Had a ton to do yesterday but this model was on my mind all day! The more I look at it the more I get all the intricacies you performed to build it and would guess something on the order of 100 components. Like the elevation and turret drives all the way down to the round head rivets. The most intriguing is the firing mechanism with (I'm guessing) a spring loaded pull. I tried to zoom in on the breach also to see if there was some kind of ejector but could see well enough. Your working Ships Gun is a true work of art, craftsmanship and engineering!!

I'm a big fan of the Internet Craftsman Museum down in Carlsbad and hope to go there some day. Your model rivals some of the best I have seen on their site and do hope that you share with them some day as well!!

Checked out your site and busted me up the first thing on your software was a Catanary calculator. Couldn't open it in Win7 but will load it on my XP laptop to give it a spin. It made me look up a spread sheet I made back around 2000 to calc all the Cat affects for various tubing materials and lengths (up to 20') for the drill machines I designed and built. The calcs were just so I could strategically place some pneumatics, delrin V blocks, springs and quadrature counts that would allow the 20' linear drive to squirt a 20' stick through the headstock...A fun rush back through time. Great website chocked full of useful info and tools!!

Thank you kindly for sharing your wizardry, ideas and talents with us! ~PJ