Iowa Class Engine Room #3 Model for BB62 Permanent Display

Back in the shop for the first time since before New Years. I removed my old printer and cleaned it up. It works perfectly, but I’m pressed for worktop space. Funny… the touch pad was getting all munged up and looked terrible. Upon closer inspection it appeared to be delaminating. Turns out there was a protective film over it that should be removed. I put the new touch pad cover when I replace the electronics a couple of years ago. There was no instruction about removing any film. Now there’s a pristine touch pad for anyone who buys the machine. Then I looked closer at the new printer, and there was a protective film on its touch pad too. I removed that right away. The film made it hard to remove any errant resin that got on it.

​Removing the printer freed up space for the new Ultrasonic cleaner which is much larger.

Like the old cleaner, the first thing I did was cut some aluminum screen wire for the bottom of the parts basket to captivate any smaller parts. The machine comes with a tiny jewelry basket, but the screen is for things a bit larger.

I then installed the second UV curing light in the lid of my enlarged post-curing box. Between hot glue and some scrap pieces and cardboard, I made a semi-secure mount for the light. I added a front door to the box so I really don’t have to fully remove the lid; just tip it back a litte to let the door open. This doubles the lumens in the box and exposes the tops of parts along with the sides. I would still have to invert the parts to ensure the bottoms are cured.

I hadn’t used the printer in a long time and it needed a firmware upgrade before I could load the new files. I modified all the files that were affected by the propeler shaft size changed and will be printing all these parts over the next couple of weeks. My goal is to have the main propulsion parts done in two weeks. While the printer’s working I will be designing the auxiliaries and working on another modern styrene plastic kit, the Trumpeter 1:32 F-35B STOVL. I was planning on 3D printing a 2nd propulsion plant for this plane and attempted to scan an assembled conventional take off engine that would power the F-35A. The scan is not usable as a 3D printing model. I may serve as a guide to modeling it on SketchUp, but I’m not too optimistic. I was planning on having one system out of the model and the other installed.

I had forgotten a quirk of the printer. When it’s in the rest position, the vat is in “down tilt position”. When you fill the vat with resin, you can’t get anywhere near the MAX marking. You really need to fill amost a 1/4" below it. When the printer energizes, the vat moves up to the level position and if you added resin level too close to the max mark, it will cause an “Overfill” alarm and stop the print. I overfilled it today. I lost track of the right spot to fill (note to self: put some kind of marking to show the actual fill line), and had to empty some resin before restarting the print. Emptying resin is always sloppy and can get out of control really fast. I should buy a cheap turkey baster to do this when it happens again. Later tonight the first of the modified parts will come off the machine.

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Printing went ahead full speed with the new equipment in service. First was the modified discharge end of the main condenser with the erroneous angle frames removed. I also modified the part for printing by adding X-bracing as I did on the other end to reduce warping. In this case, once the part was post-cured I cut it out with a carbide router. It would block seeing the coolant tubes in the curaway. It didn’t warp!

Next up was the spring bearings and their mounts. The actual scale size of the 32" propeller shafts is .666". That’s close enough to.625 and I used a left over piece of 5/8 plumbing tubing as the propeller shafts. It’s a nice slip fit through the bearing. For some reason, I got the legs and rear brace uneven lengths on the starboard side. Rather than fixing the drawing and reprinting, I just added a shim. When it’s installed in the model, I will open the hold floor and inlay the shim.

While cleaning up these parts, the printer was dutifully printing the bull gear. It came out perfect! In fact, everything out of this printer is just about perfect. I’m using the default layer

setting of 50 microns, but yet getting absolutely no layer lines. I think it’s the 12k X-Y resolution that contributes to this. It creates very small pixel sizes and very strong supports. I’m using all medium supports except for the very lowest edges that start printing first. Many pull off with cutting and leave no damage. The printer counts the number of total layers printed. It tells you to change the PFA vat film at 60,000. I’m getting close, but it’s working so well, I don’t want to screw anything up. I’ve had only one print failure since running this machine in August. That was my fault.

Here were the two halves of the bull gear the print completion.

After cleaning the teeth looked beautiful.

The rear of the halves has ribs I built in again to reduce any tendancy to warp. There was no warpage.

I test assembled the gear and hung it on the that piece of pipe. it will have its own shaft which will be printed shortly. Right now the gear train is on the printer.

I was also working on the F35-B today. While all this printing is going on, I need other projects to keep me busy.

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I don’t know when it became standard to put these films on displays and touchscreens, but I remember only noticing one on a piece of hardware I’d owned after three years.

It sure is funny!

Thanks guys! The new printer is astounding in both it’s resolution and producing parts without any failures. And of course, the paint’s barely dry on this one and Elegoo is now marketing the Saturn 4 Ultra 16k. Mine has a 12k LCD screen, so the new one has a 30% resolution. I don’t know what that means, but in the case of the my Saturn, the increase from 4k in my Mars 3 to 12k in the Saturn has made a huge difference in apparent performance. I used “apparent” becuase of the increase area of the larger build plate decreases the absolute increase in pixels per unit area, Regardless, it is a higher resolution machine. Since the new Saturn model has the same size build plate, it’s pixel pre unit area is increased proportionately.

I’m producing one to two runs per day. Today, I cleaned up the full reduction gear sets and started printing the HP turbine in all its entirety. It will be done at 6:30 p.m. so I’ll know if its a good print tonight. I’ve come to expect that all the prints are going to be good. I only had a single failure since I got this machine, and that was very early on. The more accurate exposure time and the resolution making much higher strength parts enables me to use medium supports throughout the part except for the starting surfaces at the build plate. This makes support removal much easier since the medium (and fine) supports pull off by hand and leave no nibs behind.

To give you all a reference of just how massive a 53, 000 hp gear box is, here’s the bull gear with a scale person next to it.

NJ ERP Bull Gear is Huge.jpg

The Gear sets are really nice. I knew in the drawing that one set was not in direct, tight contact with the input pinion and suspected that when supports were removed, it would be a separate part. It is! Not a problem since it will settle into it’s bearing mounts and will look fine. Here’s how they looked coming out of the machine.

NJ ERP Reduction Sets as Printed.jpg

And again, with our scale 1:48 man. There are some very minor blemishes in the gear teeth, but I’m totally okay with that and am pleased with the outcome.

NJ ERP Reduction Sets Preped.jpg

Another view… I made the shafts hollow to reduce resin consumption.

NJ ERP Reduction Sets.jpg

I have all the propulsion system parts loaded (by WiFi) in the printer, so all I have to is pull the job off, fill up the vat to account for resin consumption, press go and in a few hours more parts will appear. Here’s what it looks like in time lapse from the printer’s build in camera. It’s fascinating and a little sci-fi to have parts appearing of a 1/2" deep pool of resin.

See video here: https://studio.youtube.com/video/4LnvO4P9VOY/edit

Hope the video works….

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The HP print looks spectacular!

Even that very complex throttle assembly printed perfectly and I left it attached to the upper half.

I didn’t know if it would work that way. It did!

The rotor is a beauty with no warpage and clearly define discharge-end blading.

And that very thin cross-section exhaust funnel seems to be okay too.

Lower shell is nice and clean and should work as drawn.

I haven’t trimmed it or post-cured it so things can still break.

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You can tell that the quality of prints indeed has improved drastically…

Here’s that video correctly linked…

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It most certainly has, and it’s fast too. It’s been a real pleasure working with it.

The printer continues to hum along turning out very nice parts. I test assembled the HP turbine. The rotor broke in the middle. I temporarily glued it back together, but am reprinting another. It appeared to be a structural flaw, and after reviewing the drawing, there were some discontinuities in the central core. I made some mods and in the slicer it appears to be nicely solid all the way through. It’s set up to print with the main steam pipe. The rest of the turbine came out great with no changes necessary. My removal of the supports left all the throttles in good shape. Just finished on the machine is the entire HP foundation frame printed as a single part and it’s appears to be perfect. I also printed the “steel” stiffener that resides on the fire room side of that bulkhead that provides the necessary to support the ledge on which 1/2 of the turbine rests. I have that part to display tomorrow.

The massive lower half of the main reduction gear box is done. As the rest of this work, this one was very nice also.

This part consumed a lot of resin! It supports the output shaft from the bull gear.

Looking at it from the bottom shows the lower half of the output seal and bearing.

This picture is a bill silly since there’s no shaft supporting the big gear, but this shows where it resides and why the gear case is do darn big.

Creating a model of this complexity and novelty is like the aphoism about how to eat an elephant; “One bite a time.” With each successful drawing and subsequent print, I am more sure that the project will meet my goals. And I’ve said this before. When doing a completely custom build, you’re thinking on a few levels at the same time. It’s very easy to get the forrest and the tree, or roots, moss, fungus…etc. It’s so easy to get down to very tiny details before you have control of the overall design and how it will work together. I can just imagine putting a show together like Game of Thrones (GOT). My wife finally agreed to watch it. I saw it when it first ran years ago. When you look at the scope of the script, the locations it was shot at, the costuming, sets, and then the cinematography, you wonder how they do it at all. Each episode was like a 1st run movie. My project IS NOT that.

My daughter’s, brother in law’s brother is one of the two fellows who created GoT, D.B. Weiss. We had the pleasure of visiting D.B.'s family home in a Chicago suburb. We talked at length about the creation of the show. It turns out that a pilot was created, but it was terrible and HBO didn’t want anything to do with it. Dan and David told Netflix that wanted to rewrite and produce the pilot. No one bit, but the president decided to give it a shot. The rest is history. Netflix made billions on that show over its 8-year run and the two fellows didn’t do so bad either. It just shows that sometimes even folks that are supposed to know, do know nothing. His mom presented us the full 8 year set on Blue Ray DVDs. We fianlly are watching it.

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Moving along…The HP Foundation/frame printed exceedingly well. No layer marks, perfect holes and no warp. It’s all cleaned, but not post-cured. The upper beam ends in that bracketed shelf. The other part is the stiffening structure on the other side of the bulkhead that strengthens the whole deal. It’s also part of the boiler support system.

My spouse has a strictly enforced rule… “No shop work after 5pm and no shop work on the weekends”. Considering how much treasure and time my “shop work” consumes, I abide by these rules without exception.

The printer has another feature. It expects that the PAF Teflon seal film on the vat bottom to last 60,000 layers. When it hits 60,000, the printer stops and issues a warning on the touch screen which you can override. I overrode it for one print yesterday afternoon and noticed some delamination of the base raft, but it did not affect the print. Turns out that print was unnecessary as it was an out-of-date version of a part which I had already printed the day before. So the delamination didn’t matter. Last night’s part did. It was the top half of the gear box and the corrected diameter of the output shaft. It was a failure. The film is shot and needs to be replaced. From now on, I will heed the machines warning. It knows better than me. Just for the record. I printed those 60,000 layers with no failures until this one.

This part is NOT salvagable. However, on the other end of the print (not shown) is a correct diameter output shaft and it is usable as are the torque tube shields for the LP and HP output shafts. So it’s not a total loss. On Monday, my first assignment will be to replace the PAF. I bought extra film when I bought the printer. In the past, you just tracked how many failures and when they seemed chronic, you changed the film.

I finalized the condensate pump system and exported its STL file. I sliced it and WiFied it to printer. All of the parts of the primary propulsion system are either printed or in the printer’s local memory and will be printed this coming week. I’m printing it with the piping. The printer’s precise enough to pull that off, especially since i did it with my older printer on the ammo hoists on the 5" project and they came out okay. The dark openning in the top is the steam inlet. There’s another around the side for exhaust. These will be piped.

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Changing the film on my printer was not an option. It was esssential. When I pulled the vat off the machine, resin was deposited on the LCD cover glass meaning the film has a pinhole in it. If that has continued it could have damaged the LCD. I will be paying close attention to the 60,000 layer alarm. With the new film in place, I’m re-running the top of the Main Gear Reduction housing. I cleaned up the other prints that were produced before the failure: the HP Foundation Frame and a couple of small parts; the torque tubes that shield the output shafts from the turbines.

Here’s the foundation. I had to relieve some unseen parts of the turbine support frame to clean those condensate drain pipes on the bottom. I also had to open the plate to let the turbine nestle in a bit closer.

Another view of the structural steel stiffener that will lie on the other side of the styrene bulkhead. It’s what makes having the turbine rest on a shelf welded to that bulkhead possible.

Here’s that torque tube just sitting there. All that dust on the parts will be removed when I give them a quick Ultrasonic cleaning before assembly and painting.

I fit all of the main propulsion together to get an idea about fits. For some reason, I needed about a 1/4" shim to bring the LP’s output shaft level with the HP’s. Part of the problem is the slope of the hold’s decking. It slopes towards the P & S edges to drain water to the bilge drains at the corners. This could account for why there is the height difference, but probably not all.

Looks nice and complicated… just the way I like it.

xp

I described the following problem in my last build. CorelDraw won’t print out with my latest upgrade of my MAC operating system. You’re being asked to buy a newer version of CorelDraw, and that’s a pain in the butt since there’s nothing else wrong with my version AND the new bells and whistles on the upgrade offer no benefit to me. So I tried exporting the drawings (which all are bigger than a single sheet of 8.5" X 11" American standard printer paper. Normally, CorelDraw lets you print over multiple sheets (called tiling). I was told that Adobe Acrobat Reader could print a PDF out over multiple sheets (Called Postering). Ahhh… but there’s a rub. You have to buy the Pro version of Reader to get this feature. Now I only have to print big plans a couple of times a year. Neither of these paid solutions worked for me. So I did some research and found a free APP called PosteRazor. You upload a .JPG, or .PNG, tell it how you want the pages formatted and Vola. It outputs a PDF tiled over multiple pages. I open these in Reader and print them out as a multi-page document. Problem solved. Cost $0.00.

I scaled the main layout drawings in CorelDraw and went through this routine and got a nice set of scaled drawing upon which I will be laying out the placement on the model. It also shows the exact size the model will be when finished. Big… but not too big.

These drawings are critical in locating objects like the passage of the other prop shafts since they come through at angles. What you’re seeing is the lower level floor plan. I’ve also got one for the upper level. There’s a grating that goes between the LP and HP turbines so operators can walk between them. I’m going to include that grating since it hides nothing of importance below it. There’s also a “bridge” that goes over the torque tubes in the space between the turbines and MRG. I may leave that off since I want folks to see those tubes.

The v-blocks are there since there’s no bulkhead onto which the bracket is attached. Notice the slight angle to that bracket. The turbines are not parallel to the centerline. They are angled 3º with the prop shafts. I will be building that into the model.

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You do amazing work. I look forward to your updates.

Thanks Randy. Today wasn’t so amazing… read on…

Took a couple of shots with a ruler to send to my old friend, Bryant, who builds my wood bases. I wanted to give him a head’s up about sizing. It’s not the final value, but it’s close.

It’s going to be about 1 foot deep.

And about 21"wide (by about 1 foot high). The prop shafts and the bulkhead stiffener in the fire room made the width extend past the drawing’s edges.

Today was one of the first where progress was in retrograde. I had a printing anomaly of the MRG… there was a significant growth of resin on one interior wall. I didn’t discard this, but went back and reset it in the slicer with more supports in that area and printed it again. While it was printing I took the Dremel Flexi-shaft and a carbide router and sugically removed all of it. You can’t see this when the gears are installed, but the lump would impact their installation.

Here’s the malformation from two directions. I had already started attacking it in the damage when I took the image.

After cleaning it all out with the router, then sanding drum and finally a diamond coated burr, it’s functional… Functional, not pretty.

Much to my dismay, the reprinted part actually came out worse. With the delamination I suspected there might be some resin on the vat film. I emptied the vat, made a mess when my silicone funnel with its filter tipped off the resin bottle and made a royal mess. There was no resin stuck to the film. I refilled the vat and started printing again. The growth looks exactly the same as the previous one and my corrections did nothing. I have no idea what about the design is causing the excess resin. But this one also has delamination on top and that would be visible, rendering this print scrap.

Ths delamination…

​I tried the gear sets in the repaired part and they fit without interference, so the correction worked.

I correct output shaft just came off the printer with the second upper frame print and is in the post-cure chamber, explaining the water pipe used to support the bull gear.

Lastly, I had another shock. I made beautiful prints of the two cutaway gear box covers. I mean they were perfect! Except they weren’t. For some reason, the designer had the reduction gear bores way undersized. I don’t know what he was thinking, and I’ll have to have words with him.

I left the shop and went back to SketchUp to fix this. It took hours! I’ve said this many, many times. It’s often more difficult to repair an SU drawing than to do it in the first place. The fixed covers are now in the printer. I’ve officially named it THE MACHINE!.

I also noticed that my innerds desgn of the gear case doesn’t have an inboard bearing cap for the bull gear shaft. There’s a bearing on the lower half, but nothing on the upper. I drew up a bearing cap and will print it separately. Clearly I missed something when looking at the framing diagrams.

I also found out why the LP/Condenser height was off by 3/16". Look at this image of the equipment below the drawing sheet.

​It will be easier to shim up the condenser foundation than to trim the HP foundation. The printer doesn’t lie. If I drew it wrong, it will print wrong. Hopefully, tomorrow will be in a more positive directly.

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Yes… I’m going to be 80 in July and weird growths are definitely the rule of the day. Your skin has lost its collegan, but doesn’t seem to have trouble growing all sorts of new stuff all over the place. It’s all G_d’s weird sense of humor.

I had forgotten to design and print the turning gear that resides on the the gear box cover’s starboard aft corner. Large rotating equipment needs to be turned to keep from warpng of the main shafts due to their weight and to bring things around into view for inspection purposes. I came up with a not-so-smart idea to design the machinery on the cutaway piece. The cutaway piece would be exactly the same shape as the opening. Problem is that o.d.s are printed slightly oversize, and i.d.s slightly undersized so the resulting parts don’t fit together as seen here.

I attempted to decrease the outisde profile of the insert, but it was getting weird and not going as I would have liked. The solution was to redraw the gear cover with the turning gear on top and eliminate the cutaway for that quadrant. Here’s the part on the slicer as it will print. Printing will take place on Monday.

It’s often better to redsign it correctly than to keep messing with it.

The fully-detailed condensate pump is done. I printed it with a 1/8" hole in the conical joint to the outlet pipe. The print was a beauty!

Even without glue, the pin holds them together nicely and I took these two images looking from both ways. Pardon the pixelation. I enlarged these a bit too much.

I have the Main Reduction Gear foundation parts to print and all the main propulsion equipment is done. I now will start designing a pile of auxiliaries. The weather may permit me to do some primer painting of the completed work outside. I can’t rattle-can spray solvent-based paints indoors.

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Great binge catch up. Amazing printing getting displayed here. That turbine looks super with the tweaks you made … and so much pipe work … I find it fascinating how someone can sit down at a drawing board, and basically design a ship of this size from the keel up …

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Incredible work

Thanks guys! I’m not really designing a ship from the ground up, but there were hundreds of folks in the 30s and 40s who did just that. I’m just good at copying…

First off, I finally replaced my chair… It was my dad’s desk chairand was at least 60 years old, possibly older. I bought a very inexpensive chair from Amazon that cost less that $90USD an no shipping (Prime members). My son had admonished me to get a new chair. I sent him a picture and asked if it would make my modeling better. He responded, “How can you do better than perfect?” He’s a nice boy (well actually he just turned 50 and is a terrific eye surgeon). Whether or not it improves my modeling, it’s certainly more comfortable…

My reprints of the gear sets came out beautifully, but there was still a fit problem. I made them as separate gears and when attempting to assemble… couldn’t. My spacing was not equal. Didn’t matter when they were attached to each other, but separate they wouldn’t fit. To get them to fit I removed stock in the journals to position the port side gear further outboard and the pinion more to the center.

Fit was not okay and good enough to assemble the gear covers to the main body.

The print for the other cover with the intergral turning gear failed. I reinforced the supports and will print again. Right now I’m printing some of the MRG’s foundation parts. That comprises four separate print activities.

Along with the gear cover I printed the rear bull gear bearing cap and they were successful. took a little sanding and shimming to get it to fit right. The reason for the fitting was the misalignment of the main bearing bracket. I didn’t realize that the drawing had moved when I chose to print it integral with the housing. All will be unseen in the finished model.

So here’s what’s been printed so far. The pile grows bigger.

I’m drawing the complex turbogenerators now. Luckily I have lots of pictures and foundation drawings that will help.

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Forgot to display the image with the bearing cap, so here it is….

I hadn’t reprinted the gear cover yet and decided to give it a try to fit the separate turning gear into the opening. With a bit of sanding with a Dremel drum sander, I removed stock from the plug, used thin CA to hold it in place and then copius amounts of Bondic UV cure substance. I sanded the joint and am reasonably happy with the results. There’s a slight ridge and I will do some more sanding to even remove that.

I got the aft MRG frame printed and it came out well. The MRG sitting on a block of wood is a tad high. The frame sits directly under the flange. There are three more printings that will make up the entire MRG Foundation.

I also printed the prop shaft junction pieces and the bulkhead Watertight seals that go on the prop shafts as they pass through from one compartment to another.

With the success of the turning gear fix, I don’t have to waste time and resin to make another one. Notice that gap when the gear case covers are in place. That’s due to not changing the geometry of the MRG base journals to make the mods made on the gear case. I will corect that going forward.

I love this hobby/avocation. Every day in the shop produces something that never existed before. It’s why, for me, in retirement, creating and building is so much more satisfying than playing cards or games on my iPhone.

The main steam pipe is on the printer right now. In not too long a time, all of the main propulsion system will be created. I have to decide to build the base framing and start mounting some stuff or doing all the 3D and then start assembly. Depends on my interest level. Some of the smaller things take as much time or longer to design and the big stuff.

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​The last bits of the main reduction gear foundation is draining in the printer now. All the rest is done, cleaned and trimmed. I got the MRG to sit still on top for this image. Not the scale guy. This piece of equipment is massive. It’s the size of a small house. You’re looking at the output side which is smack dab against ER 3’s aft bulkhead. You can see much peering into that space.

This image shows just how poor the visibility into that space really is. Most engine room visitors will not see this space. Look at the thickness of those braces.

I was pleased to see that the HP turbine’s output shaft while sitting on its foundation aligns perfectly with the input pinion shaft in the MRG. That doesn’t happen often with me.

Work continues on designing the complicated by small turbogenerator set. The nice thing is when I design one, I get two of them since they’re identical. The hard part is understanding what’s under all that heavy insulation. I’m building the model sans insulation so folks can actually see what’s inside. I didn’t realize that the donut-shaped part at the outboard end is the exhaust steam collector. It took two tries to get Curviloft to get a close approximation. It’s still not perfect, but it’s going to be very small and it will be effective. The large pipe dropping down is the waste steam line going directly into the TG condenser that lies directly below on the lower level.

To illustrate this challenge, here’s the side view of the actual turbine. The isulation and piping completely hides the turbines actual geometry.

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I’d like to fasten the MRG halves together with screws and not glue. I’ve kept some of the rejects and used it as a test article to see if the screws would work. They do! I also used them to hold the gun house shield onto the body in the 5" project and used a different screw to hold the same on the 16" project. It’s just so much cleaner. I just used four at the corners. More could work also. Don’t be too quick to throw away rejects. They can come in handy for a lot of reasons.

I actually assembled something. The cross-beams finished nicely and I glued together the MRG’s foundation. I made a template of the base so I could be sure that what I was gluing together was going to correctly hold the MRG. To glue the HP frame on the fore end I packed out the I-Beam shape with stock equalling 0.050" so the angle frames would have a broad gluing surface instead of just the edges of the flange. I checked and double-checked to make sure that I was gluing it in the right place.

And here it is with the MRG sitting in its place.

I also did the relief grinding in the MRG frame so the gear covers would fit flush. I have to reprint the HP rotor and print a coupld of open angle frames. There are spaces for two more of these on the fore end of the MRG foundation. With those parts, main propulsion is done for a while. As I get further down the road, I’ll need to print some more plumbing like the 600# steam lines to the astern turbine inlets and figure out what to do about all the condensate drains that seem to be all over the place. When I finish designing all the secondary equipment there will be more piping decisions to be made.

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Honestly Myles this build is right on the edge of my comprehension now, awe-inspiring. I think this question came up on one of your previous masterpieces too, will there be room anywhere for some internal micro-LED lighting?

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