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1/350 HMS PUMA


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23 hours ago, beefy66 said:

Well this 3D printing lark is really taking off around here looking good so far.  👍

 

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beefy

If we're nice to them Beefy - do you think when they get to be super good they'll do some nice printing for us?

R

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18 minutes ago, robgizlu said:

If we're nice to them Beefy - do you think when they get to be super good they'll do some nice printing for us?

R

Now that would be very nice and generous Rob.

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beefy

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I think there are better people out there than I to do this.  There's a member in one of my local model clubs who's been into 3D printing for a few years now and has produced a 1/72 Tribal Class destroyer using this technology.  His latest venture is a series of models - T23, T26 and the WW1 town class cruiser HMS GLASGOW in a range of scales from 1/2400 up to 1/350 - which when he's refined them I think is planning to offer them for sale online.  I know he was talking about doing custom prints.

 

The issue that I have is inconsistency.  So in this latest print run, one of the 2 crane supports printed came out pretty well - with a bit of tidying up on the cross bracing I can certainly use this:

 

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But then on the same build plate the better of the 2 jibs ended up looking like this:

 

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And I have absolutely no idea why it has failed.  The other one is worse.

 

One advantage that 3D printing does offer though is printing replacement parts for things that are no longer available.  My go to airbrush is an Iwata Eclipse SBS side cup and when I bought it 8 years ago I also bought the add on pack of plastic cups so that I could spray multiple colours in one session without having to clean the tiny metal cup that comes with the airbrush between colours.  Unfortunately the pack contains 8 plastic cups and one metal adaptor to sleeve the 4 mm cup output down to the 3 mm input on the airbrush.  And somehow I have managed to lose it.  So I contacted the airbrush company to see if I could order a replacement only to find that they no longer stock it.  And so armed with a micrometer, I drew a replacement in CAD and this is the result:

 

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To put it in context, the end nearest to the camera has a 4.2 mm tapering down to 4 mm inner diameter, 5.5 mm outer diameter.  At the other end it's a 3 mm tapering down to 2.85 mm outer diameter with a 1.5 mm diameter inner.  This is V2; V3 that I haven't released yet from the print supports has the inner diameter also tapering to avoid the step from the 3mm down to 1.5 mm which I thought might create some unwanted eddies.  I can't remember f the original metal was stepped or tapered.  Although I've tested it for fit, I haven't tested it yet for spraying - that'll be the weekend so watch this space for the results.

 

Thanks for watching

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Pleased to report that the airbrush adaptor worked fine although I may need to tweak it very slightly just to make the inlet into the airbrush a tadge wider as it goes in I think just a fraction too far.  Another 0.05 mm should do it.

 

Anyway, here are the results of trying to get a typical North Kent Coast tidal murky greeny/brown - let's be honest, this waterway is anything but blue.  I lived quite close to it for my first 18 years so remember these colours reasonably well!  Whether I have represented them accurately here or not is another matter - I'll leave that to others to decide.  This is a photo taken fairtly recently of the River Medway close to the Historic Dockyard so it hasn't changed that much:

 

river-medway-at-chatham-by-the-historic-

 

Stage 1.  A mix - about 40-60 - of Vallejo Burnt Umber and Khaki to represent the mud and silt that flows in and out of the Thames every day (or at least did in the 1970s):

 

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Stage 2.  I well recall a distinct and predominant green hue to the sea off Whitstable and Herne Bay in the 1970s (though looking at online images it does appear to be a lot clearer and more blue these days so it's obviously a lot cleaner), and this is represented by a misting of Tamiya RAF Dark Green:

 

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Stage 3.  A very light misting of Tamiya Sea Blue to blend the green and brown and to act as a filter:

 

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Plan is to give that 24 hrs to fully dry then a couple of coats of Klear before I tackle the contrasts around the waterline and base of the jetty.  At least with this setting I needn't worry about bow waves and wakes, though I do like the idea I saw in @robgizlu's HMS CALCUTTA WIP in the YouTube video he posted of using clear silicon sealant to tease up the wake.  I may give that a try on the next maritime build. 

 

In the meantime, a third attempt at getting the crane jib to print and continue work on the cutter and motor whaler.  I'm surprised there are no other boats - every ship I've served in has always had a Gemini somewhere and most have had a Bosun dinghy, but other than one photo of PUMA that shows a Gemini sitting in the middle of the quarterdeck (which certainly wouldn't be there when alongside because it would foul the lead from the bollards/capstan to the fairleads), I can't see any boat locations on any Cat class images.

 

Thanks for watching

 

 

Edited by Chewbacca
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Looking great so far Chewbacca on the 3D printing when I look at the Micro Master stuff I have just received they look like they have a lot more of the support struts to each part could this be the reason for the failed parts do you think>  :hmmm:

 

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beefy

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It could be certainly.  I think my settings may also be wrong where the supports join the parts (I followed some recommendations on YouTube from someone who turns out fantastic models using the same printer) but I'm loathe to make them much larger or I get into the situation that I found with the initial AJE aerials where the support connections were bigger than the parts themselves and it because near impossible to separate them without damaging the parts.  I had a similar problem on some of the support struts on the crane base but in the end cut the errant ones away and replaced with brass rod.

 

At the end of the day, only 2 years ago with the filament printers that were available, it was impossible to print anything smaller than about 1 mm thick.  Now I'm getting down to 0.3 - 0.4 and I've nly been doing it for 3 months so I have to expect learning difficulties.  What I don't understand is why something prints perfectly one day but when I decide to print an extra one a day later using the same settings, it doesn't print.  That's frustrating!

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Success!  On the third attempt, doubling the size of all the contact points and at least doubling the numbers of supports, I finally have a crane jib that I can use.  Bizarrely though, the second, spare, jib printed perfectly over 3/4 of its length and then failed at the end.  So I still don't understand the inconsistencies.  But hey, I've got one that is usable.  Still needs a bit more of a clean up - hiding inside there is one support that I am struggling to see how I will get out cleanly but that's a problem for later today.

 

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Thanks for watching

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  • 2 months later...

My apologies for the lack of updates - purely down to a lack of time for modelling.  I'm a member of the Royal Naval Association and ever since the start of lockdown, we've been ding Fireside Chats on Zoom every week and I've done a few for them on naval historical subjects.  I had always planned to put together one on the Battle for Norway and saving King Haakon's gold and back in February I agreed that I would do it to coincide with the anniversary of the Norwegian campaign.  There was a huge amount of research to do.  And then as soon as that was out of the way i had to prepare for a big promotion interview at work.  Incidentally, and I hope no one minds a plug here for the Royal Naval Association, the fireside chats alone were worth the cost of membership and since January this year membership is free!  It's open to anyone who has an interest in the Royal Navy, not just serving and retired.  Full details here

 

I did manage to find a few hours at the weekend and after some running repairs where things had been broken (how, when the model, major components and base were all sitting on a shelf in a cupboard I do not understand), I started with the 01 deck guardrails.  Now I fully concede that I have complicated things by adding the 3 in Corvus rocket launchers and the additional liferaft cannisters just forward of them, but I am convinced that if I hadn't, the PE is not long enough.  Even with about 15 mm removed on either side, there were only 1.5 spare 5 mm sections left over by the time that I had got it all on.

 

I then made the mistake (I know, stupid thing to do) of following the instructions.  Now in fairness, there's not a lot wrong with the instructions for this kit, perhaps a bit vague in some areas but then they're not designed for novices, but I made the mistake of believing the instructions where they said that on either side of the aft end of 01 deck, there should be 2 sections of guardrail before the opening for the ladders.  I thought at the time the one on the port side looked a little tight to get the ladder in between the bulkhead and the moulded door and forgot that these ladders, are a tadge wider than normal.  There was no chance of it fitting in there without completely blocking the door.  In the end I needed another 4 mm or so of guardrail to clear the door but this does push the ladder too far inboard.  if I were a betting man, I would say the instructions are correct and the door is moulded in the wrong place.  I did at least spot it on the stbd side before I glued the guardrails down; in its indicated position anyone climbing the ladder would have come straight up into the flat ventilator exhaust  so that ladder was also moved inboard another 2 mm or so - couldn't go too far or I'd hit another door!

 

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A little more work on the ships boats and the decals printed for the dress ship signal flags, photos to follow for those

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Puma is coming along nicely.

 

It's amazing how many fiddly little bits can be added to accurately detail models of postwar warships.  Even more challenging is doing this at smaller scales.

 

John

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50 minutes ago, JohnWS said:

Puma is coming along nicely.

 

It's amazing how many fiddly little bits can be added to accurately detail models of postwar warships.  Even more challenging is doing this at smaller scales.

 

John

 And there I was thinking it is only me with an affliction like that.  :whistle:

 

Great work so far.  👍

 

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beefy

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Thanks for your kind comments.  What annoys me is how unforgiving macro-photography can be!  On that last photo, you can see where the paint is peeling on the locker on the port side outboard of the ladder.  I hadn't spotted that at all when I was fitting the ladder and it was only when I photographed it and viewed it at 100% that it stood out like the dog's doodahs.  It obviously stems right back to the issue I had with the Alclad primer and although I stripped off the hull back to bare resin, I didn't do so on all of the superstructure.  Clearly an error which I shall probably live to regret later as I suspect more paint will flake off as time goes on but it's too late to do anything about it now.  A repaint in that area will be the next job I guess

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  • 2 weeks later...

Almost at the point that I need to get the boats on and so I have been looking at the quadrantal davits.  The PE versions in the kit are pretty good if a wee bit on the thin side and so I thought I would look at 3D printing some replacements.   But first I needed to work out how they were rigged which of course was very different to the davits on which I had been trained, namely the later style gravity davits or or even later RIB cranes.  But then I remembered that I had a 1964 volume of BR 67 Admiralty Manual of Seamanship which provides a very clear drawing of this type of davit..  So I now know how the rigging works and what they should look like.  But as part of my research into the rigging, before I remembered BR 67, I had looked at some photos I took about 6-7 years ago on board CAVALIER in Chatham and this has raised doubt in my mind.

 

if you look at these two photos of CAVALIER's motor cutter, you can see a clear I-section beam between the davits directly under the boat keel which isn't shown in the scale drawing in BR 67.  None of the other photos I have show the boats clearly enough to be 100% certain but I am 90% sure that the beam in CAVALIER was not fitted to the ships when at sea and is probably there purely to take the weight off the falls in order to reduce both the costs associated with testing the rigging every 6 month or so and mitigate the risks of the falls failing with visitors on board.  I wonder if anyone has any other evidence that would either prove or disprove my theory before I finalise the drawings without the beam?

 

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Thanks for watching

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Those four shots of the deck areas you posted on June 14 above are superb Ralph. She must look amazing in the flesh!

 

Can't help you with the issue around the davits I'm afraid.

 

Terry

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Thanks Terry.  Hopefully you'll see it soon - the club might be allowed to meet in person next month.

 

Sadly I'm a little disappointed with her.  There are so many bits that I know are not quite right, mainly stemming from the issue with the primer but also the decals.  But still, I said from the outset that this was a test piece to teach myself how to do full resin kits before tacking BOXER, BRAVE etc and the others that I actually served in

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5 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

if you look at these two photos of CAVALIER's motor cutter, you can see a clear I-section beam between the davits directly under the boat keel which isn't shown in the scale drawing in BR 67.  None of the other photos I have show the boats clearly enough to be 100% certain but I am 90% sure that the beam in CAVALIER was not fitted to the ships when at sea and is probably there purely to take the weight off the falls in order to reduce both the costs associated with testing the rigging every 6 month or so and mitigate the risks of the falls failing with visitors on board.  I wonder if anyone has any other evidence that would either prove or disprove my theory before I finalise the drawings without the beam?

I can't be definite, but I'd concur with you that the beam is a museum addition. As well as the points you raise, I'd add a couple more -  The beam supports the full length of the boat keel, preventing it sagging, not an issue for a newish boat in service, but could be for a decades old museum piece. Also, unless I'm mistaken the two davit arms are operated independently, with a boat on the falls this isn't an issue as there is built in flexibility if they're not moved exactly in unison, but it would be if the davit arms are joined as illustrated with a whacking great rigid steel I beam.

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Thanks Dave.  As I said above, I'm much more familiar with the more modern powered gravity davits which operate together.  I hadn't considered the fact that they are operated independently but after your post I read the section in BR 67 about how they operate which confirms that the davits are turned out by independent crank handles.  So I have now finished the CAD drawings and will print them individually not ready paired.

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On 6/14/2021 at 8:19 PM, robgizlu said:

Macro -photography is a cruel, cruel mistress :nodding:

I share your pain

Rob


100% feeling the pain too. So many times I’ve been perfectly happy with a model, only for me to want to toss it in the bin after macro photos 🙄

 

Nice progress though.

 

Guy

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19 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

I'm much more familiar with the more modern powered gravity davits which operate together.

Me too. They're supposed to operate together, but have been known on occasion not to! :yikes: https://www.marineinsight.com/case-studies/case-study-lifeboat-davit-arm-imbalance-accident-averted/ . I was always wary of lifeboat davits, especially after hydrostatic release hooks were fitted!

The screw jack operating mechanism for the davits on HMS Cavalier can be seen in the photo's above (bottom left in top photo, bottom centre in lower photo) with the winding mechanism just below the davit arm.

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Thanks Dave.  Like you I was always nervous when putting boats in the water as I always viewed that operation as the one most likely to have a direct impact on my pension!  I remember an incident quite early on in my career when a sister ship of ours launched the 27ft motor whaler during a man overboard exercise in marginal conditions.  Although lowering the boat went fine, as the order was given to slip, the forward link released but not the aft and the boat was rapidly whipped around through about 90 degs before it capsized sending the crew into the water.  A man overboard exercise in mid-Atlantic very rapidly became a real man overboard but this time without a seaboat available for recovery and using the swimmer of the watch in SS 5/6 wasn't an option I would ever have liked to have done.  Fortunately there were no serious injuries although I do seem to recall there was a similar incident in the late 1970s when the result was fatal.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I concur that the I-beam is museum only, for all the excellent reasons Dave says.  Apart from anything else, I can’t see how the davits would actually work if that were a feature of the operational version

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Thanks Crisp.  I did think it was somewhat strange and Dave's explanation made perfect sense.  Once I looked up the drill for lowering in an old copy of BR67 it became patently obvious that they cannot work with that beam in place.

 

Unfortunately though, work on the davits has stalled.  You'll recall that I left it 2 weeks ago with the CAD all drawn and about to print the davits.  I then went on leave for a week (yes, actually went away!) and came back to find my team falling around me like flies as one after the other they all got pinged by the NHS T&T app.  We're now down to 3 left out of a team of 12 so its been long days and working yesterday to try to get the work done.  But this is really compunded by the fact that my 3D printer is playing up; see details here:

 

 

So while I await a response from Elegoo customer support, I did manage a few hours at the bench today doing some more traditional modelling.  You'll recall the report I posted about a month ago about believing the instructions regarding the midships ladders down from 01 deck.  Well it transpires that I still had it wrong.  Because as far as I can tell from a very clear image of HMS LYNX that @Terry1954 sent me a while ago and a less clear image of HMS PUMA here https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fphotos%2Fjohnvphipps%2F387049958&psig=AOvVaw1s4GQpIDWsKKBwub5ZhVU0&ust=1626728290824000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAgQjRxqFwoTCOjqz6DB7fECFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE, there is a walkway from the aft end of 01 deck to the midships superstructure.  And if that is there, there simply isn't space for 2 ladders, which the LYNX photo also supports.  Fortunately the ladder that I was removing was only lightly tacked down with CA so it lifted off without any damage and the guardrails too went with only minimal damage which was easily sorted.  The walkway was made from 10 thou plasticard and some spare PE guardrail.  Interestingly, the kit doesn't supply any guardrail for the forward end of the midships superstructure but again I had plenty in reserve so added that.  It's very difficult to tell from the photos whether the guardrail in the area is the stanchion and asymmetric wire type, as fitted to the aft end of the same superstructure, or the solid metal type.  I think it is the latter simply because on the port side there is a rolling bend around which the guardrail has to go and you can only achieve that with solid. 

 

It also meant that I had to fit the mainmast so that I knew where this guardrail started and stopped and it was then that I realised another mistake.  The raised line on the stbd side of the mainmast wasn't a ladder but appears to be a waveguide going up to the 965 aerial.  Why it its on the outside I have no idea but it cannot be a ladder because there is insufficient space on the deck below the mast to actually get to the bottom of the ladder, and directly underneath that is a vent trunking.  So ladder off and waveguide added.  It should be square section but at this scale some very fine wire will suffice.

 

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(Once again please forgive the macro photography.  With the naked eye it looks much better!)

 

Thanks for watching

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  • 2 weeks later...

What a helpful bunch of people the Elegoo Customer Support team are :clap:.

Over the space of a few emails with photos of different aspects of my printer they diagnosed the fault, were extremely apologetic that their QA had let them and me down and shipped the replacement parts.  In fact the replacement LCD screen arrived before I got the notification that it had been shipped!  Changing it was another challenge though because it had delaminated so instead of simply lifting it out in once, I had to take a Stanley knife blade to it and scrape each layer off the class plate that covers the LED lamp below.  So instead of 15 mins to swap it out it took more like 2.5 hours.  But the new one is working correctly and so i was able to start the printing again, firstly with the davits.

 

Now I accept that these don't quite have the same level of detail on the outer faces that the PE ones do, but two thicknesses of PE really is too thin for  davit in 1/350 scale.  I think these give a better scale look and although seen here naked and unadorned still on the printing supports and then in the second photo with primer and a couple of coats of ship's side grey, II reckon with a wash they look okay.

 

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Since I was printing I thought I'd take the opportunity to start printing some more figures.  These are the first 24 ( I think - one looks as if he has gone AWOL). I probably need ~125-150 at least but the shame is that there are almost the same number again that are left on the floor around the bench armless, legless or headless.  In fact as about the 6th or 7th head went flying off in a neat trajectory, I developed an ear worm of that famous Warren Zevon song : Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner.  So I think from now on these figures shall be known as Rolands! (For those who don't know the song, he started off with a head).  These are just primed and a coat of Tamiya flat white.  I'm not up to masking and spraying the rest of the top coat so that will be magnifying glass and 000 hairy stick.

 

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Thanks for watching

Edited by Chewbacca
Spooling urrers
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