Bucha, Ukraine - 27 Feb 2022 - 15mm

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Project Entry by oriskany

Making Heavy Support Weapons for my Dad

November 14, 2021

Tutoring 11

Skill 11

Idea 11

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Good morning folks. So my Dad’s been playing around in his workshop, and he’s built this amazing little “jeep-like” vehicle. He wasn’t working from any plans or drawings, just goofing around and this was the result.

I told him it looks a little like the Chevrolet 30cwt trucks the LRDG used to have in the desert. He said he wanted me to make some weapons on the back like he used to see in the old “Rat Patrol” TV show.

So I thought I would try building some heavy MGs out of wood in the similar motif as he has for the truck. Those old Chevrolet 30cwt were 5.3 meters accoridng to what I can find, which is about 18 feet, which is handy since this model happens to be about 18 inches.

So we’ll be working at a pretty simple 1:12 scale, a foot to an inch. The overall weapon will be about 6-7 inches.

Let’s get to work.

Those old Chevrolet 30cwt were 5.3 meters accoridng to what I can find, which is about 18 feet, which is handy since this model happens to be about 18 inches. So we'll be working at a pretty simple 1:12 scale, a foot to an inch. The overall weapon will be about 6-7 inches.

Rummaging around in my Dad's shop, I find some rounded dowels I can use for barrels and air jackets. Using the belt sander, I can work on getting them to about the right width.

Next, the spool sander is used to but the jackets and the barrels to the right length. Handy for small wood like we're working with here.

The vertical drill press is used to drill out the air jacket pieces just enough to fit in the end of the barrels. We'll also use this to drill out the muzzle / flash suppressors later in the project.

Here are the "completed" air jackets.

Barrels inserted in the air jackets.

The barrels, jackets, and receivers are now all put together. Clearly we're going to a twin .50cal M2HB mount.

Pintle cradle is now made, the receivers are now mounted, along with other bits and especially big ammo feed cans on either wing of the assembly.

Normally the M2HB has butterfly triggers on the rear of the receiver. For twin mounts, there is an "adaptor" that hooks the two weapons together so a single set of centered butterflies will operate both weapons in synchronization.

Muzzle brakes are now made, gunnery sight, and of course the pintle mount (with a big magnet for the usual swivel-mount we always use with tanks and such - just on a bigger scale)