1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 15

Here we go again… Another go at the venturi.

Once again, I started by lopping off the top.



Then I drew what I thought looked like the correct profile of the venturi. As Tom D pointed out, the center section is shorter than the side sections.



And lofted it to the top of the fairwater.



I then drew the polylines in preparation for making the inner surface…



…And lofted them. Note that it extends quite a distance aft. This will be taken care of later.



Next, I lofted the venturi up above the top of the bridge, and filleted the edges at 0.3’ radius.



With this completed, I created a polyline for the lower part of the venturi and drew in the guides…



…And lofted it.





I then made the support brackets, starting with the center one…



…Followed by the ones on the starboard side, which were then mirrored to the port side. This was a lot easier with them straight. Thanks Scott.







The last step was to trim the parts I had extended aft to simplify making it a bit.







With the venturi completed, I think I will turn my attention to the inside of the fairwater now, using the pix Tom posted and other pix you guys have sent. Thanks again for all of the input!

CHEERS!!!

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 16

Happy Easter Everybody. Another day in Paradise.

I played some more with the fairwater and bridge last night, completing it just before the worst hail storm I’ve ever been through and I have lived in Oklahoma for most of my life. They weren’t the biggest ones I’ve seen, ranging from maybe nickel size to golf ball size, but there was more of it and it lasted longer than any event I’ve experienced. Our backyard was completely white and looked like it had snowed. The sound was horrendous and our cats were freaking out. Two just disappeared and one was just hollering. I couldn’t help but wonder what the heck birds do during a storm like that. We had a new roof put on last fall and it looks OK from the ground, but I would be surprised if it isn’t damaged.

Anyway, back to the important stuff…

I started by drawing a circle and an ellipse, in preparation for thinning the forward face of the fairwater.



Which I then lofted…



…And subtracted.



I then prepared to cut out the bulge on the inside. The polylines shown in the image below were created by tracing the outside surface of the bulge and moving it in to maintain the proper thickness.



The polylines were then lofted, with an elliptical arc being used as a path between the top two sections, and the resulting shape was subtracted.



Doing this left the forward knob, for attaching the part to the bridge, hanging mostly in space, as can be seen in the previous image. So, I sliced it off and added a new attachment stud to the front edge.



Having modified the connecting points on the fairwater, I had to modify the bridge accordingly, so I opened the bridge drawing and copied it to the fairwater drawing. Since I used the datum points to copy it, it was positioned correctly and so I subtracted the fairwater from the bridge to create the female mate to the stud I just created. I then copied it again. In the image below I moved it for snapping the image. Note that I also opened the conning tower drawing and copied it to the fairwater drawing in preparation for my next endeavor…



…Which was the forward bridge hatch, which was made possible thanks to the excellent picture TomD posted. In the image below you can see the tracings of the outside edge of the conning tower (red) and the inside edge of the fairwater (blue). The red solid is the first level of the hatch. Due to the fact that my bulkheads are considerably thicker than the real deal, the scale is not correct. I don’t know the true dimensions of the hatches, but I would guess them to be at least 2-1/2’ in diameter, and probably more like 3’. The diameter of mine is only 2’ in diameter (1/4” at 1/144 scale). Note the attachment hole I created previously (gray).



The yellow in the image below is the start of the handle. Although you can’t really see it, the surface slopes up from the outside edge, to the handle.



Next, I drilled holes in the handle. I used circles, because even though the holes don’t appear to be circular on the picture Tom D posted, at this scale, circles will work, I think, if they are even visible.



The support arms for the hatch were made next using an extruded polyline that was then mirrored around the center axis of the hatch.



Finally, the hinge was created using a circle lofted between the arms.



The various components were then joined to each other and attached to the bridge.







Having completed the hatch, I isolated the bridge and copied it back to the bridge drawing, after deleting the previous version.



Is it perfect? No. Was it worth the effort? I think so, but that remains to be seen when and if the model ever gets printed. In any case, it was fun doing it and I think it looks pretty cool.

One thing that I am realizing is that one could spend a life time on a model like this if every detail was included. Obviously, this isn’t going to happen so the trick becomes deciding what to try to model, and what to ignore. Of course, due to the scale, many items are too small to even consider trying to model, but there are still a lot of features that would show up on a model that probably won’t be included. We’ll see.

What to do next? Hmmmmm…..

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 17

More Easter goodies…

I decided to try putting the hand rail on the top of the fairwater to see what it would look like.

I started by drawing a line connecting the center points on the aft end and drawing a circle on the end.



I then rotated the circle…



I wanted to minimize how much I extended the length (and height) of the fairwater, so I moved the circle off center toward the inside of the shell…



…Before I lofted it.



I then extruded the rail around the corner…



…And along the top.



The whole thing was then mirrored to the other side.



I can’t decide if I like it or not. I kind of do, but it is so off scale that it might be too over powering. What do you guys think? Should I include it, or not? I haven’t attached it yet since I am not sure I want to keep it.







Let me know what you think.

Russ

[scott t]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Take a sheet the thickness of the side and try different ideas.
Maybe just radius the corners.
Or Shrink the radius to the wall thickness and scribe a line along the edge to allow the radius
to make a panel line on the outside only, one layer thick. Like the different heights you see on photo etched brass.
What is the thickness of one layer on the SLA machine?

Picture from web to illustrate different heights in etched layers.

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Thanks Scott,

I can tell by your response that you aren’t crazy about it either. I tried just filleting the edges, but AutoCad wouldn’t let me do it. It said that it couldn’t resolve it. I didn’t think about the other idea. I think I’ll try it.

As for the layer thickness, my buddy has given mixed numbers, either 0.002” or 0.005”, so I don’t really know, but one thing he has be consistent about is that the minimum radius it will do accurately is 0.005”, which equates to 0.72” at 1/144 scale.

CHEERS!!!

[wlambing]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

"r",

The sail plating on a Balao class was, at most, 0.25 inch thick, and usually 3/16" HTS. Edging was 0.75 inch pipe welded to the plate. You might be better off just making the plate thinner and leaving the radiused edge off altogether. There has been a consistent problem in working with small-scale models (including 1:48) of these boats, and that has been replicating the plating thickness. For running models, if you're using anything other than sheet brass or stainless, you have to go too thick, elsewise the thing will fall apart from handling, water pressure, or collisions. For display models, mostly handling or the family pet!!

Take care,

B^)

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 18

Yeah Bill,

You definitely hit on the issue. The problem is that I don’t want to make it any thinner, especially at this point, so I have to work around what I have.

I tried rounding again using the fillet command, with mixed results. I was able to slice it and get it to fillet part of the outside edge, and the inside edge on the ends, but not along the top.

I tried rounding again using the fillet command, with mixed results. I was able to slice it and get it to fillet part of the outside edge, and the inside edge on the ends, but not along the top.









It looks better, and I could sand the rest, but I think I will try another method first. I’ll post it when I finish it, which could take a bit, because what I am thinking won’t be easy.

[scott t]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

The fillet looks much better. Your getting there.

I said it wrong earlier and meant make the cylinder diameter the thickness of
the wall. Not the radius.

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 19

I knew what you meant Scott. On the third try I did essentially what you suggested and to my surprise, it didn’t take near as much time as I thought it would, and I think I found what I’m going with. Unfortunately, I didn’t document the process, but it essentially involved measuring the wall thickness in a couple of places because it isn’t of uniform thickness everywhere, most specifically the vertical edge tapers a bit. I then drew a circle with the same diameter and oriented it correctly, aligning the outer edge of the circle with the outer straight edge. I then sliced the original surface along a line joining the centers of the circles. After I lofted the circles and joined them on one side I mirrored to the other, and as you can see it came out pretty good.







It’s not perfect and there are some minor issues around the venturi that a needle file will easily fix, but I’m happy with it for now. Now I’m back with the dilemma as to what to do next.

CHEERS!!!

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 20

Greetings once again everybody!

I have one more post for the weekend as I just finished adding the navigation lights to the fairwater. I had two great pictures provided by Tom that really helped this process.





Due to the small size of it, I didn’t get too carried away trying to match it exactly, but I think what I did will work nicely.

As usual, I started by drawing the shapes I need using polylines or converting other items to polylines. In this case I joined to identical circles with lines to form the cutout, and a rectangle and ellipse to create the cover, or outer portion.



I then filleted the inner edge of the cutout shape (green) at 0.15’ to provide the rounded cutout as seen in the photos.



Next, I moved the cutout shape into position, and mirrored it before subtracting it from the fairwater. Note the nicely rounded shape of the cutout.



After this I drew another rectangle for the cutout where the light would go.



The next image shows it from the top and you can see not only the lofted cutout (yellow), but also the curved shape of the outer portion of the light.



The image below shows the cutout of the light before final positioning.



At this stage, I moved the shape into the hull and because there is a slight slope to the fairwater bulkhead, I had to rotate it a little too.



I completed it by mirroring it to the other side and joining them to the fairwater.



All in all, I would say that I had a fairly productive weekend, at least as far as the model goes. I didn’t get much else done. I think now I’m going to retire to “Silent Victory” for the remainder of the night.

Sweet dreams everyone!

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 21

Good Morning All!

I had a go at the anchor, which was an interesting and somewhat challenging experience, especially since I have never physically seen a fleet boat anchor. Fortunately, the pix on Tom’s Photobucket site include one really good picture of the anchor, which my design is entirely based on.

Using the photo, I first prepared to draw the cross section using arcs, a circle and lines.



I did half of it, mirrored it, and then joined the parts to form a single polyline. I thought my first attempt was rather thin, so I modified it slightly to make it a bit thicker at the lower end.



I then did half of the front view and mirrored and joined it in a similar manner.



Next, I aligned the axes, rotated the section 90 degrees and lofted both of them.



I then used the union command to get the basic shape, and cut a notch in the middle.





At this point I made the attachment arm.



More work still needed to be done at the bottom, so I sliced it in half and deleted half of it.



At this point I did several things. I had first tried filleting the edges before I sliced it, but it wouldn’t work. I tried again after slicing and was able to get the inside edge to work, but never did get the outside edge to. Then, since the lower part tapers from rectangular to circular I traced the sliced end, and created a rounded end…



…Added guidelines…



…And lofted it.



Somewhere in the process I decided that it was too wide so I shortened it.



Drilling the holes was next. I used extruded filleted rectangles to do this. After extruding and subtracting the shapes, I filleted the edges to round them





At this point, I started on the bottom by lofting two circles.



The “wedge” was somewhat more complicated, and consisted of two similarly shaped polygons with the outside being smaller. After lofting them, I filleted the edges to round them.







I should perhaps say at this point that I have no idea what the backside looks like. Perhaps it is the same I don’t know. I considered mirroring the “wedge” to the backside but chose not to. I save all my construction lines on a separate layer so if need be I can always add it later, but it is going to be against the hull and won’t be visible anyway, so I don’t think it really matters.
Anyway, the next step was modifying the hull to accommodate the anchor, but that is for the next post.

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 22

As I said at the end of my last post, the next step was to modify the hull to accommodate the anchor, so I had a go at the well. I began by tracing the faint outline of the well on the “Outboard Profile” drawing.





The well, as with all of the parts of this model are tied t o a common reference datum. Although I didn’t mention it in the previous post, this also includes the anchor. In the images below, you can see the well in the lower part of the drawing. You can also see various construction lines and the completed anchor as shown in my last post, as well as the photo I based the design on.





To begin the process of making the well, I rotated the anchor, moved it to position, and scaled it to fit the traced well lines. I then copied and pasted it into the “hull1” drawing. You may recall from a previous post that I segmented the model because my file was getting too big and it was really slowing my computer down. This hull1 piece will be sliced into two, and possibly three, pieces when I make the “kit”.





I should perhaps point out that the datum is located along the centerline of the ship, so when I copied the anchor and tracings to the model, it was in the center of the ship and had to be moved outward to the correct location (left and right, or port and starboard). Also, you may have noticed in the last image that the well outlines are slightly different than the drawing. This was done to more accurately match the picture and the two polylines shown were created through a trial and error process to get the well right (more or less).

As with many features in this adventure, I do it once and then mirror it to the other side. In this case, I had mostly completed the starboard side when I realized that I hadn’t been documenting the process, so here’s what I did on the port side, which is similar to the starboard side, without the trial and error bit.

Note in the image below that when I mirrored the anchor, part of it was protruding into the hull, as it should be, hence the need for the well.



In the image below, I turned off the model layer, so you can better see what I did. The trial and error bit was done to get the locations of the inboard green line and magenta lines in the proper locations to produce the desired shape of the well. This required lofting, subtracting and looking at it, deleting the solid, moving the line a bit and repeating until I was satisfied. I couldn’t tell you how many times I did this, but it was numerous. When I was happy with it, I lofted the green lines first…





…And subtracted them from the hull.





You perhaps have noticed that the attachment arms (I’m sure it has an official name) have been a different color than the anchor. This is because I haven’t joined them yet. Knowing that I needed to subtract the arms from the hull, to make the attachment point, I copied the arms, along with the tracings for reference, up out of the way. Note that for some reason I rounded the corners of the arms, which wasn’t necessary as they will eventually be joined to the anchor and won’t even be visible. Oh well.



In the image below you can see the result of subtracting the port side arm.



At this point I copied the arm back down and joined it to the anchor.



This is where things got interesting. When I started on the hole for the anchor arm, I realized that the center section sloped the opposite direction from the hull back to the bottom of the well. This was not an easy piece to make, but after numerous tries and a bit if frustration, I got it close. The hole is perhaps a little lower than in the photos, but with the rounded edges I put on the outer edges of the shape and the hole, I think it looks fairly decent. Again, it’s not perfect, but overall, I’m happy with it.





After completing the port side, I mirrored these last changes over to the starboard side, and completed the process.



Now I have the recurring problem again… What to do next?

[salmon]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Wait! No anchor on the starboard side.


There were some boats made with an anchor on both sides, but those that did, lost one (usually) after the war started. Typically the Gatos anchors were on the starboard side and the Balao class generally had their anchor on the port side.
Peace,
Tom

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

DOH!!! Well, I now know what I am doing next.

That’s what I get for not paying attention. I’ve looked at this photo and others several times, and yet when I did the anchor, it didn’t register. I just assumed that there was an anchor on each side. Fortunately, this shouldn’t be too hard to fix.

THANKS TONS for pointing this out Tom!!!

[tom dougherty]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Typically the Gatos anchors were on the starboard side and the Balao class generally had their anchor on the port side.

Well, uhhh, no. That's not correct at all....
The first three Gato boats built at EB, Portsmouth, and Mare Island had two anchors when completed. One of these anchors (usually the port side, although this varied a little) was removed as part of the of “frivolous equipment” purge of early 1942 and the hawse hole plated over. All subsequent boats from all yards were built with only one anchor and hawsehole. In general, the Electric Boat design (used by EB & Manitowoc) standardized on a starboard side anchor and the Government (Portsmouth- also used by Mare Island & Cramp) design on a port side one. The same was true for the Balao & Tench; EB plans had starboard anchors, Government plans had portside anchors. That said, there are boats that were exceptions.

The same can be said of the limber hole patterns]EB Boats[/b]



Portsmouth (Government) Boats