Posted Sat, 03/13/2010 - 14:59 by Brian
Brett Fleming and I were brainstorming about depression earlier this week and he had a great idea - just sandwich tubing between the barrel bends and the barrel bracket. After spending a couple of days to decide if I could come up with anything better (I couldn't) I roughed one out this afternoon and fired a few rounds through it. There is good news and bad news...
Posted Tue, 03/02/2010 - 19:56 by Brian
I took a little time to mess around with the barrel bends again. I somewhat accidentally discovered that the PVC glue bonds strong enough to press fit barrels and risers into the barrel bends. This will eliminate two of the metal parts I had planned to use. I also did some test fires through the barrel bends. Everything worked great except the guns seemed to be firing a little soft. I will probably have to wait until the weekend to investigate more.
Posted Mon, 03/01/2010 - 21:42 by Brian
I took a little time tonight to knock out some test risers for the Barrel Bends I roughed out yesterday. I am trying to get enough together to test fire some rounds through them by the end of the week. I was really surprised to find that even with the risers loosely fit in they held the barrel bends in alignment very well - even without being bolted in place!!!
Posted Sun, 02/28/2010 - 18:40 by Brian
I am not going to post many details as I don't know if this is going to work or not. However, I did make some progress making the machined barrel bends today. Plus the PVC glue does seem to be be at least as strong as the PVC itself. So this might just work. If it does then it should trim amost two inches off of the height of Nassau's barrels. I am hoping to install them at scale height. Here are a few random pictures from today.
Posted Fri, 02/26/2010 - 22:10 by Brian
I took some time tonight to make the holder I needed to make the next-gen barrels on the rotary table. It took longer than expected but I think it will work. This bolts to the rotary table and provides repeatability of setup for the barrel bends. Plus it should hold two parts at a time!
Posted Fri, 02/19/2010 - 05:58 by Brian
After a recent facebook exchange with Greg McFadden I noticed his February 7 post on RC Naval Combat showing the work he is doing on his SMS Baden. I really like how he integrated the motor mounts into the stuffing tubes. Its basically a two component setup - the first is a bracket that allows him to easily adjust the distance of the motor from the prop-shaft - this makes it easy to use a belt to drive the propellor. It also allowed him to place the motors aft of the stuffing tube (something I am going to also probably need)
Posted Wed, 02/17/2010 - 21:12 by Brian
This evening I made some temporary mounts for Nassau's cannons. To my surprise the cannons fit at the scale location with room for a 9 ounce CO2 bottle! I was really excited to see everything coming together. Once the snow melts a little more I will have to try placing them in the spare hull and see how well it floats. The weight is around eight pounds so was are already about half I what I probably can allow. (Pictures in post)
Posted Tue, 02/16/2010 - 20:48 by Brian
This evening I made the breeches for Nassau's cannons. The breech is where rounds are fed from the magazine into the bottom of the cannon's barrels. This blog post will walk you through most of the process for making a breech on a mini-mill and mini-lathe. These steps have been simplified from what someone might do who wanted everything as precise as possible. I am more interested in making parts quickly - this means minimizing setup and maximizing the number of parts that can be made each time a measurement is taken.
Posted Sat, 02/13/2010 - 12:22 by Brian
This morning I did all the mill work for Nassau's cannon manifolds. The manifold is basically the bottom of the part of the cannon that rotates. It has two purposes (a) it redirects the CO2 to the barrels and (b) provides a way to adjust how the shot sits in the breach. This blog post will walk you through most of the process for making a manifold on a mini-mill and mini-lathe. These steps have been simplified from what someone might do who wanted everything as precise as possible. I am more interested in making parts quickly - this means minimizing setup and maximizing the number of parts that can be made each time a measurement is taken.
Posted Sat, 09/29/2007 - 20:51 by Brian
This blog post briefly describes how to cut windows in a previously marked fiberglass hull. Cutting windows in a fiberglass hull, even a thick one like my Nassau hull, is far easier than making a wood hull from scratch. This is the first part of a series of articles I will write while building my German Dreadnaught Nassau.