Gun barrels for battleships

Hi - and welcome aboard! Several solutions to this problem come to mind. There is at least one manufacturer producing aftermarket turned brass barrels on 1/700 scale. It's called Clipper Models, and the range is considerable - though not cheap. A quick look through the usual websites only found one retailer that sells Clipper Models products: Pacific Front Hobbies. A set of barrels to furnish one ship seems to run around $15.00 or thereabouts.

Skywave, the excellent Japanese company, sells several sets of detail parts for 1/700 warships. Most of them concentrate on smaller weapons, but one of the Skywave sets does contain barrels (and turrets) for Japanese battleships. I believe the same box is sold by Tamiya. Some of the barrels in those sets probably could be modified pretty easily to work on warships of other nations.

For a good, comprehensive overview of the wide range of detail parts available, take a look at the Steel Navy website (<www.steelnavy.com>). It contains quick links to the sites of various manufacturers and distributers. Two of the latter that would be especially relevant are Pacific Front Hobbies and The Naval Base.

To make your own barrels really would require a lathe - probably a pretty sophisticated one. Gun barrels on those scales are mighty skinny and mighty long - and since they sit in pairs and threes quite close together, any inconsistency in them will be immediately obvious to the eye. My old-fashioned Unimat lathe might be barely capable of such a project, but it would take me quite a while. (The computerized machine shop at the community college where my stepson is studying machine technology probably could whip out a set of gun barrels in an afternoon, but that equipment costs thousands of dollars.)

The most economical solution might well be to buy a plastic kit with similar turrets and canibalize the relevant pieces. The recently-released kit of the U.S.S. Arizona, by Dragon Models, contains nine exquisitely-turned brass 14" barrels, for instance, and the new Tamiya U.S.S. Missouri has plastic 16" barrels complete with blast bags. Another point: such a kit probably would yield all sorts of other parts that would come in handy for a scratchbuilding project.

Hope some of this helps.

Thanks for the info on 1/700 scale gun barrels. Do you have any advice on where I could find turned barrels in 1/350 scale?

Ouch - that one's tougher. I believe a couple of the firms that make detail parts offer 5" gunhouses (and barrels), but I can't recall having bumped into anything larger. And the idea of cannibalizing a kit is considerably less attractive on 1/350: those kits tend to be expensive, and there aren't so many of them.

Turning barrels from brass on 1/350 would be considerably easier than on 1/700. If you know anybody who has a metal lathe, that might be worth checking out.

Sorry I can't be more helpful. Good luck.

What I have been doing for the barrels of the main guns is using brass tubing. I do not know if you have a local hobby store that sales this or not, but this is ALOT easier than tring to turn them out on a lathe. I can get the tubing that I need and cut it to length with a hacksaw or rotory tool.

1/350 scale barrels are generally tapered along length. easiest way is to sand seam lines with 400-800 grip paper wrapped around iceblock stick. this stops any deviations along barrel lengths. carefully drilling out ends with pin vice and drillbit results in hollowing of barrels. barrels best in chuck of lathe or make sure you find centre of barrell before drilling. have done this numerous times and works with great care. try gold medal models for 1/700 kits as do not suggest drilling out 1/700 gun barrels. hope helps.

I had found a 1/350 set of brass aftermarket barrels on e-bay once, were made in Canada. Got into a bidding war and let them go, haven't seen any since.

There's a guy over on Modelwarships.com, Steve Nuttall, who is building a 1:48 Yamato from scratch, including making his own CNC milling machine and lathe to turn out the parts.

He recently made some 1:350 barrels as a test, and I believe he was seeing if there was any interest in these from other modelers.

Worth a look for the pictures alone!
Bruce

QUOTE: Originally posted by B. LeCren There's a guy over on Modelwarships.com, Steve Nuttall, who is building a 1:48 Yamato from scratch, including making his own CNC milling machine and lathe to turn out the parts. He recently made some 1:350 barrels as a test, and I believe he was seeing if there was any interest in these from other modelers. Worth a look for the pictures alone! Bruce

Yes I did start to produce barrels
The equipment is not cheap; the time spent has to be covered; but i still feel for what you spend the product you'll get is well worth while
I now supply to the likes of Dave Wooley/Bill Waldorf/Ron H etc; these are museum quality brass or aluminum barrels (Alum for big scales)
Here is a link to my site for more info
http://halfliferefugee.homestead.com/HLRsite.html
For a sample of my products here is a photo of a Graf Spee turret with 2 of my replacements installed

Quite a difference you'll agree; they are priced at $4.50 each
I add mounting pegs or add up to 8mm for mounting into the turret as required
I make scales up to 1/48th or down to 1/700th
I had a set of clippers set to me; while they look nice; the accuracy was suspect on several sizes and the bore while drilled was not scale
My barrels are scale down to tiny details like the mounting rings on IJN barrels for the practice guns

I gotta tell you, Ive seen many many instances of Walnutt productions barrels on www.modelwarships.com and they are fantastic! He is constantly turning other barrels and some really insane sizes. Check with him, they are a make or break on your next ship model.

I agree with Ric for once!!

Steve's stuff is first-rate...if you need it, get it, don't hesitate.

Jeff Herne

Furthermore on the 1:700 brass barrels. Mike Bartel at IHP makes them specificly for the Iowa class. He may have added more, I've not visited his site in a while. Search IHP @ http://ihphobby.tripod.com/
Best - Craig

I offer a few 1/700th scale sets too; mainly the odd ones other don't offer

Has anyone tried the brass tube method sugested by shipbuilder? I;ve been toying with that idea for a little while. Just wondering about the results?

Speedy

I wish i had seen these links before i started drilling my barrels,1/350 New Jersey
I thought i would go blind before i finished.
Now this gives me an excuse to pic up another jersey to convert to a USS WISCONSIN.
Now, how to hide the bills from the wife...