USS Idaho (BB-42) (1945) IRCWCC

Getting a fair amount done this weekend. I've got the ribs all cut out and fitted to the keel, and have been working on the deck fitting. I've been doing most of the work with a coping saw and using files to fit the ribs to the subdeck. sure, it takes a little extra time, but the fit is almost perfect on each one.

Since I have work again (woohoo!!), the project will slow down a tad. tomorrow's going to be more rib fitting. I should have the forward portion of the hull done before tomorrow night's episode of Victoria.

the stern will be during the week, and into next weekend. I'm discovering that it's far more convenient to work with the hull upside-down--the deck provides a ton of bearing surface and ensures there are no lateral warps. I'm going to have to file some of the keel parts back into tolerance because of that. ten minutes, tops.

So from here on, builds will be inverted. good thing I prefer ships that don't have sweeps in the deck.



I also received the maple and red oak pieces I'll be using for stringers. Man, they're pretty. two of the maple pieces are curly, so it'll be a shame to put them to a use in which their shimmering beauty will be hidden, but such is life. I'm really enjoying this build; custom-fitting the wood, working out where my support braces will be.... I'm learning quite a bit of craft that will help in a lot of related projects.

 

Rib setting on the bow is done. getting the keels re-aligned and ready to go for the rest of the day. The stern work should be in full swing tomorrow night after work.

You can see the brace I'll have between A and B turret pretty clearly. It'll allow me to access the forward solenoids a lot easier than the current Texas setup, allow me to support and stabilize the forward cannons, and have separate forward and midships deckplates. I did an experimental check of the room in the hull, and it looks like can fit in all of the requisite hardware and expansion tanks in the bow where I wanted, but there isn't enough room midships to jam in four of my 20 AH batteries. I'll likely keep to two like in the Texas for drive, fire control, etc. but will run my pumps off of a smaller pack that I stuff in there somewhere. I'll address this later in the build. don't want to bother with electrical thoughts while getting the basic stuff ironed out.

 

Here we go.

So I had a fish fry at my place last night to burn up all of that perch I have been hoarding, and the Girlfriend broke up with me. Sooooo instead of cleaning up the kitchen, I've been working on the boat. Don't worry, it was one of those "yeah, we're just not right for each other, but let's still hang out and watch PBS every sunday" sorta things.

so it's sorta celebratory?

Anywho. I got the subdecks and ribs fitted together. the Joint in rib 12 took about an hour of filing--I wanted that thing PERFECT since it'd be a critical point in the hull, and having any kind of slop or play in it would be a very bad thing. The pics aren't great. Once I get decent bandwidth on the 10th, I'll upload better pics. the high quality ones from my camera just won't go with the current throttling.




Another lesson was learned through the process though--I should have paid better attention to @McSpuds ' builds. I stenciled out the deck contour from the plans, and the deck plans were not accurate or symmetrical.

Next time, I will use his tried and true method of keeping the subdeck as a whole piece of wood, and then contouring the subdeck to the ribs. The foredeck was accurate, but aft of the step, things got weird. Luckily it's not off by much, so I have a plan to address the issue. I'll bring the subdeck into tolerance when I install the deck later.




For size comparison, here she is next to Texas.

She carries her beam wide for quite a way, and the step deck leaves a ton of vertical room in the forward portion of the hull, comparatively. I'm going to wrap up for the day and try to clean up all of the fish fry mess in the kitchen for the rest of the day.

This week, and likely this weekend, I'm going to flip the hull and install the keel and then run the water channel keels, using the center keel to keep her straight for that step. After the Keels are done, I'll take those pieces of maple and start dry-fitting them in as stringers for the below-waterline, armor belt, and the casemates.
Then, I'll start cutting out the excess material from the ribs and the subdeck, fabricate and dry-fit the 1/8" deck, fix the edges on the subdeck, and start looking at prop/rudder positioning.
I'm probably not going to glue anything together for another 2-3 weeks. The dry-fitting will allow me to fine tune each individual part before that big step comes.

 

Today's ice storm meant no work, so I spent the morning and early afternoon working on the boat.

The center keel is installed.


After that, I just kinda lost steam and took a nap. Got back up an hour or two ago and started mapping out the cuts I will be making to the subdeck.
We'll see what the week brings.

 

More progress.

Water channel and pump keels are installed. I managed to fit the already configured channel keels better using files. the pump keels, due to their critical nature, were cut with a coping saw and fit tightly with files. this has managed to take out both the slight warp in the center ribs, as well as ensure an even tighter fit on the joint between Frame 12 and the forward subdeck.

to do the work, I place the boat vertical with the nose down and worked each joint with a file. it took nearly four hours, but the results were worth it. Once I get better precision from experience with power tools, I should be able to crank out the next boat pretty easily. Until I feel I have that experience, I'll rely on my tried and true hand tool skills. that, and I'm holding off on expanding my workshop until I get a house this summer, when I won't be in the confines of my dining room any longer.






Today and tomorrow will be wholly consumed by working on the stringers, and carving out the access ports in the subdeck.
If I have enough time on Sunday before Victoria, I'll start carving out the interior of the forward ribs. the midships and stern ribs will be subject to some more planning with regard to access, equipment mounting, water channeling, integral wiring runs, and other such tomfoolery.
With luck, I'll save that curly maple piece for something inside the boat that'll allow it to be on display. I may go all-out on the next boat and just build the sucker out of top-notch local wood from the keel up.

 

well, I've managed to accomplish a fair amount today. Many lessons learned. The armor belt and casemates on the port side are mostly installed. going to have to do some stuff before I put in the aft casemates. Including possibly going on a date tonight. Yeah, unexpected, but last night I went to the pub for some live music and got on tinder. One thing led to another.

Anywho, the maple went on great. here's some pics of the process I used:

I first took note of the positions of each rib in relation to the stringer's plotted position.

Once I had that, I did a preliminary estimation of depth, underestimating such that I could slowly bring it into tolerance with a coping saw and files.



After the initial fitting, I used a ruler to examine precisely how far I must continue to cut in order to place the stringer where it is needed, filing slowly in order to get the best fit out of each joint.

Once this was complete, I repeated the steps on the other portions of the armor belt.



BTW, when the mill scorches the maple, it makes seeing pencil lines really hard.

even the slightest misfit can cause catastrophic cracking, so I took everything slow. even then, I still had a fracture. I will be using this piece as a template to make a replacement. luckily it was a small segment of the belt, and not the stretch of like eight ribs on the midships.

I used red oak to make the forward casemate deck. Red Oak is not ideal for the application. great care has to be taken to work with it on a scroll saw. after a while, I had to switch over completely to a coping saw. Nothing broke, but Sugar maple is highly suited for the task and will be used exclusively in the future. as it stands now, the Oak will still be used for this build. But it will be done with great care in fitting. it's exceptionally light and strong on the axes that are important to the finished product.

Overall, it's pretty good. Next, I'll use a stencil to draw in the contour of the casemate deck and cut it out with the coping saw. Then do the same for the armor belt.

the hull's rigidity is impressive. I am pleased with the results so far. It looks like I may have some time tomorrow to do the stencil/cut work, and finish up the aft casemate.
Next week, I'll work on the starboard side.
Once those are done, then I'll cut out the rib guts and the subdeck.

BTW: having the ribs full right now has been extremely advantageous. there are a few ribs that are already gutted, and I have to be a lot more careful when fitting around them. the solid ones are far more forgiving.

 

Work continues.

I've gotten the fore and aft casemates of the port side done and dialed in. I cut them slightly outsized, then using the plans as a general guide, sanded them into form using 100 grit sandpaper.


For the Belt, a bit more significant work is needed. Maple sands well, but not as fast as oak. so I have filed the belt into tolerance over the ribs, and am using the sandpaper again for the in-between.


This weekend, I'll start on the starboard side. Hardwood boards are a tough, but peerless material. So progress is a bit slower than I'd like, but the end result will be worth it.

 

I managed to accomplish a fair amount in the last three days.
Friday, I slammed on the starboard casemates and armor belt stringers. cool trick, you can take the stringers from the other side and use them as a pattern to get a general rough shape, eliminating a lot of the trial and intensive fitting.





After that, I worked on carving out the subdeck. strategic placement of the bore holes is key when you have an 18 inch arm on your scroll saw. Speaking of which, I think I will buy some more blades now. the cuts are still good, but the blade looks worse for wear and there is a tad of warping in it. The next one should do a lot better though, considering I have quite a bit more finesse after gaining valuable experience.

This bore hole was in a bad spot, so I put one over by the bow.

Protective gear is an important step.

Here's the spot that worked well. it was still a bit of a pain, but the final product looks good.

note the crossbeam, which shall support the SturmGeschutz






The boat is starting to look like a combatant.
Tomorrow, the stringers on the bottom of the penetrable area will be considered. Maple again. I'm going to give them a good long think, experiment with some ideas, and move forward.
Those hardwood stringers are having a tremendous effect on the stability of the dry fit model though. I can pick the sucker up as a whole unit with hardly any flex.
I'm betting that all next weekend will be devoted to the lower stringers. Then I'll carve out the ribs and we'll go from there.

 

After several days of consideration, and thinking about using the same method with the lower stringers as I did with the armored belt, I was in the shower yesterday thinking about how to install them and it came to me.

I rotated the armor belt scheme 90 degrees.

I made a 1/4" tall by 1/8" deep notch in the ribs while triple checking my 1" from the waterline distance, and cut a strip of maple 3/8" wide. the top of the notch was 1". so I used a file to trim away the material from the bottom edge of the maple strip until it came into a tight fit.



the technique was relatively quick and easy to execute, and the flexibility of the maple along this axis is highly conducive to the process. I managed to take a slight warp out of one of the ribs by doing this, and the overall stiffness of the hull has been increased. Work continues

 

So, I decided to move onto shaping the bow today, and managed to do a fair amount toward that direction.

Given the Texas' blunt and fragile Balsa bow hard area, and the difficulties I had with trying to keep it in proper form when fabricating, I decided to use resin to do the job on Idaho, and in order to do so, I have assembled a positive from which to make the mold using Basswood.

I first gathered the appropriate contours from my stash of hull contour sheets, cut them out, and then used them as stencil templates.




I glued the pieces of basswood together to form several blocks to which I then applied the stencils. Seeing as how it would require two separate, and easily screwed up molds to accomplish the task while retaining the paddle-like form of the keel as cut from the plans, I decided to simplify the equation to make a single cast while retaining structural integrity



I spent most of the afternoon filing the basswood pieces until they had a stable and snug fit. Seeing as how the last stencil was thinner than 1/8" at the center, I decided to replace this part of the bow with a piece of maple orthogonal to the rest of that layer, which would allow for strength and stability on this thin portion.



After checking the assembly, I used a pencil to scribe on the aft profile of each piece to the forward section of the one behind it, giving me a guide with which to carve away the majority of the material while maintaining contour.



I then got busy whittling with my X-acto knife, and shaved the majority of the excess material away and sanded each piece individually. I have since reassembled them onto the bow (see above). The contours are still slightly bulbous, but we'll get back to that in a second.

From here, I will do two steps: First, I shall mark the slices where I need to trim them. If you'll note in the first picture, there is a sweep on the back side of the keel/bow which follows the sweep of her clipper bow, and this is not present in the hard area. This is by design, as the hard area is much easier to carve and align with an intact straight edge on top.

This will be cut away, for reasons that should be intuitive. Once everything's lined up, I shall glue these slices of bow together, and begin sanding in earnest. Once this is done to satisfaction, I will prepare to use this piece of shaped bow hard area in the making of a silicone mold from which the actual bow shall be cast.

This should avoid most of the nasty problems I had in Texas (namely, having to patch over the solid Balsa whenever a BB was smashed into it at close range), and allow a slender, scale appearance with increased structural integrity. I chose the Idaho not simply because she is a rare sight and a superb platform upon which to test the "Fleet Raider" concept, but also because I've wanted to build a model of a New Mexico since I was a kid due to her sleek, yet rugged appearance, as is typical with the heavily-reconstructed Standard-type Battleships. Maintaining scale faith by preserving that slender clipper bow will provide excellent contrast to her generous bulges.

We'll see how this goes. all else fails, I'll Glass the Basswood in and use it. But that would require a spectacular amount of bad things to happen. Knock on wood, this week and next weekend will have a fair number of silicone molds and resin casting.

 

Just got a chance to look through this thread. That is a lot of complex woodworking. I know what you mean about hating to use curly maple and cover it up. I do a lot with maple and black cherry.
Very Nice work.
I tend to make battler's hulls and by that I mean smoothing out a lot of those features to make an easier build, mold, and sheeting job. We are going to shoot at them. but kudos for making the most accurate hull possible. It will look magnificent! Hope you get a chance to talk with some of the Maryland group that are into detail. They have gone so far as to get the original plans for German ships from Bloom und Voss. You will enjoy meeting them.

 

Yeah, I'll probably see them at NATS. While I do have a thing for keeping the bow contour accurate(Hull accuracy--yes, superstructure features--meh), the Maple etc are a far superior building material, so it should be able to stand up to some serious hits. Especially important since Mark over in GLAS is running these monstrous triples on his Graf Spee that managed to do a fair amount of damage to Texas' basswood stringers.

I found a job for that piece of curly maple that I have on the interior of the boat though, so all is well on that account. Once I get the tools to handle it, the next boat will be featuring as much Maple, Cherry, and Oak as possible. Funny thing is that the Basswood I use costs almost the same as the pieces of hardwood I have, so with that being the case, I might as well use the good stuff!

 

Okay, space-brained. Luckily I know I have memory loss issues. there was a note I left for myself on the mold casting kit that says "Save this for the gun turrets, Moron."

Soooo...... The Bow's shaped. I'm going to finish fitting it to the hull later. tired. Before I saw the note, I was kinda wondering what Past Me was thinking when I was trying to figure out how to cast it. But maybe when I have enough experience with molding, I'll figure it out easy.



Anywho, the next step will be fitting it to the subdeck, then trim up the piece of plywood I have as a backer for connecting it to the stringers. Pics to follow if you can't figure out what I mean. too tired to elucidate. dunno why. maybe the ten hour day.

 

Just handed over the bow section from above to my buddy who runs the High School Tech Ed program.

He's going to 3D print the bow, and give me a backup file. We'll see how the idea holds up. Does anyone have suggestions regarding fill amount etc? The idea would be for this component to be able to survive with only minor repairs for the expected 20 year service span of the hull. I am coming up with ways to mount it such that I can replace it (will post pics of what I come up with)

 

50% Infill and 3-4 perimeters. You want it not to crush when you ram something : P

 

why not heavier? Aside from the per-gram cost. I'm fine with spending more for effect, and weight will not be an issue since the vast majority of the bow and stern will already be super light with the ballast, batteries, and CO2 concentrated in the midships

 

Then test with a hammer and adjust as needed : )
One could use more plastic but, it's not going to increase the strength of the part much.
I never go beyond 50% infill. If I need more strength, I'll change materials or redesign the part.

 

Cool, well my buddy's the engineer, he's seen the battle damage on Texas, and knows it's expected to have a 20 year service life. So we'll see what he comes up with.

 

Are these combat parts though?

 

I wouldn't trust it regardless of fill or material. I'd glass over it, no doubt about it. And make sure you really reinforce where this bow section meets the rest of the hull, because by building the bow tough all you do is move the "crumple zone" somewhere else in the hull if that makes sense.