I've become an arms dealer recently, a purveyor of naval artillery.
That should show if the NSA is watching my online antics
I'm not gonna gum up this thread with all of it, but here's a brief summary to get everyone up to speed...
The Gavel, who chimed in in the post just before this, is building a kit of the
Harriett Lane in 1:96 scale. Always interested in ships of the period, I went to check out his
build log. At the time there was some discussion in it about the ship's armament and I stuck my nose into it. Long story short, I made 3D models and printed them in 1:96 scale, sending them to Chuck for his model.
In the process, two of the guns I made were also carried by the
Constellation in her later career; the 9 inch Dahlgren, and the 30# Parrott rifle on a pivot carriage; and I started thinking about making a model of every gun
Constellation carried as a display piece to go with her when I took the model to events.
There were 11 types of gun carried by
Constellation over her career:
- 10 inch shell-gun pivot
- 8 inch shell-gun
- 32# gun
- 12# Dahlgren boat-howitzer
- 20# Parrott rife pivot
- 30# Parrott rifle pivot
- IX inch Dahlgren
- XI inch Dahlgren on an iron pivot
- 100# Parrott pivot
- 24# long gun ~ these last two are a product of her misidentification as a frigate.
- 32# carronade
Of this list, and as of this post, I've 3D modeled 8 of them. The one not shown here, is the carronade, which has been modeled for my
Macedonian model...
...and printed 4 of the list so far.
I've got to print a set of guns for another model in 1:72 scale, all of which are 3D modeled already, but yet to be printed. One of this set is a pair of 12# boat-howitzers. I tweaked the model I made back in 2020, so it'll better scale down to 1:72, and was thinking that
Constellation more likely had the wooden wheel version in 1856 than the iron wheeled one I gave her; so I made a set of wooden wheels along with some added details and corrections.
I printed just the field carriage with wooden wheels attached to replace the iron wheeled one in
Constellation's launch. Next is getting two of them to print in 1:72 scale.
It seems this project to make a sampler of
Constellation's guns has become a project to 3D model most, if not all, Naval guns from the 1850s to 1870s.
I'm not posting all that in this thread, so you'll have to visit my
web site if you want to see the other guns that won't be shown here.