My goal was to build a manual rotate without using a spiral magazine. This was two fold, one I did not have a 75 round coil magazine, second the ship does not have enough vertical space below the turret to accompidate the spiral. So I pondered a little bit, and decided that I could make a slip fitting with some plumbing parts and lathe time. My lathe can't thread so I need to have anything pre-threaded or be able to thead with a die or tap, in the case of plumbing parts that is difficult because of the stange 7/16" 24 TPI used with compression fittings. So the main parts: 1/2" compression to 1/4" compression union (that is the soldered bit) some random chunk of solid brass rod. Small amount of 1/4" tubing. I'll post pictures once I can figure out how.
Over all view, the part that I made is the fitting between the breach and the T. The gun goes out the center barrel of a triple mounting, so when you turn the turret the magazine stays in place, just the gun rotates.
This is a crummy picture the autofocus was unhappy, there is an O ring on one side and a grove for the seal in the other. Lastly is the parts all disconnected.
Hey, that's pretty neat. Have you tried it yet? how well does it work? How will you actually be rotating the cannon?
I still have not pressure tested it fully because the rest of the CO2 system is not complete. Hopefully this weekend I'll get a chance to put it under 150PSI and see if it leaks, I'm not expecting it to. The o ring seals on the magazines don't leak and they are more or less the same shape. With it being manually operated, work case I need to loosen the nut turn the turrent and then retighten it. As to how I'm going to rotate it, I'm going to move the turret by hand before the battle or in between sorties. Building a full on R/C rotate cannon while cool is not really practical for a couple of reasons in this case. First being the ship is tripple sterns, dual motors, rudder and pump all in about 18" of ship, adding the servo for rotate would make that space yet smaller. Also as a fast gun ship unless it swings really quick it likely would not help much being a hug and slug ship, besides with the triples I'm guessing they will do most of the dammage in the beginning of the sortie and then later on I'll line up the stern side mount. If things go well with a wing man you get the choice of being shot up with a haymaker or triple sterns. There is a cost, my bow is very vulnerable, but I'm used to that I was a Scharnhorst Captain.
