Hi Pat
The work which you describe me on your shield is hallucinating!You made a functional shield?If it is the case bravo and I would like to see photos of your "masterpiece"
I becomes crazy with my story of 37mm, in spite of my search I do not find at the moment many things
Bracco
The functional shield is actually quite easy, and from the terrific work you've posted, I don't think you'd have any problem with it at all.
Unfortunately, between computer problems I've got with graphics on this site, and lack of a digital camera other than my cellphone (which takes pictures too fuzzy and from a long distance to properly show), I can't post photos yet. (I'm still trying to figure out how.)
But I will describe what I did for the shield and gun.
First, sand the shield as much as possible to make it thinner since is it is too thick for scale.
The shield, as you can tell from the photos of real ones, folded at two places. So I used a hot knife I have (basically a soldering iron with the solder tip replaced with an X-acto blade), I cut the shiled into three pieces as per the photos.
Then I made 6 hinges, 3 for each joint, to work just like in the photos. To make the hinges, take a piece of small brass rod. Wrap some thin brass shim around the rod, and cut to make it a square plate of the same size as the hinge in the photos. Notch out the top part of the shim that wraps around the rod so that it covers only half of the rod. Now make a similar plate out of shim for the other side but with the notch at the bottom.
Fit the two ship plates together with the notches fitting into each other and then cut the rod so that none of it shows outside of the shim.
Use CA (cyano-acrylate glue) to glue the rod to the bottom shim plate.
Make 5 other identical hinges.
Glue the 6 bottom shim plates onto the middle part of the shiled (the part that the gun and mounting are on). this will leave the exposed parts of the rods sticking up on each side of the middle plate.
Now, set the outside parts of the shiled onto the rods so that the shim plates fit over the rods. This will let the shiled plates fold.
To make the locks, drill holes in the front of the supports that hold the middle shiled piece to the mounting bracket at the front of the pedestal. Make rods of the appropriate length so that the oblong handle sticks out on each side of the folding part of the shield, and the inner point of the rod fits into the holes drilled in the mounting bracket. (Note, the port side rod is slightly longer than the starboard)
Create a shallow trough on the folding shileds by gluing a small sliver of plastic on either side of the locks. Lay the locks into the shallow troughs just made, and then glue small rods over top of the troughs or make small U-shaped pieces of rod that will go over. (I used the U-shaped method and drilled through the shields so that just a tiny bit protruded through the other side to look like rivets which I saw in some photos of the real ones.)
Make sure that the locks are still able to slide in and out of the throughs just made, but will be held in place by the U-bolts.
Now, you can lock the shields in the open position by pushing the locks into the holes in the mounting brackets, or you can leave the shield in the folded position by pulling the locks out slightly so that they don't fit into the holes.
Attach the appropriate stops on the face of the shield so that they don't fold past 90 degrees.
To make the gun rotate, drill a hile in the basse of the pedestal the same thickness as a large paper clip. Straighten out a paper clip and glue in the hole you just drilled so that it sticks down 2 or 3 centimeters.
Take a wooden dowel or scrap plastic sprue and drill a hole through the middle the same size as the paper clip.
Drill a hole in the deck the same size as the paper clip in the middle of where the pedestal will sit.
Stick the paper clip through the hole and put the drilled dowel on the underside of the deck over the paper clip that protrudes. This dowel will make the bottom of the gun mount that is inside the base of the wintergarten. Line up the holes for the paper clip, then glue the hollow dowel taking care that no glue gets on the paper clip.
If you have drilled out the drainage holes along the sides of the conning tower/wintergarten, you will vaguelly be able to see this pedestal from outside, so shape it as needed to give the appropriate silhouette when see through the drainage holes.
Make sure that the paper clip extends longer than the dowel, it can go through the deck into the casing if desired.
Assemble it all together and glue a cap over the part of the paper clip that extends outside of the pedestal so that it can't be pulled out.
The reason why you want the paper clip to be so long as to go through the deck into the cassing is that the longer you can make the paper clip, the smoother the gun will rotate without wobbling.
To make the gun elevate, assmble it in the mounting but do not glue. Locate where the trunnion (pivots) will be and drill a hole the same size as the paper clip through both the mounting brackets AND the gun barrel. Make a trunnion out a short piece of paper clip and cover the ends to look like in the photos.
There, now you have a gun that elevates/depresses, rotates and the shields open and fold shut just like in the real ones. The added advantage of using brass rod/shim and paper clips is strength. These pivots and hinges will be far stronger than the original parts, but still operate like real.
