Messages

1

School of the Boat / Re: October 9, 2009 - School of the Boat- How long do we have?

« on: October 11, 2009, 09:28:56 PM »

Found it.  The formula is: X=0.04x(C/N)  X is the number of hours, C is the volume and N is the number of breathing bodies.  So we should have 12.65822785 hours.  Terry

2

School of the Boat / Re: October 9, 2009 - School of the Boat- How long do we have?

« on: October 09, 2009, 08:10:59 PM »

Ouch, my brain hurts already.  Cruel, nasty problem for the weekend.  Anyway, all I'm up to for a Friday night is the easy part;  35,000 minus 10,000 is 25,000 of air left. (And dang that took a lot of extra fingers and toes).  I'll work on the rest.  Terry

PS How do you tell the difference between clinical asphyxia and how a boat sailor acts normally?  I'd venture to say its a slighting change at best.

3

School of the Boat / Re: Try again - School of the Boat - Medical question

« on: October 08, 2009, 09:35:19 PM »

I can't imagine how fast four big diesels would pull a vacuum.  We had one of our A-gangers forget to open the inboard induction while snorkelling and our single FM pulled a bad enough vacuum to wake me from a sound sleep.  The real joy was laying there for the eternity it took to secure from snorkelling and do the snorkelling line-up over again.  Terry

4

School of the Boat / Re: October 1, 2009 School of the Boat - We'll stay with medical

« on: October 08, 2009, 09:32:11 PM »

There is also the electrolyte, sulfuric acid which has more hydrogen and sulfur, plus the lead in the plates.  You get combinations of all of that in the cell.  The electrolyte reacts with the lead to for lead oxide or lead sulfide or maybe both.  I thought chlorine only came from a sea water leak when the salt in the water reacted with the battery acid.  So, I think Hydrogen, Oxygen, Sulfur and the chlorine from a leak.  Terry

PS sorry for the long hiatus.  I was defaulted into being base commander of my subvets base when no one else wanted it.  So that plus the forty hundred other things I have on my plate.....  Terry

5

USS Clamagore (SS-343) / Re: Status of the USS Clamagore and Patriots Point?

« on: May 16, 2009, 07:03:33 PM »

We just got an E-mail from Senior Chief Busch who volunteers on Clamagore every day.  The news is even worse.  He is saying they will sell her for scrap if they can't get another site to adopt her.  In her current condition I don't see that as much of a possibility.  He said the destroyer Laffey is so bad they can't get Coast Guard permission to tow her for fear she will founder in the channel and block it.  Gloom and doom.  Why is it a bunch of inept banks can get billions but the government can't throw some at the really important stuff?  Hello, American historical vessels, which would provide jobs and buy American made steel, etc.  I include all Historic Naval Ships in that, plus National Parks and whatever.  Terry

6

Submarine Trivia / Re: OK not so Submarine Trivia but interesting

« on: April 20, 2009, 08:19:41 PM »

Its a range clock.  Anyone think of why they had it?  TK

7

School of the Boat / Re: School of the Boat 23 Mar 09 (Diesels)

« on: March 29, 2009, 12:55:40 PM »

As I remember it, lighting off the Fairbanks-Morse on the Billfish went something like this.  You checked the freshwater expansion tank level on the way and topped it off.  Once in the compartment you did the valve line-up, seawater, freshwater, lube oil, etc. Then you turned the engine over by hand using a pry bar.  The big F-Ms on the Battleship have a screw drive connected to a hand crank for this.  Same thing on the Fleet Boats?  You rolled the diesel with the starting air, all this to make sure it wasn't locked up.  When you were ready and the order was given to start you had to hold in the snorkel safety circuit bypass button while pulling the starting quadrant handle.  There was also an exhaust drain valve near the deck that you left open until the engine was running to keep the back-pressure low.  You had to kick that closed at the right time while still keeping that snorkel button mashed down.  Once while doing an under-instruction watch I let my thumb roll off a little and the circuit cut in and killed the engine.  We had to secure snorkling and reline-up while the reactor was scrammed for a drill.  The Co, the Chang, the A-div O, the A-div chief.....pretty much everyone hated my guts.  Anyone know what the proceedure was back in the day?  Terry

8

School of the Boat / School of the Boat 23 Mar 09 (Diesels)

« on: March 22, 2009, 08:35:52 PM »

Anybody care to take on explaining the main diesels?  I almost qualified on the Billfish (SSN-676) as a diesel operator.  That was a Fairbanks Morse.  I don't have much of a clue about the GM Wintons.  Also, what was the proceedure for starting and stopping them?  What are the main subsystems etc.?  Anybody?  Anybody?  Terry

9

School of the Boat / Re: School of the boat 4 Mar 09 (underwater log)

« on: March 04, 2009, 09:38:43 PM »

The pitometer log is in the forward torpedo room starboard aft corner.  It is retractable so you don't ram it into the bottom when entering port.  I am pretty sure it works by sensing the flow of water over the "sword" using electromagnetic interference.  It puts out a magnetic field, and the faster you go the more it distorts.  It is only approximately correct in measuring the vessel's motion since you might be running with or against a current.  Terry

10

School of the Boat / Re: School of the boat 22 Jan 08 (Radio)

« on: January 23, 2009, 09:10:45 PM »

Um, one lesson I heard concerning old tube radios is to hook the power up through an auto-transformer.  Bring the power up slowly while checking it out.  One of my volunteers restores some really old stuff and he says if you put 120 volts to them all at once you can pop the oil filled capacitors.  If you increase it slowly they will build up a tolerance and be fine afterward.  Check the tubes with a tester and swap them in one at a time if possible after it is up.  We bought 15 860 transmitter tubes and a bunch of them were "gassy" and no good under load.  Finally, be patient.  It took us over a year on the TDQ.  One of the "aw crap" moments came after heating up a reostat handle to unsieze it, we gave it a few whacks with a hammer.  That broke a ceramic bushing in the back and it took weeks to hand carve a replacement, while we sat and twiddled our thumbs.  Terry

11

School of the Boat / Re: School of the boat 22 Jan 08 (Radio)

« on: January 22, 2009, 11:21:21 PM »

I might be able to help a bit also.  We have our WW 2 era radios on the battleship ( we have TAJ transmitter serial numbers 1 and 3, probably had #2 but it was pulled during the war)..  A group of hams has been slowly getting them running and I am their assistant.  We have out TBM and TDQ transmitters up.  They work on 20 and 40 meters.  We are working on the TBK to get 80 meters.   We have a few RBB and RBC receivers up as well.  One of the former crew members from the USS Alabama took about 8 and did an incredible job on them.  The Massachusetts has even more stuff working, including converting a TBS to, I think, 6 meters.  I can probably make introductions if anyone needs their info.  Chris Nardi on the Massachusetts is a great guy and has been a big help with us getting phones, radios and various electronics working.  Terry

PS  Hope we can all be on the air during the museum ships radio event.

12

School of the Boat / Re: School of the boat for 7 Jan 09 (Hydraulics)

« on: January 22, 2009, 11:08:50 PM »

Thanks Darrin.  Anybody want to take a stab at the two questions I left?  There is a three valve manifold at the COW station.  What are the shapes of the handles?  One valve is out of sequence from the others.  The other handles point outboard in their normal at rest position but this one is different.....why?  Thank you America, and good night.  Terry

13

School of the Boat / Re: School of the boat for 7 Jan 09 (Hydraulics)

« on: January 21, 2009, 08:34:52 PM »

Since we've been idle a while I'll chip in, plus we had snow in North Carolina so they rolled up the roads and I can't do anything else anyway.  The IMO pumps, there are two, are screw-type pumps driven by 18 HP motors.  They have three screws, one driven by the motor and two idlers.  They take oil initially pressurized by the supply tank at 25 psi and boost it to 600 to 700 psi.  This oil fills an accumulator that is pressurized by air from the High Pressure air system.  The air side is pressurized to 1750 psi, the accumulator runs at a 3:1 ratio, so the oil side runs between 600 and 700 psi.
The hydraulic system powers loads such as:  Torpedo tube muzzle doors, Ballast tank vent valves (, air induction valve, engine exhaust valves (2), the capstan/ anchor windlass, Safety and negative tank floods, Safety tank vent, Sonar sound heads, Periscopes and antennas, the bow plane rigging motor and for steering and diving planes control.  Whew.
There are several loops.  Service forward does the forward muzzle doors, capstan/windlass and the sonar sound heads.  Service aft does the after tube doors and the engine exhausts.  There are two manifolds at the COW station for the induction valve, safety and negative tanks, and the ballast tank vents.  The control handles have different shapes to help the COW tell by feel in the dark.  Also, one of them is at rest in a different position than the others.  Anybody want to take a stab at that?
Oh yeah, some of the steering controls don't run on shafts.  If you lose normal power you can shift to an emergency configuration that turns the control wheel (called a telemotor)l into a hydraulic pump.  I understand that is what the fold out handcranks are for, so you can spin it like the devil when in emergency.

PS  You guys are so incredibly lucky to have toys that are just the right size.  The battleship I work on is so big that I can't hope to get much of anything running both for lack of time and lack of resources.  Heck, the gun turret hydraulic motors take 440 VAC, three phase at 600 amps each.  Our whole shore power feed right now is 600 amps, I can't even hope to run one.

14

School of the Boat / Re: It's walways nice to breath in a submarine - back to school everyone

« on: January 03, 2009, 11:38:25 PM »

I'll start with the easy part:

Ship Supply
Ship Exhaust
Battery Exhaust
Engine Induction

15

Submarine Related Chatter / Mark Sarsfield

« on: December 30, 2008, 08:06:44 PM »

Mark, can you contact me off list?  My E-mail is; etkfixr@yahoo.com.  We are close to our next event and since we are basically doing the same thing I'd like to get our two groups sharing info.  How many other groups are doing submarine living history?  Oh yeah!  Terry