Hello All,

Second member of cannon crew done.
Absolutely fantastic. All credit to my colleague.

I'm planning to have a small scenery separate from the ship, with a little rectangular decking area with a 12-pounder gun rigged and the crew members around it.
Basically it will be similar to the cut-out in the kit, but placed separately.
The rest of the marines (officers, captain, admiral, etc.) will be just lined up in a row.
I'm also planning to have a long name plate indicating who is who, similar to the Victory name plaque.

Hello Everyone,

I've been quiet in the last few weeks, working hard on the cabinet.

- First, I bought and assembled one size bigger (30x30) aluminium profile, you might remember that the 20x20 was bending too much under 45 kgs load.
- The lift mechanism is now extended, I made the four pulleys leading the ropes from the spindles to the corner of the cabinet.
- The whole mechanics put onto a table. How incredible it is, the alu frame just fit in between the legs.
- The frame was loaded with 45 kgs (representing the glass panels and all the cabinet parts), and yay... the mechanics is able to raise/lower the frame (driven by a battery drill driver).

Unfortunately after all these success, quite a few failures came.
- The selected 12V DC motor was not strong enough to raise the mechanics, regardless how much power (amps) it was provided.
- Hence I bought a cheap 12V battery drill driver, as per experienced with my 18V driver, due to its geared motor is strong enough to bear the load.
- However now the 5A power supply wasn't big enough, the drill driver takes more than 5 Amps.
- I managed to get hold of a power supply from a tower PC, which, in theory, can provide 17A on the 12V outputs. However this also failed... In order to get the total 17 Amps out of it, I joined all the 12V outputs together, but now the power supply shuts off on higher load. I guess one of the 12V outputs has some protection on high load making it turn off.
- Now I borrowed a 12V motor cycle battery with 110Amps output from my colleague. If it won't be able to move the load then nothing. I'm hoping that I'll be able to measure the current requires to move the load and then get a suitable proper power supply.

Because all of these failures I got annoyed a bit and started to work on the cabinet itself:
- Ship cradles made
- Stand for the name plaque made
They will be stained either to walnut or red chestnut colour. Not decided yet.

Also, thanks to my colleague, now I've got four figurines in total:
- crouching crewman with shot
- crouching crewman with barrel
- crouching gun captain
- crouching crewman covering ears

Hello All,

Further progress with the display cabinet:

- Ceiling drilled and temporary ropes feed through
- I used decorative covers to make the holes look nice, this cover usually used for satellite cable fed into the room but perfectly suits for my application
- Mechanics installed to the loft
- Decorative hardwood moulding fitted to the side of the frame with gorilla glue. That was the only type of glue what I found to able to fix wood to aluminium reliably. It's very a good stuff.
- Another moulding fitted but his one onto the top of the frame. This half will be on the outer side of the glass panels.
- Once everything dried, two coats of wood stain applied to the mouldings
- The ship cradles and the name plate stand also stained

Slowly getting there.

Very impressive and well thought out design.

Hope it all continues well.

Tony

Thank you guys for the nice comments.

Operation Code: “Don’t chop your fingers off”...

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, to fit glass panels onto the frame without being injured and/or breakig the glass... As always, should any part of your hands/arms be injured, the H&S Secretary will disavow all knowledge of your actions.

Hello Guys,

After two weeks of waiting, finally the glass panels arrived. I also got some off cut pieces to try out what glue I should use.
The first trial was already successful with clear gorilla glue, so I stick () with it.

Cabinet frame lowered down to the upstairs hallway floor and the first two panels placed into the slots and glued together.

Now waiting for the glue to dry.
Next step will be to fix the LED strip light channels to the panels already in place, then fit the second long side panel.

Slowly, but getting there to complete the cabinet.

This is a piece of art in itself as well as engineering. This will look stunning when finished.

Mark

Hello All,

Today the cabinet was lifted to it's final position.
With the help from couple of my friends we lifted the cabinet over the handrail while the rope was winded up in the loft with the lift mechanism.

I think the cabinet looks good, now I just need to connect the electric wires for the LED strips and cover the bottom of the frame before I place the ship inside.

Hi Laszlo,
what a stunning piece of work. Congratulations!!
Chris