1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

**rdutnell** · 08-05-2013, 09:57 PM

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Well Scott, I was curious to know myself and would love to know if they print, and if they do, how they look. So I postponed my other tasks for the day and scaled my parts, which are being drawn real scale, made STL files out of them and uploaded them to Shapeways. The good thing about Shapeways is that if you want to print one or more of the parts, I can make them â€œPublicâ€ and you can order the part(s) straight from them. My guess is that the parts would print better if they were designed for 1/72 to begin with, but it may be worth a shot.

Hi Dave! I am happy to hear that you have been enjoying the build logs, and I think itâ€™s really cool that it has inspired you. From what I hear Solidworks is one of (if not the) best program to use for this sort of designing. I have never used it, but I think you will catch on quickly (if you havenâ€™t used it before), and will have a lot of fun.

A few tipsâ€¦

1) Know what scale you want to print in and the precision of your printer. I like to make the initial ship real scale because that is what the plans are usually in. Even if the plans are reduced the dimensions are provided in ship length (feet) not plan length (inches). On Greenling (and Bertholf) I scaled it down fairly early on. Batfish is still at full scale, which is slightly more difficult because I have to convert the printerâ€™s limiting dimensions (inches) to model length (feet) so when I do reduce it, items are at the correct scale and not too small to print.

(This goes to what I was telling Scott about my Batfish parts, which were designed for 1/144 scale, not printing well at 1/72 scale. Consider bulkheadsâ€¦ How thick are they? Whatever they are, if you made them to scale they would be too thin to print, so I set them to the minimum thickness that can be printed and be solid enough to handle. If the bulkhead is designed for 1/144 scale, it will be twice as thick as it needs to be if printed at 1/72 scale).

2) Start with a good reference point and relate everything to it. Solidworks may work in part or assembly mode. If it does, that is even better.

3) Use Layers for everything. It makes life a lot easier. I draw everything on the base layer using a colored bold line. When the solid is completed I make a layer for it and put the new solid on it. All my construction lines then go on a â€œMiscâ€ layer that I keep turned off unless I want to retrieve one or more of them.

4) Use your coordinate system location and more importantly orientation to your advantage. Most things can be made in multiple ways, with some being faster and easier than others.

5) Symmetry is your friend! Many items on ships are on both sides, so use the mirror command when you can.

6) Use your visual styles alternatively. Some things are easier to do in one of the solid modes, and others are easier in wire frame.

7) Let me know if you have any questions.

HAVE FUN!!!

Have you decided what ship you are going to make? Do you have a good set of plans for it?
I hope you post your progress, I would love to watch.

Oh, and you can call me Russ!

CHEERS!!!

**rdutnell** · 08-06-2013, 08:52 PM

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 72

Good Evening Guys!

I didnâ€™t add anything to the model today, but I did make a parts diagram, since I had the model all together again. It was painstakingly slow. I had to wait after every move because at 81 MB the file is about at the limit my computer can handle, and actually I would probably say that it canâ€™t handle it. Auto backups were both a curse and a blessing. Usually you can keep working during an auto back up, or at least it is done so fast you donâ€™t notice it. Not the case on this file. Every time it did one, I had to wait several minutes before I could do anything on the drawing, thus the curse. The blessing was that a couple of times my whole system froze, but the auto back ups kept me from losing anything when it happened.

Anyway, I finally finished it, and here she be! It is designed to print on 11"x17", but it prints good on 8-1/2" x 11" too.

CHEERS!!!

**rdutnell** · 08-08-2013, 10:22 AM

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 73

Hi everyone!

You may remember that a while back I made the early style SJ Radar from plans that Tom D sent me. Well, I decided to make the late version SJ as well. The image below shows my early version and a clip of a drawing of the late version sent to me by Tom D.

The first thing I did was slice it at the base/attachment point.

I next extruded a couple of circles and subtracted the resulting solids from the assembly.

Another larger circle was then extruded to make the new base support.

The support arms are significantly different on the late version. Using the drawing for reference, I drew a polyline to match the section shape and extruded it to match the previous versions outside part, then copied it to the other sideâ€¦

â€¦Before slicing the lower part of the old support arm off.

To remove the top part of the old support arm, I extruded a circle through the existing support pin, subtracted it, separated the parts, and then deleted the remaining support arm parts.

Then I rounded the corners of the new support arm and joined the new parts together.

I made the body between the arms next by extruding polylinesâ€¦

â€¦Then joined them to the new assembly.

The radar itself was a little more difficult. I started by extruding a circle and subtracting it to leave just the support ribs on the backside. The ribs will be dealt with later.

The late version SJ is elliptical shaped (more or less), so I started to make it by drawing an ellipseâ€¦

â€¦Which I used to create a polyline that I revolved to make an ellipsoidâ€¦

â€¦Which I first sliced in half and shelledâ€¦

â€¦Then sliced further to try to match the angles seen on the drawingâ€¦

â€¦And filleted the cornersâ€¦

To make the new support ribs, I sliced the new radar at the location of the old ribs.

This allowed me to move various components to a temporary layer that I turned off exposing the side face of the radar, which I drew a polyline on for the new rib, and extruded it (yellow). At this point I deleted the old rib.

I did the same thing for the other two ribs on the left sideâ€¦

â€¦Mirrored the new ribs to the other sideâ€¦

â€¦And joined everything together. At this point, I thought that the radar was slightly small, so I scale it up 110%.

The last thing I did was put it in position on the periscope shear assembly.

It isnâ€™t perfect, because the real shape is more complex than a simple ellipse I think, but Iâ€™m happy with it.

CHEERS!!!

**tom dougherty** · 08-08-2013, 10:42 AM

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Looks good! I should note that neither antenna dish is solid, but rather slotted:

I don't think you want to try replicating that, however...

**rdutnell** · 08-08-2013, 12:37 PM

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Thanks Tom! And excellent pic too!

Yeah, I knew they were slotted, but at this scale, there is no way I could replicate it. I will probably use PE for the radars anyway.

**rdutnell** · 08-08-2013, 09:26 PM

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 74

Good Evening Everyone!

I had a little time to model this evening, so I decided to start on the main deck detailing. I began with the aft capstan, for which I had three good pictures of, one that I tookâ€¦

â€¦And two that Scott sent me (that I clipped). I like the use of the foot for scale Scott!

The aft capstan is also shown on a plan sheet titled â€œStern Diving Gear and Capstan Mechanism Arrangement.â€ I cropped this drawing to include just the capstan part I needed, import it into AutoCad and scaled it to size. I then drew the centerlines of both the ship and the capstan and traced the capstan with a polyline.

Next, I revolved the polyline around the capstone centerline.

Unfortunately, the top doesnâ€™t look like the pictures, so I redrew the polyline and revolved it again to recess the top like in the pictures.

I next prepared to make the cutouts in the top, drawing polylines for the outlines.

After rounding the corners of the polylines, I extruded them through the capstan and subtracted them.

With the capstan completed, I used the ship center line together with station markings on the drawings to copy the capstan to Part 9 â€“ Hull Section 9.

Iâ€™m too tired to get any more done tonight. Manana!

**rdutnell** · 08-09-2013, 11:15 AM

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 75

Good Mornings All!

The more I looked at pictures of the escape hatches, the more I disliked my design, and so I decided to redo it. The image below shows a cross section of the hatch I had previously designed. As you can see it is too flat compared to the pictures. The red circle shows my first shot at adding a curve. This would become even more pronounced later.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I decided to see if I could modify the one I have by dicing and slicing. I cutting out the flat section, which I did by first drawing a polyline of a half section of itâ€¦

â€¦Revolving it about the center axisâ€¦

â€¦And subtracting it.

I then moved the remaining assembly up to the level of the red circle.

At this point I realized that I didnâ€™t have enough curvature so I redrew the circle with a slightly smaller radius, repositioned the remaining hatch assembly and drew a sphere with the same radius as the circle centered at the center of the circle.

Next I sliced the circle at the top of the existing flange and deleted the lower part of it.

Note that the slicing process left some remnants by the hinge I had to remove. This process took a bit of time because removing the remnants also removed some of the spring coils on the hinge, which I had to patch up. The image below shows the mended hinge.

The modification also left the arms hanging in space, as you can see in the previous image, so I drew polylines on the armsâ€¦

â€¦Extruded themâ€¦

â€¦And added them to the assembly.

The image below shows the hatch before (left) and after (right) the modification.

It could perhaps use a slightly smaller radius, but I didnâ€™t want to overdo it, and I think it looks pretty good, certainly better than it did. So, I sliced off the one I had previously put on the top of the fairwater (bridge deck) and copied the new one in its place.

CHEERS!!!

**rdutnell** · 08-09-2013, 04:27 PM

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 76

Hi Again Everybody!

I have made more progress on Batfish today and need your opinions on something.

I continued detailing the Main Deck by first importing Page 5 of the General Booklet of Plans for SS381 (USS Sand Lance) and scaling them. I then traced some of the key features I want to add to my model.

I started at the aft end.

The aft most feature is a chock, that I donâ€™t really know what looks like. I have a general idea but Iâ€™m going to wait until I get a chance to look into it more. Itâ€™s not on Batfish because they have the access ramp in that spot. The magenta colored circles is the capstan and as you can see in the images below my location was slightly off.

So I moved it, as seen below. Also visible in the image is the hatch, which I copied from my design, and as you can see, it was too small.

So, I scaled it up to match the plan outline.

Because my design was undersized, that meant that the hatch I had just put on the top of the fairwater (bridge deck) was wrong so I went back and fixed it. In the image below you can see the new one (green) and the old one that I had sliced off but not deleted for comparison.

Returning back to the deck, I realized that the plans only showed the outer ring around the hatch, so I drew rings to match the pictures I have, including the one I took on my visit shown below.

The rings I drew are shown below.

This is where I need your opinion. To demark the rings I essentially have 2 choices. I can make them outies or inies. The lines are on the deck so I have extruded 0.06â€™ circles along them and have the choice of adding themâ€¦

â€¦Or subtracting them.

Which do you recommend? My thought is that since they are weld lines I should make them outies and add them.

CHEERS!!!

**rdutnell** · 08-10-2013, 07:37 AM

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Good Morning Everybody,

Iâ€™m continuing on the deck detailing and have a question. There are two different type cleats on the ship.

Type 1

Type 2

Can anybody tell me what they are called?

**salmon** · 08-10-2013, 08:59 AM

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Cleats. There are a pair of roller cleats at the bow and a pair at the aft end. The rest were plain cleats. As far as I know.

**rdutnell** · 08-10-2013, 10:03 AM

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Thanks Tom!
That's what it looks like to me.
I just didn't know if they had specific names

**lucky13dave** · 08-10-2013, 03:30 PM

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Hi Russ;

Thanks for the tips, as well as the encouragement!

It's been a while (bit more than a decade) since I've used autocad (in school), I've been playing with solidworks for 2 or 3 months now. It is a bit different from the autocad I remember, but I've little idea what they've done with it in the last 12 years

My shop hired a new engineer who was able to set me up with access to SW, and he's been extremely helpful. He's very intelligent and well versed in SW. One of the things that makes SW so powerful is it's simulation/analysis capability. I'm not up to speed with what autocad offers in that department. But even with SW, that's something that's a few months off for me, but I can see being extremely useful. (The engineer was showing me stress analysis in a part we're making for a customer as they designed it compared to his redesigns; his parts were stronger, lighter, and I could see that they would be a heckofalot easier to machine, meaning cheaper to our customer and higher margins for us.)

SW does do a few things differently than the AC I remember, specifically it doesn't use layers, but rather a "design tree" concept, hard for me to describe here, especially as I'm still wrapping my mind around it.

It does allow me to build my model at full scale, then rescale it and make parts & prints at the new scale. This gives me a bit of flexibility in my early design stages; I can build a hull as a full scale solid, then scale it down, define my thicknesses and create parts and prints dimensioned to scale. Also, It works on a part/assembly principle so I can build individual parts, then use them as a library for assemblies. And When I do get down to the nitty-gritty of building a physical R/C boat, many of the suppliers I reckon I'll use have SW models of the parts available for download; off the shelf items such as motors, screws, mechanical and electromechanical components.

Right now I don't specifically plan to have it printed; I'm tossing around a few ideas in my mind, and building a model in SW will help me narrow my choices. And I'm fortunate in that I have access to many methods of fabrication, and some very talented people.

To Answer some of your questions;

I do have a boat in mind for this first virtual build, the German Biber;

I do have several drawings from different sources, none dimensioned, and they conflict with each-other, as well as with photos of surviving boats. That has made this a particularly fun, frustrating and rewarding venture. I've built about 4 different models of the bow and non seem quite right.I've learned a LOT in the process.

I'll try to get a thread up soon, so as not to hijack your thread any more,
keep up the good work, you set a high bar and I hope I can keep up!

Dave

**rdutnell** · 08-10-2013, 04:48 PM

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

REALLY COOL DAVE!

All the way around. You are going to be way better off with SW than I am with the Civil3D AutoCAD I am using, which really isn't designed for solid modeling. I am most envious of the part/assembly capabilities. You can change a part, either on the part, or on the assembly, and any other part in the assembly that is dimensioned to it changes too. A friend of mine has shown me a little of Pro E and I think it and SW are similar, so I think I understand the design tree concept you speak of.

I will bet you are having fun with Biber. In the short time I have been doing it, I have found that making virtual models is most fun when you have some decent plans (but not great plans in their entirety) and good pictures because then there is an art to it. With a complete plan set it is a bit more mundane to me. With not quite enough information, either through pictures or plans can be as you say frustrating.

And don't even think about worrying about hijacking this thread. Post whatever you want. I would like to see it and I'm sure others following the thread would too.

HAVE FUN!

**rdutnell** · 08-11-2013, 11:26 AM

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 77

Good Morning Guys!

Yesterday, I scaled my drawings to 1/144 scale since I am mostly dependent on pictures at this point and not plan dimensions. Last night I started making a Roller Cleat (Type 1). I completed it this morning.

I didnâ€™t have much to go on. I had the picture I took (previously posted), with nothing for scale, and the plan sheet that I had previously traced.

I started by extruding the base.

I filleted it at 0.01â€, and then laid out the lines for the non-roller part of the cleat. I started at the base with a rectangle filleted at 0.01â€. Next I drew an ellipse inside the rectangle, scaled it to 98% and moved it up slightly. I then drew a polyline and filleted it 0.6â€ to create the loft line for the cleat arm. You canâ€™t see it very well in the image below, but I copied the ellipse to the end of the filleted polyline, rotated it so that it was perpendicular to the polyline and scaled it down (to 75% or so?).

I then lofted between the filleted rectangle and the first ellipseâ€¦

â€¦And then lofted between the two ellipses, using the filleted polyline as the path.

For the end, I sliced the end ellipse in half, joined the ends with a line and created a polyline out of it, and revolved it around the center axis.

For the roller part of the cleat I extruded the circle traced from the plans.

For the cleat arm, I mirrored the one I had just made.

To connect the two parts I first determined the length of the filleted polyline from before and copied and aligned the initial ellipse to the end of a line drawn along the axis of the new mirrored arm and then lofted between it and the ellipse at the end.

Next I rounded the top by adding a 0.006â€ circle extruded around the ellipse.

The top of the roller side arm is flat on top, so I extruded a 4-sided polyline into the arm.

â€ƒ
â€¦Which I filleted the edges of to 0.006â€

I still wasnâ€™t happy with it, so I tried extruding the circle I used for the top of the roller to match the end.

At this point I had to open up the top again. so I copied the initial roller part and extruded circle ring at the top of it up out of the way, rotated it 180 degrees and subtracted the extruded ring from the roller part.

I then extruded the magenta ellipse seen in the image above up through the roller part, and used the Union command.

I used the circle centers to position this piece correctly on the cleatâ€¦

â€¦Then subtracted it from the cleat, to create the desired recess.

I still wasnâ€™t completely happy with the sides, so I drew a rectangle along the side face, mirrored it to the other side and lofted them.

Next I added the nut seen in the recess on top by creating a hexagon circumscribed around a 0.07â€ circle and extruding it up.

To complete the cleat, I joined everything together and colored it gray.

Is it perfect? No! But it will do the trick, especially if you consider its size on the model. To show the scale, I imported an image of a dime and scaled it to size.

As you can see the cleat is pretty darn small, so I think it will look just fine on the model. In fact I probably could have greatly simplified how I made this cleat as far as the model goes, but like I have said before part of the fun is creating the various shapes as accurately as possible in AutoCad, or put another way, it is a journey not just a destination.

CHEERS!!!

**rdutnell** · 08-11-2013, 03:49 PM

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 78

Hello Again Everybody!

Having completed the roller cleats I decided to have a go at what Iâ€™m calling the â€œLonghornâ€ cleat. Tell me it doesnâ€™t look like a Longhorn.

To start the Longhorn cleat, I started with the roller cleatâ€¦

â€¦And sliced it off, keeping only the base.

To make the skull of the longhorn I stared with a rectangle on the base that was about 1/3 as long as the base and over Â½ as wide, which I filleted at 0.006â€. I then created the new profile (red, sorry) in much the same way as I created it for the roller cleat (blue) by drawing a polyline and filleting it at 0.6â€. I then copied the filleted rectangle up using the end midpoint as reference, and cut it in half. The half was then repeatedly copied up the outline, sufficient to describe the shape. The halves were then mirrored and the ends were extended as needed to join the ends of the initial halves. Then they wee joined to form closed polylinesâ€¦

â€¦Which were then lofted together.

For my first cut at the horns, I drew a rough outline of the horns profile using a polylineâ€¦

â€¦Moved it to the edge of the skull and extruded it to the other side.

â€¦Sliced the sides so that they angled in, and added ends using lofted circles.

My plan was to then fillet the edges to round them off, but AutoCad didnâ€™t like this so I had to come up with a plan B. I didnâ€™t document it very well, but what I did was slice the square horns and used the sliced sections to create ellipsesâ€¦

â€¦Which I then lofted together. I actually didnâ€™t loft them all together; rather I did half of it and mirrored it.

I then joined the horns to the skullâ€¦

â€¦And the whole thing to the base, at which point I colored it gray.

Once again, it is not perfect, but I think it will do the job. Comparing its size to the scaled dime image, you can see how small it will be. In fact the smallest dimension (the thickness of the horn tip) is just above what my test pieces show can be printed, but they will be somewhat delicate.

Now I get to add both cleats to the model.

CHEERS!!!

1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

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