I’m giving Ryan a choice of how to display the innards of the gun house. My first approach would be a cutaway, but while not to difficult to execute, it doesn’t show all that much unless you turn it into Swiss Cheese. Ryan just texted me. It will be the cutaway version which follows the theme of the 16" project.
The second approach could mimic yesterday’s photo showing the entire armored casing in the air above the open gun house. This would show almost everything, but would have to be suspended above and it would raise the enclosure height. I could use acrylic rods to support. Lighting would require some visible cabling. In order to raise the casing, the guns need to be elevated, as they are in the photo.
The last is the most elegant and also the most challenging: making the forward parts of the gun house out of clear acrylic. I would leave the curved wall as it is. While I have clear resin, optically it wouldn’t be very good and not any value. Acrylic is very clear and shows no distortion. Gluing it together so it really clean is the first challenge. The second is cutting out the small parts with true and square edges.
So I’m also asking all of you. Which do you prefer?
I finished cutting out all the casing parts and trued up all the edges. I cut the telescope holes in the right and left sides, the ofc’s hatch opening, and the remaining access hatch opening. I clamped both angled face pieces together so I could finish shape the gun slots so they aligned perfectly.
To cut the telescope holes, I drilled a series of small holes through the drawing, and then used a larger drill to make nice rounded corners.
Here’s all the finished parts ready to be assembled.
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Since I don’t know which version Ryan will pick, I did some future planning… While all the casing parts were in the flat, and they’re all accurate, I clamped them to a nice piece of 0.080" acrylic that I had laying around and traced all these parts so I’m ready to cut them out if we go that way. If fact, regardless of Ryan’s choice I may cut out all those parts and see how well I can finish them. Having it clear would be pretty neat. You can barely see the scribed lines, but they’re there. Now that I know Ryan’s choice, I’m going to try and construct this version anyway since I’ve kind of wrecked that part of the acrylic with my scribed layout lines.
I also went at the back of the curved wall and removed that lump. I used a cutting disk to remove most of the stock and then my micro-power sander to finish. I may add some filler to hide all the tool marks.
With the acrylic in the wings, I can continue to construct the regular casing. I won’t do the cutaway until after it’s built if i go that route, so I won’t be getting too far out over my skis.
My new LCD panel arrives today and I’ve already stripped the old one out of the machine in anticipation. I hope it comes with a new under class plate since I cracked it a bit getting it out of it’s depression. It too is held with adhesive stirps. Should be running next week. It has to be running next week. It’s on the critical path of two major projects.
Y’all have a nice weekend!
. I’m much lazier than you and don’t go to your lengths to capture dimensional fidelity. I kid… Gettimg life measurements from a16" turret (or 5" for that matter) are beyond my reach physically, accessibility-wise, financially and time-wise, so I have depend on a lot of educated (or dum-luck) guesses. But, as McCoy said to Spock in Star Trek III, “Your guesses are better than most people’s sure-thing.” I tell that to my son all the time since he is a freaking genius and terrific doctor. When he guesses I tend to listen.