1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 23

GREAT STUFF TOM D! I appreciate today's lesson.

Fixing my blunder with the starboard side anchor was, easy, as I thought it would be. It was simply a matter of slicing, copying, pasting, and rejoining.

After I completed that, I decided to do the detailing on the forward torpedo tubes. Using pictures for the design, I started with one of the oval holes.





At this point I started drawing the guide lines for the vertical support structures visible inside the “tubes”. It wasn’t looking right to me, and previously I had suspected that the forward limber holes may be a bit low, so I went to the plan sheet drawing and copied both the limber holes and the torpedo tube construction lines to the hull1 drawing. As you can see in the image below, my suspicions were correct. They are too low.



Fixing this required redoing the front end, so I sliced the hull from Frame 10 to Frame B, copied the sections to the appropriate frames and rotated them.



I then lofted all of the sections together, and it turned out to be a good thing that I had to redo it, because, with a smaller file, I was able to loft them all as one unit resulting in a much smoother loft than the original. Where was I? Oh yeah, back to the torpedo tube holes. So, I copied the oval shape I had previously drawn to its location as determined from pictures, and drew a circle also to match the photos.



I then lofted these holes as well as the limber holes, and subtracted them from the new hull section.



The next step was to extrude the torpedo construction lines and mirror them to the other side…



…And subtract them. I also had to cut the small sliver of the anchor well that was on the new piece.



At this point I shifted my attention to the support bars. I started by drawing 0.5’ wide rectangles (0.04” at 1/144 scale), and lofting them so that they protruded from the surface 0.5’. Once again, the scale isn’t correct, but the effect is good.









Now what?

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 24

Hey Guys,

I got a little more done on the “Hull1” piece last night. Here’s the scuttle-butt.

Originally, I had designed the bow planes in the stowed (upright) position because that is the way it is shown on the plan sheet I used. However, upon seeing some pictures of the planes lowered, and liking the way it looks, I decided to model the planes lowered. The photo below from Tom’s excellent Photobucket collection shows the detailing that needed to be added.



Before doing this, I added the torpedo tube doors (Hatches? Gates? Covers?) to the forward tubes I previously posted.



For the bow plane, I started by tracing the outline of the plane from the plan sheet drawing and copying it to the “Hull1” drawing for reference. I also copied the starboard plane to the hull and rotated it into the down position. I then drew the shapes required to make the various cutouts in (red) and protrusions from (blue) the hull, as seen on the photo.



After I had everything where I wanted it, which took a little doing, I extruded the cutout shapes into the hull. For the protrusions, that appear to be “bumpers” to keep the plane off of the hub, I added a slope on the outer edge and then extruded them.



I then mirrored everything to the port side…



..And subtracted the cutout shapes and joined the protrusion shapes to the hull, doing first the starboard side…



…Followed by the port side…



I then made the support arm, which is essentially two different sized circles lofted at right angles to each other. The end was filleted to round the edges.





For now I have not joined the shafts and planes to the hull or each other, because I’m not sure how I’m going to do it. It would be cool to make it moveable, but that would be quite difficult.

I also spent considerable time removing the anchor that somehow got attached to the hull, which I may end up doing later, but want to have the option when I get to that point. Unfortunately, by the time I noticed it, I had already done a lot of detailing to the hull, so even though I try to backup with a different name, it had been some time since I had done that, so the last drawing that I had with the hull positioned correctly was quite a while back. I therefore decided that it would be easier to dice and slice the current drawing rather than redo everything, so that is what I did. I was successful in the end but it took a bit of time to do it.

In the meantime, I’ve decided to go ahead and slice the hull into the final part sizes, because “Hull1” just topped 30MB (with the anchor and bowplanes).

CHEERS!!!

[scott t]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Russ,

Go to these article by Master modeler David Meriman and see how he made the bow planes opertional.

http://vabiz.com/d&e/CABAL/R_C'ing%20the%20Revell%201_72%20GATO%20Class%20Static%20Submarine%20Kit,%20Part-15.htm

http://vabiz.com/d&e/CABAL/R_C'ing%20the%20Revell%201_72%20GATO%20Class%20Static%20Submarine%20Kit,%20Part-16.htm

http://vabiz.com/d&e/articles.html

If you look at the other articles for this build it could help with some of the other detailed parts.

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Master modeler is right Scott!

I’ve seen David’s models before (at least pictures) and have always been impressed. Those moveable bow planes are really incredible.

I considered making mine at least moveable, but decided that it would be too difficult.

Thanks for the links!

Russ

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 25

Well guys, I sliced the hull into pieces as I said I was going to do. The hull was separated into 10 parts and the model “Kit” currently consists of 23 parts, not including the periscopes, antenna, SD mast and screw shafts. Many of the parts are not complete, but they will be easier to work on separated, and then copied to the main model than having them all together. Here are images of the model, as it currently stands, and all of the parts, which are all viewed from the port side.

Items that fit with a given part, but are not attached to it are shown in various colors other than gray. This includes the anchor on Part 1, the bow planes on Part 2, the screw and shaft on Part 9 (which I haven’t decided how I’m going to do it), the rudder and stern planes on Part 10, the periscopes and antenna on part 14,the SD Mast on Part 15, and the arms (or struts) on Parts 17 and 18 (that I am also uncertain as to what I am going to do with them).

















































I think that the next thing I am going to do is hollow out the hull. I tried using the shell command, but I think it is too late. I needed to do this BEFORE I drilled the limber holes.

CHEERS!!!

[tom dougherty]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

One small item: you need to add diesel exhausts for the engines. There are two on each side (4 engines, 4 exhausts, 2 port, 2 starboard). I have marked them in red on the photo below.

Click on image for larger version

[salmon]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Tom,
That is a great photo of the Lionfish. Thanks for finding that one. It will definitely go in my photo archive.
Peace,
Tom

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Hey Tom, I agree with Tom. Great pic!

Thanks for posting it and I too have added it to my photo archive, which, thanks to all of you guys, is starting to get rather large. I had seen these holes and was planning on adding them and now I know that what they are for, diesel exhaust.

History Tidbit – You guys probably already know this, but I thought that I would share it for those of you who may not. As I have mentioned before, I am reading Silent Victory by Clay Blair, Jr. (Thanks for the suggestion Tom!) Thus far I have read two narratives about Batfish, and it appears that her first skipper, Wayne Merrill, was, you could say, batty. According to Blair he was a “strange and unstable character.” Merrill’s first exec, Peter Gabriel Molteni,Jr., “refused to return to sea with him” and “got off the boat.” Jim Hingson, his replacement, “determined that Merrill was emotionally unfit and in a kind of Caine Mutiny procedure relieved him of command.” And ironically, Blair quotes Hingson as saying that, “He was relieved at the same time they pinned a Silver Star on him for the first patrol,” and that, “the same officer tore his dolphins from his chest.” What a scene! Unfortunately, what Merrill did on the first mission to warrant the Silver Star was not mentioned; only that he aborted an attack on Yamamato, against Hingson’s urging.

CHEERS!!!

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 26


Greetings Everybody!

The Hollowing of the hull has been completed. As I mentioned previously, the best way to hollow parts out is to use the shell command, which automatically creates a hollowed out shell with walls of a specified thickness. I didn’t do this initially because I was making it to scale and the thickness of the walls would vary depending on what scale I wanted to make it. My plan was to get it as far along as possible so that only minor modifications would be required to print different scales. Well, I think once a part is modified, the shell command ceases to work, because it won’t work on any of my sections. So, I essentially remade another hull, smaller and less detailed, and subtracted it from the existing parts, piece by piece. It was a fairly time consuming process.

I started with the bow. I first copied the sections and the reference datum to the side. In the images below, the inner hull to be subtracted from the existing hull is colored red. In the hull section the hollowing began aft of the torpedo tubes. All of the walls will be slightly under 3/32” thick at 1/144 scale as I made the inner hull so that the walls would be approximately 1’ thick.



The image below shows the inner hull to be subtracted from the main hull for Part 1.



In the next image I have copied the shape to the existing hull. Note that it protrudes from the hull. For each part, I copied the end sections outward and included it in the loft to make sure that the lofted shape sliced all the way through the hull.



Subtracting the objects produced the hollowed out shell for Part 1.



Unfortunately, slicing the piece eliminated support for the anchor and created a hole behind the aft anchor arm. To remedy this I drew a couple of polylines on the part end sections…



…Lofted them…



…And copied them to the main hull.



To finish the part, I copied the anchor to the side and subtracted the one left in place from the hull to create the anchor arm hole.



Actually I only thought I was finished with the part. If you notice in the image above, the lower forward torpedo tube brackets are protruding from the hull. It took me a while to fix that, but once I figured out the best way to do it, it was fairly easy. I didn’t document that process.

The next image shows how I created the sections. The blue polyline is the hull section. The red lines are 1’ long. I drew a polyline between them on one side, mirrored it and joined them. The green “line” on the left is the section at the end frame of Part 2. Although I did Part 1 on a copied version of the hull, for the remaining parts I did all of the modifcations directly on the part...



In the image below, the section has been rotated 90 degrees, the aft end section of Part 1 has been copied, and the sections have been lofted.

.

The next couple of images show the inner hull with the model layer turned on, before and after subtracting.





As with Part 1, the hollowing left a part suspended in mid-air. In this case, it was the support arms for the bow planes.



In a manner similar to before I made a “patch” for one side…



…And mirrored it to the other.



I then had some objects to subtract, including the plane control arms…



…And various other hull openings.



The image below shows the port side.



The next two images show Part 3. No additional modifications were required.





Part 4 was next.





The bridge slot protruded slightly through the shell so to make sure that there is a proper fit; I beefed up the bottom of the foredeck(?)…





…Copied the bridge onto the part…

…And subtracted it from the hull. In the image below, you can see where it cut into the patch.





Parts 5 and 6 were straight forward and required no additional modifications.

Part 5






Part 6







As I was hollowing out the various parts, I was also copying them to the complete model drawing. The image below shows the hull from the end of Part 6 looking forward.

Parts 7 and 8 were also straightforward although Part 8 required a middle section in addition to the end sections.

Part 7





Part 8






Part 9 required several sections as shown in the images below.







One last look down the hull. This one from the aft end of Part 9.





The hollowing on Part 10 stopped just forward of the torpedo tubes.





CHEERS!!!

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 27

And the adventure continues…

With the model segmented into parts, I decided to go ahead and add the alignment pins and holes, beginning at the bow and working my way back.
The image below shows Part one from aft looking forward (rotated 90 degrees to port) with the visual style set to 3D Hidden. I started by drawing semi circles at the top and bottom (left and right in the image).



I then created polylines out of the semi-circles and centerlines, and copied them aft 4.5’ (3/8” at 1/144 scale).



Next, I scaled the aft end shapes down and moved them vertically so that they were contacting the surface and lofted them. I then drew 0.8” diameter (slightly over 1/16” at 1/144 scale) circles, lofted them, and positioned them as shown below.



At this point I opened the Part 2 drawing and copied everything I just did on Part 1 to it.



I then mirrored them around the center line, deleting the originals.





Returning to the Part 1 drawing, I joined the semi-circle shapes to the hull and subtracted the lofted circles to make the alignment holes.



Returning again to Part 2, I mirrored the objects and construction lines to the aft end of the part.



The locations of the “alignment assemblies” can be clearly seen in the image below of Part 2 with the visual style set to 3D wireframe.



Thinking ahead again, the next thing I did was open Part 3 and copy the aft end objects and construction lines from Part 2 to it.



I returned to the forward end of Part 2, and filleted the edges of the pins at 0.2’ (0.017” at 1/144 scale)…



…Joined them to the hull to make the alignment pins...



…And completed the forward end of Part 2 as I did with Part 1.



This process was repeated for each part, as shown in the images below. For some parts I had to delete the shapes between the semi-circle polylines and vertically move and/or slightly resize the inner polyline to maintain connection with the hull and not protrude from the sides of the hull.





















With the basic model structure completed, I think next I will work my way down the hull adding details using the great pictures you all have sent me.

CHEERS!!!

[scott t]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

It is a little late; but not for the next project. Since this is being printed... how would
a scarf joint work between pieces? It would help hide gaps and look more like a panel
line when joined.

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Interesting Scott, and it’s never too late, until it is printed. It would just be more difficult to do now than if I had done it at the outset.

As it is, I did two different designs for the joints on Greenling. In the first design, the only one that has been printed thus far, I made the edges flat because I included a bar with a hole drilled out of the center across the middle, thinking that I was going to put a rod through it to give it support. The image below shows Part 2 of the initial Greenling design.



When I started adding detail, and after talking to my buddy, I changed the design somewhat as can be seen below. This type of joint is commonly used in pipes and is more like the scarf joint you mentioned Scott.



Unfortunately, these parts have not been made yet. Due to a communication lapse on my buddy’s part, the initial design was printed instead of the detailed design, so I don’t know how the seams with these joints will turn out.

The image below shows the printout of the first Greenling model, with a couple of coats of primer on it. Some of the seams are pretty obvious, some not so much. I think a little putty will fill them nicely, although I still haven’t decided exactly how I’m going to do it. Any suggestions?



Anyway, because I can live with the gaps as printed in Greenling and think they will be easily filled, I just made the joints on Batfish flat, because obviously it takes a lot less time and effort.

With regards to the scarf joint, since I don’t have much experience with 3D printing, I don’t know how they would turn out either. My concern would be the sloped point, which is the key to providing the smaller seam. I’m not sure that you could get the narrow point needed for an effective joint. If I had more direct access to the SLA, I would try various joints and all sorts of other things, but such is life, and since I don’t know that one is better than the other I think I will go with what I’ve got for this one, although I reserve the right to change my mind.

CHEERS!!!

[tom dougherty]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Two comments; one for Batfish and one for Greenling.

The limber holes in the forward deck of a fleet sub allow the water to drain. Because the pressure hull is behind the limber holes, you cannot see through from one side to the other. As you currently have it designed, you will be able to see through the Batfish model. You might want to print a smaller, half cylinder you can install to prevent the light shining through.
Here's what a Balao hull looks like, and you can see that you can't see through the limber holes to the other side:
(click to enlarge)

and here is a view "from the other side", where I was going down in the void between the upper deck & the pressure hull. Ignore the mesh screen in the foreground. The limber holes, the framing iron members and the upper pressure hull is visible.
(click to enlarge)


For the Greenling hull: Run masking tape on either side of the remaining joining lines, getting as close as practical to the line. Use a thin coat of putty (Bondo Glazing Putty) to coat the line, pushing some down into the join. Allow to dry overnight. Carefully remove the tape and then lightly sand the putty flush with the hull. Coat with primer paint.

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

Thanks Tom D!

I knew somebody would offer me advice on filling the cracks. I was thinking of using “Fast Drying White Putty” made by Squadron Products, because I have some, but I will have to try the Bondo Glazing Putty you mentioned. And I didn’t even think about using masking tape. I like it.

Funny that you should bring up the limber holes. I had come to the same conclusion as I was adding some of the hull detailing. I knew from both the drawings and pictures that the pressure hull was in there, but thought that it would be OK on a model to omit it. The more I looked at the model as I moved it around, the more it bugged me that you can see all of the way through, and have been thinking about how I’m going to fix it. When all else fails, look at the plans.

I have another question… Are the padeyes(?) shown in the photo below standard issue? If so, what were they used for?

[rdutnell]

Re: 1/144 Scale USS Batfish (SS310)

UPDATE 28

Hi Guys!

I started adding hull details working my way from stem to stern. The first things I added were the four slits, vertically oriented above one of the limber holes about midway back on Part 3. Using pictures, I drew a polyline with the sizeand shape that it looked like it needed to be in the location shown on the pictures.



I then copied it and extruded it through both sides of the hull.





Moving aft, the next thing I did was the forward access opening(?), starting with drawing a rectangle and filleting the upper corners.



This was also extruded through both sides of the hull.



Continuing aft, I next added two more slits aft of the access opening. These are smaller than the previous ones, so I redrew them.



And once again, I lofted them through the hull.





Moving aft again, I next drew the outline for the aft access opening, which is slightly larger than the forward opening…



…And once again extruded it through the hull.





The next thing I did was the forward diesel exhaust opening, starting with a circle positioned correctly in the side view.



I then copied the circle over and up to be at an angle as observed in pictures, and lofted it far enough so that it would go through the hull



Next, I moved the 3D object, so that it was just sticking out of both the inside and outside of the hull. At this point I copied the 3D object to the proper location for the forward diesel exhaust opening and mirrored them both to the other side.





At this point I turned my attention to the mini-limber holes in the vicinity of the diesel exhaust openings., first drawing outlines and positioning them correctly (more or less).



These two were extruded through both sides of the hull.





It was about this time that I realized that the starboard and port sides weren’t the same. Up to this point I assumed that both sides were the same. OK, I’m not always the most observant person in the world. I therefore had some correcting to do. I started with the round opening, aft of the aft diesel exhaust opening on the port side. This is why I keep my construction lines saved on a separate layer, so I can move them out of sight, but still have them if I need them. In this case I used the same circle I had previously used to make the opening, copied it to the outside surface of the hull shell, lofted it to the inside surface of the hull shell and joined it to the hull.



I then did the same thing with the larger of the two access openings on the port side, as shown in the next two images.





Having removed the access opening, I next added the limber hull that the pictures show to be located at this point on the port side.



From the pictures I have seen of Batfish (mostly thanks to Tom), there are no limber holes forward of the diesel exhaust opening on the port side, so I had to do the same thing for each of the 10 limber holes I had previously cut put on the port side.



After I had filled all of the limber holes, I cut out the two round holes just forward of the forward diesel exhaust opening on the port side. The image below shows the port side…



And this figure shows the starboard side.



As I said in my last post, I noticed the same thing that Tom D did, and need to correct the insides of the limber holes so that you can’t see all the way through the hull. I can easily use the frame sections to make the top of the pressure hull using the plans. In the meantime, here is what she currently looks like.



More later….