1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 91

Hi Guys!

Confirming what Tom D said earlier, I received the following response from Paul Farace to a Post I put on the Submarinemuseums.org site…

“Prior to 1952 the messenger rescue bouy was a cylinder held vertically in a well on the deck edge aft and in the superstructure forward beside the escape trunk (port on EB subs) ... The forward one would have been flush with the deck and the aft one slightly above the deck because the superstructure standoff aft is much less above the pressure hull. But these were NEVER carried on a war patrol!!! A blank round metal plate would have been welded over the empty sockets in wartime. You didn't want them blown loose by a depth charge and float to the surface to give away your position.. since they were attached to your forward and after torpedo room hatches with a steel cable to allow the McCann rescue bell to follow it down to the boat!!! There are plenty of photos to document this for model builders. The rescue bouys we all have today were installed in 1953 and originally were painted yellow. They were changed to orange in the mid 60s.”

This inspired me to go ahead and make the part in both configurations, so I saved my “Batfish-144-Part08-Hull08” part as “Batfish-144-Part08-Hull08-OldMessengerBuoy”and went at it. I started with the plans tracing the (new) old round messenger buoy…



…Which I copied to the plans.



I started with the oval buoy which had to be filled in, which was more difficult than cutting it, due to the fact that the deck isn’t flat.



To fill it I slightly enlarged the green rectangle and extruded it around the oval.



Because the deck isn’t flat, I used three polylines with the lower parts connecting points on the deck.



I then lofted between the polylines…



…Then subtracted it from the extruded oval, leaving the oval pretty much flush with the deck.



I then joined it to the deck. In the image below you can see the difficulty of cutting an object on a curved surface, as you can still see the outline of the oval buoy in Conceptual Visual style. This is because the deck surface and the surface of the extruded polylines wasn’t exactly the same, even though I traced the deck points to make the polylines.



In Realistic Visual style these lines go away and will not show up on the printed part.



For the new (old) round buoy, since Paul says that they wouldn’t have been on the ship during the war, and that instead “a blank round metal plate would have been welded over the empty sockets”, I simply moved the circle up 0.010” and extrude it into the deck.





Last, I joined it to the deck.





I’m not sure that I will ever use this part, because I have come to realize that in order to model Batfish in February, 1945, I would essentially have to redo the entire bridge and masts, but never say never.

CHEERS!!!

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 92

Good Morning Guys, I made a little progress on the model last night and early this morning, continuing on detailing the deck. I started with the forward torpedo loading hatch/skid.



Because of the issue I previously had with the locations of some of my tracings, I went to the plans and retraced them. You can see in the image below that it is a good thing that I did, because the original location of the skid (green) is a good deal forward of the new location (yellow). You can also see that the hatch and trunk are well below the surface of the deck, and therefore do not need to be included on the model…



…So, I concentrated on just the skid.



I did the forward skid in the same manner as I did the aft skid, by drawing a 0.005” radius circle on the polyline outlining the skid…



…Extruded it along the polyline…



…And subtracted it from the deck.





Next, I did the forward messenger buoy, copying the outline and section (green) from the aft buoy forward to the proper location.



I then extruded the section along the outline…



…And subtracted it from the deck.



Next I did the forward escape trunk, a picture of which is shown below.



I could have copied the template I had and add all of the padeyes separately, but instead I took a short cut and sliced the forward hatch, eyes and all from Part 9.





I then copied this assembly forward to the proper location.



The deck is sloped slightly at this location, so I had to rotate the hatch to orient it properly.



Next, I cut the large padeye off of the aft hatch, in a similar fashion as I just did for the hatch assembly…



…Copied it to the correct location…



…And rotated it.



To make the aft padeye, I kind of cheated. I copied the forward one back, sliced it and filleted it.



I realize, from the pictures, that the two padeyes aren’t the same but we have to remember what scale we are dealing with. Lest we forget, the image below shows the scaled dime on the deck. At this scale, I think the fudged padeye will work just fine.



CHEERS!!!

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 93

Good Morning All!

I had a major detour last night, thanks to Scott sending me some clips from the wood decking plans for the bridge deck, along with a few pictures. I don’t know if the decking plans have recently been added to the Pampanito web site or if I simply overlooked them. In any case, I found the decking plans for both the bridge deck and the main deck. The pictures and the plans make it clear that the gun access trunk was recessed with a cover. If I had paid better attention to the access plans I had all along, I would have known this already. Or if I had used common sense; if it was sticking up it would be in the way of the gunners.

Anyway, I cropped the bridge deck plans and import it into AutoCad and scaled it. You can see the location of the trunk in the image below. The purpled lines are the hatch as shown on the access plans, the red circle is where I put mine, and the green lines, obviously, are where the decking plans show it. Unfortunately the plans are for the extended forward gun platform version and therefore aren’t 100% applicable to Batfish.



The image below shows the situation on the model. The magenta circle is the base for the gun. You can see how, if the deck were extended that the hatch as oriented and positioned with the green polyline would be more out of the way than it would be without the extension. The biggest problem I see is that the gun mount will be partially over the hatch even if I move the hatch out to the farthest edges of the purple line obtained from the access plans. I must admit that this has me kind of stymied and I’m not sure how to handle it.


 
Putting that decision off for a bit, I hadn’t really liked the redesign I did of the aft gun platform because, frankly, it sucked. If you look back at the images from underneath on Update 90, you will see what I mean. The platform looks like a pregnant guppy, and bulges out, which the real ship does not do. So I re-re-did it. I started by cutting off the old platform in a crude way trying to save time, an inefficient way to do it as it turned out. I then traced the platform outline from the plans with a red circle and drew a polyline for the section…



…That I then revolved.



The next step was the step I was trying to avoid, and that was tracing the pointed end of the fairwater and extruding the tracing. I actually had to do the tracing in 2 parts because for some reason AutoCad wouldn’t slice along it as one line.



With two lines it worked, so I sliced the port side first…



…Followed by the starboard side.



After each slice I separated the sliced parts, deleted the parts I didn’t want. Next I rotate copied the polyline section to both sides…



…and extruded them back to the body of the fairwater.



In the image above you can see a small section above the top access plate where it is cut out as a result of me trying to save time. AS it turned out, I had a hard time filling it, as AutoCad rejected several attempts. I finally was able to fill it and joined everything together. The last step was to redrill the hole for the aft mast.



This re-work, screwed up the railing so, I spent about an hour redoing it as well.



I like it much better now. At least it isn’t pregnant any more.







CHEERS!!!

[salmon]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Wow Russ....It gets better and better!

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 94

Hi Guys, and thanks Tom. I think you will like this too. I know I had fun doing it. I’m still undecided about how to handle the front of the cigar deck, especially in light of some pictures Scott sent me, but more on that later.

In the meantime, I decided to continue with the main deck, turning my attention to the forward escape trunk and companionway. I have two good pictures of it, one from Tom, looking down the steps with the wood planking in place…



…The other from Scott, before the planking was restored, showing a good side view of the stairs.



The first thing I did was extrude the outline I had previously drawn through the deck…



…And subtracted it.





Next I went to the Fairweather part and cut out the trunk as I did previously…



…And copied it to the current model.



I then lowered it into the top of the pressure hull.







In addition to the pictures you guys sent me, I also have the plans that show a good section view of the stairs, so I traced it using polylines.



The stairs as traced were only 0.010” thick, so I used some modeler’s license and moved the lower corners of the inner sides down to make the bases thicker for support. No one will ever know.



I then copied the outline to the plans at a point 0.025” from the edge of the cutout…



…And lofted it to the edge.



Then I copied it to the other side of the cutout.



Next, I extruded the steps.



Unfortunately, from the side view, it didn’t tie into the top of the pressure hull…



…So I lowered it down to what looked to be the hull. The top should have been below the deck anyway.



It was looking good from the top…



…But not so much when I turned off the adjoining part (Part 3) and looked at it from inside. The legs were hanging in the air, so I slice one and moved the lower part down into the hull.



Next, I drew a rectangle on the end, extruded it and joined the parts to form one leg of the stairs…



…That I then copied to the other side.



At this point I noticed that the escape trunk was protruding through the hull. To remove it, I first copied the part and the trunk up out of the way…



…And subtracted the part from the trunk.



I then separated the top from the bottom (because even though they aren’t connected they are still one piece) and deleted the bottom part (and the trunk on the model)…



…Before moving it into position back on the model.



You may have noticed in the image above that the trunk didn’t go all the way up to the underside of the deck. To remedy this I extruded a circle from the top of th trunk up to the deck and joined it to the rest of the trunk.



I also re-reamed the hole through the center of the trunk and continued it through the hull. I did this for 2 reasons, to minimize material use, and to allow for cleaning the support material out from around the part when it is printed.



At this point all that was left to do was to join the ladder and trunk to the part.









CHEERS!!!

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 95

Good Morning All,

I woke up early this morning and decided do the hole for the towing fairlead and chain channel(?). I had done this once, back in Update 8, but later redid the bow section so although part of the hole was already there, it needed to be completed. For reference, the only picture I have of the area, provided by Scott, is shown below.



To start this process I began by drawing a line between the centers of the circles at the ends of the existing cut, then extending the line. Next I copied the circle up the line, lofted between them…



…And subtracted it.



As you can see in the previous image, the hole/groove does not extend enough forward or aft, so I undid the subtraction and loft, lowered the upper circle, and then re-lofted and subtracted it.



That provided the cut I needed aft, but then the forward edge was too far back. So, I undid the loft and subtraction again, copied the circle up, re-re-lofted it…



…And subtracted it.



Now, the forward edge looked good, but the aft edge was too far forward. I had a cunning plan going in though, so the next step was to join the two aft circles with lines to their “quadrants”, slice the circles and join the lines and half circle to make a polyline, which I then lofted with the forward circle.



When I subtracted it, I got more or less the groove I was after. Note the shape of the aft polyline.



I tried to fillet the corners but AutoCad said that the part was to complex, so the final shape will have to be obtained through filing/sanding, unless the desired rounding occurs in the print process, which is a possibility. Anyway here are some images of the completed towing fairlead.







CHEERS!

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 96

Good Afternoon Everybody!
Earlier this morning, I noticed that when I redid Part 3 to move the torpedo lading deck skid, the longhorn cleats didn’t get put on, so I redid them, again copying the outlines I had drawn from the plans…



…And copying the longhorn to the tracing.





I then rotated it parallel to the deck and lowered it slightly into the deck…



…And copied it to the other side.



Unfortunately, the cleats fall on two parts.



I don’t want to split the cleat so I moved the cleat up 0.08” forward, which is a little less than a foot in real life, but I won’t tell if you don’t. Oh, I guess I just did. The lesson to be learned here is that I should know where these kind of details will be BEFORE I split the model into parts, so as to avoid this sort of thing.





CHEERS!!!

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 97

The next thing I did was the forward plane manhole (FPMH), which took me 2 tries. I had good pictures from Scott and Tom, including the one below that I based the initial design on.



To begin this process, I copied the DPMH I had previously created to position and rotated it 90 degrees.



Next, in what turned out to be a waste of time due to the fact that I didn’t look at all of my pictures carefully enough, I traced one of the bolts and copied it around to the other bolt locations on the manhole.



I then changed my view to the side view…



…And sliced off the nuts and bolts.



Next, I extruded the circles through the MH…



…And subtracted them. I also copied the outline to the top part of the MH and scaled it down for the base, so it would be inside the bolt holes.



The MH as copied from the DPMH was only 0.005” thick, which is OK if it is a protrusion from a surface but would not be sufficiently thick for a “fin” (which is the terminology used by 3D printers for thin flat surfaces). To thicken it, I copied it down to itself and joined the two plates (or fins) to make it 0.01” thick (which is probably still too thin).



I then extruded the inner oval down for the base…



…And joined the two parts together.



Looking at it from the side you can see that the MH was not parallel to the deck…



…So I rotated it…



…Before lowering it into the deck.



…And joining it to the part.



At this point, having put the cart before the horse again, I looked more carefully at Pictures I have from Scott…



…And Tom…



…And realized that I had designed it wrong. It seems that the open holes in the initial photograph are due to the fact that they were in the process of restoring her and the actual manhole was a plate bolted to the deck with spacers to raise it off of the deck, which appears to have a hole through it, although I can’t really tell from the pictures. Also, the plate isn’t flat, but has a curve surface on top. So, I went back to the drawing board.

I had saved all of my guidelines, so the redesign wasn’t too difficult. First, I decided that I needed to make the plate thicker, so I extruded the outer oval 0.05” down from the bottom of the existing plate to make it 0.015” thick, and extruded the smaller, inner oval down through the deck…



…Which I then subtracted, leaving a hole in the deck and the plate suspended in air.



I then joined the 2 plates…



…Before making the rounded surface on the plate as seen in the photos, by revolving a half ellipse on the plate…



…moving the ellipsoid down…



…slicing off the bottom and joining the top to the plate.



Next I made a nut, bolt and spacer for one of the holes and copied it around to the other holes…

…Then joined it all together and colored it dark gray for the time being.







The current design pushes the limit of what can be printed by 3D printers, but should be printable and stout enough to be handled although it will likely be delicate, but aren’t a lot of the pieces we deal with in modeling. It is obviously thicker than the real deal, but I like the effect it gives being able to see through it. I have not attached it to the deck yet, because I am thinking that the DPMHs at the aft end were probably designed in a similar manner and I may need to modify it as well. Unfortunately, since the deck access ramp at the Batfish museum covers it, I don’t know what it looks like. Does anybody know what the aft one looked like? Were they the manholes the same or was the one in the back mounted flush to the hull?

I should perhaps add that this session and the ones to follow are being enjoyed with a fine crafted Shipyard IPA. Mmmm, Mmmmm, Good!

CHEERS!!!

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 98

Good Morning Guys!

Continuing with the main deck detailing, the next thing I did was the bow buoyancy tank vents using Scott’s picture shown in the last post and the plans. I first redrew the rectangle around the circle traced from the plans and filleted it to match the picture.



In the image below you can see that the lines aren’t square with the deck…



So I rotated it.



I then lowered the lines so that they were right on the deck, extruded the outline up 0.006” then lowered it into the deck 0.001”, so that it protrudes from the deck 0.005”.



Next I extruded the circle through the extruded outline…



…And subtracted it.


 
At this point I copied both the solid and circle to the forward vent location.



I then had to align the forward vent with the deck like I did the aft one and lowered it into the deck so that it protrudes 0.005”.





Next I extruded the circles into the deck 0.025”.



I then subtracted them and added grating using lofted 0.005” circles.



After finishing the aft grating, I copied it to the forward vent location…



…And join them to the deck.





The grating bars are bigger than in real life and even so, may be too fragile once printed. Still, I think they look pretty good, and if they are too fragile, I will cut them out and make them with PE.

On another note, I am presenting a poster at a conference in San Diego at the end of September. I’m getting there a couple of days early due to the train scheduling (I love flying, I hate airlines, so I refuse to give them my money and the train is fun) and so I will probably go to the Maritime Museum on Saturday and see B-39 and USS Dolphin. I’m already signed up for the Conference sponsored tour of USS Midway on Sunday. The conference is at the Coronado Island Marriott Resort & Spa and looking at the map it looks like I may be able to see both from my hotel.

CHEERS!!!

[wlambing]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Man-hole cover; If this was still a fighting ship, the cover would be bolted directly to the deck. There is no practical reason for those spacers to be in between the cover and the deck. They don't belong in that joint. In fact, that cover isn't a "stock item" either. To access the bow planes mechanism, a mechanic would open an existing deck locker and crawl through the superstucture. When they built these boats they had all this stuff figured out.

Bill

[scott t]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

That is most likely a hatch into a trim tank. It should probably loose the spacers and sit down on the deck.
The reason it is setting high is that it is not bolted down and is setting on top of the threaded studs.

The dive plane mechanism is reached by climbing under the deck. I will send you a picture when I find it.

Some day we may be able to upload pictures to this site. Hopeing!

Scott T

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 99

Thanks Bill and Scott for straightening me out on what the plans call the FPMH, which I assume stands for Forward Plane Man Hole. I corrected it and that process is shown at the end of this post. First though, I added the track seen on Tom’s picture in Post 97 and the access hatch to the wildcat gear. The track isn’t shown on any of the plans, so I suspect it was a modification made some time later, although I don’t know when. I’m not sure exactly what the track is for, but it looks similar to the track on Greenling (SSN-614) so perhaps it too is for safety railing. Is that correct?

In any case, to make it, I started with Tom’s picture and the plans. In the picture, it looks like the track makes a long s-curve then goes straight aft. In the image below you can (barely) see the axis of the track in magenta and one part of the s-curve in blue, as well as the access to the wildcat gear and the “portable plate” seen both in the plans and on Tom’s pic.



I mirrored the s-part about the line moved it to the end and then joined the s-parts and the long straight part to form a single polyline.



Next, I copied the track, the access to the wildcat gear, and two other access panels aft to the model.



Looking at it from the side, you can once again see that the copied lines aren’t parallel with the deck…



…So I rotated them.



Next I drew a rectangle 0.015” wide x 0.02” tall, lowered it half wy into the deck and extruded it along the polyline.



The track overlaps two parts, so I sliced it at the junction point between the parts. In the image below I have colored one light blue for easy visualization.



Next, I drew a 0.005” radius circle on the outline of the portable plate and extruded it along the polyline…



…And subtracted it twice, one for each part. Note that this required copying it to the side and moving it back after subtracting it from the first part.



A 0.005” radius circle was then extruded around the outline of the wildcat gear access hatch.



This extrusion was subtracted from the deck and hinges were made by moving the small rectangles used for their outlines up, extruding them into the deck and filleting their edges.





In the images below, the tracks have been recolored, but I have not attached them to the parts yet.







Of course, the real track is T-shape and a little smaller than what I have. Still, I think the design as I have it is a good replication of it, even if I decide not to use it.

After reading Bill’s and Scott’s posts, I redid the manhole. I started by extruding a circle on one of the posts, copying to the other posts and subtracting them. The image shows this process partially completed.



I then separated the parts and deleted first the cover…



…Then the nuts and bolts. I then extruded the inner smaller oval down into the hull…



…And joined it to the hull, before copying the original MH assembly from the plans.



I rotated it square with the deck, lowered it into the deck and joined it to the part.


 




CHEERS!!!

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 100

Good Morning Everybody!

This being the centennial post for my Batfish model, we need to set the mood. In a thread on “Modeling Music” on the odelwarships.com, Tracy posted this. It’s great stuff. Watch it first and celebrate 100!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-CnWwbe ... r_embedded

OK, now we are ready!

Last night, and early this morning, I started on the wood decking for the main deck. As I so often do, I started by importing the plans into AutoCad and scaling them. The image below shows the plans with my tracings of significant features in red. The lower image shows these tracings copied to the model, and also shows the extent of the wood deck on Batfish in magenta. You can see that the wood deck extends forward past the companionway, where it stops in the plans, to the forward edge of the wildcat access. It also extends well aft of the hatch to the crew’s quarters, as in the plans, all the way back to the aft escape hatch.



That’s the first main difference between the plans and Batfish. The second main difference is that the plans show the 5”/25 gun mount in the forward position. Batfish, currently, does not have a deck gun forward or aft. However, I am considering putting one aft, where Tom D said it was February 10-13, 1945, when Batfish sank the 3 Japanese submarines. The unanswered question remains, “Was the fairweather/bridge/mast configuration, as it is now, on the ship at the same time that the aft deck gun was installed?” If so, great, even if it wasn’t like this in February. If not it would be inconsistent. Still, I’m thinking about adding it anyway. It would be a good talking point for those that know their sh*t, and cool to look at it for those of us that are clueless.

Another difference between my design and the real deal is the cross- section of the battens used to make the deck. The image below shows the detail of the battens, as shown in the plans. You can see that the real ones are 2” x 1-1/2” with a 3/16” chamfer and a 3/4" spacing between battens. At 1/144 scale the battens would be 0.014” x 0.01” with 0.001” chamfers and a spacing of 0.005”, which could probably be printed, but would be too fragile to work with on a model. The mage shows my design for comparison. It is 0.02” x 0.02” with no chamfer (it is just too small) and a spacing of 0.008”, which at real scale would be 2-7/8” square with a 1-5/32” spacing. These dimensions worked out pretty good on the hatch covers, so I thought I would try it for the entire model.



So I copied a slew of the battens side by side using the 0.008” spacing, and then added a base to the battens making the total thickness, from the bottom of the base to the top of the battens 0.05”.



Next, I extruded the battens and the base aft and joined it all together.



The image below shows the extruded deck copied to the side. On the other side are the tracings of the deck both from the plans, and as I added to match Batfish. I have copied the tracings to my deck template. Note that they are referenced to parallel coordinate systems for ease of location.



Here is another image of it after I had trimmed and joined the tracings to form a closed polyline.



Next I copied Part 2 (and a section of the track) to the drawing using the common coordinate system I have on all of my parts.



At this point I sliced the deck template at the aft end of the part, extruded the outline down through the remaining part of the deck…



…And used the Intersect command to make the deck. Note that on the real ship the ends of the battens are cut square (at least they are on Batfish now), and I considered doing that, but the wider battens leave too big of gaps.



I next extruded and subtracted the (open polyline) outline for the forward escape hatch…



…and sliced the deck using the surface just created.



Although I didn’t document it, I next sliced the battens off of the hatch base, rearranged them and widened the inner ones and drew an outline for the handholes (in the wrong location).



I extruded the handhole to the bottom of the battens, moved it, copied it to the other locations seen in Tom’s pic…



…And subtracted them.



Next I extruded outlines of the messenger buoy and companionway through the deck…



…And subtracted them creating the finished “wood” deck for Part 2.



I next copied the completed deck over to the model.



After aligning the wood deck with the model deck, I moved it up out of the way, then copied it down in short increments into the deck, subtracting the wood deck from the part each time.



I then lowered the wood deck into position on the model. The images below show the finished product.











I must say that I am really pleased with the way it came out, although I haven’t joined it to the part yet, in case there is an issue I don’t know about yet. It sure was a lot of fun and I have more to do. Oh Boy!

CHEERS!!!

[scott t]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Man! that is looking good Russ. Do you have any idea how it will print out?
I was thinking if the gaps did not print properly you could raise every other batten
a smidgeon so it would look like battens side by side. The light and dark
difference would show the planks kind of like when they mow ballfields in
different directions and that makes a pattern show up.

[tom dougherty]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

The second main difference is that the plans show the 5”/25 gun mount in the forward position. Batfish, currently, does not have a deck gun forward or aft. However, I am considering putting one aft, where Tom D said it was February 10-13, 1945, when Batfish sank the 3 Japanese submarines. The unanswered question remains, “Was the fairweather/bridge/mast configuration, as it is now, on the ship at the same time that the aft deck gun was installed?”

The conning tower fairwater looked like this][/url]

As far as the 5/25, here's some photos of one][/url]





If you do decide to do the sub as in WWII, you need to remove the deck-mounted T safety rail on the deck up in the bow. A postwar feature...