Fair American - gun carriages

[wq3296]

Greetings All,

 

The gun carriages supplied with the Fair American are not up to par, in my opinion. The parts supplied are laser cut and the one piece bases include studs for mounting the wheels. Said studs easily break off during assembly and are wider than the respective holes in the supplied wheels - causing more studs to break off when the wheels are installed. If you can successfully mount the wheels as designed, or end up gluing them directly to the carriage sides, you are left with a hole in the wheel. I filled these holes with spackle (any filler will work) and sanded them smooth. Note: you may try adding metal rod axels under the bases, but check to be sure you won't end up with clearance problems at the gun ports in the bulwarks.

 

wq3296

[Modeler12]

I have made gun carriages from scratch and am not familiar with your model and instructions.

Can you add a picture of the problem?

Others who are doing the same as yours may understand, but usually the problem is that laser cut parts are oriented the wrong fiber direction. Can you redo keeping this in mind? Or would it make sense to make the shafts separately out of a piece of thin stock and glue them on to the base?

 

Here is what I understand:

Edited February 12, 2015 by Modeler12

[jdbradford]

I had the same issue with mine.  I ended up gluing the trucks directly to the carriages for those that broke off.  I also ordered some of Chuck Passaro's carriages to test for size.  I may order replacement carriages and such for my next model.

 

Now I am rigging the cannon on my Fair American.  They did not supply the blocks or other hardware to rig them.  I do think these teeny eyelets are for the cannon carriage rigging, but they have been an absolute pain trying to get black.  My next issue is the breaching ringbolts.

 

 

I have not seen an easy way to manufacture these.  I have done no metal fabrication like this.

 

Thanks,

 

Jeff