Greetings, and welcome to the World Affairs Board!
The World Affairs Board is the premier forum for the discussion of the pressing geopolitical issues of our time. Topics include military and defense developments, international terrorism, insurgency & COIN doctrine, international security and policing, weapons proliferation, and military technological development.
Our membership includes many from military, defense, academic, and government backgrounds with expert knowledge on a wide range of topics. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so why not register a World Affairs Board account and join our community today?
thanks! That's brilliant! I don't know if I can silver solder...depends on what temperature you need. I have propane and butane torches. Is that high enough? I know how to do it since I taught about 50 people 35 years ago (still have the manual I produced), but I don't have any of the materials. The small chisel tip I'm using seems to be okay so far.
yes butane or propane will do fine - you should have what you need - the silver solder is high melt point (about 100 deg F higher than tin/lead) - to make it stay put when you are working with the tin/lead solder
I would use a thicker tip, like a 3/16" or 7/32" for this - so there is plenty of heat at the connection
I have a tip that size, but I'd probably buy another just for this purpose. What I'd really like to have, for this and model RR stuff, is a resistance soldering rig. Unfortunately, they're about $400 for a decent one. They are absolutely essential when building large brass structures since they localize the heat so well and keep other parts from falling off. Also, the brass loco builders start out with higher melting point alloys for the big stuff and work down to lower temp alloys for the details. I will also have to get some high melt point solder to make the tip.
Builder, that's some impressive work soldering those 40 MM mounts. I've never tried soldering PE, but I've been curious about how well it would work. Your results have persuaded me to try it. Have you looked into any of the resistance soldering sets? Less heat, as I understand it. I'm not at all well versed on the process, but some of the guys over at modelwarships.com swear by it. Once again, congratulations on some great work!
As far as weathering, I think you are probably right about the brass having Missouri as ship shape as possible for the surrender ceremony. I think you are on the right track keeping the weathering to a minimum.
I'd love to go the resistance soldering route, but the initial cost is keeping me away. If I had $400 to spend on tools, I would buy a spray booth. I also have to do a MAJOR rebuild on the model railroad. I tore it apart for the Louisville move and scrapped all the plywood and roadbed. I am going to enlarge it about 50% to 37 X 16 feet. it will be very big and will cost over $2k to bring it back to operating condition. I have over $20k invested in the trains and my wife is insisting that I rebuild before the grandkids are too old to help or enjoy it.
I'm even thinking about soldering the mounts themselves also. The CA just is too darn tempramental and is bugging me. The soldering is so much stronger. I would probably have to heat sink the splinter shield or solder the mounts first and then solder the shield. The Shield joint is so small that the heating could be slight.
I'm in the same boat you are. If I had the kind of money to spend on the hobby to get into resistance soldering, I wouldn't be using a cardboard box for a paint booth! The C-in-C is pretty understanding, but not THAT understanding. I'm going to give the soldering approach a try, based on your results. By all means, keep us posted on how things go. Fantastic work, my friend.
Before you attempt soldering, you might want to look at this THING. Here's what happens when you try to resolder a joint that separated and got the assembly just a little to warm.
I've been trying to solder the gun mounts too as I noted yesterday. I tinned all of the mating surfaces while in the flat, folded the mounts and then sweated them in place. It wasn't particularly easy holding them over their respective positions. The first attempts didn't come out in exactly the right place.
Then I folded the side and front rails, leaving the back rails flat so the tweezers could hold the shield without crushing the rails. I folded the shield and then held it in place with the spring tweezer, first doing one side then the other.
I upped the magnification on my headgear so I could specifically watch the joint between the railing and the shield. This was a result from experience, by not seeing the joint melt and overheating the part and losing the gun mounts as shown in this picture.
At the instant the solder in the joint melted, I pulled of the heat and got a good joint without losing any other parts.
You'd think this was the hard part, but actually the hardest part was putting the stupid gun barrels into the mounts. The super glue must be aging and just wasn't setting fast enough. It wasn't holding very well either. I used accelerator, but even that was just starting to get messy. You all know, if CA doesn't kick the first time, it just doesn't get any better.
And then there was those $@*%( gun sights. I'm seriously considering not putting these things on. They're almost impossible to position correctly and the glue just keeps piling up. And with the model enclosed in Plexiglass, I doubt that they'll even be visible.
End result: It took me over an hour to make one more good 40mm mount. 4 down, only 16 more to go.
I found good pictures of the ship at the time that I want to model. Both were taken when the MO was heading to New York for Navy Day later in 1945. Clearly seen is: teak decks, deck blue metallic horizontal surfaces, and missing triple 20mm guns and tub that flank number 2 turret. I've seen no pictures of the aft end so I don't know what changes happened there.
I added the annotations.
Of interest is the life rafts painted 20b also, AND, the larger picture (before cropping) clearly shows that #1 turret DOES NOT have that little railing running around the top, but #2 does. I am not removing it. Or... I have an extra #1 turret on old MO AND I have a full extra set of PE sooooo... I can modify that turret and use it for this model. Any thoughts... But the brass barrels are CA'd into the gun manlets on the new turret and that could be a ... naw... I can just cut the plastic away. I'm thinking out loud here.
PLAN C - Actually drilling and Pinning the 40mm Guns
I'm modeling the period after the signing when the decks were returned to natural wood. I've been collecting pictures and comments from threads like these. The pictures above depict the color scheme. But I've read nothing or seen nothing about what was changed (if anything) on the aft deck. John, at ScaleDecks is going to create a deck that has the forward 20mm gun tub removed so I don't have to do fancy inlay work on the deck wood. I will have to cut the splinter shield off the gun tub and glue the base into place in the deck since the model has an opening there.
While I'm writing. I've decided on "Plan C" to mount those miserable little 40mm gun barrels. If you've been following this thread you'll note that gluing the guns into the mounts has been one of the most annoying aspects of this build. Of course the gun sights are also annoying, but I'm no longer going to worry about those. I decided that I could actually drill and mount the guns on a trunion just like the real ones. I measured my smallest brass rod and compared it to the gun receiver and realized there was enough stock to drill IF I hit the mid-point of the part and don't waver. I'm using a 0.020" drill with the same size brass rod.
The Eduard gun mounts have an indentation etched into the mount side to simulate the trunion. It also served as a perfect drill guide to ensure that the holes on both sides lined up. How convenient!
Here's the result.
Note: the guns are now able to elevate and depress, for what it's worth.
Next question: Can I solder the gun assembly to the base WITHOUT melting the sytrene gun. I clamped a spring tweezer to the mount to act as a heat sink and removed the iron the instant I saw molten solder. It worked! I was able to solder the completed assmbly without damaging the gun in any way. Now I just have to do this 29 more times! Right now, I'm not glue or soldering the brass rod into the gun mount. I may reconsider this if the piece keeps popping out.
While this process seems like an undue complication, the super-gluing of those guns was awful. It is watchmaking, I realize, but it's doable.
I'm modeling the period after the signing when the decks were returned to natural wood. I've been collecting pictures and comments from threads like these. The pictures above depict the color scheme. But I've read nothing or seen nothing about what was changed (if anything) on the aft deck.
Yes, just like that. Soo... all the guns in the Middle of the Aft deck were gone also. I have to talk with John at ScaleDecks to see what can be done about this part. I may be content to pretend they just got the front guns removed and hadn't yet pulled up any more.
News Update:
To make the trunion idea continue more accurately, I made the axle go through both gun stands before soldering them into the deck. That held their alignment. In other words, if one was positioned incorrectly, they both would be. I then installed the guns themselves after soldering. This took away some of the worry of melting the styrene, but it opened up another can'o'worms. Just flexing the gun stand back and forth whilst I was wrestling the gun into position broke one of the damn things off. As I've noted before, the Eduard etching of the bend points makes the metal very, very thin and it's a bit brittle. To reinforece the sides, I went one step further and soldered the front corners of the gun stand front and sides to make it a stronger assembly. It also stopped the sides from bending away when I was trying to insert the axle. Since both guns were connected in real life, they're now going to have a single shaft going through both. This is not prototypical since each gun set had its own elevating pinion, but they were slaved to the same elevating controller. This new twist worked better and sped up the assembly a bit. I did two more this afternnon. It really is watchmaking (or neurosurgery).
I stand corrected. There are only 16, 40mm quad sets so that makes 6 down and 10 to go. Are we having fun yet?
I built two more mounts today and decided to impart some more wisdom to my readers about handling these tiny assemblies. You can't hold these parts in a standard panavise, but I found out that you can hold the parts in a spring tweezer and THEN hold that in the pana vise.
The first picture shows the gun mount in position to solder the front joint edges. This helps to stabilze these very fragile joints, and makes it much easier to thread the trunion rod through four gun frames and two guns. By folding the center section a little more, the sides will press against it and not collapse. This eabled me to use the spring tweezer without crushing the part. In one instance, the front piece had moved forward a bit and the side collapsed just as I was soldering it. Another scrapped frame.
Here's the entire assembly being held to do the trunion threading. I use my highest magnification to see exactly what's going on here. You can't force the rod through these pieces since if you miss, you'll break something. I also upped the drill size one thousandth to 0.021" so the 0.020" brass rod will go through without grabbing. I wish I had a few more bucks and could buy the magnifyers my son and son in law use in surgery. They give high magnification, but do so at a much longer focal distance. They cost about $700!
But even with the front joints soldered, the pieces still broke. Twice I had to scrap gun frames because the side frame broke out. The solder joint wasn't as sound as it should have been. Once the frame breaks, that mount is scrap. Again, thanks to Eduard, I have a complete set of additional PE to experiment with these practices. It will come in handy when I get onto the next ship, a late-war version of CV-9 ESSEX. It's a 1:350 Trumpeter kit on par with the Tamiya Missouri.
Here's an ultra closeup of the assembly with the broken side frame.
Even with all of these refinements, it's still taking almost an hour for each mount. And frankly, I'm about shot after two hours of this. I dread moving on to the 20mms. The tripod stand that comes on the Eduard sheet seems almost unmanageable, and I will try to use them, and if they're as bad as they seem, I not going to go that route.
All of these mounts are going to need repainting, AND I will have to make sure that the flux and any other impurities are removed. I'm probably going to wash them carefully and blow dry. Then I'll stick them all to a cardboard sheet and airbrush them. Each barrel then has to be trim painted. Most pictures I'm seeing have the barrels gun metal, the receivers haze gray and the ammo feeders gun metal. The rest of the mounts are haze gray.
I was wrong again. It's 20 quad sets, not 16, therefore I have a LOT MORE to build. Today I built four sets. Unfortunately, it almost took parts for six of them to build four.
Some Reasons: One gun stand collapses when the spring tweezers crushed the two sides togehter. Another gun stand (with the guns attached) de-soldered itself when I got the whole piece a little too warm when soldering on the splinter shield. I have to be careful to have an effective heat bring on the iron tip so it heats faster. A "heat bridge" is a tiny bit of liquid solder that increases the speed of heat transfer from the iron to the workpiece. Another one got destroyed in the process of putting on the splinter shield when it wrecked one of the side rails. And on it goes.
I've completely given up on the seats and footpedals. The pedals fall off by breathing on them too hard, and the seats aren't far behind. The front railing also seems to disappear on its own too. They're almost invisible anyhow. That's not just "Sour Grapes". They really are almost invisible. On the other hand, I spend a great amount of effort to make sure that the splinter shield is staight and mounted correctly because it's really the only thing you see.
I wrote recently that there was software available to digitally blend pictures so depth of field could be increased exponentially without the use of exotic cameras or equipment. The technique is called "Focus Stacking". It works by letting you take the same picture over and over only changing the focus point on the image. The software then "stacks" the images selecting the in-focus portions. It then creats one image with enhanced depth of field.
There are both freeware and commercial products available. Since I am not going to make any money out of its use, I selected the free product. I read reviews about them and the verdict was the free product —although lacking the bells and whistles of the professional product—had good algorithms and did the job. One commercial product is Helicon and it's over $200. The free one is Combine ZP.
You must use a tripod! The images must each be as exactly the same as you can make them. The tripod must be firm since just moving the focusing ring could slightly misalign the camera. I took two practice series. The first one had me moving the camera all over the place and the combined image is a mess.
For the second series, I was very careful to not move anything.
I was about a foot away from the parts and took four frames. The first was focused right on the pilot house windows and then each frame moved the focus back probably a quarter of an inch. The more macro the shot, the tighter the frames have to be. This software was developed by an Australian fellow who is an insect photographer. In extreme closeups the depth of field can be meausred in thousandths of an inch and it may take 100 exposures to render the entire picture.
But for us model builders, this is the way to get great, realistic shots that don't disappear in a fuzzy haze. I'm going to use it for both model photography and model railroad pictures.
Once the frames are downloaded from the camera. You just click a couple of buttons and the software does the rest. Since I have sophisticated photo handling software (Corel PhotoPaint), I didn't need Focus Stacking software that has photoediting capability.
The resulting picture looks terrific. From the front of the bridge to the funnel behind, everything is in sharp focus. Also, since I was using a tripod, I didn't have to use a flash. I used the camera's self-timer to snap the shutter so it wouldn't move the camera.
This weekend I get back to making 40mm Quad mounts.
Tweet
Comment