Napoleonic Cannon and Limber by Osmosis - Model Expo - 1:16 Scale

[Osmosis]

I picked this up sometime before last Christmas and having just finished my Midwest Canoe I feel like this will be a nice change of pace. I got this at the introductory price when it first became available which turned out to be a pretty good deal.

 

The packaging is nice as are all Model Expo kits.

There are lots of instruction sheets and parts lists and other documentation. This is one area in my opinion they could do a little better. I found the same thing with the Naval Smooth Bore kit the instructions were more generalized guideline than specific instructions and can be confusing in some spots.

The parts are all individually packaged and labeled

The laser cut parts are all nicely cut and sorted. One thing that stands out in this Model Expo kit is the limited use of white metal parts. I don't mean to say that there are not many, because there are quite a few. The difference is that there is no imitation wood parts cast from metal with wood grain cast on them. On most of their kits even the wheels and carriage parts are cast metal. In this kit however all the parts that were wood on the real thing are wood and all the metal parts are metal. Speaking of wood all of the sheets are solid wood free from any defects I can see. The only plywood in the kit seems to be the building jig for the wheels. There is also a very nicely turned brass cannon barrel.

I will start working on this one in earnest tomorrow night. For now my first question is how to blacken the machined aluminum wheel hubs. Will gun bluing work on aluminum?

 

Best Regards and stay safe.

[Old Collingwood]

This looks like an interesting build.

 

OC.

[marktiedens]

I may be wrong, but I think Birchwood Casey actually makes a product for blackening aluminum specifically.   I saw it while looking for brass black,which the sporting good stores & gun shops no longer seem to carry.  I don`t know why they would carry aluminum black,but not brass black.   Try googling Birchwood Casey & look through their products.

 

Mark

Edited April 6, 2020 by marktiedens

[turangi]

Here you go. https://shop.birchwoodcasey.com/products/aluminum-black-metal-finish-3-fl-oz-bottle.html

[thibaultron]

The cast metal parts should be Britannia metal not aluminum. This is a type of pewter.

[Osmosis]

Thanks for the comments and all the likes.

 

Aluminum black is on order from amazon.

 

Ron, the cast metal parts are white metal/britannia the wheel hubs however are machined aluminum.

 

Regards

[Osmosis]

I started out tonightby reading all of the various instructions and inventorying all of the parts. Wow. The included instructions were written for the original version of the two kits which as I said were virtually made all from cast metal parts. These sheets provide the general assembly order and a very rough exploded view of each. Then there are "Updates" for both sets of instructions which when you can't find a part called out in the old instructions you need to refer to to see how to make it out of wood. Sounds confusing and it was on the first read through but once I figured out what was going on it sort of made sense. I think the best way to tackle it will be to make all the wooden parts from the updates and then proceed as normal through the original assembly instructions.

 

Since the wheels are pretty straight forward I decided to start there.

As you can see they did provide two complete wheel kits. Including building jigs so I will be able to build them in pairs. That should speed things up a bit. My fingers and hands are already starting to ache just looking at those 60 spokes all of which need to sanded and shaped. That should keep me busy till the weekend which is fine because Amazon is so backed up my Aluminum Black for the hubs will not be here until Saturday anyway.

I am going to take the templates into work tomorrow and make copies before I get started with any assembly.

 

That's it for now.

 

Best Regards and stay safe.

 

[Osmosis]

Well it is not that I have not been working. Just that it is kind of boring work removing char. Especially when there is so much of it. But I am getting ahead of my self.

 

First I had to build the jigs for building the wheels.

Pretty simple glue on the feet then align trim and glue on the templates.

I love elmer's glue stick.

Next I punched out all the pieces for one set of wheels.

The spokes are not so bad and fairly easy since they are all flat surfaces. But......

I worked for close to a half hour on the rim on the right and am still no where near done removing the char. Will someone please tell me the secret!

I got a little ahead of myself and wanted to see how things went together. As you can see there is a lot of slop in the fit of the spokes to the hub.

The plans do indicate that the spokes do not bottom out in the hubs but they even indicate that you may need to remove some material to fit them in the groove. I need to add about a 1/16 of an inch just to get them to touch both sides. I think I will send these pics to Model Expo and see if they have a fix.

 

In the mean time I have lots of char to remove.

 

Best Regards

Edited April 17, 2020 by Osmosis

[Osmosis]

I emailed the above picture and explanation to John at Model Expo. It turns out a couple of these kits were indeed shipped out with the wrong spokes. Guess who the lucky recipient was. As always they were very upfront and helpful and my new spokes are on the way as I write this.

 

These guys are the best!

[thibaultron]

The best way I've seen to remove the char, is to scrape it off with the edge of a razor blade held 90 degres to the surface.

Edited April 21, 2020 by thibaultron

[turangi]

I am not sure you need to remove all the char completely, just the heaviest of it to create a good surface for gluing. At least that is what Model Expo advised in the instructions for the Picket boat I worked on. The exception would be if you are going to stain the wood or leave it natural and the char would show. 

Edited April 21, 2020 by turangi

[Osmosis]

The outside of the wheels I am not so worried about as they will be partially covered by a black "metal" rim. The inside however I had planed to leave natural or possibly stain a slightly darker color.