SUBMARINEMUSEUMS.ORG Forum
General Boards => Museum Submarine Discussion => Topic started by: Mark Sarsfield on June 09, 2008, 03:12:58 PM
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For any boat out there that has original enlisted bunks on it, please post the basic dimensions, including tubing diameter. Maybe some day in the future we will be able to fabricate a whole new set for the Batfish and trade off the destroyer models that we have now. A picture of an entire frame with no mattress to show the springs and their mounts would be helpful, too. Thanks. :)
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Mark,
what we have used on the Torsk are the troop transport bunks off of the USS General Walker for our After Battery and the Officers and Chief's quarters bunks are completely different. IF you want some of those WWII transport bunks there are some on the USS Gage here in JRRF. The ones in the Forward and After Torpedo Rooms are different also, I think that we may have a couple of the troop bunks in the lower flats on Torsk right now that aren't being used. I will dig through my pictures and see what I have about those bunks.
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We have surface ship bunks, too. The problem is that they interfere with the doors closing at each end of the after battery berthing area.
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Am working on an answer for you Mark, give me a couple of days on this one
Darrin
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Yes, we have the canvas and pipe racks from GENERAL POPE in Suisun Bay.
We can all take some comfort in the fact that when a sub went to the yard, it always got back fewer original racks than were removed at the start of the work... and the missing racks were replaced by just these pipe racks.. so we aren't trying to graft a monkey's head on the body of Venus.
Here is a bit of sub trivia... I went over COD's plans to find the blueprint for the stainless steel racks... so as to have them made in a shop (the Cleveland reservists removed them in 1959 when COD arrived in town to make the AB space a classroom :-[
But I discovered that the EB fleet subs had 14 DIFFERENT bunk variations!!!!! And Portsmouth boats had MORE!!! There are about 86 bunks on a fleet sub -- which means that they damn near were custom fitted!
The good news is that Portsmouth subs, especially later BALAOs, were subsituting regular steel forthe stainless racks.
PF
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That's interesting and pretty helpful, really. It would be hard for a stitch nazi to come on board and tell someone that they have the wrong rack with that much variation. Although, the surface ship variety is definitely different.
If you have any plans, please share them. :)
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I couldn't find the original post on this.
I don't know if the racks on the Drum are WWII submarine racks but I think so. They measure 75" long and 26" wide with the springs and wire matress support and a short side rail. If Paul doesn't come up with the plans let me know and I will send detailed dimensions.
Also it is 1" pipe
Tom Bowser
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I helped you find your way, Tom. :)
Is it hot enough for you yet down there in Mobile??
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Thanks Lance
No not yet. Saturday to get warm I cleaned the memorial stones in front of the pavillion and then spent 4 hours in the sun repainting the letters on the Lookout Memorial. Today when the clouds and thunder storms moved in I thought I would have to dig out my coat.
Tom Bowser
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After a phone call was made to a knowledgable Torsk Volunteer about the bunks he told me that Torsk has 26 differnt styles of bunks onboard and we have had to make due in some areas like the After Battery Centerline bunks where they fabricated new stansions for them and new brackets and hung the General Walkers pipe bunks there and it works fine and only very few ever realize that they are not origional now if at all. And yes we have made a LOT of those bunks back to specs that we were missing after the crew went through and measured EVERY bunk onboard to find out where they really go. Mark I sent you pictures of the 2000 work weekend where they installed the new stansions and bunks into the centerline of the After Battery.
Darrin
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Thanks, Darrin. I received the photos, but have not had a chance to look them over.
Tom, go ahead and send us the detailed dimensions. Thanks.
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Here are some shots of the Gen. Pope pipe racks with canvas and our "almost accurate" homemade racks (made out of steel instead of stainless for cost savings -- which we didn't want, we wanted accuracy!!! :tickedoff: And then, despite my request to paint them gray to look like plain steel ones, a subvet countermanded my request and had them painted white, so the AB berthing looked like a frikken hospital... oh the bad old days when I had to butt heads with subvets who had no clue with regards to restoration accuracy, etc. :idiot2:
The stantions for the centerline bunks were made much later, when I had somewhat established a process for curatorial review... they are damn accurate. For about 10 years all we had were 18 bunks in the AB (outboard rows) and display cases that looked like victorian caskets inthe center. Thank God we were able to get the pipe racks to fill out the complete 36. And thanks to COBIA for the loan of two stantions to copy.
PF
(and thanks to medications... :uglystupid2: )
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Paul,
Did you guys make any plans/prints of the bunks and/or stantions? We're currently using wooden posts. These would be good welding projects for our local Vo-Tech guys. We would just have to supply them with the metal stock.
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Did you guys make any plans/prints of the bunks and/or stantions? We're currently using wooden posts. These would be good welding projects for our local Vo-Tech guys. We would just have to supply them with the metal stock.
I'd love to get original bunks. However, when we got the bunks from a troop ship down in Texas, we didn't have stantions and they didn't have sub bunks. What we put up about 5 years ago is much better than having an empty room. We just took what was available at the time.
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you guys did well.
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I agree that troop bunks are better than an empty room. Not sure why the Navy decided to empty them off the boat unless Batfish was on the strip list for a while. If we can get sub bunk plans and a metal donor, we should start replacing a few bunks at a time. Firstly, the ones that interfere with the doors in the AB.
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slow down I cannot keep up........
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When boats were decommissioned, mothballed and/or converted to dockside trainers, the after battery bunks were removed to basically create a classroom in the former sleeping area.
Fred
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That explains it, because Batfish's last role was as a dockside trainer. It's bunks are probably collecting dust in a forgotten corner of a warehouse in TX.
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We made our own stanchions on Torsk for the centerline bunks, I have sent mark the pics that were taken from the 2000 work weekend of those being installed and then painted before the bunks were hung.
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How do you think I feel when an old codger from the UNRTC tells me here helped dump ALL of our EB stainless steel racks into a dumpster!!! DUMPSTER!!!! Hell, I wouldn't feel so bad if they were sold for scrap, but dumpstered!!!! AUggggggghhhh :'(
The EB stantions are works of art. We got ours by replicating the two from COBIA we had for 10 days... there are three but two are identical.
The Portsmouth boats had some ones, just pipes with cross tabs welded... (what crap these government shipyards foisted upon the Navy!)... >:(
So BATFISH being a PNSY boat, you've got it easy... look to TORSK.
PF
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Golly gee wiz Paul, toss them to Torsk for help ;)
The Martha Stewart of the museum community has deffered the work to an outside source??? Holy crap batman, I didn't think that that would have ever happened :'( Now who do I have to look up to when I need to get some help on painting Torsk hunter green??? Naahhhh can't paint her that color, although we did have pink curtains hanging in Sonar once ???
Don't worry Paul I am only busting your chops a little. Thanks for sending him to Torsk and I will see what I can do for him but like I mentioned we have 26 different styles onboard so I don't know if we will be much if any help.
Darrin
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I gotta stop posting when I am too sleepy... Hell, I couldn't read half the crap I wrote on the above posting...
What I am sending him to TORSK for is the STANTIONS!!! Not the bunk dimensions. EB boats had very intricate stainless stantions with castings and forgings galore!
The Portsmouth boats (like TORSK) has simple steel tubes with cross hook/frames welded at the three bunk heights. Like you have, like PAMPANITO has, like BOWFIN, etc., but TORSK is represented here right now, the others are not. All he needs to do is zoom in on the photos you posted of your staff erecting the stantions. Those are the type he needs as opposted to COD's, which were pains in the arse to replicate. EB did things their way, which was twice as expensive, but usually prettier. :smitten:
PF
(chops busted)
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Thanks Paul,
I needed the laugh.... Well I wish that I could say that that was Torsk's staff but those are our volunteers who have worked their arses off getting pieces parts for her and making stuff from scratch so that she looks like she is alive once more and she is starting to feel it more and more everytime I get up too her (sadly only a couple of times a year).
Darrin
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Torsk staff, volunteers, CREW!!!! It's semantics... let's say crewmen, or crewwomen, or crewpersons, or crewpersons of some persuasion...
OK, jewish-non-christian/christian/gay-lesbian-transgender-muslim-or non-such protected class person who contributes labor and or ideas to said submarine vessle ...
OK, back to C R E W !!!
PF
:idiot2:
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As Darrin stated, the boats had many different sized bunks depending upon where they were installed. In the Torsk archives, we have some drawings that specify how each different bunk is manufactured. The year before last, we had a local fabrication shop manufacture replacement bunks for the staterooms in Forward Battery. We did not have springs installed because somewhere along the line, the springs had been removed from original bunks and replaced with flat metal plates. It wasn't cheap, but well worth the price. We hope to manufacture the pull-outs for the torpedo rooms and more pipe bunks for after battery.
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Darrin,
Do you guys have the plans/dimensions for the stantion that you created?
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Mark,
I can have the guys on the boat measure it out this weekend for you, hell I had forgotten about it or I would have measured it out on Saturday when I was onboard. You can always go back to the pic that is posted in this thread and blow it up and then use the deck to overhead height on your boat to create the length, we are missing one row of bunks because of the ladder going down into the After Battery well and had we still had batteries onboard we would have all of our bunks onboard but no place to restore our equipment and store our crap oops I mean junk damn it I mean our projects of the near future or sometime in the near future hopefullly :2funny:
Darrin
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With the bunks you also will have to fabricate the mounts for the bunks and I think that we still have some spares onboard and I will have to ask for those also to be measured so you can make those and then the size and length of the chain that was used so that they set level and will support a man weighing greater the 250# for the night without failing.
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Thank you very much for all of your help. One of the other reenactors is going to run with this project. I sent him the link to this conversation.
Btw, how is your shoulder recovery going?
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Mark,
the surgery was supposed to be on the 5th and they can't do it here at my hospital because I am a "high risk" patient because I have "severe" sleep apnea >:( so now I have to go to Langley Air Force base to have it done and my pre-pre-op appointement is on the 5th of this month instead of my surgery.
The tubing is suposed to be 1 1/2" or 2" tubing and then take your measurements off of the deck and then to the over head using a 1/4" plate on both sides to get the appropriate length and then weld them in place. The heights for the bunks it is recommended that you use the lengths on your outboard bunks and then measure the height off of the deck, IF you don't have them outboard I think that the height is 1' followed by 3' and then at 5' for your bunk levels. The brackets were made of 1/4" steel and they came out about 4" long and about that across from what I was told earlier and then rounded and shaped to fit the bunks onboard. And the Chain's were cut to length so that they were level and would hold a 250# man overnight and yes I do know that our's will hold my big butt overnight without problems (not that I am over that weight anymore) ;)
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Our after battery has all of the bunk slots filled. So, determining height won't be an issue.
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So which bunks do you need the specs for Mark??? just wondering because I only asked about the After Battery bunks and not the forward battery bunks or either torpedo room because those are a WHOLE different issue when it comes to fitting them and or manufacturing them and IF you don't have your boats origional plans onboard your job will be difficult to deal with because on Torsk there were I think 26 different bunks onboard which means that most of the bunks were special made to fit especially in the JO's quarters and the Chief's quarters. The Torpedo Rooms we used pipe bunks and then used what mounts were there and then measured where they used to be and then replaced the mounts and rehung everything. Every last one of our origional bunks were measured to make sure that they were in the right spot because when she became a Reserve boat they moved stuff around and got rid of all of the bunks in After Battery and somewhere along the line the boat was open for striping and more bunks were removed for other boats either museum or active at the time. :knuppel2:
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In the torpedo rooms we have all of the bunks at head level installed, except for the honeymoon bunk. Officer country has all but two in the XO's room and the bottom bunk is missing in the Jr. Officer's room. They substituted with the bottom bunks in each room so that they look like there's a bunk there, but you wouldn't want to sleep on them. Goat locker has all 4 bunks.
Everywhere that we have a bunk on the boat, we also have a mattress and we try to cover them with a sheet, a blanket, and a pillow.
I would like to see some waist level bunks installed in the FTR once we get the Mk. 16 torpedo placed on the upper starboard rack. Mainly to give visitors the idea that bunks were everywhere that machinery wasn't.
Rick says that we have a lot of boat plans, but I haven't looked through any of them. I need to find out what plans are in motion regarding bunks and go from there.
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Mark,
start with the plans that you do have onboard and then go from there because you may find that some of your bunks have been installed in the wrong place to make it look like all of the bunks are onboard, we had that and we are still working on finishing ours up after 10 years of being onboard. This is one process where I agree that an actual plan needs to taketo be put in place and you have to research all of your avenue's onboard before you even think of cutting one piece of steel to replace the racks that are missing because you may be cutting for the wrong rack that is already there.
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Good point. Most of our racks are from troop ships and/or destroyers. Officer country seems to be the only place where it was pretty much unmolested except for the three bunks that I mentioned. That area was never really in the way when the boat became a dockside trainer. All other bunks were removed for better access to and views of the machinery/weapons for training green sub crews.