Some fun stuff this morning, cannon testing! Testing the cannon just built. Found an issue with it. Couldn't get anywhere near full tweak without excessive double feeds. Could only punch through one side of a soda can at the lower tweak! Think I might need to lengthen the piston a bit. This blue beauty is a Holly nitrous oxide injection regulator. I picked up two off of eBay for $20 (regular $80 each). It was a speculative buy since the reg comes in 50, 100, and 145 versions (depending on spring supplied) and the seller didn't know which ones he had. They turned out to be 100psi and I was able to shim it up to 150 easily enough. This is half the weight of my old brass reg. Just need to get a compact bottle adapter from Palmer Pursuit to finish it off. Cool stuff from McMaster These are three different types of tubing I've been playing with. The grey 1/8" ID on the right is the old standby Clippard polyurethane tubing. The yellow stuff is nylon .18" ID rated at 250psi. The white stuff is a stiffer nylon .19" ID rated at 550psi (bb's flow easy through it - hint, hint ). My thinking is that an adequate length of the bigger ID nylon tubing will give as much of a gas reserve as the various reservoirs I've seen in use for less effort and expense. Coupled with the matching ID push-to-connect fittings, a clean and smooth gas path to the solenoid is achieved.
My concerns with the Kip's are more to do with the steel coil surround. Not easily drained and I envision them turning into a pile of rusty mush after a while. Easy to deal with though by sealing the bottom edge and where the wires come out. The Spartans, being mostly nylon are light years ahead in regards to marine compatibility IMO.
Push-to-Connect Tube Fitting for Air Wye for 1/4" Tube OD - 5779K44 - Each $4.75 Brass & Nylon Push-to-Connect Tube Fitting Straight Adapter for 1/4" Tube OD x 1/8 NPTF Male - 51025K177- Each $1.79 8 Clip Strip for 6mm, 3/16", OR 1/4" Tube OD Push-to-Connect Tube Fitting for Air - 5779K429 - Each $3.58 Choose-A-Color Flexible Nylon Tubing .180" Id 1/4" Od, .035" Wall Thickness, Yellow, 25 Ft. Length - 5548K65 - Each $11.00 Push-to-Connect Tube Fitting for Air Swivel Inline Tee for 1/4" Tube OD x 1/8 NPT Male - 5779K174 - Each $4.61 Vacuum-Rated Nylon Tubing, .190" ID, 1/4" OD,.03" Wall Thickness, Semi-Clear White, 25 ft. Length - 5173K94 - Each $7.25
I have been looking for something like that vacuum rated tubing to test as barrels on my destroyer (for 1/4" projectiles though).... the trick would be to get it bent to the necessary radius without it collapsing too much so the balls would still go through.
I'm putting dual bows in the B turret. Should I sight them the same or one closer and one longer, and at what ranges? Opinions?
My experience is very limited, as you know, but my opinion would be that you would want them to hit together. Having one hitting farther out than the other will obviously make aiming quite difficult. Plus, two bb's hitting close together is WAY more prone to blasting big holes than single shots. That is my two cents, take it or leave it.
I would make it a duel stern'ish if I was the driver. 15 degrees off in d with single haymaker in c (75) and a single side up forward in B. You could even co-ordinate C and D (double) to hit in the same area. Remember that if you are going to battle in Maryland then keep them up close. Or have it so you change the hit point and dial it in at lakeside.
Dual bow guns? In a battleship? Not sure how much combat experience you have Steve, so don't take offense if I offer my opinion: Stern guns are easiest to aim (scale boats swing stern with rudder vice rotating bow, so easy to place on target) but generally hit above or (best case) on waterline due to flat trajectory over quarterdeck Sidemounts do most damage (downangle allows belows) but have short ranges. This is where good turning dreadnought-battleships like QE (or Baden) shine. Bow guns have all the bad points of stern guns, plus are harder to aim & cause you to point the most vulnerable part of your hull at the enemy. A fast small target like a DD or small cruiser can do this, but REALLY bad idea for a 26-second DN
Think I finally perfected a solid plastic to 1/4" compression connection. Flexible mags and up-tubes? Hmm........
If your talking about the wood disks that the guns are mounted to. They are cut on a bandsaw similar to this. As far as how much? Just the cost of the plywood. If your using stock cannons from BC or Strike, you would want to use lengths of PVC pipe like McSpuds is doing on his SoDak build. Stock cannons require a bigger hole in the deck for proper mounting. Hope this helps.
I've seen this before, with PTFE https://sites.google.com/a/georgiasouthern.edu/bkoehler/personal/my-ships/ajax
The genius is in the air tight fitting to attach the flex tubing to the brass T. I am looking forward to the details.
Would love to see the details of those mags. Hard to tell from the pics but it looks like he used tube inserts and compression fittings. Also, if he's using 3/16" ID x 1/4" OD PTFE, that stuff only has a max rating of 175psi. Not much of a safety margin. I'm not using an insert so there's nothing to inhibit bb flow. Also, the nylon tubing I'm using is rated to 550psi. Pics will be up in a couple of hours.
