jud

Depends on what type of metal is used in the casting. Can you sand the back of the casting for a better fit? Is there a sprue that you can use for a test? jud

My condolences to you and yours. jud

Looks good and shows the care and time put into the build. Only have one thing that bothers me, probably only me only because of my having been a Gunners Mate in the Navy and kind of a gun nut by nature. Your guns do not have enough room to work them or allow for recoil, might be because the guns provided were the wrong scale and or the Cargo Hatch is to wide. Most won't notice. I was once ordered to fire a loaded gun, knowing it would recoil into a locked loader tray. Used a stinger hooked up to the another guns firing circuit, fired the gun while taking shelter in my helmet. It recoiled into the tray, parts went everywhere and the gun was down for about 3 months. Repaired it in place, when it should have been replaced. I was the safety observer, so I didn't get to leave, like the Fleet Marine gun crew did. Yep, I always consider recoil when I see a crew served gun. My observation only, it does not detract from the quality of your build. jud

Not intended to show the gun drill, just the positions and duty's of various members of the crew while loading. Does a fair job of that, a poor job of how to, because it was never intended for that. jud

That would explain the uniform and balanced flooding. With that much flooding that type of vessel having limited counter flooding ability's she should have rolled over if afloat. jud

To bend the molding strips into a curve to get them into the box two things happened. One, the inside of the curve stayed the same length as it was when straight or it was compressed a bit, the outside edge was stretched around the curve. If the strip was flat and not molded you might have been able to get it straight again but it would be thinner along the area of the curve. I don't think you can straighten the molding without visible distortion remaining in the piece. jud.

Thanks John. Only time I remember hanging off of two anchors because of weather was on a Heavy Cruiser in Hong Kong during a Typhoon that hit dead center on the area. The British ordered all ship to sea before it hit but we were carrying an Admiral who chose to stay. Both anchors out with lots of chain , underway watch set, steam up and slow turns on the screws kept us in place. Think it was 1961 or 62 when that happened. jud

To clear the chains, don't you need to break one and use a third cable to pass the bitter end around the other, then pull it back aboard and connect? Were it me in those conditions I probably would have unshackled both to be recovered later and steamed away from the beach. jud

I have seen white lead used on cables, it might work on fiber lines used as shroud. They would not be subject to the movement and stresses of running rigging. How far back were steel cables used for shrouds? jud

Think about needing to climb the shrouds using the ratlines. Probably find them easier to climb if they were parallel to the waterline, close to horizontal. jud

Jay, thanks for the links, never ran into that gun, before my time. I was looking at the posted picture, trying to determine what kind of breach it had, because of the compactness, I was thinking it must be an Interrupted Thread System, your link bore that out and also showing that it used fixed ammunition. Be kind of neat to get a hands on look. jud

Call the Mythbusters! Sounds like a good plan. How does one get that in the pipe? jud

We were not dealing with cast iron and an unloaded hot gun was not attacked with buckets of seawater, we would have used hoses. Destroying a hot barrel with copious amounts of sea water would only be done to attempt to prevent an explosion in the bore, caused by heat cooking off the explosives in the projectile. If a projectile could not be removed from a hot gun, the cooking off of the projectile was a real danger. Hot guns and explosive projectiles spending much time in them are dangerous, a propelling charge cooking off was not desired but not as dangerous, it would just clear the bore. I have experienced misfires in hot guns, was successful in re-cocking the firing pin and lucky enough for the round to fire. I have also attempted to re-cock and attempted to fire unsuccessfully with warm guns, waited 30 minutes to avoid the possibility that it was not a miss-fire but a hang fire instead, then opened the breach and extracted the round from the chamber, always a nervous time. First time I experienced a miss fire as Mount Captain was on a 3" 50 aboard a Heavy Cruiser, I cleared the mount as instructed but I remained with the gun, the Warrant Gunner came up to the gun and we waited our 30 minuets then I very carefully opened the breach, caught the rear of the case and worked it clear of the loader and handed it to the gunner. Horror of Horrors, he upended that round, thumped the primer with his finger and tossed the round overboard while saying defective primer, "even throwing a live round overboard required that the round hit the water case down, if it hit projectile down and the propellent went off, the case would act as a rocket and come back, case down prevented that". Never needed to hose down a hot gun but was prepared to do so quickly if needed. Closest to a projectile exploding in a bore was in RVN, firing old WW 2 ammo while supporting PBR's in a firefight. Just firing the right gun of a water cooled twin 40 MM, after about 20 rounds the gun made more of a cough than a bang, recoil was short and the projectile blew up just clear of the bore, the shrapnel dispersed in a half moon shape ahead of the gun, none came back towards us that we knew about. The gun quit working so I shifted to the left gun and resumed firing, that kept the rounds going out and didn't allow the loaders to get rattled. When I had time I investigated and found a split cartridge case and broken extractors in the gun, replace the extractors and that gun was up and working. The smoke that the propellent of that round produced was a rotten smell unlike the norm. I still do not believe that the guns of old, jumped when fired as designed, I have fired to many guns to believe that. Black powder and smokeless powder do have different burning rates under pressure, but neither stay in the bore of a hot gun long enough to change the characteristics of their burn rates. If a gun starts to appear to jump as it warms up, it is because of outside forces or conditions having an effect on normal recoil. There is a reason why no one has came forward with a scientific explanation of jumping guns, that is because there is none. Trails on field guns will work their way deeper on each firing unless they are re fired from the position reached at the end of recoil, but the practice was to push them back into battery, that recoil and pushing back into battery would disturb the ground, the trails would be deeper and in soft ground the wheels would be worked deeper and deeper into the ground. Aboard ship the jumping would destroy the wooden wheels and tear up the deck as well as pulling the breaching and its rings out of the bulkhead, carronades would destroy their mounting platforms. Think there is a model of a small boat on this site, with a cannon mounted with a track built into the boat to allow the working of the gun and free recoil, If it was normal for guns to jump, they would not be staying in those tracks. Kind of a windy post, I will not be insulted or distressed if the Moderators choose to remove it, may do it myself later. jud

I have been Mount Captain or a crew member of crew served guns from 40 mm Bofers up to 8"55 bagged powder type guns, that experience and logic influences my belief that jumping guns was not normal, hot or cold.. You do not go to all the trouble to place a gun crew and it's gun in harms way to have their gun maim or kill the crew while firing of the gun, as it was designed. The people who maned those ships were the same species as us, same brain and the same ability to adapt and use what they had available to them in a productive way, they weren't stupid enough to, by design of the gun or to allow the loading of a propellent charge that would cause their guns to jump out of control, hot or cold. War ships of those days only existed to transport the guns and their crews to the firing line, when they did get there, hopefully well trained, those in charge did not want any surprises, such as having their guns change their characteristics because of heat. The rate of fire of those guns could not have gotten hot enough to change the powders characteristics, if the gun got that hot, there would be danger of the propellent cooking off before the shot was rammed home. I don't believe the guns jumped under their normal designed use. There are ways that could cause a gun to jump, but by doing those things, you were stepping outside the norm. jud

mtaylot Those field pieces probably were jumping more because each time the gun was fired and returned to battery the ground was being worked, that allowed the trails to be set down deeper into the soil, offering more resistance. That additional resistance at the end of the trails would cause a jump before they tore themselves out of the hole. jud

In guns the heat is produced in the bore and chamber, it radiates outward rapidly, ever see the paint on a large weapon burn because of that heat or a small arms barrel burn the oil, the heat generated does not remain where it was created? Don't think that the bores of muzzle loading cannons get smaller with heating, there is enough time for any heat to radiate out between shots, which would allow for a constant temperature in the whole gun tube. The slow firing rates of muzzle loading guns allows for some cooling time between each shot and the wet swab will add some cooling water, a side benefit of drowning burning embers. I would not be surprised to find that the heat those old cannons had to deal with, would be considered cool in modern rapid fire guns. Nor do I believe that those guns were allowed to jump around under normal use, recoil was a factor, provisions were made to control the effects of that. I don't know how the gun tackle was handled, was it thrown off or allowed to run with recoil acting a brake. Were it allowed to run, any slack in those tackles would tend to destroy that tackle when the gun was fired and if the slack was controlled and the tackle allowed to run, there would be a bitter end whipping around. Need to find some gun drill instructions written at the time to answer that. Perhaps someone here has read some gun drill instructions that could shed some light about what was done with the tackle when the gun was actually fired. jud

Need to keep in mind that the object of firing a gun was to maim or kill your opponent, not your own gun crews. Injuring your crews or blowing up your guns would be counter productive and everyone knew that. Because powder cartridges were made up in the powder rooms and taken to the guns one at a time, we know much thought went into the preservation of the ship, its gun crews and its guns. It is reasonable to assume that if a hot gun produced excessive pressure because of a heated propelling charge, that would have been taken into consideration when the powder charges were measured and made up into a powder cartridge. I know that their powder was regularly tested for the energy it would produce, the devices were kind of like a pistol of the time but instead of propelling a projectile, the pressure generated was measured by how far a hinged but restricted paddle was moved by each measured charge, crude but would detect changes in the conditions of the powder. Black powder has more in common with blasting chemicals used today than smokeless powder, in fact black powder was used as an explosive. Double shoting was not uncommon, that would produce greater recoil with the standard charge and move the gun to the full limits of the breaching ropes at a higher speed than normal and cause a jump, another thing that might allow that recoil to appear greater in a hot gun, could be, the axles and wheels would smooth out and offer less friction as they were used. I was a Gunners Mate in the Navy for about 8 years and have fired thousands of rounds, small arms up to 8" 55's, safety was always taken into account, even in combat. Those safety rules were said to have been written in blood, I question that those ship cannons were intended to jump around when fired normally. It is normal for guns to get hot when being fired repeatably, so I can't believe that a hot gun was not taken into account and the proper safe charges were not worked out long before those guns were placed on any Navy ship. jud.

When a kid, Dad would separate the calves from their mama's. Did that here, where I now live, and haul them to the Athena place where we were living. Those calves were turned out into a large stubble field, for two to three days they would be going around and around the fence, looking for their mama's and a way out. Brother and I were given the job of keeping them away from the fences and if any got out to get them back in. We did this horseback, one year I begged my mother out of some empty thread spools, put them on the ends of arrows and we took them to the field to watch the calves. If those calves started crowding the fence we would make an Indian attack on them on horseback and shooting those spooled arrows. Had fun and didn't hurt the calves. Only problem was once a calf jumped through the fence and it took about a hour getting him back in and an other was my brother got bucked off when, after recovering our arrows, he jumped back on his horse, somehow the bow got between him and the horse, horse didn't seem to like it and he had to regather his arrows as well as his bow. We rode bareback and mounted by grabbing the mane with one hand and swinging aboard, try that today and probably end up kicking the horse in the belly, I ride a mule today and he would probably kick back. See what mentioning spools can do, this time it got some old duff to write about what happened over 50 years ago and probably no one wanted to read. Glad this site is such a friendly one, maybe I won't get my hands slapped. jud

Agree with Spyglass, Guns recoil, cold or hot when fired. Often after ships guns were heated up, they would double shot them. Double shoting a cold gun often caused a failure, double shoting would cause more recoil. Getting sloppy when using black powder can cause a a gun tube to fail. The reason projectiles are rammed hard against the black powder charge is that the power curve of black powder goes high quickly and there needs to be a instant reaction on the projectile to get it moving before that power peak is reached, if not rammed hard against the charge, voids will fill up with pressure before the projectile starts to move and the short time to do that delays projectile movement enough to make a bomb out of the gun. Smokeless powder takes more time to peak, that time gives the projectile time to start moving after the voids are filled with pressurized gas and before the pressure peak. Pick up a black powder cartridge and shake it, because the powder fills the case and often is a compressed charge, shaking will not create the sound of powder moving around. Smokeless powder seldom fills the case and not often compressed, shaking the cartridge will produce the sound of powder moving around inside the cartridge case. Sorry for the windy response. jud

Never thought about making refractory using Plaster of Paris and sand, worth knowing. jud

If you are asking about a working ship go grey, if you are asking about a Naval Vessel then the 4th board down on exhibit "A" is what you want for a Commissioned Warship. Those ships had lots of people to keep busy, tired and out of trouble. Captains would use the condition of their decks to impress and perhaps aid advancement. I rode a Heavy Cruiser for about 3 years that had a Teak deck over the steel deck. It was kept almost white from scrubbing every morning early, again if the snipes blew tubes and sooted everything up, with soap and seawater. Salt water acts as a bleach the reason we would put our white hats on a line and throw them overboard from the stern, made them soft and white by dragging them along in the wake. Once a week the decks were holy stoned using a soap, boiler compound and scouring powder concoction mixed up the day before by the Boatswain's Mates and of course then rinsed off with seawater. While holy stoning a chant was used to keep the line of Sailors in sink and on the same board. One a rock, two a rock continued until the desired strokes were made and the, shift a board would cause just that and the count would start over. The holy stones used were fire brick size, broken in two and a dimple chipped into it for the end of an old swab handle. The swab handle went under the right armpit and held with the right hand, the left hand was used on the forearm of the right for control and power. Always holy stoned with the grain, drawings I have seen showing a large stone manipulated by a sailor on his knees I have considered a bit doubtful it was ever done that way, a punishment perhaps. The Troller I rode to Alaska on and fished the summer had a work worn grey deck as did most of the wooden decks of working or laid up decks that that weren't painted that I have seen. Warship with a large numbers of men to keep busy, probably meant well swept, swabbed, bleached and holy stoned. decks. jud.

Read a report about cast lead and solder deterioration of old models being archived, some being in wooden crates for years. They found that some woods and other materials, as they age will produce gasses that will cause lead and solder to break down into a white powder. Wasn't addressed but I would expect organic building materials and glues used in construction of models would also produce gasses that would concentrate in a sealed display case and have an impact over time on the very thing intended to be preserved by the sealed case. The recommendation was to allow venting with a minimum of 2 total changes of the air inside the case every day, to prevent the accumulation of harmful gas. jud.

Search for curling iron, not a hot air gun but does use heat. jud

Been watching and thinking about what I have been read ing about rigging sag. With all the rope walks being used, it seems that it would be a simple matter to place a copper wire as a core when making rigging rope, I know wire rope is wound with a core. Would probably need to remove that copper core at the knots and hitch locations, leaving the core in the remainder of the line, perhaps another material such as fishing line could be used. Might be worth a test if rigging sag is the norm, from my reading all do not have the problem. Expansion and contraction is all around us, our clothes line is much tighter during the winter than the summer, it's made of galvanized steel wire, the conditions when placing and adjusting he rigging has more to do with sag than time. jud.

John Thanks for the reminder, been about 43 years since I have used any, couldn't remember what we called it. Marlin, Marlin, Marlin and Marlin. Bet I can remember it now for a minute or so. jud