Ship Propeller Well Flat Car Load

[dougnelson]

If your doing WWll time frame our largest combatant ships were the Iowa class battleships. They had four props, two five blade at 17' and two four blade at 18' 3". As for the carriers the Essex class had four 15' dia. The lone surrvivor USS Enterprise had four 13' 3" props.  Everything else was smaller or equal. Now some of the tankers etc had 18'. Many of those that were built at Sun Ship Building just down the river from the Philly Navy Yard. If there wasn't any low wires , bridges etc they may have been shipped on well cars but many were put on a barge and towed down river.
    Just a note with a little info some may use. Hope this helps a little to someone.

The available model propeller sizes represent the following N scale diameter dimensions:
20mm = 10.5' diameter
25mm = 13.12' diameter
30mm = 15.75' diameter

Seems appropriate for many naval ships except the largest battleships.

[propmeup1]

I should mention that they still make props at the former Philly Navy Yard. Same building they always have. I seen some that are 23' dia, six blade type. I have no idea how they are shipped. I'd have to say on a barge.   I seen smaller ones in a gondola braced on wood.  Our modern day ships like the carriers have 21'. The subs , well I can't tell you but, they are also large.     I will look into this more to find out more about shipping them.

[propmeup1]

Gon with props

[chicken45]

But you won't be resting on the prop full radius, you will be resting on the tangent of the blades themselves and at a tilt, which will lower the prop in the car quite a bit. So I would say the 25mm should work:

LOL I love it. Nerds!

[nkalanaga]

sd45elect2000:  Interesting.  I would have though that, over the years, they would have raised the wires a little, but I guess it costs too much?

Built to scale, a lot of N scale cars wouldn't fit under them, even if the prototypes would.  Even a couple scale inches of excess height would be too much.

[dougnelson]

Many of the ship propellers were made by Cramp Brass & Iron Foundry on the Philadelphia waterfront.  The company was purchased by Baldwin in 1931, so plenty of PRR connections.

[bbunge]

This is a Ender 3/PLA printed version of https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1688503 with various details added.

I then found a screw on thingiverse that I liked and scaled it to fit, and used styrene to build the mount. 



I poured two pewter weights to fit in recesses on the bottom of the car, but it's still a little light; keep meaning to make some pewter "tool" boxes to add to the deck ends, but runs pretty well as is. 

Back in the day, watched them replace a screw on an aircraft carrier in Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Virginia.  It was hauled out to the dry dock on a flat by an ancient (even then) RS1.   Later, took this photo from the bottom of the drydock:



Sometime need to make a better scan of that photo.

Bob

[bbunge]

Also might worth pointing out the NYC car in the OP is a well deck car:



Class 273F, looks like they had about five of them, built 1912.

Bob

[propmeup1]

Which CV or CVN is that. Not Enterprise, she has four rudders and of solid balanced type.  Not Forrestal or Saratoga, they each had three rudders with the center one on the end of the skeg. So it's either CV 63, 64, 66-76. Anything later has the skewed type props.
    I got carried away, I do realize this is a train site but i'm the propman in the ship model world.

[bbunge]

Impressive knowledge.  CV-66, USS America.  The photo was taken in 1984.  I was actually more of an aviation guy, did spend some time below, but I only recall them being called "screws" while onboard.  Number x screw, port screw, etc..  To put a little bit of railroading into this, the yard was an amazing place.  Tracks everywhere.  The large, and I mean large, buildings where they would pre-make parts of the ships had large doors.  They would move the parts out on flats to where the cranes would do the lifting.  All of the rail equipment was old.  Plain bearings, post WWII diesels. 

The screws were such a large investment, they were removed from America after she was decommissioned (1996) and before she was sunk in an exercise (2005).  I assume they are today they are either in storage or on one of the CVNs.  Same thing with the anchors and chains.

Bob

[propmeup1]

You're correct, they change them around to others. The screws today are all of the skewed type that are being put on ever CVN either while being built or during refit.  The Philly Navy Yard is the same way, track everywhere but not as much as the were in 1980-81 when we were in drydock.  I do recall the Saratoga's screws on flat cars going down the street back to the prop shop.  I did mention flat cars so that makes this a RR post, just a little.

[Thbguy2020]

Great thread.

I’ve been looking for a reason (and a good prop model) for a well car load like this to ship to the ship dry docks and rebuilding facilities near the Welland canal in southern Ontario. Now I have both. As far as I can tell, the Great Lakes bulk freighters use between a 13’ and 16’ screw depending on the size of the ship. So now I’ve got another project!

Best regards,
Michael Livingston
Back into N-scale again and doing southern Ontario ~1936-1986

[dougnelson]

This  30mm (15.75' diameter) propeller came with a bullet nose on one side, so I cut that off with a jeweler's saw.  The brass propeller was given a matte finish, and it looks pretty close to prototype propellers that were usually made of bronze.  The wood blocking was made from styrene.  The blocking shown in the prototype photo are very large size, maybe 12x12 or larger, so I used an appropriate size styrene shape.  Styrene and brass rod were used to simulate the top plate and rod ends.  I added a rod for the propeller shaft and glued the two sides of the blocking to the propeller. 

I made the blade brackets with brass bar stock (.015"x.024") to fit over the propeller blades.  Needless to say, these are very small, so this was challenging.  I cut oversize lengths for handles and then shaped each side and soldered together.  I debated how to do the stays.  I cannot tell from the prototype photograph is these are threaded rods or steel wire cable.  I initially was going to use brass rod for the stays so I could solder these to the brackets, but I did not know the exact angles needed, so I decided I would use thread instead.  Thread was attached to the brackets with CA glue.  After the glue dried, I drilled holes in the well floor and pulled the threads through.  I put a small amount of tension on the thread to make taught and then CA glued to the underside of the car.

Couplers for the car are body mounted.  The trucks are correct PRR 70 ton Crown trucks from Bowser (H21 hopper trucks).  The truck frame is similar to the MTL Andrews trucks, however the 70 ton crown trucks have 3 coil springs instead of 2. 

Overall, I am happy with the results. 

[propmeup1]

I like that.

[eric220]

Beautifully done, Doug!