Model 1866 Gatling Gun 1"caliber 1/16 scale
My model is made from aluminum, brass,white oak,mahogany,sheet styrene, Apoxie Sculpt, lead sheet,cast lead, cast resin and 4 pieces pressure cast with Apoxie Sculpt, and the few parts I did not make are Britannia or white metal.
I picked this model up at a tag sale. In the box were 2 bent wheels, a nearly ruined axel, 2 side pieces ( the cheeks ) and some small fittings.
After some investigation, I found the cheeks belonged to a Napoleon Model 1812 Cannon Chassis, a gun platform for for many different types of cannons from many countries. Some time during my investigation I saw the drawing of the 1866 Gatling Gun and recognized that the platform for this weapon was the 1812 Napoleon.
The 1" caliber, 6 barrel gun is very large, weighing in at 1008 pounds for the gun alone and needs the large chassis to hold it. It is considered an artillery piece and along with its' carriage and limber weighs a total of 3263 pounds, and is pulled by a team of 6 strong horses. The gun is capable of firing approxamately 300 to 350 rounds per minute, with each large shell being hand fed into the hopper by the loader. There are no belts or links as with the smaller caliber weapons of the day. Four types of shells can be used. Three have different sized and shaped loads like a shot gun, and the last type fires the huge 1" low velocity slug. The bullets represented in my model are the slug type, each made from 3 pieces of brass soldered together.
Much of my model is from scratch . The gun assembly, the operator's seat, the trail (main body in gray primer),skid plate, all styrene pieces ,chain fittings, and many of the small metal fittings. The wheel hubs were redone to bring them up to the heavy duty size dictated by military specs, with Lynch Pins for quick 'in the field ' wheel changes.
My model can be dis-assembled much like real with the complete gun being removable, wheels can be removed, the gun elevation works, the barrels rotate, the seat can be folded. The wooden ' handspike ' attached to the side of the left cheek is inserted into the fittings at the back of the trail to aim the gun left or right, the rear fitting is also workable, as it folds up or down.
After I had posted this build to missing- lynks, one of the guys responding told me the cheeks,axel and wheel castings were most likely originally from a now defunkt 'Marine Model Co.' which offered the Napoleon 1812 .
Thanks guys for looking
tread
P.S. most of these pics are old, I had,at one point, given up on it for lack of reference. When I was able to complete the model, I did, and it was cleaned , and taken apart and the parts were re-polished for Amps. It looks better than these pictures show, but I just can't get my camera working.
