Sunday 1 September 2013

Fudge mountain (gun)

(Project 9 - A simple mountain gun conversion)
Er, best I could do for a title...What I mean is that I am fudging a piece of mountain artillery from the good old Britains 25 Pounder toy gun. My reason for doing this is because I wanted a firing model of a mountain gun for my Molatarian Jaegers but unfortunately I can't find a suitable existing model.

Well, there are plenty of toy 25 Pounders out there so converting one of these as a stand-in doesn't phase me, I'm hardly destroying a collectors item!

The original Britains 25 Ponder based on a World War 2 design, I want
to retro-grade this to look more 19th century.

The conversion process is fairly straight forward, though may take a little time. First I want to remove the 25 Pounders shield and then make a new gun carriage for it to make it more appropriate to a gun of the late 19th Century. Therefore, the first step is to disassemble the Britains toy...


By the 1890s breech-loading guns had begun to be designed with recoil systems so not much needs to be done to the gun itself once the shield is gone, but the carriage is another thing. A lighter skeleton carriage will have to be made and older style wooden wheels attached. So, let's get that shield off...


Hard work even with my trusty Dremmel - take care, the metal gets VERY hot while cutting through it - but eventually you will get through it. Next I will have to smooth out the remaining shield vestiges and cut off the original axle attachment, another job for the Dremmel!

Next: In part two I will start to design a suitably period looking gun carriage and source some wheels.

1 comment:

  1. I can probably sort you out some wheels. Once again I am much impressed with the work you put into individual models!

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