Barbette recommendations yes me picking your brains again []. I found that 1 ½ PVC is the perfect size but seem a bit on the heave side [B)] what do you all use for main battery Barbette
What I've been doing is getting the size PVC pipe, cutting it to the right length plus maybe 1/4". Then I take the next bigger size up and make a little collar for the base. The hole in the deck is just big enough for the barbette, but not big enough for the collar on the bottom and bam! easy to mount and make, much more stable than gluing to the deck alone.
For a battleship main battery barbette, I use 3" PVC. I don't know what you've got that 1-1/2" is the right size for, & this may not work for your application. In 1:144 scale, 3" comes out to 36'. Iowa class barbettes are 34'5" at the roller path, plus 17.3" armor on each beam of the barbette, comes out to about 37'3" actual, so 36' in scale is pretty darn close, probably for any BB type. I developed a new method on my most recent build, that I've been very happy with. I cut a disk of 3/8" polycarbonate, using a hole saw, that fits snugly inside the barbette. This disk is cut away to clear barrel risers, elevation servo (the servo is mounted directly to the disk), & linkage, then what's left is screwed onto the magazine cover. The barbette fits snugly over the cut-away disk (with a small notch cut out for the elevation servo lead) & rotates with the magazine instead of being fixed to the deck. Everything fits compactly inside the barbette, which sticks up through a hole in the deck that's sized to just clear the outside of the barbette. Gun houses (aka "turret covers") have a short length of 3" PVC glued to their bottoms. This pipe has been slit length-wise so that they'll fit snugly inside the un-slit barbette. The gun house then simply slips over the barbette instead of being fastened to the barrels. Besides being very quick & easy to remove, it also keeps the gun houses from "bobbing" as the barrels' elevation changes. Besides looking better, it also keeps the back ends of the gun houses from sticking up at low depression, which can interfere with the rotation of a superfiring turret that's next to it. It's also very easy to remove decks without having barbettes attached to them. Reloading is very quick & easy: Pull off gun house, pull off barbette, remove reloading plug (7/8" plug in the barbette-mounting disk), & pour ammo down the hole. With the very-overized loading hole, there's no problem with rounds doubling up & jamming at the bottom, to slow down the reload. Replace the plug, slip on the barbette, slap the gun house back on, & it's good to go! JM
Just about every barbette I've seen is made from PVC pipe cut to size. There are only two exceptions I've seen. One is a PVC endcap that was machined down, because the two sizes of regular PVC pipe were either too big or too large, and the endcap was just right. The other was a funky octagonal barbette on a monitor, that was built up from 1/8" plywood. The real trick for barbettes is getting smooth, effective rotation AND a tight fit on the turret cover above. I've seen a few tricks for that as well, but since it's finals week I don't really have time to go into detail
Quarter system kicks any semester system's butt! More to the point, you may be interested in this photo album on the turret covers and barbettes of the Rodney: http://www.westernwarshipcombat.com/index.php?set_albumName=Turrets-for-HMS-Rodney&option=com_gallery&Itemid=85&include=view_album.php&page=1
Oh no, that isn't Gascan's ship. That ship belongs to Benbox, and until this year it was generally considered the most detailed ship in the club. It has now been exceeded by... you guessed it! Another of Benbox's ships!
