by Michael Maynard
1/16 11” Dahlgren Naval Gun (Verlinden)
The Dahlgren Cannon was chosen by designer John Ericsson to arm his break through design of the ironclad USS Monitor. The Monitor’s 29’ revolving turret carried two of these huge rifled guns that were capable of firing a variety of shot. Despite the weight of shell exchanged during that four and a half hour naval battle, neither the Monitor nor the Virginia(Merrimac) could claim victory. One thing was realized by the Union and the Confederacy, all wooden warships, both in America and around the world, were rendered obsolete. The age of the metal warship had begun.
A customer that had ordered this Verlinden kit returned it to the hobby shop where I was employed. The kit was missing a number of key parts so the owner refunded the customers’ money. Attempts to get the parts from the manufacturer proved fruitless so I purchased the model “as is“ with the idea of scratch building the missing pieces. The entire model was resin cast and cleaned up pretty easily. The difficult part was fabricating the missing items- there were no directions in the box! After exploring the internet I was able to locate a set of online pictures of the models parts and a set of drawings. I used my best judgment in building the gun, the drawings left a lot of unanswered questions. I used 1/4 inch aircraft plywood for the carriage and 1/8th inch ply for the wheel assembly. I cut wood dowels for the wheels and covered them with brass tubing. Model railroad plastic rivets were applied with “odds and ends” from the junk box to round out the model. Evergreen plastic was utilized for the rest of the missing items. With assembly complete, the model was airbrushed with Testors Military colors. The planked “deck” base was dusted with chalk after painting and sealed with dullcoat. Not being an “artillery modeler”, I was surprised with how well it turned out.
