H&R Conqueror - rebarreling

Heroics & Ros 1/300 BM53 Conqueror Heavy Tank

When I got my Centurions, I also got a troop of Conquerors to fend off those pesky IS-III from about ten miles away.

The Conqueror has a very long gun barrel, which is very vulnerable to damage from ham-fisted wargamers, as you can see in the top model. So, I'm replacing the soft metal moulded guns with new ones made from 1mm steel rod — I believe it's welding wire. It's very sturdy indeed, and should survive anything that won't completely destroy the whole model.

The diameter of the gun on the original vehicle tapers subtly from the mantlet to the muzzle, but that's not something I feel a burning desire to replicate in this scale. It would be quite difficult, for no real perceptible benefit.

The bore extractor is made from paper, soaked in liquid superglue and wrapped around the wire several times. The superglue penetrates the fibres of the paper, and you end up with a hard, plastic-like mass that can be sanded smooth to remove the seam where the last wrapping is cut off. It would be a lot easier to use a short piece of brass or copper or even plastic tube with a 1mm bore, but I have none.

The Conqueror's gun doesn't have a muzzle brake, which simplifies matters quite considerably.

Next Day

I remembered some useful stuff from my brief essays into stained glass — the bore evacuator on this one is made from some self-adhesive copper foil, cut to width and wrapped several times around the barrel.

The copper foil gives a much cleaner surface than the glue-soaked paper, and it's also much easier to handle. It's very thin, so it needs to be wrapped in more layers to get the required thickness, but you don't have to worry about smoothing off the end-seam as long as it's located on the underside of the barrel where nobody will ever see it.

The copper foil is intended to be wrapped around the edge of pieces of glass, which would then be thickly soldered together to create the complete stained glass object. It's an alternative to the traditional lead channel seen on windows, and is often used for three-dimensional objects like lampshades.