Personally, I love adding fun play features to my builds, although I do not "play" with them as such (I swear ).

Literally my first build after coming out of my dark ages some years ago, I created a mechanism that rolls out all guns of a ship simultaneously, and pulls them back in just enought to be able to close the gunports, by means of a knob at the rear of the ship.

So, I thought I would share this here.

In this boat (I would hesitate to call it a ship) three guns on each side are attached to axles, actuated by a crank mechanism. The axle underneath is for added rigidity.

Obviously, the rigidity of the axles limit the overal lenght at which this mechanism could work. If I were to have 14 guns along one side of the ship, the forward guns probably wouldn't roll out as far as the aft ones. But on larger vessels, presumably the outward curvature of the hull wouldn't allow for a mechanism like this anyway, if you choose to build a ship with a curved hull.

In this ship, the 24-t crank gears are both driven by the axle underneath it (with 8-t gears on it). This improved the rigidity and allowed for all guns to roll out and back perfectly.

A picture taken from the rear, guns out.

Guns rolled back, gunports closed. The 1 stud of horizontal movement that is allowed is just enough for the gunports to close, and enough to look menacing with the guns run out (although I don't have any pictures of the ship with the guns out )

So, I hope you can find a use for this mechanism and probably improve upon it. But in all probability someone already did something like this, maybe you can post pictures here!

Steady as she goes!

Really nice idea and well implemented.

Edited December 12, 20159 yr by blackdeathgr

Neat idea. You could motorize it and have the guns go in and out like they're firing and recoil. Motion like this MOC's mechanism.

Neat idea. You could motorize it and have the guns go in and out like they're firing and recoil. Motion like this MOC's mechanism.

I had considered this... On a large ship, it would probably be possible to have a mechanism, using Sebeus I's "functional capstan"-gearbox mechanism http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=86762 to have a gearshifter and turning knop control 1) rolling out all the guns, 2) full broadside, alternate fire recoils, 3) anchor mechanism and even 4) functioning cargo tackle rigging.

But that's for a future build...

This is really cool! If I ever get around to MOC'ing a large pirate ship I'll have to implement this.

Woow ... Awesome idea and well executed MOC.

That ship is lovely scaled as it could actually be an official LEGO set.

This is looking great !

As play features go this is nifty, and I like it better than motorized versions I've seen before. The ships look nice too, especially the last pic. Keep it up.

Beautiful ship, and very cool play-feature. Could you upload a video, and take more pictures of the finished ship? I'd like to see more :)

Great invention of yours!

Such a cool idea to creat that crank mechanism! Such a pity the guns aren't traditional but mini. Did you use the boat mini guns of Pirates 2015? I see 2 Armada boats are they both 6280 or one of them of 2001?

The following step on a larger vessel (due to space needed) would be rolling out the usual minifig canons using the same mechanism as described above with the help of this piece attached on the back of the canons:

https://alpha.brickl...289542#T=P&C=85

I imagine it can be tricky to align the canon horizontally so that your mechanism doesn't lift the whole thing up, but the way i imagine it seems a plausible idea if anyone has the time and wants to try it :)

Edited December 13, 20159 yr by blackdeathgr

Beautiful ship, and very cool play-feature. Could you upload a video, and take more pictures of the finished ship? I'd like to see more :)

I have long since taken this ship apart, but I have several more pics in this brickshelf folder: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=535370

Such a cool idea to creat that crank mechanism! Such a pity the guns aren't traditional but mini. Did you use the boat mini guns of Pirates 2015? I see 2 Armada boats are they both 6280 or one of them of 2001?

I just used the technic axle connectors because they're compact and somewhat look like cannons, my parts selection was still somewhat small. The hull parts I had bricklinked, I'm not fortunate enough to own the armada set (yet).

The following step on a larger vessel (due to space needed) would be rolling out the usual minifig canons using the same mechanism as described above with the help of this piece attached on the back of the canons:

https://alpha.brickl...289542#T=P&C=85

I imagine it can be tricky to align the canon horizontally so that your mechanism doesn't lift the whole thing up, but the way i imagine it seems a plausible idea if anyone has the time and wants to try it :)

Sure, on a large enough ship you could use the real cannons, but they're expensive. A technic axle connector (several variations are available) would surely look menacing enough, and they're easy to incorporate in a mechanism like this.

Wow! Very cool function there!

Very creative!

I think SebeusI had made something similar using Pneumatics.

I also use technic axle connectors as gun. What set are the sails from? I wish I could see your boat completed. What're your plans?

I also use technic axle connectors as gun. What set are the sails from? I wish I could see your boat completed. What're your plans?

What sails? The ship was never fully completed, I had planned on building several ships (including a large pirate ship with lots of play features) and do custom rigging and sails but never did. I have several more pics in the Brickshelf folder: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=535370 As for plans, well, I think ik could be a while before I do another pirates moc. I have an entire list of projects in my head but I can only build one theme at the time. For now, almost every square meter of horizontal surface in my Lego room has an Aquazone project on it....

I took a look at your Brickshelf folder... there's some good stuff in there. If you haven't done it in the past you should post that fort here on EB - it looks great. And Auqazone is one of the few themes besides Town, Castle and of course Pirates that I actually like!

I took a look at your Brickshelf folder... there's some good stuff in there. If you haven't done it in the past you should post that fort here on EB - it looks great. And Auqazone is one of the few themes besides Town, Castle and of course Pirates that I actually like!

Indeed! The bluecoat fort seems daunting and very cleverly built!

I really like this idea! It's great to see Technic mechanisms implemented into a ship MOC!

Great idea, though I am a bit indifferent on the color scheme, I still love your thinking.

Terrific idea, I hope to implement something similar in my next build.