First I wanted to update everyone on the painting scheme for the Chebec Cannons. I used the Model Master Burnt Iron (Thanks Rod Millard) and dry drushed with Testors Armor Sand to bring down the metallic look in that scale, the effect is perfect! Then because the cannons are so large (almost 2") I drilled out the Prick / Firing hole at the top of each gun, TheY look really sharp. If I decide to enter this in the state IPMS, I'll need to point that out to the judges, most don't know a marlin spike from a mop, when it come to judging ship models.
On the carriages I decided to go all out and detail them as correctly as possible. I was looking at the pictures of Les Wilkins model of his Chebec build and noticed that he rigged the cannons with block and tackle. From what I can see, he used the blocks from the Revell Cutty Sark or Constitution kit in 1/96th., which is very close in scale to the carraiges size. The main problem is drilling and placing the eyebolts. Having a "nothing to do weekend", I spent most of Saturday drilling putting in the eyebolts, here's where:
I drilled a hole at the back of the gun carriage and put in 1 eyebolt.
I drilled a hole on both sides of the Carriage and put in the eyebolts.
According to the pictures the tie off point for the "front" single block will be the railing that runs along the bulwarks. I will probably use thin wire to do the tieing, so it won't show too badly.
Instead of trying to tie the blocks to metal eyebolt, I'm going to open the eye up and slip the block on it. I tried it out on the bench and they look GREAT. I will also use a slightly heavier line to do the "gun stops/check line". I'll post some new pictures in the album tommarrow.
Jake