Just finished testing the three guns I got when I bought HMS Dreadnaught last fall. It came with 1 (obviously newer) coil magazine gun and 2 (older) straight magazine ones. The newer coil gun fired pretty good right away, and with some cleaning is firing sweet and hard. The two older guns refused to fire for me initially despite much tweaking (read twisting) of the cap holding the piston selector. Cleaned both cannon with carburetor cleaner and q-tips to remove mucho old built-up gunk and then sprayed with wd-40 and wiped clean. Still refused to fire after the cleaning so I removed the pistons to verify basic operation and both worked fine as spurt-guns, so the barrel o-rings and the rest was fine. Then I noticed that the tiny 1/16" airline tubes on the bottom cap of the selector valve were mostly crushed flat inside the cap, preventing good airflow. I drilled out the lines on both selector valves and then drilled out the lines on the ammo magazines too, just in case. (airflow at the cannon barrel improved noticably) Cannon still did not want to fire. Oie Vey! Next step was to sand and buff the piston valve and polish/deburr the inside of the T-fitting where the piston slides up and down. A bt of oil and piston was moving smooth as silk. Screwed the bottom back on so I could see the top of the piston in line with the hole when I peeked in thru the magazine port and then test-fired the cannon. Finally firing pretty good with occasional 2-3 round spurts, possibly due to piston spring. Will have to overhaul the last gun the same way tomorrow and see if I can tweak them to stop the stray spurting. So, right now I have: 1 excellent coil gun 1 decent straight gun 1 straight gun requiring overhaul. Besides the guys at the show last weekend, has anyone else cleaned and tested their guns prior to start of season yet? "Dread" is anxious to have her stern gun and her two sidemounts installed. Mack
Mine are all firing really really hard Mack, I was thinking about cracking one open just to see if any there have been any changes in the construction techniques used by Battler's. The only problem with doing that is that I will have one less cannon. I have to order a new gun kit for Heidi's Graf Spee soon so I may order one extra cannon just to look inside. One thing I did this winter was to soak all my cannon parts in gun oil. this should keep them good and lubercated all season. I will be stripping all my cannons out of every ship at the end of every season to do this. This should extend the life of my cannons greatly. There are several ways to install cannons Mack, Curt showed me a great way last year when he was here last summer maybe when I get to town next month I could show you how Curt and myself installed Tirpitz's cannons.
I was going to take Yamato out of winter hibernation yesterday but the Tanks won out. However I did repair the Jack Staff and the bow crest. I will be takiing it out to shake the winter doldrums out of it and test firing the guns hopefully this I can do next week barring weather conditions.
Hey Curt, since you like the tanks, you might find this interresting...Ralph is working on a couple of different tanks and one HUGE one! When I have some photos I'll post em. J
Mack if that last cannon does not work I might have another available for you. The downside is that it will likely be a month as I have no access to my parts as they are stored away
Sweet! Thanks Paul! If I can't get the current one working well soon I may take you up on that offer. How much do you want for it and are you sure it won't leave you short on guns yourself? Mack
There would be no charge. I just have it buried in the storage locker. I won't be able to see what I have until move into the new place. I did back off the pins last year prior to cannats as the pins were covering the breech and would not load.
