IX inch Dahlgren pivot carriage

[Uhlan]

I'm working on a 3D model that will be printed for a model ship a friend is building. The ship has 4 9" Dahlgrens on Marsilly carriages, and a 5th 9" on a pivot carriage. There's a nice image of a 9" gun on a pivot carriage available from the Library of Congress, except a lot of it details are obscured by men, deck furniture, and the like. The carriage portion is obviously different than that usually found under the 11" gun; note the top of it doesn't slope downward, but what I can see of it doesn't match the Marsilly or the Naval 4-Truck carriage, so it's not a modified version of those. This is the only image of this carriage I've been able to find, and there's other details I need.
I'm assuming the slide is standard-ish, and unless I find out differently, that's what I'm going with.
The other image shows my progress so far. I feel the trucks on the carriage are too large.

The question here is does anyone know of photos or drawing anywhere of this carriage and slide for a IX Dahlgren?

When the model's done I intend to make the STL available on Thingiverse along with the Marsilly version, and probably an XI inch Dahlgren, as well; since drawings of it are much easier to come by.
I did a 10" shell gun on a pivot carriage (below) for the Mississippi; that is posted on Thingiverse.

 

[drezac]

You might try the plates from "Artillery for the United States Land Service" - There is a good chance it's based off of one of those plates.
It's available from the Library of Congress. It's huge and a little hard to search. I would suggest also using a copy of the book ( there were 2 parts, part 2 had all the plates) The book can easily be found in google books. you can use the book to find out what plate you need. The link for the plate book in the LOC is
Artillery for the United States Land Service Part 2
Google Books
Artillery for the United States Land Service part 1

 

[Uhlan]

You might try the plates from "Artillery for the United States Land Service" - There is a good chance it's based off of one of those plates.
It's available from the Library of Congress. It's huge and a little hard to search. I would suggest also using a copy of the book ( there were 2 parts, part 2 had all the plates) The book can easily be found in google books. you can use the book to find out what plate you need. The link for the plate book in the LOC is
Artillery for the United States Land Service Part 2
Google Books
Artillery for the United States Land Service part 1

Thank you - I'll check that out ASAP!

While I figure out that pivot carriage, I went ahead an made a Marsilly carriage, since I have lots of data for it. Already having the tube made, it only took a couple of hours to make the carriage. I printed 4 of them in 1:96 for someone making a model of the Harriet Lane (where the pivot gun is going as well) but I'm printing one in 1:36 for my own project. That file is posted on Thingiverse for anyone interested.

 

[Uhlan]

I still haven't found any real data on the pivot carriage in the Miami/Mendota photo except a better quality version of the same image, and another in the series showing a little of at back on the gun. I finished the model with a jar of comjecture I had on the shelf.

The Harriet Lane also carried 2 24pdr Dahlgren howitzers on swivel mounts, which I modeled from a rescaled barrel of a light 12 pdr boat howitzer and photos of Porter leaning against a rifled version, and a pair on board the Vermont.

Here's the IX inch alongside the 10" shell gun on the Constellation model in 1:36 scale.

I just finished an 8" shell gun of 63 cwt on a naval truck carriage for my sampler of every gun Constellation carried...

 

[Story]

For what it's worth, here's a 9" drawing.

 

[Story]

Another

https://www.go2gbo.com/attachments/scan_20151212-jpg.71326/

from a quest similar to yours https://www.go2gbo.com/threads/marsilly-carriage.262904/

 

[Manassas 1861]

Very cool

 

[Story]

So for anyone wanting a Marsilly style pivot, here ya go (and already on Shapeways)

Shapeways & Thangs Marketplace for 3D Creators - Shapeways Blog

Discover the Thangs Marketplace powered by Shapeways — a new 3D printing platform where creators can sell, print, and share designs.

www.shapeways.com

But you wanted a gun truck pivot.

 

[Story]

Andy Hall would have been the one to ask, but he does not come to CWT anyone

Moving the Big Guns on Alabama

Over at CivilWarTalk, there was an inquiry as to how the big, mounted artillery on ships like Alabama were moved about. When you look at a model or drawing of a CW-era ship, the deck often seems …

deadconfederates.com

 

[Uhlan]

View attachment 499369
But you wanted a gun truck pivot.

There's an 11 inch on an iron pivot carriage on my list, so this will be very helpful with that.
I put one on a wooden pivot carriage, sine data for that is everywhere. Here it is with the 9 inch.

I'm almost done another gun on my list, the 32 pounder shot gun. Some adjusting to do, but here's a pic of it with the 8 inch shell gun and Ron the Rammer.

And I started on the Parrott rifles, both a 20pdr and a 30pdr.

I have a 100pdr Parrott to do yet, but I have a lot of pictures of those to work from

 

[Uhlan]

As I worked on the bigger Parrotts I was sent some data I lacked, and so readjusted the tubes to those dimensions, redid the breeches on all of them, and made the cascables.

The 100 pounder

The 150 pounder

Comparison of the 100pdr 10" Parrott and the XI inch Dahlgren

I cannot find a drawing or image of a 30 pdr Parrott on a pivot carriage anywhere (or a 20 pounder either, for that matter). This is what I concocted for the 30pdr. I swear the folks at the Constellation showed me a drawing of a pivot carriage for the Parrotts she carried from the National Archives, but I can't seem to find that on the archive's site. This is my trying to remember what I saw some 20 years later.

 

[Uhlan]

I actually took some photos of those plans I saw at Constellation, and found them on my hard-drive looking for something else. I didn't think I'd need a copy, but took some quick pics just for interest. With this ammo, I redid the 30 pounder...

I need to change the cap-squares, and finish some more details. Here it is along-side the 10" shell-gun it replaced on Constellation.

By the Civil War the Navy took to painting gun carriages black instead of Olive, I made it brown so it could be seen in the pics.

Here it's printed in 1:96 scale to go with the rest of the Harriett Lane's battery

and here's the 32 pounder gun printed at 1:36 scale

 

[cannonmn]

Sir, I'm researching the 20 pounder Navy Parrott rifle. I can't seem to find any photos showing one mounted on a proper w0 pounder Navy carriage. Do you have any you could share? We're both truck and pivot carriages available? Thanks!

 

[cannonmn]

I recently combed thru the Archives' long list of Navy drawings in RG74 and found about a dozen described as "carriage." Dates of the drawing were given. After eliminating about 9 that by date or description, couldn't be for 20 or 30 pdr Parrott, I should have the 3 possibles in hand soon and will of course share.

 

[Uhlan]

I always assumed the Parrott in this picture of "the powder monkey" was a 30 pounder, but it turns out it's a 60 pounder.
Even the carriage is a little different than the usual Marsilly, so I had yet another Parrott to model.

It turns out when the Cumberland was towed out of Gosport, she went to Boston (or Portsmouth, since there's a picture of her there in that time frame) to complete repairs, and her aft 10 inch pivot was replaced with a 60# Parrott pivot gun. Buchanan says he steered Virginia for Cumberland because of this rifled gun, which he perceived as his biggest threat.
This model's carriage is based on that of the 100# & 150# pivots. I also found a commemorate piece on an auction house site regarding this gun.

Cumberland still mounted a 10 shell-gun pivot forward, which I also had yet to model.
In looking for data on that one I found a proposal by John Dahlgren dated July 31 1850 for how he though "First-Class Frigates" ought to be armed; that is, with six 10 inch shell-gun pivots on the spar-deck, and 26 9 inch shell-guns on the gun deck.

The Navy went with a very scaled down version of this idea; two 10 shell-gun pivots on the spar-deck, one fore, and one aft; and 8 inch shell-guns and some 32# cannons on the gun-deck. All the large frigates, razees, and sloops were armed in this manner, right into the war. Interestingly, the pivot carriage in Dahlgren's drawing is the same as the Traversing Carriage and Slide from Naval Ordnance Instructions, which makes sense as Spencer Tucker in his Arming the Fleet says; the carriage was the same as that for for the Columbiads (the Traversing Carriage shown), but widened to accommodate the larger Dahlgren gun body.

Dahlgren drew the Columbiad style breech on his gun, but I can find nothing showing a Dahlgren gun with that breech, until Rodman guns came along more than 10 years later. I scaled the XI tube I made down to the X, leaving the breech as it is in Dahlgren's patent drawings, and made the carriage according to the traversing carriage. The slide is the same as the one for the Mississippi pivot, except shorter and wider, so I adjusted my model of that to use here.

I used the 10 inch shell-gun of 86cwt for the pivots on my model of Constellation because that's what the folks at ship told me she had, but did she? The Mississippi pivot gun plan was drawn in June 1855 (5 years after Dahlgren's proposal drawing). Constellation was launched in August 1854 - a year before. She was commissioned in July 1856, a year after. It seems off to me the ship would be armed with something only drawn up a year after her launch. I suspect she got the same 10 inch pivots her contemporaries; Macedonian, Savannah, Cumberland, were armed with 10 inch Dahlgrens, so I printed a pair of them to replace the 82cwt guns on my model. since the slide is shorter than the 82cwt gun's, I had to make new deck tracks for it.

I haven't been able to document precisely what gun Constellation had for pivot, but this seems more likely than what I had, and if I find out differently, I'll change it again.

 

[Uhlan]

The guns I've printed got some paint, and the deck tracks were install on the Constellation model

The wooden wheeled field carriage for the boat howitzer also got painted

The iron-carriage XI inch Dahlgren is a work-in-progress, but here's the 3D model alongside the 100# Parrott. These guns were mounted on Constellation's gun-deck during the 1870's.

 

[DoctorKingSchultz]

I still haven't found any real data on the pivot carriage in the Miami/Mendota photo except a better quality version of the same image, and another in the series showing a little of at back on the gun. I finished the model with a jar of comjecture I had on the shelf.
View attachment 499353
The Harriet Lane also carried 2 24pdr Dahlgren howitzers on swivel mounts, which I modeled from a rescaled barrel of a light 12 pdr boat howitzer and photos of Porter leaning against a rifled version, and a pair on board the Vermont.
View attachment 499355 View attachment 499356

Here's the IX inch alongside the 10" shell gun on the Constellation model in 1:36 scale.
View attachment 499357

I just finished an 8" shell gun of 63 cwt on a naval truck carriage for my sampler of every gun Constellation carried...
View attachment 499358

Love the whole thread and the amateur guns. Are there many threads dedicated to stuff like gun models? I'll start making posts on them, I'm a modeler myself! Love all this research you guys provide us all by making these threads as well. What do you model with, can I ask? I'm a blender modeler, this doesn't seem to be blender though. Maya perhaps?

 

[Uhlan]

So for anyone wanting a Marsilly style pivot, here ya go (and already on Shapeways)

Shapeways & Thangs Marketplace for 3D Creators - Shapeways Blog

Discover the Thangs Marketplace powered by Shapeways — a new 3D printing platform where creators can sell, print, and share designs.

www.shapeways.com

View attachment 499369
But you wanted a gun truck pivot.

It seems this is a drawing of a movie-prop from the 1960s movie 40,000 Under the Sea
Here it is in the movie...

It isn't, and never was a real mount, though there obviously IX inch Dahlgrens, I can find anything showing them mounted on an iron pivot carriage.
I did find the 1875 Navy Ordnance and Gunnery manual on Google Books showing the below and other information

Based on that I've revised my 3D model which, so far, looks like...

There's a LOT of significant differences and I tossed the Abe Lincoln gun drawing as I have my hands full right now, modeling the real guns to add a movie prop to the list.
More pics and description at My Site

 

[Uhlan]

I think I have enough to start on this one now...

I also started a XV inch Dahlgren tube. I think I'll just do the tubes for these big boys and modelers can make whatever carriage they need to go with them.