shipping and handling during construction.

In any case, here goes…

I started the process by looking at pictures, as usual. The two pictures I used were provided by Tom and clipped versions are shown below.




I had two good points of alignment that made the process relatively simple. The first reference was the location that the railing is connected to the bridge bulkhead. Using this point, and the images to estimate how far out the railing extends before turning forward, I drew an L-shaped polyline for the top rail location. The second reference point I used was the location of the aft most vertical rail on the port side, which is directly above the aft end of the access door. I drew a 0.08” radius circle offset slightly from the edge and drew a line from the center of the circle, up, perpendicular to the polyline.



I then mirrored the plotline, circle and line to the other side.



Next I arrayed the 3 items around to evenly space the 6 posts…



…and drew a circle connecting the tops of the posts.



I then trimmed off the ends of the polylines and half the circle and joined the remaining half circle and polylines.



After this I extruded the 0.08” radius circles up the lines making up the posts and along the top rail polyline.



To make the center rail, I started by drawing a line between the mid-points of the end posts…



…And used the center of the line and one of the endpoints to draw a circle.



The aft half of the circle was trimmed off, and another 0.08” radius circle was extruded along the remaining semi-circle to complete the rail.







I think I will do the periscopes next, or perhaps the forward gun platform railing.

CHEERS!!!

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 64

Boy, do I feel stupid?

And thanks Tom for pointing it out. With my head somewhere in a dark, smelly place I posted the next two updates on the Greenling log instead of here, where it is supposed to be.

Anyway, I did the forward gun platform railing last night, as I mentioned that I might in my last post. It turned into more than I bargained for. Once again, I used pictures as the basis for the design, including port side and aft shots from Tom and a starboard side shot from Scott, clips of which are shown below.






So I started as usual by laying out my guide lines, starting with a good vertical reference by the navlight…


…and horizontal refences for the 50 cal. Machine gun above the hatch, and the forward rail post above the conductor (or antenna attachment point).


I then tried to position the next post.


However, the more I looked at it, the more I realized that the platform was wrong. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before, but the top of the platform actually sticks out from the bulkhead when viewed from straight aft (as in the 2nd photo above. So, utilizing a saved, but hidden, polyline describing the surface, I sliced the platform off, and remade it, which took some trial and error to get it right, because I just could not figure out the best way to make it. It is not a revolved section, as you can see below.








You can see from the aft view that it is now sticking out like it should.


With the platform redone, I returned to the original focus of the day’s task and leaned the second post out like seen in the photos…



…And mirrored what I had so far to the other side.


I then arrayed the leaning post around the platform.


Next I created the top rail by drawing a bent polyline connect to the half circle, mirrored it, joined everything and extruded a 0.08 mm radius circle along it. I also extruded the posts.


Last I added the center rail.






CHEERS!!!