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» Forum Name: PT Boats - General
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» Topic:
Elco 77'
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I have finally restarted my Elco 77' drawing project. This time I have more technical info available, allowing for greater drawing details than shown in the early cut-away drawing I completed in 1998. However, this project is actually progressing slowly because of the quality of the detailed Elco drawings (microfilm scans) and lack of accuracy from drawing to drawing. Below is a sampling of boat compartments currently in work.
All the best,
Dick . . .
[b][red]Galley Area:[/red][/b]
[b][red]Officers Head / Armory / Radio Room:[/red][/b]
[b][red]Officer Quarters, with Port, 2 Center, and Starboard berthing area. The lower Center Starboard Berth area is also Ammunition Storage.[/red][/b]
[b][red]Fuel Tanks:[/red][/b]
[b][red]Old 1998 Cutaway Drawing:[/red][/b]
[red][b]BELOW IS A 2019 COPY OF THE LATEST VERSION[/b][/red]
Posted By: Dick | Posted on: Apr 25, 2011 - 11:23am
Total Posts: 1417 | Joined: Aug 27, 2006 - 6:36pm
Wonderful job as always Dick. These should prove to be very valuable to those who model these boats. One day, I would like to have Stan do a cutaway boat to show the inside of the boats, and these drawings will be a huge and important part of that project. Again Dick, Wonderful job at this atage of the project..............
Posted By: Frank J Andruss Sr | Posted on: Apr 25, 2011 - 12:03pm
Total Posts: 3497 | Joined: Oct 9, 2006 - 6:09am
Looking great, Dick. True artistry......
Will
Posted By: Will Day | Posted on: Apr 25, 2011 - 6:03pm
Total Posts: 1955 | Joined: Oct 8, 2006 - 4:19pm
Dick, I always love your drawings, they alwways provide so much information you don't see in multiple photos. They always give a great overall look inside these boats most of us have no clue look like. I proudly have all your 3-d posters.
SH
Posted By: Hadly | Posted on: Apr 26, 2011 - 8:07am
Total Posts: | Joined: Unregistered
I agree with Hadly Dick, your drawings really explain the inner workings of the boats so well. I look forward to seeing the finished project.
It's a shame about the quality of some of the drawings. But I have faith in you brother!
Posted By: Jeff D | Posted on: Apr 27, 2011 - 1:52am
Total Posts: 2200 | Joined: Dec 21, 2006 - 1:30am
Way to go buddy.All the comments are right on sir.How you get those flat views in to a picture view is really neat.
BJO
Posted By: Black Ops | Posted on: Apr 27, 2011 - 9:33am
Total Posts: | Joined: Unregistered
77 ‘s are my favorite. Sweet![:-grin-:]
Posted By: Mark Culp | Posted on: Apr 27, 2011 - 2:00pm
Total Posts: 135 | Joined: Oct 15, 2006 - 2:56pm
Hello Dick
Great work, as usual! Regarding the Elco microfilm that you used, I was wondering if you could tell me if it came from the batch that I had donated to HQ quite a few years ago. As I hadn't reviewed evey film strip, I was never sure if the file included 77' drawings. My family would be gratified to learn if the donation had resulted in some greater benefit to the community. Too bad, though, that the quality wasn't the best.
Regards,
Ed B
Posted By: Ed B | Posted on: Apr 28, 2011 - 10:37am
Total Posts: 91 | Joined: Oct 26, 2006 - 5:31am
Hi Ed . . .
I barrowed the microfilm from Al Ross, and had it scanned. The quality issue is two-fold. One was the U.S. Navy did an absolute terrible job filming the engineering drawings, the old phrase comes to mind "it's good enough for government work". Secondly the age of the film and its developing process is seriously deteriorating the quality of the images. Modern day technology is better, but nothing is as good as good old electronically digitized images.
I wasn't aware HQ even had microfilm reels until just very recently. I'm afraid it will be suffering the same ailment. I have been talking with Alyce about loaning them to me to determine what could be scanned or what would be a waste of money - but that subject hasn't been resolved as of yet.
The Archives has the main Elco 77' reel labeled as "310", I'm not sure if there are others, there should be many more if all drawings were microfilmed. For a project of that size there should two to three thousand drawings including engineering control records.
The Elco 80' had five reels found, but again there should be at least another half to full dozen reels floating around the NARA, somewhere. The Higgins and Huckins microfilm still proves to be mystery to me, specially the Huckins.
Dick . . .
PS: Thank you to everyone for your nice comments.
Posted By: Dick | Posted on: Apr 28, 2011 - 5:31pm
Total Posts: 1417 | Joined: Aug 27, 2006 - 6:36pm
Dick
I'm not sure if it was you or someone else that I mentioned this to several years ago, but the film I gave Alyce was not on reels, they were film strips (35mm?) about 6" in length, individually wrapped in paper sleeves, probably only half a dozen drawings per strip. I doubt the total number of drawings was in the thousands, and I know most were 80' prints, 103 series I believe, but I'm also pretty sure there may have been some others. At one point I did view about a dozen of the strips myself on a film reader, and recall the quality being excellent. I don't know how Alyce catalogs this stuff, but if you remind her it was part of a much larger donation from "Elco Ed", I think she would remember. The unusual thing about it is I believe the film was produced by Elco in their photo shop, not by the Navy, so it may be worth checking out.
Posted By: Ed B | Posted on: Apr 28, 2011 - 8:11pm
Total Posts: 91 | Joined: Oct 26, 2006 - 5:31am
Hey there Dick
I was going way back thru these paragraphs and ran across you 77' project.
Its been over a year, have you finished it up yet?
Boy how time flyes when we are haviing fun. Been trying to catch up with all the reading.
Posted By: Black Ops | Posted on: Jun 9, 2012 - 10:39pm
Total Posts: | Joined: Unregistered
Hi Dick,
Wow! You did it again. One small suggestion: put the date of completion right on the
drawing so people will know which one is the latest one.
Victor
Victor K Chun
Posted By: victorkchun | Posted on: Jun 10, 2012 - 10:17am
Total Posts: | Joined: Unregistered
Dick,
Very nice! So... any chance you can contact Alyce about the film that Ed donated to the museum. I think a number of us would pay for a DVD with some of the proceeds going to PT Boats, Inc.
By the way, come down and join us on the USS Iowa. We could use a couple of extra hands. Yes I know, it is not a PT boat, but it is about as Navy as we are going to get. The PT boat option is tough for us as the drive to Portland is a bit extreme.
Bill Smallshaw
Posted By: smallwi | Posted on: Jun 10, 2012 - 4:41pm
Total Posts: 134 | Joined: Jun 21, 2007 - 3:02pm
DICK;
GHEEEZZ, YOU DO GOOD WORK!
Steve Tuhy
Posted By: Steve Tuhy | Posted on: Jun 10, 2012 - 5:51pm
Total Posts: 114 | Joined: Oct 17, 2006 - 5:41am
Wow Dick that is as always fantastic! Hey Bill Portland is also served by trains and airplanes you know! You and Frank should both ride the train (The Amtrak "Empire Builder" from Chicago) to come see the PT658. We even have a bus station! I would even volunteer to pick you up and give you a ride to the boat. We just completed Rose Festival Fleet Week and everybody had a blast. We got a lot of publicity in the local press as well. All good for PT boats.
Dick keep up the great work!
Jerry PT658
PORTLANDIA ORY-GUN
Jerry Gilmartin
Posted By: Jerry Gilmartin | Posted on: Jun 10, 2012 - 9:27pm
Total Posts: 1473 | Joined: Oct 8, 2006 - 11:16pm
Well . . . I'm doing my nightly Spammer troll, I saw the messages, please see below:
Black Ops - Sorry to say very little progress has occurred over the last many months. Too much paying work and little, playtime.
Vic - Yeah, I normally do date the material, just forgot. All the detailed interior stuff was done in 2011, while the last drawing (exploded Isometric) was started and finished up prior to 1998. You can see by its simplicity I had little detailed information at the time.
Bill - I've tried twice to barrow the microfilm for conversion to digital, but I think my timing was off. My hope was to barrow all the microfilm (especially Ed's donated film strips), analyze it, and scan all and absorb the cost of scanning myself. Then provide PDFs on DVDs to HQ where they could sell the DVDs at no cost to themselves, just collect the money for the organization. This is exactly what I have done with the two previous DVDs, the Knights of the Sea book and the microfilm from Al Ross and myself. I also want to barrow the old film clips and convert them also to digital, before they degrade any more than they have. With the film clips, I plan to re-create the old VHS tapes HQ use to sell. I've already burned sample DVD by converting the old VHS tapes I bought from HQ (mid-1990's) into my Mac, added a soundtrack - it's really nice but the quality from the old VHS tapes was pretty horrible, need to convert the actual film strip with todays' technology.
Steve - Thanks.
Jerry - Thanks Jerry, you too, are a man with an exceptional and discriminating taste for artwork.
- I think Bill, like myself, is waiting for the great "California Bullet Train" planning to be built sometime between now and the year 3010, at a cost to the taxpayer of about 90 Ga-Jillion dollars.
- If this is true his best bet would be to catch "Amtrack's Pacific Surfliner north from Orange County to Santa Barbara, then a Greyhound bus due east to Bakersfield CA. There he can catch the "The Great California Bullet Train" for the entire 375 miles run through central California, north from Bakersfield to Fresno. He will then transfer by Greyhound bus again, northwest to Sacramento where he can catch "Amtrak's Coast Starlight Train" (not anywhere near the coast) and take it all the way up through northern California through Oregon and the Willamette Valley to Portland.
- Where you can pick him up at the local mental health clinic from eating those ready-made sandwiches from the Bus Depot's vending machines. Or he might just catch a two-hour flight straight up the coast to Portland OR. Bill lives a few beach cities south of me here in southern California, and the USS Iowa is new to us, here in Long Beach port or maybe it LA's port or San Pedro - it's all the same waterway just divvied up by nearby cities.
Thanks all,
Dick . . .
Posted By: Dick | Posted on: Jun 10, 2012 - 11:40pm
Total Posts: 1417 | Joined: Aug 27, 2006 - 6:36pm
You forgot to mention hitchhiking to Portland, but watch out for serial killers....
Will
Posted By: Will Day | Posted on: Jun 11, 2012 - 5:33am
Total Posts: 1955 | Joined: Oct 8, 2006 - 4:19pm
Thanks Dick. Hope you get a chance real soon to finish them all. Your drawings are so informative, you should make a book.
Posted By: Black Ops | Posted on: Jun 11, 2012 - 7:18pm
Total Posts: | Joined: Unregistered