Gun Frame in Progress

I've not been good about posting when I am working on Nassau... However, I have been hard at work for the last week or so. Here are some pictures of the not-quite-finished frame for her six turrets. I am designing as I go but these pictures should show the general approach.

The holes in the sides of the frame are for routing CO2 hoses through the frame. The holes in the top of the frame are for set screws to cinch the hoses in place (with nuts for preventing over-tightening). In these pictures the large cross braces for the wing turrets are not riveted yet. I still need to add some stops and the brackets for screwing into the glass hull.

Update June 27th

I've continued to make slow progress on the frame. I've got a decent size tray mounted for servos.

The servo tray is made of wood for now. Once I know how everything will fit together I will replace it with one made out of clear plastic. The servo tray is mounted to the gun frame and therefore comes out with the cannons. There should be enough room for a standard size (barely) rotation servo for each of the forward cannons plus one for the triggers for the whole boat (two banks).

BTW: The regulator will not be sitting on the tray when everything is finished. It will be just above the tray. Also, it will be a nine ounce bottle in the ship... not a twelve as shown in these pictures.

The tray's vertical position is no accident. It is at a height where a standard servo could be mounted on it, upside down, with flanges above the tray, and still not touch the deck. This will allow me to mount all the sevos high enough in the hull that they will only get wet when the ship sinks. Servos are light so I am not too worried about impact on stability. More importantly this leaves a ton of room (ton is a relative term in this context) under the sevros for battery packs. Its hard to get a picture showing this but I tried.

Just look at all of that space! Okay, it doesn't look like much. If you look at the earlier top side shot of the tray, and remember that the hull doesn't curve under where you see wood, then you will start to see why I am excited. I will loose about half an unch just under the tray for rotation and firing hardware... but most of that space is available for batteries.