Watkins Redraws

[RyanShort]

Hmmm... A USS Texas would be REALLY nice!

Ryan

[paperboy]

Darwin

Go to this site,Historic Naval Ships Association. This is the link http://www.hnsa.org/doc/plans/pg50.pdf
They have an eclectic mix of plans for ships and lo and behold USS Erie is on of them. I D/Led it and its about 10 mgs and it should help you alot.
They have Texas, New York even the Olympia. I want to do it with a cage mast.

hope this helps

Vernon

[RyanShort]

Somewhere here I actually have some of the official plans in CAD for the Texas.

Ryan

[Darwin]

Dennis, you are correct about which kits they are. A few of us have been informally attempting to create a scan archive of the Watkin's kits to keep them alive, since we are personally convinced they now are in the realm of public domain, never having been able to find any indication otherwise. Give me a pm and I'll let you know which of the kits I have....and, if you have the patience of Job, I'd be happy to burn you a disk of what I have so far. I've started investigating a few possible means of distributing the kits that may eventually emerge from this process. The main stumbling block is proving the negative that copyright extensions were never obtained for the designs.

Avery, thanks for the leads to the reference material for the Erie...I fell in love with the kit the first time I saw it....the concept of a ship the size of a destroyer escourt having it's own recon aircraft boggled my mind.

Ted, the idea of faking the hourglass has crossed my mind, but I'm almost convinced that it would be nearly as much effort as just building the cage from strip wood. The big problem will be finding a source of the very small dimension wood that will be needed. I thought I had it solved when I found that A2Z Corp had it in their catalog....placed an order, only to find it was "out of stock". I haven't given up on the idea, but am now thinking I'm going to have to create my own strips by splitting down bamboo meat skewers. I ran across some great reference drawings for the Colorado as it existed in 1944....it doesn't look as if the conversion from the 1941 configuration would be that difficult, and it would cut the birdcage mast problem by at least half....but that is definitely sometime far out in the future. The first step of the simplified White Fleet version is already driving my 4-gig, dual core HP Pavillion to the ragged edge of its capability.

And for all of you, thank's for the expression of interest in the project....it helps to keep my forging on (insider pun there....I use Image Forge as my primary drawing software).

[Darwin]

Thanks to the reference links you guys gave me, there is now plenty of info for really getting down and dirty with this redesign effort. I am still using the Watkins kit as the basis for the West Virginia/Colorado/Maryland models, but am using it only as a starting point....the final parts are going to be based more on the BB48 plans archive than the kit. This is causing more time than I initially figured it would on kit creation, but I think it will be worth it in the long run....and should give sufficient originality to the end product that there shouldn't be any concerns re copyright. Attached are the before and after versions of the foredeck.....let me know how you think it is coming.

[Hambone]

Darwin,

This subject is long overdue. I think you are doing a great job. The color is good and the wood decking is very effective. What do you think about cutting out the area for the below deck ladders? or making it optional? At any rate keep up the good work.

Thanks,
Dennis

[Yu Gyokubun]

I agree with Hambone. This is a great job.
Redesign the kit is the way I always envision lately because it will realize my wishes to build a ship of which detailed kit is not available. If you could explain more of how to do in the course of redesigning and building, I would appreciate.

[Darwin]

Dennis, I'm planning on the final kit having actual ladders for the below deck ladders as an option....I am planning on including optional "simplified parts" with printed-on detail rather than built-up fiddly parts. It also wouldn't be that much additional effort to provide the kit with the hull side parts so one could build any of the three ships in the class. Having the BuShips plan sets now give lots of promise for being able to superdetail the kit, especially if I can gain permission to use some of the bits and pieces from the designers of existing kits for stuff like the detailed anti-aircraft guns, etc. Just as one example, the catapult assembly for the Arizona that digital navy offers as a download freebie. In my former life as a tech writer, my motto was "stealing from one is plagerism, stealing from many is a literature search." As a way-in-the-future pipe dream, I've obtained a fairly comprehensive set of drawings for the Colorado as it was configured in 1944....it shouldn't be all that difficult to convert the 1941 version to reflect the changes made during the wartime refits that occurred.

YuG, the short version of my redraw process is first, use Photoshop to create image files for the individual parts, then use Paint Shop Pro to straighten those images. I then use Image Forge (by Cursor Arts) to overdraw the outlines on the original parts, then use Photoshop to remove everything but the new outlines. Finally, I go back into Image Forge and finish drawing and coloring the new parts. It is possible to do everything just using Image Forge, straightening parts, resizing, cutting and pasting, etc., are very time consuming using that program rather than Image Forge. If there is really some interest in it, I can do a tutorial in the process. Unfortunately, the free version of Image Forge is no longer available, and the "new and improved" commercial version of the software absolutely sucks for our purposes....for some reason, they changed the algorithms the used for saving the files, and the new version does terrible things to color values when the file gets saved. If enough of us would write to them (i.e., let them know there is a market for it), maybe Cursor Arts would make the old "free" version available for a modest ($10 to $15) price. The current commercial version of the software is only $30, so that would seem reasonable.

[Barry]

That looks really impressive Darwin

[Yu Gyokubun]

Thank you Darwin, even their new virsion ImageForge GOLD is $37.95. I decided to buy the ImageForge download version after back home (Now I'm on the road). $30 is less than spending money at the bar for a couple of hours.