1/35 M114A1 155mm Howitzer in Viet Nam, 9-15-13, Details

[redleg12]

Andy - A use for Legos, no matter what our age!! Thanks for stopping by.

Gary - Ahhhh...the days when the Army actually had engineers. Today we would have a civilian contractor come out, how things have changed. Thanks for the peek and the comments.

Rounds Complete!!

[Tobi]

Jul 8, 2013 5:46:42 GMT -5 redleg12 said:

Andy - A use for Legos, no matter what our age!! Thanks for stopping by.

Gary - Ahhhh...the days when the Army actually had engineers. Today we would have a civilian contractor come out, how things have changed. Thanks for the peek and the comments.

Rounds Complete!!

Next evolution step is a civilian contractor, not doing the work but telling you how to do the work = consultor!

Cheers,
Tobi

[sturmbird]

Jul 8, 2013 5:46:42 GMT -5 redleg12 said:

Andy - A use for Legos, no matter what our age!! Thanks for stopping by.

Gary - Ahhhh...the days when the Army actually had engineers. Today we would have a civilian contractor come out, how things have changed. Thanks for the peek and the comments.

Rounds Complete!!

probably the hardest I ever worked in my life!
gary

[sturmbird]

Jul 8, 2013 5:53:45 GMT -5 Tobi said:

Jul 8, 2013 5:46:42 GMT -5 redleg12 said:

Andy - A use for Legos, no matter what our age!! Thanks for stopping by.

Gary - Ahhhh...the days when the Army actually had engineers. Today we would have a civilian contractor come out, how things have changed. Thanks for the peek and the comments.

Rounds Complete!!

Next evolution step is a civilian contractor, not doing the work but telling you how to do the work = consultor!

Cheers,
Tobi

they flew those two guys out in a slick and left them. Said they'd pick them up in a couple hours when the rain slowed down. They were there about a half hour when they started shooting zone sweeps due north, and that left them a little shaken. Then they came into pick them up, and the mortar tubes started to rain 82mm rounds, and these guys liked to came unglued! (Hell the rounds were landing four hundred yards out from us). The slick left them again. Told them they had to be at the pad before the chopper came or they wouldn't wait for the sorry butts. They ended up spending the night and caught a lift on a CH46 bringing out ammo at about 8:00am. Over the night we got a couple dozen mortar rounds and the guys were begging for a flak jacket. I gave one of them mine to shut him up! Randy and I had our first "pre Halloween bash" that night, and kept them awake all night. They came back in the early afternoon with a plan, and we went to work (course they left fifteen minutes later at combat speed). About two days later this bird colonel and our Colonel came out to inspect our progress. Our guy was Ok, but somewhat nerdy. The other guy was a REMF first class. No sooner than their chopper lands we catch a dozen or so mortar rounds, and the guy is wanting to back home. Our guy just threw on a flak jacket and went about his job. Our guy asked us what we needed, and Randy said a chain saw would be nice, and in about two hours there was one in our hands (we had to give it back). The problem was that it was electric! Tommy (KIA 2/22/69) came to the rescue with a 10KW generator (we had to give that back too). Top came around and asked Randy and I if we thought our shake & bake Sargent was a dud, or was he the only one? He was outta there in about a month or so.

[redleg12]

Tobi - Soooo true

Gary - As always love the memories.

OK....for those reading REMF is Rear Echelon Mother F..... The REMFs usually did not do well around things that go boom!

Rounds Complete!!

[wbill76]

Nice to see you're smelling the resin again (or will be soon!) Mike! Always love seeing the little details come to life in your build projects.

[redleg12]

Bill - I love the wonders of chemistry!! Thanks for the peek.

rounds Complete!!

[bbd468]

Hiya Mike, awesome job on this project! Ill say this....Ive played Golf 100's of times and i still cant cast a Fly Rod....much less cast anything for my modeling! I know thats got to be handy to do that, but if it takes as long to learn to do as it did for me to play Golf.....IM SCREWED!!! Well done Mike.

[redleg12]

BBD - LOL....I totally inhale at golf...you need to listen to Robin Williams talk about golf. As for resin, it is a matter of patience. It is not for everyone and is a bit of an investment but... if you use ammunition, crates and other items in the volumes I do, it is worth it in the long run. Thanks for the comments and the laugh.

Rounds Complete!!

[sturmbird]

Jul 8, 2013 20:52:48 GMT -5 bbd468 said:

Hiya Mike, awesome job on this project! Ill say this....Ive played Golf 100's of times and i still cant cast a Fly Rod....much less cast anything for my modeling! I know thats got to be handy to do that, but if it takes as long to learn to do as it did for me to play Golf.....IM SCREWED!!! Well done Mike.

probably one of two reasons why you can't cast a fly rod. First is that you can't move the rod like a spinning rod or a bait casting rod. You lock up your wrist instead of flexing it. Plus most guys try to cast the rod too hard. You don't have to! Second is that most guys start out with a back cast, and don't wait for the line to straiten out. They then get wind knots and hear the pop as they move the rod forward. Slow down and count to three as the line goes back. If you still hear the pop, then goto four. It's all in timing. I'm learning the art of big water rods right now, and it's not been easy. I'm used to the light weight stuff. But I'm finally getting there. I still cast a little too hard, but I'm slowly taking that down a notch or two.
gary

By the way I got new irons and a new putter (again!) If it ever stops raining long enough, I'll get to seriously try them out instead of moaning about the weather

[dupes]

Mike - love what you've got going on here!

Jul 7, 2013 19:13:42 GMT -5 redleg12 said:

Then mix up rubber mold compound, I use Smooth Cast Mold Max 30, pour the molding compound into the mold boxes. Then it is off to the pressure pot and let the molds cure overnight under 30 psi of pressure.

Question about the pressure pot - what do you gain by using it? Stronger molds? Less air bubbles? Something else entirely I'm not thinking of?

[redleg12]

Gary - At your age let not discuss your putter!!

Marc - Thanks for stopping by. The pressure pot forces the resin into all the very small spots but mostly it is to release any air bubbles in the liquid resin. This will avoid voids and bubbles in the finished product.

The molds that you use for pressure casting also needs to be set under pressure. If not when the atmospheric mold is put under pressure, any bubbles near the mold cavity will break and resin will flow into these causing a surface bubble in the finished product.

Rounds Complete!!

[sturmbird]

Jul 10, 2013 5:40:20 GMT -5 redleg12 said:

Gary - At your age let not discuss your putter!!

Marc - Thanks for stopping by. The pressure pot forces the resin into all the very small spots but mostly it is to release any air bubbles in the liquid resin. This will avoid voids and bubbles in the finished product.

The molds that you use for pressure casting also needs to be set under pressure. If not when the atmospheric mold is put under pressure, any bubbles near the mold cavity will break and resin will flow into these causing a surface bubble in the finished product.

Rounds Complete!!

I tried the putter last night, and it shoots strait as an arrow. Doesn't matter if it rains real hard or the sun is bright. Seems to be best on a full moon and during thunderstorms

Now the real issue has risen at my place. The "Devine Ms G" as asked me to teach her to fly fish! Now I have to figure out a way to get out of this, or the rest of my life will be in ruins! I knew right from the get go that I should never have taken her with me to Flymasters awhile back! Maybe I can break my arm?
gary

[bullardino]

I'm really enjoing this build, each new instalment pushes the limit forward making it more and more identical to the real one

[sturmbird]

a comment on the phone, and not really important. Virtually every arty unit I encountered used a small phone that came in a bag that was about the size of your shaving kit you travel with. I think it either used two C cells or two D cell batteries. A loud speaker around a 155 or larger wouldn't have lasted long due to the concussion. Plus the closer you are to the muzzle the more intense the concussion. We always placed our phone guy just outside the spades at the end of the trails. That way he's out of everybody's way. The phone cord (cable or whatever you want to call it) is rather long as you are shooting 360 degrees, and that phone is in somebody's hands 24/7.

Where you placed the rounds and powder to be shot is your call, and everybody did it their own way. The rounds will normally be placed very close to the inside of the trail the gunner sets on, and just to the right of the loader almost always. You cannot put them under the breech for safety reasons alone. I tried placing the powder bags to the right side of the rounds to be shot a couple times, and if your just shooting two or three rounds it's OK. But if your doing a one round zone sweep (which was too common), you had nine rounds laying there. You reach for the powder and knock the rounds over like bowling pins. Plus you may end up with a broken foot. Remember the recoil from a 155 will decapitate you rather quickly! Powder placed on top the trails is done by some folks. Yet if your shooting cut charges, the bags are not all that tightly tied together. The recoil and jump from the carriage will place powder all over the ground. Then you gotta call the gun out for a couple minutes in the middle of a shooting match. Trust me the First Sargent will not be pleased, and you likely will be out of a job thirty minutes later. Yet some crews placed a wooden platform atop that trail to place the powder on top of. This system works well. Plus it allows the section chief to verify the charge size. We simply used a projo pallot placed on the ground right beside the chief, and he would hand them over to you.

A gun shooting H&I's might only be shooting 25 rounds, and then again maybe shooting 300+ rounds. Down on LZ Gator we really only shot in a 270 degree arc as we had the ocean to our backs. Plus we rarely shot more than 50 rounds a night. Out west we shot 250 to 350 rounds a night in a full 6400 mill circle. That's a lot of powder and rounds! Normally your shooting charge seven white bags, and all the green bag stuff comes in early in the night (you shoot the full circle two to three times). We would place the powder at the rear of the gun out of the parapet, and that was usually a pile of about fifty or sixty charges. You set these stacks up all around the parapet, after finding out from FDC what their intell targets would be. Then you'd just grab three or four charges off the stack at one time. Nobody gets in a serious hurry shooting H&I's, but everybody gets in a hurry with a regular fire mission. A contact fire mission is shot at light speed, and my First Sargent actually had a stop watch! People's lives depend on the quality of your performance. I've seen 105 unites shoot five hundred rounds a night more than once, and I've also seen 105 units shoot a dozen or two a night when it came to H&I's.
M102 units often designated one gun crew to shoot illumination rounds for units that were working around them. They often shot them like H&I's but usually there was somebody out there. Then there was their own H&I gun to boot. We did the samething a few times, but not often. Then there is the "defcon" issue. Normally one or two pieces, but have seen three pieces with the third gun shooting illumination rounds on the same targets. Shooting a defcon is very critical, and almost always used contact lots of powder and projos to targets within 500 yards of a surrounded unit. The other three guns will also be placed on that same azmuth, and each crew will have shot at least a couple rounds on that target to be ready just in case. No H&I's on those nights, and they can be scarey for everybody! I shot once defcon on top the Hiep Duc Ridge for a surrounded platoon (196th infantry) that lasted three long days. Those rounds were all within 250 yards. There is zero room for error.
gary

[rbaer]

Wow, I really should have looked at this thread earlier, great work.
I'll be watching the mold-making too, very interesting.

[redleg12]

Luigi - Thanks, glad you are enjoying this. Those comments make the blog worth while

Gary - Yep, the telephone would be a TA-312 which comes in a green zipper bag, crank on the side. My scratch TA-312 is out of the bag. Yes it used 2 BA-30s or D cells.

As for the ammunition placement, it is like a well choreographed show...if anything is out of place everyone is tripping over each other.

Dicky - Thanks for the comments. We all suck at something. It is the reason we all visit here to teach and learn from each other. I am glad you are learning a bit about casting. Remember what EOD people say, "The last thing you need to learn to become an explosive expert will kill you"

Rbaer - Hey, great to see you buddy. Thanks for the peek and more casting this week.

Rounds Complete!!

[sturmbird]

Jul 13, 2013 7:15:20 GMT -5 redleg12 said:

Luigi - Thanks, glad you are enjoying this. Those comments make the blog worth while

Gary - Yep, the telephone would be a TA-312 which comes in a green zipper bag, crank on the side. My scratch TA-312 is out of the bag. Yes it used 2 BA-30s or D cells.

As for the ammunition placement, it is like a well choreographed show...if anything is out of place everyone is tripping over each other.

Dicky - Thanks for the comments. We all suck at something. It is the reason we all visit here to teach and learn from each other. I am glad you are learning a bit about casting. Remember what EOD people say, "The last thing you need to learn to become an explosive expert will kill you"

Rbaer - Hey, great to see you buddy. Thanks for the peek and more casting this week.

Rounds Complete!!

you don't want to be tripping on anything with that firing lock just above your head! Does not forgive. We tried to keep it where we just had three guys between the trails and up by the breech. The other guy stayed well back out of the way of the recoil and close to the spades till needed. Right before I landed in country a guy in Charlie Battery tripped the firing lock with his head while reaching down for a round. Lessons were learned from this, and of course some lessons were final. I had one guy that would lay the rammer staff right beside the rounds to keep from going back after it, we clashed a couple times over this and I offer to put it where the sun don't shine much.
gary

[redleg12]

Well been busy working on casting. Once the rubber sets you cut the mold on either side to remove the master. The mold on the left has had the master removed. You can see the space on top for the pour block. The one on the right still needs the master removed.



I use a 5-gallon pail lid which fits inside the pressure pot. With handles on the lid, it allows me to fill all the molds and carry them to the pressure pot, seal and pressurize.



Well 10 parts of A, 9 parts of B, a bit of time in the pressure pot and…..



Clear molds, dust with a bit of baby powder and go again. Filling the ammunition bunker. Back soon.

As always if you have any comments, please feel free to drop in.

Rounds Complete!!

[Leon]

Nice work on the castings Mike.Going to look sweet all painted up.

[redleg12]

Leon - Thanks....time consuming but worth it!!

Rounds Complete!!

[redleg12]

Dicky - Thanks, glad to show the "art" of casting

Rounds Complete!!

[wbill76]

Legos, pink molds, what's happening here??? Good thing it all ends up OD in the end eh Mike?

[redleg12]

Bill - ...proof that it is a good family behind a good man....toys from the children and pink from the wife....sounds good...LOL...OD coming soon! Thanks my friend

Rounds Complete!!

[rbaer]

So, 1-piece molds? I can see that for "round" objects, but what about all those iddy-biddy little pieces in, for instance, the Legends IDF conversions I'm making myself blind with? I'm getting pretty curious here, and kind of tired of making MG scissor mounts for Urdan cupolas.....

[redleg12]

Rbaer - To be honest I am not good casting those tiny fragile things. Since I don't do this for sale or living, it works to keep me stocked in crates, packs, bed rolls, ammunition & commo equipment. A man has to know his imitations!! I have probably cast and used over 300 105mm crates, that alone has made my casting worth while. Thanks for the peek and for the comments.

Rounds Complete!!

[bullardino]

I wait eagerly to see them painted, they will be the perfec complement to an awesome gun

[redleg12]

Luigi - Thanks for the confidence....coming soon

Rounds Complete!!

[Mence]

Very nice work, those castings a top drawer.

[redleg12]

Prof - Thanks for stopping by and for the comments

Rounds Complete!!