[WWI] Bulding Spandaus

Wed Jun 25 13:32:28 EDT 2008

I'd like to respond to comments/questions about difficulty in building Spandau guns - any scale. Rather than supplying a small encyclopedia of information, let me just say that our Spandaus use Harry Woodman's artwork(which is quite accurate if simple, and we use it by his sole permission - read his 1976 article!) and one of the main tricks is to anneal the jacket for rolling. This is easily done - do not use a "small" heat source - make sure you get the part(s) to about dull red heat(visible in a darkened room and quite adequate). We do this by putting something like a cast-iron plate(to spread the heat out) on our cooking appliance(gas in my case) and when it gets to dull red(a few minutes), you can slide the part off the heat with a toothpick or something. I do that right into the palm of my hand - they do not hold the heat - and presto! - soft as soft coper.

For rolling it, we do that on a rubber(resilient) pad with drill stock or something like that which should be just 3/4 of the desired diameter - even when soft there is a slight spring-back effect. For this exercise, pi = 3. Push down HARD, you can't hurt the parts. If you get it crooked, you can usually flatten it out and try again. In any case, we guarantee our stuff regardless of problem, just return it with an explanation.

Once rolled, you will find that the Fotokit parts just about snap together and you may use the paint as an adhesive!

Barrels can be made using hypodermic tubing(this has been discussed in a previous digest (day before yesterday, as I received it). Included in our instructions are the correct diameters for all the scales.

Most any paint can be used. We like good ol' Floquil, which used to be called "Roundhouse." It's solvent-based but that won't affect the brass parts and it stays on.