Battleship Restoration - USS Texas, BB35

[verbotenwhisky]

I noticed this topic a few days ago and I read it with great admiration and great pleasure.

This is because - even though I am Polish and live thousands of miles away from you and the Pacific - I have been interested in WWII since I was a teenager, and especially in the Pacific War, i.e. your American war with the Japanese.

At first, it was bad, but later... The Japs did not realize that they had kicked the Giant and it would end badly for them. It only took some time for the Giant to fully wake up and gain strength - and then it was over for them.

I remember that I once knew the exact dates, course of battles, sea battles, battles for islands, names of ships and commanders.
A few names of soldiers still stick in my memory, Wade McClusky, James Dolittle, George Gay, Lanphier...

I am constantly fascinated by the technology of the time, achievements in the construction of huge battleships, their armament, excellent planes, fighters or bombers, and so on.
For example, the proximity fuse for anti-aircraft shells of the 5"/38 universal naval gun - the history of the development of this fuse is an incredible but true story. Or, for example, such a masterpiece as the artillery calculator for the largest caliber guns - a mechanical computer that took into account and calculated in real time a dozen or so variables; even temperature/density of the air, ship rolling and precession... And there was something to consider: a 406mm shell flew 24 miles in a long 1.5 minutes...
I am full of admiration, although unfortunately all this was used to kill - but it was always military needs that were the lever of technical progress.
Accept my great respect for your living veterans and fallen heroes of World War II, fighting both in the Pacific and in Europe.

The Texas is one of the few battleships that served in WW1 and WW2 and saw action not only in the Pacific but also in the Atlantic, she shelled the beaches at Normandy during the invasion. There is a story which I believe to be true that when the fighting had gotten far enough inland that the Texas' guns to would not reach them they emptied the ballast tanks on one side of the ship and filled them on the other side to list the ship to allow the guns to hit targets further inland.

 

[David2011]

Thanks for the info
Sorry, I was a bit imprecise - but I meant in general, the largest guns used on an American ship, i.e. the battleship USS Missouri and its 16-inch guns.

I didn't mean to be critical; just pointing out that the 14" projectile didn't have the range. Part of the reason was that the early turrets only permitted 15° of elevation. Modified turrets later allowed 30° of barrel elevation and extended the range of the 14" guns considerably. I was just pointing out the shorter range therefore a shorter time of flight for the smaller bore. Both bores delivered amazing velocities, in the 2500-2600 feet per second range at the muzzle. That's almost 1/2 mile or 0.8 km per second regardless of the bore.

There's a legendary story about the Texas increasing her range at Normandy. The German army was beyond the reach of the Texas and felt comfortable being just out of range. The captain ordered that the starboard ballast tanks be flooded giving the guns an additional 2° of elevation to reach the German front.

 

[David2011]

More projects!

The first is a spacer that goes beneath one of the arms of the compass binnacle that holds an iron ball. On steel hulled ships there are two iron balls that are moved inward or outward to fine tune the compass so it is accurate in the massive magnetic field distortion of the ship. The brass stock had been purchased by the Battleship Foundation for another job so fortunately I had it on hand. A 2.5" x 6" piece was $223.00. I faced off both ends of the stock in the lathe and bored the tapered hole to match the original bronze piece in the first photo. The brass rod was just big enough to make the rectangular piece.



After the shape of the spacer was machined it went back to the lathe for parting off. I used a 1/8" HSS parting blade with a freshly sharpened edge. Parting off was thankfully uneventful.







It seems that I was so grateful to have it parted off that I forgot to take any more pictures. I put the piece back in the mill and faced off the remaining thin flange. Too bad I forgot pictures, The flat surface was beautiful and no hint of the overlapping passes could be felt. I rounded off the edges on a bench belt sander to match the contours of the original. If it hasn't been painted by next Wednesday I'll try to get more photos. Wednesday is the day that "weekday" volunteers participate. Some of the weekday volunteers also work on Saturdays but I put in enough time at home that going to the warehouse facility twice a week would be difficult.

 

[David2011]

PISTON RINGS!

The big steam whistle on the ship was in need of an overhaul. Previously I had made a new part for the inside of the electric solenoid that opens the valve. The piston has two rings that had probably never been replaced since 1912. After all, with two 14,050 hp steam engines running powered by 6 oil fired boilers (originally 14 coal fired boilers) a little leak in a whistle valve would never have been noticed. The rings were well undersized but the whistle was operable by compressed air during its trip to the shipyard and dry dock in August of 2022. One of the guys found an offshore source for brass piston rings so the Battleship Foundation ordered two and provided dimensions. Somehow the English to Chinese dimensions resulted in piston rings that were at least 3" tall. The brass tube is supposed to be a piston ring for the piston that is laying on the speed handle.



Parting off the brass tube was not as pleasant as the spacer above had been. Again, no pictures but it was just a brass tube in a chuck. The tube, chucked up in a 3 jaw chuck, was no longer round by machining standards. To determine the height of the piston rings I measured the groove in the piston and multiplied it by 0.9 to give a little space for movement and then divided by 2 to get a height of .085". Since the wall was relatively thin I tried to part it off with a carbide parting tool which I promptly destroyed. I reground the 1/8" HSS cutoff blade to make sure that the piston ring was separated before the waste area. The much more robust HSS cutoff tool had no problems with the job. The cutoff tool took more material than the thickness of the piston rings. After parting off two rings I used a very thin pull type razor saw to cut the rings. One ring has a gap because I started to install it and took it back off to take photos.



The rings were installed just like I install rings on model airplane engines.



Two rings installed. The angles of the cuts are in opposite directions in case the gaps should manage to align.




This is the valve body for the piston. It's all bronze as are many items on the ship.



Here's the whistle sitting on a workbench. The flange on the left end mates to the valve body above.



Finally, a 5/16 wrench after the application of a cheater pipe. Wish I had seen it happen! The crud is on a 40mm Bofors gun from the USS Kidd out of Baton Rouge. The Battleship Texas Foundation is freshening up the Kidd's guns while she's in dry dock. It's adding some bucks back the the Texas effort as well as helping out the Kidd.

 

[rwdenney]

...
Finally, a 5/16 wrench after the application of a cheater pipe. Wish I had seen it happen! The crud is on a 40mm Bofors gun from the USS Kidd out of Baton Rouge. The Battleship Texas Foundation is freshening up the Kidd's guns while she's in dry dock. It's adding some bucks back the the Texas effort as well as helping out the Kidd.

View attachment 512759

Hmmm. I recall trying to bend a Snap-On wrench back in my mechanic days. It was also a small wrench and I used a pipe, and got it bent about 30 degrees. I released the pipe and the wrench stood back up straight--no yielding. So, I tried harder, and got it bent to about 90 degrees and that's when it broke. The pieces remained straight. I think that was maybe a 3/8" wrench and I was using a four-foot cheater pipe.

(When I handed the pieces to the Snap-On truck guy, he just looked at me. But they didn't exclude abuse in their unconditional lifetime warranty, now did they?)

But I think I see what these guys were doing. They were using an Allen key and using the wrench (a ratchet wrench ) as a cheater. I'm thinking an impact gun would have served them better.

Rick "plus the usual application of heat shock treatment" Denney

 

[David2011]

Hmmm. I recall trying to bend a Snap-On wrench back in my mechanic days. It was also a small wrench and I used a pipe, and got it bent about 30 degrees. I released the pipe and the wrench stood back up straight--no yielding. So, I tried harder, and got it bent to about 90 degrees and that's when it broke. The pieces remained straight. I think that was maybe a 3/8" wrench and I was using a four-foot cheater pipe.

(When I handed the pieces to the Snap-On truck guy, he just looked at me. But they didn't exclude abuse in their unconditional lifetime warranty, now did they?)

But I think I see what these guys were doing. They were using an Allen key and using the wrench (a ratchet wrench ) as a cheater. I'm thinking an impact gun would have served them better.

Rick "plus the usual application of heat shock treatment" Denney

Since I was doing something else when the wrench was bent I can only speculate that you’re correct. What isn’t shown in the picture is some pieces of hex wrench shank that are cut to 1” - 1.5” long. Some of the socket head capscrews had so little clearance that a standard hex key wouldn’t fit in the available space. An impact wrench was available but there was no room to use it. Most of the screws were finger loose as soon as they were broken free.

The guns from the USS Kidd are in worse condition in some respects than similar guns from the USS Texas. The most noticeable thing is the amount of water in the gearboxes. The grease or oil has turned into solid paraffin chunks. The Kidd was in active service until 1964 and in reserve until 1974. She became a museum ship in 1982. With the more recent service I expected them to be in better internal condition.

The on ship scenes in the movie “Greyhound” were shot on the Kidd as was part of “National Treasure: Edge of History.”

If anyone is near Baton Rouge it’s worth a side trip to see the Kidd museum even if the Kidd is not back from the shipyard where she is currently undergoing repairs. The museum has a huge collection of very nice ship models and other memorabilia.