"6mm Gun Barrel Bending Problem " Topic

Hello,
which manufacturer has not the Bending problems with Gun Barrels.

Mine are mostly GHQ and CNC, they all bend.

is it the manufacturer that has the problem or the person using them? ALL models of any scale that I have bend even when I'm careful, but it is definitely my fault.

This is the number one reason I do not collect 1/285 armor any longer.

Scotia or Heroics have the same problem?

I've not had any problems with gun barrels bending on any 6mm tanks. I've been using them for over 30 years.

They all have the same problem. Gun barrels are thin.

CNC, due to the packaging, are least likely to be bent when you buy them, I think.

Scotia gun barrels often arrive looking like snakes, but once you straighten them out, they are sturdier because they are thicker.

The H&R barrels aren't bad, but smaller calibre guns will always have thin barrels.

I have many H&R and Scotia. With tank guns below 75mm, it is often worth it to drill out and replace with pins or thinner strong wire. Not difficult once you get the hang of it. I have done about 1000 this way, working in small batches of about 12 at a time. With GHQ, I think the metal might be too hard to drill easily – but due to expence I don't have any of their tanks. With wheeled guns, if barrel is thin, glue a crew member touching the barrel, and problem is solved.

Bending is not a problem with proper handling, breaking is a problem.

I have GHQ, CinC, Scotia and H&R tanks in my collection, as well as some very old Skytrex (from when Skytrex made 1/300 scale models).

The only ones that do not suffer the risk of bending are the Skytrex models. For them, the barrels were not cast, but rather were metal rods stuck into the cast turret or casemate. So much the same as Durban's suggestion, but coming that was from the vendor. Nice to have un-bendable barrels, but frequently atrocious castings that were often not good enough for me to accept as adequate for gaming.

I have 3 ways of coping with the risk of bent barrels at this scale:

1) Store them to minimize bending
I have taken to storing my micro armor in plastic hinged boxes, of the style that CinC uses to pack and ship. GHQ used to use similar plastic boxes, but for years now use blister packs instead. I buy the boxes at trading card shops (baseball cards, Pokemon / MTG cards, etc.). I buy (or find) foam, cut it to half-height, and glue it into the plastic boxes to form pockets to put my tanks in. The half-height foam allows the barrel to lie on top of the foam while it holds the hull in place. Then I glue foam to the roof of the box, to sit on top of the turret and hold the whole tank in place. Cutting and gluing the foam to set up a box is just one of the steps in preparing my models … easily done while waiting for the paint to dry before dullcoting them. I can usually fit a company of tanks per plastic box, so it also helps me to organize my forces for storage and transport.

2) Learn how to straighten bent barrels
I find that the best tool is flat-head tweezers. I put the tweezers on the barrel and gently apply pressure. The key is NOT to try to bend the barrel to straighten it. Only try to press the barrel to straighten it. Press it, rotate a bit, and press it again. 5 or 10 seconds and it is straight, and was not weakened significantly in the process.

3) Figure out how to replace broken barrels
Even with due care, in stowage and in straightening, some barrels get broken over time. To replace them I now use the plastic tubing that most garment manufacturers use to attach labels to clothing. I have collected dozens of bits over time. They come in a few various sizes, and often have a sort of telescoping thickness near the base, so I can mimic lots of barrels by choosing from my selected bits. So when a barrel is actually broken, I snip it off at the base, drill a small indent to anchor (using a pin as often as an actual drill), select an appropriate bit of plastic tube, cut to length, super-glue it in place, add and shape a dab of white glue to the end if needed for a muzzle break, and once the glue is dried paint it. The result is a very durable, lasts forever (so far) solution. The plastic is flexible, so does not tend to hold a bend and never seems to break. I may find after many years that it dries and does break, but that hasn't happened to me yet.

BTW I've read in many other threads of how people base their tanks at this scale to "protect" them from mis-handling. My own observation is that bases do very little to protect the most fragile parts of tanks at this scale (the barrels, and any attached bits like AAMGs or antennas). In fact, in observing gamers' behavior at various cons, I think bases increase the risk to the tank barrels. Gamers tend to grab tank models by pinching from either side, but with a base this is difficult, so they instead try to scrape up the base off of the table, often flipping the tank. Even the weight of the very small tank model is enough, when upside down, to bend the barrel towards the base. Also makes my storage system untenable. So I'm not a fan of basing.

At least that's my approach. Your mileage may vary.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

My wife makes jewelry as a hobby, and one of the tools she uses (and I appropriated) is a plier with nylon jaws. It is soft enough to not mar the metal barrels, and wide enough to straighten the barrel along its whole length at once, relieving the stress at the bend. I find coming in with a light touch from two sides is enough to straighten most barrels, from a third side for the most gnarly. Works great on 15mm barrels and etched metal too.

Don

just discovered some of my dad's old 1/300 in amongst my Heroics and Ros tanks, thanks for confirming these are early Skytrex with pin style barrels (and a couple of dodgy castings)
cheers

just discovered some of my dad's old 1/300 … these are early Skytrex with pin style barrels (and a couple of dodgy castings)

For those who did not have the experience of micro-armor in the days of yore, I offer this comparision:

Here you see a Skytrex SU-152 placed with a current GHQ SU-152.

And yes, the gun barrel is a pin stuck into the mantlet. Or maybe it's a piece of steel rod that happens to be pin-sized.

I was amazed at all the goodies I could find when I got a Skytrex catalog back in the mid/late 1970s. I could NOT wait to get some of them (mail order was a slow business). Each item was bought sight-unseen, and I just took my chances on how they would look. The quality of the Skytrex castings was rather poor, though, compared with the GHQ and C-in-C castings I could buy at my local hobby shop. These SU-152s were among the BETTER castings -- the JS-IIs and -IIIs were so bad I never even used them for anything other than kit-bashed battlefield wrecks. But still I wound up buying several hundred vehicles, and a fair bit of their infantry, over a period of a few short years.

And as bad as it was, that SU-152 was better than a carboard chit with SU-152 written on it! They remained in my active forces box for maybe 30 years, until I finally bought and painted up some of the GHQ SU-152s to replace them.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Since this thread has been re-animated, I thought I might put some illustrations to my words about how I straighten and replace barrels….

2) Learn how to straighten bent barrels
I find that the best tool is flat-head tweezers. I put the tweezers on the barrel and gently apply pressure. The key is NOT to try to bend the barrel to straighten it. Only try to press the barrel to straighten it. Press it, rotate a bit, and press it again. 5 or 10 seconds and it is straight, and was not weakened significantly in the process.

Here are two pics from a recent project of how I straightened a bent barrel. The second shows a close-up view under my desktop magnifier

I have used this technique with great success on really messed-up barrels. As an example, several years back I bought a collection of micro armor from a guy at a local club who was leaving the scale. There was a lot of early war Soviet stuff that looked good enough for my needs. But it was all tumbled about in boxes with no care to the packing.

Here, for example, are some of the turrets for the BT-7s.

All were recovered using this technique. Not a single barrel was broken in straightening them out.

But on those occasions when a barrel does break …

3) Figure out how to replace broken barrels
Even with due care, in stowage and in straightening, some barrels get broken over time. To replace them I now use the plastic tubing that most garment manufacturers use to attach labels to clothing. I have collected dozens of bits over time. They come in a few various sizes, and often have a sort of telescoping thickness near the base, so I can mimic lots of barrels by choosing from my selected bits. So when a barrel is actually broken, I snip it off at the base, drill a small indent to anchor (using a pin as often as an actual drill), select an appropriate bit of plastic tube, cut to length, super-glue it in place, add and shape a dab of white glue to the end if needed for a muzzle break, and once the glue is dried paint it. The result is a very durable, lasts forever (so far) solution. The plastic is flexible, so does not tend to hold a bend and never seems to break.

Here are some pics to illustrate the process from a project I did a few years ago, refurbing some old GHQ IS-2s.

The plastic (or nylon?) tab from some store-bought item of clothing.

Mounted into the mantlet of an older IS-2 model.

Here is the finished project, with a bunch of older IS-2s (most of the picture), refurbed to go with my current IS-2s (one or two shown on the far right of the pic). Can you find the tank with the replacement barrel? It is on the left edge, second from bottom. I made the mistake of choosing a tab rod that was a bit thinner that I should have, but still it is a fully functional and robust replacement.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)