Artillery

Mongo –Hi  I have partly made one.  It was a 6” QF (Mk XXIII I think). I found many of the bits in my scrap boxes when I got over here. I thought I had dumped the whole lot in the 90s. It used a variant of the Krupp sliding block.  The little pin on the breech handle fits into the notch in the lower part of the breech. As you rotate the breech handle the breech slides to the right.  The cut out on the breech was to allow the one end of the tails of the ejector fingers to rise up as breech block closed stuffing the cartridge into the seating on the block and pushing the ejector fingers down. When the breech had moved to the right, clear of the spent cartridge case, the breech block pushed ends of the ejector fingers down, which started the ejection process. A good breech worker could yank the breech open during the recoil phase which helped sling the red hot case out. There are some pics oi the album called Krupp

There is another way of spiral cutting groves inside a hole. This is by broaching them. The broach has the reverse image of the grooves and lands. It is cut on the ‘skew’ so that as it is pulled through the hole it will rotate. The broach was fixed and the tube was allowed to rotate, or vice versa. The rate of turn was determined by the angle of ‘skew’. I think you can figure it out for you self. I made some broaches for a friend of mine (who had a real works but gave me the right to skip dive his scrap bins). The broaches were to cut oil grooves down some ½ meter long rollers which were always wearing out or seizing solid from lack of lubrication. The broach was faced with tungsten carbide which was brazed on.

Mr Swann - Where are the recuperators?

Edited By Mongo on 19/11/2010 22:06:09

I am afraid I have totally given up on these things after my experiences in the U.K.  I still have knowledge and was writing a booklet on the way in which RMLs were rifled, but I dumped the lot on the fire, but my second wife found some notes which I had forgotten. They have now gone up the chimney too.  I have deliberately suppressed my knowledge although the sources still exist, I can do nothing about this. I will admit that I made a the necessary tool and tried it – it worked. Enough of this it is all forgotten!

Edited By ady on 20/11/2010 21:04:59