I haven’t had much time in the workshop for modelling recently as I was doing a little turning job for a friend. I have managed a little on the gun shield though.

I managed to get the mounting lugs made and fitted albeit they need a bit of adjustment in order for the barrel to fit between them.

I finally managed to find a photo from the rear of the gun that allowed me to work out where the crank handle that goes through the front of the shield at an angle goes to. – The right axle as looking from the rear of the gun.

I can’t cut the rod to length until I can get the shield mounted, hopefully later today.

Lastly I managed to get a little more painting done by picking the breech out in oily steel

Some shots of it assembled and showing that both top and bottom shield can indeed be articulated.

Since my last post on Saturday I have made a bit more progress. As I mentioned I wasn’t too happy with the way that I had done the ‘hinges’ principally because the gap in them was too large but also because I had an itch to try to make them articulate.

I started on the bottom section because that was where the the gap between the two plates was greatest. I took the plunge and cut off all the lower sections of the hinge leaving just a small overhang behind. Then I cut some 2mm lengths of microbore brass tube and soldered them under the overhangs of the remains of the hinge plates. Then I measured the gaps in between and cut and fitted some more lengths of tube in between these were nominally 10mm but since I didn’t get the 2mm pieces exactly perfect they had to be custom fit in to each gap.

Then I fed a length of 0.4mm wire through all the lengths and tack soldered the longer lengths to the centre section of the shield.

I still have more to do on the replacement front shield but I thought I would share progress so far.

I think that I might re-do the bottom plate hinges as they leave too big a gap in between the plates as they are.

Some time later…

As reported elsewhere, I have been attempting to catch up with a few unfinished projects, some of which needed painting. When I was getting set up to paint I opened my spray booth door and the 18 pounder was sat there on the turntable awaiting paint.

So in amongst the railway wagons I also made a start on painting the gun.

I confess that it was at this point where I thought sod it and painted the supplied gun shield. Once painted I couldn’t live with the moulded on rope and set to with a diamond ball tool in the Dremel to carve/grind it off.

I blew it over with paint but ultimately I decided that I couldn’t live with that either, so back to plan A and scratch build a replacement.

Those of you who have seen my post on the rivet setting tool, will now know what I need all the riveted strips for.

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.

I have done some oil pin washes and I am finally calling this one finished, or at least until I get around to building a limber for it.

Next up will be the British WWI equivalent the 18 Pounder QF which is another cheap and cheerful Emhar kit which I hope that I can improve upon.