After updating the Princess Firebox my thoughts turned to some actual modelling and I decided to build the next field gun. Another cheapo kit from Emhar (I also found out that Emhar are part of the Bachmann group so not too far away from Railways after all). This one cost a little more at £12 but still good value in my opinion.
There are only 10 parts to the gun itself (there are 3 crew members provided too).
This one comes with hand wheels so no need to make them.
Construction was quite quick and besides cleaning up a bit of flash there weren’t too many improvements that I could make.
I cut off the pin which represents the elevation screw and added short length of 10ba stud an improvement that can barely be seen once assembled but I know it’s there. The only other improvements were adding cord to the recoil tube to represent the rope that is visible on most photos that I have seen and to cut a representation of the recoil slides. these are just moulded as a flat plate.
I also drilled out the barrel to scale size.
I did consider trying to remove the moulded rope from the front of the Gun Shield but I wasn’t sure that I could get it off and replace it without making a complete mess. So I will endeavour to improve it with paints.
One thing that I am struggling with is the lower plate of the Gun Shield. As supplied it seems to big (Unless you bend it forward as I have in the photos, it stops the barrel from seating on the carriage). All the photos except one, that I could find, show the gun without the bottom plate of the shield. The one that I have is taken from the rear and to one side so although the bottom plate is in place it’s not easy to see it if is indeed a bit shorter than Emhar have portrayed it.
