Rebuilding the Marx Giant Blue and Gray seacoast mortar

 I've gone on at length about the Marx Giant Blue and Gray playset, and I'm sure that this won't be the last post on it.

In my junkbox I had a wrecked mortar chassis, and a couple of years ago I bought a Marx mortar that had the spring and ejector, but no trigger or rubber band. 

Over the past two days, I spent some time using the plastic from the chassis in the background, and the trigger from the mortar in the foreground, to fabricate a trigger for the mortar on the right.

From the working, seacoast mortar, I removed the trigger to use as a pattern.

I found a place on the chassis from which the new trigger could be made.

With my trusty razor-saw, I cut out the plastic panel.

Using the existing trigger as a pattern, I traced around it.

I took the blank to the drillpress to put that characteristic hole in the trigger.

With a Dremel tool I removed the bulk of the excess.

After much cutting, sanding, and fine-tuning, I had the new trigger (top).

I must have taken that mortar apart eighteen or twenty times, trying to get the trigger to fit just right and to fire smoothly.  It eventually became apparent that the new trigger wasn't quite thick enough, and it would unseat itself when depressed.

To solve this, I used a piece of thin styrene to make a splint.  Again, it took a great deal of fine-tuning and sanding to get it right.

Here is the repaired mortar, in the foreground, ready for a test firing.

And here is the result:

A very satisfying project has netted me another good shooter to take into battle.

See you next time, and...

Soldier on!

Mannie