CSS Tennessee Digital Model

I think that you have done a wonderful job but I was under the impression that the vent cowlings were fitted by the Union navy after her capture to improve habitability onboard.
 
I like how these ships can be rendered in color photo realism. Are you going to make a physical model? Why did the late monitor turrets have a roof that made them look like a corn crib? That has always mystified me.
 
It's relatively easy to export a model that you can print out on a 3D Printer. It does require some alterations, but it's very doable. I have a friend who has a 3D printer and have managed to print out my Albemarle model, but he has run into some ill-health recently so that has stopped till he improves.

albemarle.jpg


Once he's better ( or I get my own 3D printer) then Ironclads can start rolling off the ways again!

I'm not sure what you mean about the corncrib roofs. Did you mean when they were laid up in ordinary at the end of their lives?
300px-Uss_Montauk_1862.jpg

I think that could be an actual corn-crib roof. The tops of the monitor turrets had a gridwork roof. I imagine they put those on top to keep out any damaging water when it rained. At this point, the ships were laid up and not in any kind of active service. The roof would be just to protect the empty, un-manned vessel from water damage. If for any reason they would have been properly re-activated, then the roofs and those vent horns would all have come off.
 
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Thanks Owen, that clears things up about the monitors. Designing and 3-D printing is an incredible technilogical event, I actualy envisioned that many years ago, now if only I can tell who will win the big games in the future. If I had a 3-D printer there would probably be a clutter storm of little models all over the place, I guess I will stick with the old analog way.

What is the scale of the printed model?
 
3D printing is in it's infancy. Over the next few years, quality will skyrocket and prices will fall. A freind of mine has a filament printer, which is what I used to get this print. The Albemarle has a very rough surface as it was one of the first prints we did and they take some amount of calibration and tweaking to get to the right quality point.

Here are some German WWII Shnellboot models that were done after calibration, with a pull-top for scale.
GMo8E8P.jpg


The Albemarle is 20.8 centimetres long, which puts her at about 1/23 scale.
 
Found some information, that indicates that the Tecumseh had a different colour scheme than I originally thought.
This is how it appears that she looked like!

I've rendered her on the dawn of the battle, with her decks clear and building steam for the push into Mobile Bay.

The other Union ironclads are textured. I'll try and put together some kind of group render. Stay tuned!

Tecumseh_new01.jpg
 
archieclement - It's my model of the CSS Teaser that I used, but in this case she's supposed to be a just a generic steam tug.

CWH1234 - For most of the 3D work I use Blender, which is free software.
 
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