I'm a fan of detail, but it does get shot off a lot. I plan to do the same thing, make some masters and cast bits so they can be easily replaced. 3d printers are a bit out of my particular budget constraints at the moment though, so it's old school for me.
15 days until Nats and still building.... So, I tried to sleeve the barrel and use epoxy to secure, works as well as it looks (like @#$@) Lets see if we can make this a little better and have a chance of surviving a ram or two
if you put the turret on you can use that stuff to make the holder resemble a blast bag like Jeff does...
Used 1/2 X 1/4 aluminum to make a top and bottom bracket. Top part is tapped, so the screws go through the turret base (reinforced) and make a very positive connections. With 4 turns of a screwdriver I can have the top bracket off and replace a barrel. Bracket on and screwed Now I need to do surgery to correct the butchering I did on the face of the turret.
Now I need to make a pin attachment so that the turret goes on the base (maybe a couple of pins). Then a rod sticking up through the top of the turret. Once the barrel safety pin goes on it, that will stop the turret from getting blown off. And easy to access to tweak.
I used some similar junk to build up skeg areas once. All cracked apart within the year. About as much structural value as play-dough.
Put a threaded post and added a magnet underneath the fiberglass board Cast a new turret, drilled a hole in top for the post. Barrel had the holes drilled for the cotter pin and sleeve is on. Need to fix the roof where I sanded a little too much. Cotter pin in place during a battle. I use the 1/16th tubing to make it easier to grab, also keeps the fishing line from sliding off.
Interested to see the durability of the foam stuff under fire. 2 weeks to nats, time enough to rebuild her one more time right?
It is not intended to be durable, rather "replaceable". Can use putty and paint for a while to make it look nice, but will need to be replaced. The overall goal was a lightweight superstructure.
Devil is in the details.... All hoses have received color coding so there are no mistakes when hooking them up. The ones with no colors go to the magazines, just need to set the height of the piston before connecting them.
Question on setting the piston height. I have Strike guns that come with soldered Tee's, so no looking at the piston via the magazine hole. Is it just fire, twist the cap, fire again until you have single shots? I am asking as I can do that, it just means disconnecting hoses so they don't get tangled up.
Why not crank it up, then drop a BB in from the elbow and back down the piston until it passes? The magnets might pose a problem for that plan though, hrmmm
Dialed in the first gun piston, took measurement from top of treads to top of cap and transferred it to the other guns. Success! Question: Where do most put the port for testing PSI, on the valve body or a fitting in an existing line?
Coming to the end of this build thread. Changed the dual hoses (each going to a gun) into a single hose to ease pulling the bottles out of the boat. Tee fitting rated for 200+PSI, should perform well. Stern gun got the same treatment
Stern guns are fantastic, Strike Models did a great job on building them. Fired 1000+ rounds and very happy. Possible a couple of spurts led to high shots. Nice tight grouping, some stray shots are from bouncing BB's. The foam board was flipped, so just look at the bottom holes (this was one firing of all 100 BB's).
