Modifying Gun Angles

[drjeckl]

I've completed the hull of my LN (Yeah!!! Updates in my build log soon) and took some pix with the guns and carriages and as you can see, most of the guns are at the top of the gunports.  The one at the far left looks like it's  OK   It's clear to me that for presentation purposes,  the guns should be dead-center in the gunports (maybe I'm wrong here; someone set me straight).  These are metal carriages and cannons, so I think I have three options to lower the gun aims:

1. Bulk up the quion portion of the metal part on each carriage (how to do this?; what material?)
2. Gouge out more of the slot where the trunnion sits
3. Hike up the back trucks of each carriage

Are there any options out there?  Which is preferable?   If there, are, I don't see any that would modify the deck.  I think I will have to do whatever modification is the most appropriate to each gun and gunport.   Didn't find any appropriate topic on MSW that resolve this issue.

 

And if I have the need to raise up the angle, presumably the way to do that would be file off some the quion, Yes?

 

.

 

Thanks...John

Edited June 14, 2021 by drjeckl

[Chuck Seiler]

It appears to me the the guns are fully elevated.  I would remove whatever metal quoin that is in place and replace it with a larger wooden one.  If the barrels were parallel to the deck, they would sit well in the port.

[drjeckl]

Chuck,

Thanks for the quick response, being on the left side of the States, you're probably the one one here up at this time..  That solution would probably require a lot of grinding out of the quoin, which I would see as a problematic situation.  I have the tools to do that but not so sure how that would turn out.  Yeah, the wooden quoins would let me customize each cannon.  Look at that  I'm talking myself into your suggestion..  Good job...jce

[Dr PR]

John,

 

It would help if you could post a photo of a gun and carriage, showing the quoin area.

 

Carriages had a support piece (stool bed) for the quion that rested on the rear axle tree, or sometimes extended over both axle trees. Maybe your carriages have this support but do not have the quoin? If so all you need to do is add a quoin to set the gun elevation.

[drjeckl]

Here you go:

 The gun goes in the opposite direction, WRT the carriage.

 

 

 

Edited June 14, 2021 by drjeckl

[Lieste]

The quoin is wedge shaped. When pushed to the front of the the carriage it is taller under the breech ring, than when drawn to the rear of the carriage. When removed the breech ring would sit on the carriage bed, and (at least for lower deck ports with portcovers) the muzzle should then rest on the upper portsill so that the gun can be securely lashed in place with the port closed.

When levelled the gun should be slightly below the mid point of the port (such that the available elevation is around 2x above as below (at least for late C18th and C19th ships (the ports were often sized smaller when carriage elevation was smaller in significantly earlier ships). (E.g. Vasa's light 24s had a maximum elevation from the carriage of around 3.5 degrees, compared to the 'up to ~10' of early C19th ships.

The level bore-line should be at the same height as the top of the capsquares - when the gun is quarter hung (at the top of the cheeks when centre hung). The trunnion may be oversized, or the carriage may have too small (or a malformed) cutout for the 'half trunnion' The trucks may be overlarge (though those look at first glance to be okay), or mounted on axles not properly set into the lower edge of the cheeks. The cheeks might be too tall (or the deck too thick above the framing.  The Ports may have been cut too low.
Some or all of these (or indeed nothing other than elevation set too high). For appearance I would first check that the trunnion is really half-seated in the top of the cheeks. I would then look at taking any excess height from:
Shaving just a sliver from the bottom of the truck (also increases the gluing area from a perfect cylinder). Check the axletrees are firmly seated high enough relative to the cheeks (can be harder to fix if they need significant raising). Consider reducing the height of the cheeks (and re cutting the trunnion seat). Look at whether the portsills are suitably arranged, fix if possible, otherwise compensate. Consider sanding any 'highspots' of the deck if it is the 'at fault' component, but this might be difficult to do well.

For a levelled gun, you can either use a 'zero quadrant' where the boreline is not elevated, or the Line of Metal, so that the quoin is slightly more withdrawn and the top of muzzle swell and breech ring have the same level.

[Beef Wellington]

Looking at the picture of the barrel and the carriage, think your problem simply comes down to the supplied parts.  The carriage looks a little big for the cannons provided which may be contributing to the problem you're seeing.  The common consensus seems to be that the metal Amati carriages are not the most authentic.  If you're set on keeping these items, my suggestion would be to add some additional wood quoins (on top of the simulated molded one) to raise the level of the rear of the barrel.

[wefalck]

I was about to make the same comment as 'Beef Wellington', the barrels are way to small for the carriages or vice versa. In order to determine which one might be right for your ship (what is 'LN' ?), you could have a look what kind of guns she would have carried and then check against contemporary sources how big the guns would have been. Another possibility to check is to measure the hight of the bearings for the trunnions above the deck - this should be more or less at the middle of the gun ports so that the muzzle would be in the middle of the gun port (as was pointed out by someone already), when the barrel is elevated to the horizontal.

 

Hopefully, one of them is the correct size.

 

Then it would be a good idea to make either the barrels or the carriage from scratch. There are lots of ideas how to do this on this forum.

[Seahawk1313]

I agree with Beef Wellington and Wefalck.  Easiest fix would be to add small piece of wood to the quion to level the barrel.  Personally I would replace the carriages and barrels with some better ones.  -Hal

[Chuck Seiler]

    LN= Lady Nelson

 

    If keeping with the same carriage, I would take a pair of nippers and snip the offending quoin off, then smooth down with a file.

 

    If replacing the carriage is being considered, SYREN makes pretty good carriage to go along with the guns.  Chuck offers a 6 pounder for his 1:48 Cheerful.  That is not a perfect scaledown for a 1:64 3 pounder, but it might be worth looking into.

[allanyed]

For three or four pounders they would likely have been 4 feet 6 inches long after about 1743 so at 1:64 about  0.84" long.  The bore, which looks quite large on your photos would be between 3.1 and 2.8 inches in diameter depending on if these were four pounders or three pounders, thus about 0.05" diameter or 0.044" diameter.  

 

The four pounder minion diameter had a bigger ratio to its length compared to a three pounder brass minion given both at 4 feet 6 inches long.    As to the scale of the carriage, they do appear to be much too large as others have already pointed out.  The trunnions in your photo look to be about 3 times too long, but this might be to accommodate the oversized carriages.  Model Expo has barrels 20mm long with wooden carriages if you cannot make your own. I have no idea if these are appropriate for 1799 but may be an acceptable alternative compared to those that were included in your LN kit. 

Allan

 

Edited June 14, 2021 by allanyed

[drjeckl]

Gents,  Thank you for all advice; great as usual.  I do not want to invest any more in my first ship's build.  If the proportions are not of scale, so be it.  This is what Amati gave me and I will live with . I'll work to build up the quoins.  I'll probably have to customize a solution  for each gunport.  Fortunately, it's only 10. 😀

 

...John

Edited June 23, 2021 by drjeckl

[Chuck Seiler]

I think that if you build up the quoins you will be fine.

[wefalck]

To be hones, I never understood the concept of 'first model'. If I knew about a problem and about the possible solutions, I would have the ambition to correct it. Otherwise, I would see this every time I look at the model later and would regret ...

[allanyed]

I agree with Eberhard.  I have what I consider one of my best efforts from 15 years ago and over all very happy with it , BUT, every time I see her name on the stern made of wooden letters I want to tear them off and paint the name on as it should have been done in 1776.  Maybe a nice little side project 😀  (note: No names should be on the stern before 1771 or after about 1782 -  one of the mistakes, in the movie Master and Commander.   

Allan

Edited June 15, 2021 by allanyed

[drjeckl]

Eberhard and Allan, Thank you for taking the time to offer advice to a newbie.  I am trying to address the issue I have, otherwise I wouldn't have posted it; I could just say Go F**k It.  I'm just trying to assess the cost/reward metric vis-a-vis my first build.  It's not that it's my first build; it just happens to be first.  I think everyone needs to assess that cost/reward metric when faced with a fork-in-the-road decision, however small or large the fork is, whether it's their first or 100th build.  Nobody has unlimited resources.  I'm looking forward to building more models, with this site's help and your help, after the Lady Nelson.

 

Thanks.

Edited June 23, 2021 by drjeckl