What's going on with Iowa?

[DreadnaughtHelper]

The Deck on the Iowa is in seemingly bad shape, but until a sander can run down it, it is hard to tell just how bad, the navy used these big walkalong drum sanders on the decks, one of those set to remove about .030" of wood will tell the tale.

Yes there are large areas of the decking that will have to be replaced, but this is something that can be done and should be done to the same specs that laid the deck back in the 1940's

I am seeing photos that show where they replaced decking on the North Carolina. It seems that they did not replace the studs and nuts to hold the wood down and this would mean that they glued it down, fine for my model but then I am not walking on it and the ship spends most of its time inside.and I have a feeling that they are going to run into a lot of trouble in the not too distant future.

[Johnny W]

The Deck on the Iowa is in seemingly bad shape, but until a sander can run down it, it is hard to tell just how bad, the navy used these big walkalong drum sanders on the decks, one of those set to remove about .030" of wood will tell the tale.

Yes there are large areas of the decking that will have to be replaced, but this is something that can be done and should be done to the same specs that laid the deck back in the 1940's

I am seeing photos that show where they replaced decking on the North Carolina. It seems that they did not replace the studs and nuts to hold the wood down and this would mean that they glued it down, fine for my model but then I am not walking on it and the ship spends most of its time inside.and I have a feeling that they are going to run into a lot of trouble in the not too distant future.

Maybe I am misreading this, but according to the USS North Carolina website, it seems they are replacing the studs. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

The project got underway in mid-1999 with the removal of the original teak decking and preservation of the steel deck underneath. After drying and milling the new teak, crews started the painstaking task of fitting the teak, welding studs to the steel deck to fasten the teak boards to the deck, then spreading a bedding compound onto which the teak boards were laid and fastened with special barrel nuts. After the compound dried, teak plugs were installed over the barrel nuts and a synthetic sealant poured between the teak boards. Finally, the entire deck went through a sanding process to provide a smooth surface. In the end, just over 55,000 square feet of teak was installed on three decks of the Battleship.

[Dreadnought]

Sorry it took a while to get back to you. Had some computer slowdown (doing too many things at once) and then it was dinner time.

The decking around the Capstans and controls going up to Frame 20 is in pretty fair shape. Because of having to fit around so many objects, the deck pieces are relatively small and not as susceptible to warpage as some of the longer planks.

PS: The person in the middle picture is James. He is DreadnaughtHelper's Helper and doing the brass work on the models.

Very nice. Glad to see she is still holding together well. Hopefully it wont be much longer until she finds a home where she can be cared for on a consistant basis. When I watched them replace the Flag Bridge/Signal bridge decking I was amazed to find just how thick and in depth the naval manual was for replacing her deck. They did an excellent job by the way.