Build log · Phase 8, Guns

Eight of the 28

11 January 2020

Because these guns take a cannon-load of time, a quick update on progress. Eight are finished by now, twenty to go. Only seven are lined up in the photos; one was still in the clamp, because a truck had broken off.

Seven finished guns in a row
Seven finished guns in a row
The guns from the side, with breeching ring and handle on the quoin
The guns from the side, with breeching ring and handle on the quoin
Detail of a gun carriage with the small pins as bolts
Detail of a gun carriage with the small pins as bolts
The rear of the barrels with the cut-through breeching rings
The rear of the barrels with the cut-through breeching rings

Compared with the first one I have made a few changes. I have stopped sticking the pins against the trucks. However good that looks, it takes a great deal of time and on the gun deck you will not see any of it. On the upper deck I may well do it again. The bolts in the side I have replaced with the smallest pins I could find. That makes them slightly out of proportion, actually, but much neater. You will not see the proportion later, hence the choice.

The breeching ring is now on all of them. I had started with complete rings, but now cut them through, so that they look more like the guns I see on the internet: there they are in fact half circles as well.

Prutsertje asked whether I had patinated the barrels, because the effect looked so real to him. Yes, patinated a number of times, left to dry and then again, and in the end they all spent another night in the solution. No two are the same, but the result is indeed quite nice.