Something with 406mm main armament

[davidwilkins]

Hi all,

Being as I lost my mojo building tanks at the beginning of last year I had to find something to get me going again. After a lot of thought I decided to try and build a 1/96 scale model of the USS Missouri battleship at 2830mm long its huge project. So I purchased a fibre glass hull and the rest is up myself to design and build and I thought this part of the build might be of interest to some of you, the main armament and turrets. There is still a huge amount of work to be done on these parts as I hope to have traverse, gun elevation, and gun recoil with gun flash.

I think this a 10 year project depending if I loose my mojo on this and go back to building a tank again, time will tell.

All the best, David

[Vince Cutajar]

Nice.
I am assuming you have detailed plans of the battleship.
Vince

[Mick Regan]

How much is that going to weigh in at? Or should I ask what will be it’s displacement, assuming it’s intended to float. Fantastic project, and I thought I had trouble finding room to assemble my Universal Carrier.

Happy New Year

Mick

[davidwilkins]

Vince,

I started out with a set of 1/200 plans and tried converting the measurements to 1/96 this proved to be a real problem as things just did not seem right.

After looking on the internet I found a place that had copies form the original blueprints from 1945, there are 5 sheets at 3000mm long it can be hard work going from one sheet to another but they are highly detailed. Just wish I had them right at the very beginning of the build.

Mick,

I think the displacement weight is somewhere between 75kg and 100kg deep load. I do intend to have it working on the high seas. Although this is a big model it is a small scale compared to armortek tank at 1/6 scale.

Thanks for the interest chaps.

[Robert Reid]

Incredible work. Your decking is amazing!

Beautiful!

RPR

[Derek Attree]

Hi David
You are going to need a big bath for that one
I have a 1:128th scale Rodney and that takes 2 of us to lift it and its
only about 6 feet long.

Seriously though a stunning build

Regards

Derek

[Robert E Morey]

Incredibly cool turrets! Wow!

Paul Allens Flying Heritage museum close by has a 1/96 scale Musashi (sister of Yamato) that Duane Dahm of Spokane Wa built and donated pix below. It is huge - 12-14 feet long. Starting off 2021 with a bang! Speaking of, will the guns have some kind of pyro "bang"? Really neat project. When you stall, then go back to tanks!
Bob

[davidwilkins]

Gents, many thanks for your kind words.

Robert,

There's about 8000 to 9000 planks to made for this model, I have laid about 3500 to 4000 so far. My plan now is step away from the turrets and continue with the main deck and try to finish this job including staining and sealing the deck.

Derek,

I also had a 1/28 model that was of the HMS vanguard battleship. Personally I think that HMS vanguard was the best looking British battleship ever made and by all accounts was a very good gun platform. I sold this model to help finance my first armortek kit, a Centurion.

Bob,

That's a very nice model of the Musashi. As regards the guns on my model I am not sure of how they are going to work as electronics is definitely not my strong point. However just before covid hit us I did make contact with a local model boat club and there were a couple of electronic wizards there that were very interested in what I am trying to do. Hopefully in the summer I can contact them again and see how I can take this part of the project forward.

Cheers, David

[John Heath]

Very nice project.

One day I will have to get back to my 1:96 HMS Nelson project. Mine has large ballast tanks and pumps rather than weights in the hull. Will will make it a lot lighter to transport and no messing about adding ballast weights after it’s in the water.

[florian rudolf]

What an awesome boat if it is finish. nice deck build.
How heavy it will bee at the end?

[davidwilkins]

John,

Ballast tanks and pumps, now that sounds like a good idea I shall have to give some that thought for my model.

Florian,

My USS Missouri model will probably take at least 10 years to build but if I can build it to the standard of the Musashi that Bob has kindly shown on this thread I will be more than happy.

The weight will probably be at least 75kg

Cheers, David

[davidwilkins]

Hi All,

It's been just over a year since the last post so I thought I would give update on the progress so far.

I have managed to get the recoil to work. The recoil is 11.5mm which is the correct scale for this model according to my calculation and works very smoothly.

I have main gun elevation from -5 to +45 and again it works nice and smoothly. However the speed is a bit slow when connected to small 9 volt battery hopefully when I learn how to connect to the main power supply and RC set it will improve. At the moment just connecting to 9 volt battery it takes about 9 seconds to go from -5 to +45 where as it needs to be about 4.5 seconds, it does work that's a good starting point.

I did take a big hit with the planked deck, 6 months lost time. I was not happy with the finished main deck so I stripped it all off and started again. Trying to purchase timber with a constant thickness has proved to just about impossible so I made my own jig and any planks to thick were sanded down (which was most of them.

I have stained the first deck but I am not really happy with the colour so I am hoping to salvage this by sanding down to look like the rest of the decking then leave it for a few mouths to see how it looks then.

The plan this year is try and get the turret traverse to work, tidy up the hull and repaint, try and make a 5"" turret prototype and keep on working on the superstructure.

Wishing you all a safe and happy new year

David

[davidwilkins]

Hi All,

It's been a long time since I last gave update on this as 2022 was not a good year for me as health issues got in the way, at one stage I was unable to stand or walk for 2 months but I am up and running again so it's full steam ahead.
I have managed to make some progress with the superstructure but I wanted to make a start on the secondary 5" armament so I clean off all the protective grease from the milling machine and lathe to see what I could come up with, overall very pleased with the results.

Regards David

[Phil Woollard]

Epic! Most impressive.

[Adrian Harris]

Wow

Glad to hear you're firing on all barrels now

Adrian.