Britain's bergship: A 1/350 scale HMS Habakkuk "ice" aircraft carrier.

[seadude]

In some Habakkuk drawings, schematics, media articles, etc., There appear to be vertical and/or horizontal access shafts that lead from the motor nacelles to the center crew section. These shafts are mainly for maintenance purposes. An example is the very first picture below showing the red circled horizontal shaft as well as the vertical shaft with a red question mark next to it.
I won't be able to add any sort of motor nacelle access shafts to my cutaway cross section as described in one of the pictures below.
But for a real Habakkuk vessel, Yes, there would be horizontal access shafts leading from the crew section to the nacelles.
As for a vertical shaft, I'm not really convinced there'd be any. Not unless a vertical shaft is needed for air intake purposes and/or for expelling gases/fumes from the motor nacelles? If there's other reasons for a vertical shaft, I'm not aware of them. So I'm not going to put any vertical shafts on my cutaway cross section.

[seadude]

Just got another box of 1/8" inch clear square acrylic rod delivered today so I can finish making more "ice blocks" for the left and right side cavities on either side of the center crew section.
I originally thought I was going to need 6 or more boxes to finish. But after doing some calculations about a week ago, two boxes total is all I'll need.
1 box holds 30 pieces of 1/8" inch square acrylic rod. All pieces are 12" inches in length.
Each individual piece is cut down further into 24 1/2" inch lengths.
So 30 pieces of rod = 720 1/2" lengths.
Two boxes total would give me about 1,440 1/2" pieces. Hopefully, that should be plenty.
Now for the other issue.............
I'm giving possible consideration to only filling up ONE of the cavities on either the left or right of the center crew section with my cut ice blocks, while the other cavity will be partially filled with ice blocks, but will also have the access shafts inside connecting the motor nacelle to the center crew section.
A cutaway of a tank, aircraft, ship, or just about anything else is supposed to show as much interior details and design as possible, right? So maybe it should make sense to add (at least to one side anyway) what the access shafts to the motor nacelle units look like? If I don't show them, spectators might think, Well, how does the crew get to the motor nacelle to fix it? or some other question.
Anyway, I'm thinking about it. I'll let everyone know what I finally decide on in the next week or two.

[seadude]

DISREGARD THIS POST.
Need advice on the following if anybody can help.
Been doing some thinking on how the main hull of my Habakkuk model can be constructed.
Let's suppose hypothetically I had the following: I built a small portion of the Habakkuk hull as a rectangular box about 2 feet long x 7 inches tall x 10 inches wide.
That hull section was made with 1/4" inch thick styrene (or ABS plastic) sheets.
Now since the hull section is 2 feet long, do you think it would be necessary to add in the middle somewhere inside a "brace" of sorts to prevent the sides or top of the hull section from bowing in the middle? Or do you think the extra internal brace would not be necessary since the plastic sheet being used is so thick at being 1/4" inch?
Is 1/4" inch thick sturdy/rigid enough? Or would a 2 foot long 1/4" inch thick piece of sheet still bow/flex?

[seadude]

Not much new to report.
Still adding the small ice blocks to the left and right side cavities on either side of the center crew section on my cutaway Habakkuk interior as shown in the first pic below. It's a slow process and will take quite a bit of time. But I feel when finished, the "effect" of seeing ice blocks in those cavities will be quite surprising. I think it looks kinda cool.    No pun intended.

SECOND PIC BELOW: This shows an artist interpretation of the proposed interior cutaway of a Habakkuk type vessel. This illustration (as well as the third pic below) are from an article titled "HABAKKUK" by William J. Wallace in WARSHIP magazine (Vol.5, No.18, 1981, Pgs. 80-85). The colored notations though were added by me. In the upper left, the draft of the vessel is 150 feet from the bottom of the hull to the blue waterline. I can't help but think that with so much of the vessel "under the water", maybe it should be thought of as rather a submarine?    The 120 foot measurement is the total height of the center crew sections. Now if you look at this pic plus a lot of other pics and diagrams I've posted throughout this model thread on previous pages, you'll see how the Habakkuk vessel is partitioned/compartmented into 10 smaller sections and each section/compartment is seperated from another one by a 20 foot thick wall (which would also be made of pykrete). There's a reason for this. You can't have a Habakkuk vessel 100% completely hollow inside. Due to structural integrity, damage control, and other factors, it makes better sense to separate the hull into smaller sections. If one section is damaged and floods, it hopefully won't affect the other sections because of that 20 foot pykrete wall. The six rectangular crew sections in green are where the majority of the crew quarters, storerooms, workshops, engineering and refrigeration systems, as well as aircraft storage would be located. As for the yellow areas, well, that's just my "guess" if the Habakkuk crew (or the designers of the vessel) needed a little bit more extra space for storerooms, crew quarters, or anything else. But otherwise, the green rectangles are the main areas for crew, aircraft, engineering, etc.  As for the four blue squares, that's my guess as to where the aircraft elevators could be located. But other people's mileage will vary so to speak. Notice how they are all evenly spaced apart. This is how I'll have the aircraft elevators on my model Habakkuk ship. Notice how I crossed out the measurements in the center of the pic. On just about all diagrams, sketches, etc. of the Habakkuk, there seems to be differing measurements for how long the center section should be as well as how long the pointed ends of the vessel should be. There just doesn't seem to be any consensus. Well..........maybe a little bit of consensus. The "average" length of the pointed ends that I've seen seems to be about 300+/- feet. Also, the "shape" of the pointed ends tends to be different from one picture and diagram to the next. So there's no consensus on that either. It wasn't until I read The Canadian Habakkuk Project by Lorne W. Gold that officially the pointed ends were to be the SAME shape, and the bow was to be the same length as the stern, which supposedly was approx. 300 feet.

THIRD PIC BELOW: This shows a horizontal cross section of the Habakkuk vessel. As I mentioned above, the vessel was presumably to be partitioned/compartmented into sections for hull integrity as well as damage control purposes. You can clearly see two 20 foot wide walls running from port to starboard that separate one section from another. Also, each crew section was to be supposedly 180 foot long x 60 foot wide. Also take note that each section could be accessed to another section via some sort of safety doors as mentioned in the Key description. Hopefully, not only could crew move from one section to another via this way, but also the aircraft as well being moved about the entire interior length of the vessel from one section to another. Though I can't help but wonder if 60 feet wide is really enough width for an aircraft to move about? With the wings folded, it not just has to squeeze past other parked aircraft inside, but also equipment carts, armament dollies, and loads of other stuff.

FOURTH PIC BELOW: This is an official proposed (but not final) diagram of a Habakkuk type vessel created on July 5, 1943. British tend to list the day first, then the month in their dates. Anyway, I want to bring people's attention to something. Notice all the red arrows. The extreme tips (Approx. 100+/- feet long x 100 feet wide) of the pointed ends of the Habakkuk were not to be made of pykrete, but rather built with regular timber and plywood. Apparently from what I read in The Canadian Habakkuk Project book by Lorne W. Gold, there was the potential for structural integrity problems with having the extreme tips being made from pykrete. I'm guessing it had to do with the weight of these extreme ends? So the designers and planners decided to propose building the very extreme tips of the pointed ends with all wood timber and plywood. I also suspect that having the extreme stern made with timber and plywood may have contributed in some small way to there not being a rudder on the Habakkuk. The picture may show one. But a rudder was not added to the Habakkuk due to various technical difficulties. I suspect a rudder (Which was designed to be 75-100+/- feet tall.) could not be attached/moved because a timber/plywood frame end would not be strong enough to mount it.

So in conclusion..........the pointed ends of my Habakkuk model will be the same shape and hopefully the same length. But will the extreme end tips be made with wood? I could do it. But I'm not sure how well wood glues to plastic. If it doesn't work, then the entire pointed ends will just be made with regular sheet styrene.
So hopefully I explained everything as best I could in this post. If anybody's confused, just ask and I'll answer as best I can.

[Old Wombat]

It is a pretty cool effect.  

[NARSES2]

It is a pretty cool effect.  

As it's Easter I'll leave the Book in its drawer 

[Old Wombat]

It is a pretty cool effect.  

As it's Easter I'll leave the Book in its drawer 

In my defence, Sir, Mr Seadude did use the term first!  

[seadude]

It is a pretty cool effect.  

As it's Easter I'll leave the Book in its drawer 

Ok, what am I missing here?   

[NARSES2]

It is a pretty cool effect.  

As it's Easter I'll leave the Book in its drawer 

Ok, what am I missing here?   

The Book is a semi mythical tomb in which I as Moderator keep a list of all those who have been naughty or silly. It's a running joke. Or that's what people think anyway   

[Old Wombat]

The Book is a semi mythical tomb in which I as Moderator keep a list of all those who have been naughty or silly. It's a running joke. Or that's what people think anyway   

He means "tome".


Or maybe not ...

[scooter]

The Book is a semi mythical tomb in which I as Moderator keep a list of all those who have been naughty or silly. It's a running joke. Or that's what people think anyway   

He means "tome".


Or maybe not ...

[NARSES2]

The Book is a semi mythical tomb in which I as Moderator keep a list of all those who have been naughty or silly. It's a running joke. Or that's what people think anyway   

He means "tome".

Yup and I can't even blame autocorrect as I know I typed it    Still spelling was never my best subject at school, quite often at the end of our "round the wall" spelling tests I was furthest from the classroom door   

[seadude]

The Book is a semi mythical tomb in which I as Moderator keep a list of all those who have been naughty or silly. It's a running joke. Or that's what people think anyway   

He means "tome".

Yup and I can't even blame autocorrect as I know I typed it    Still spelling was never my best subject at school, quite often at the end of our "round the wall" spelling tests I was furthest from the classroom door   

Well, just make sure that if you ever discuss pykrete in my thread, it's spelled PYKRETE. It's not PIE-krete.      It's not edible.

[NARSES2]

    

[seadude]

The last several days I've been writing up some Habakkuk data specification sheets because I eventually want to take what I've built so far to my model club meeting this coming Saturday since our April club meeting theme is WHAT IF, as well as to a contest in May for display only and to show spectators what I'm working on for the forseeable future, and I needed some specification sheets to help explain what the Habakkuk is and so forth. Hopefully, all this data I've written up answers some people's questions about how big the Habakkuk is, where it was to be built, and so much more. Most information is 60-70% from the list of references seen in one of the sheets below. The other 30-40% is simply me guessing/speculating on what the Habakkuk could have and so forth.










BELOW: Data specifications written by me regarding the Habakkuk prototype built on Patricia Lake near Jasper, Alberta, Canada.
More information and pictures can be found on Page 5 further back in this modeling thread.