Pair of Naval bronze swivel cannon - big bore drills arrived....

[davec2]

I started these guns many years ago while I was still in the Navy.  They have been sitting under my workbench since 1978.  I have been hard over on finishing up some cannon projects that have been hanging fire for too many years now.  These guns are about 24 inches long and are currently cast solid.  I bored the passage for the trunnions sideways through the castings.  The machined trunnions will be furnace brazed in place and then the guns will be bored and lined with steel liners.  The trunnions re 1 1/2 inches in diameter where they pass through the gun and the gun bore for the liner will be 1 1/4 inches.  The liners are DOM 1.25 " OD seamless tubing with a 0.125" wall and welded breach plugs.  The final bore will be 1 inch.





Not sure what I'm going to do with two more cannons.....but they need to be shootable before I worry about that.   

[Daryl]

Interesting. In the first picture, the trunion hole appears to go right through the barrel, from side to side???
How can that be made operational, Dave?

[Clark Badgett]

Interesting. In the first picture, the trunion hole appears to go right through the barrel, from side to side???
How can that be made operational, Dave?

The trunion will be brazed then the barrel bored. Since the bore will be 1" the trunion will remain as a solid piece.

[borderdogs]

Hi Dave,
Very interesting post about cannons. Many years ago I use to turn miniature cannon barrels from brass and steel sized for a .177 BB. I modeled them to look like naval 24 pounders. I used a bench vise to hold the barrel to test it. I would load them with some 4F a wad and tamp the patched BB in place. I used firecracker fuse to set them off and it was a powerful shooting cannon. I used a 1/2" piece of plywood at around 3-4 feet for a target and the BB would bore right into the plywood. I made a base for the brass one I made and my dad liked it so much he took it. 
Rob

[Daryl]

Thanks Clark.

When Taylor and I were kids, we made cannons and ship's sides, gun ports, ropes (strings)on the ports and to pull the cannons into battery.
IIRC they were about .22 to .25 cal. we shot chunks of lead at pods of weeds floating down the Thames River behind our house, but from our neighbour's yard
as ours was treed. This was right in the middle of the village, with the bank of Montreal in plain view across the river. LOL
We used Curtis and Harvey's 3F - it was about $0.98, or maybe $1.98 for the can.iirc. Ignition to the 'pan' was by a Linstock. -(rod with fork(kinda like a sheep tender's crook, to hold the slow match)

[davec2]

Daryl,

Yes....Clark explained the cross bored trunnion hole.  The guns will work fine when finished.  And I love the story about you and Taylor.....cannons of any size are fun....and the little ones make almost as much noise and are a LOT less expensive to shoot...  (Especially when powder was $2 a pound....of course, $2 was worth $2 then as well).

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Daryl,

Yes....Clark explained the cross bored trunnion hole.  The guns will work fine when finished.  And I love the story about you and Taylor.....cannons of any size are fun....and the little ones make almost as much noise and are a LOT less expensive to shoot...  (Especially when powder was $2 a pound....of course, $2 was worth $2 then as well).

And the Canadian dollar was worth $1.10 USD then too.  Go figure.  Conservative government under John Dieffenbaker.

[Natureboy]

  Did someone say CANNONS?  Here is a photo of the four-gun battery of the 1st Oregon Volunteer Artillery, in preparation for our annual summer "battle" with some hollywood stuntmen disguised as southern guerillas. The gun I'm aiming was made from a naval cannon, milled to the specs of a Union Army piece. We also had two original bronze smoothbores. All four of the guns were 4" bore. I'm about 18 years old in this photo. In those days, accurate uniforms were unavailable, so we jury-rigged the jackets from denim work jackets, and made do with Levis light blue trousers. While the uniforms weren't historically correct, the soldiers were, mostly young guys in their late teens and early 20s. This was such great fun.

[Daryl]

That picture is sure a nice keepsake.

[Marcruger]

David, your new project is nuts fun, in the nicest, most enjoyable way.  Please keep us posted.  Never know when you need to repel boarders from your house.   :-D   God Bless,   Marc

[snapper]

Cant wait to see what bags you pair with these.

Fleener

[davec2]

Had a chance to work on these two brass swivel guns again today.  I got the trunnion brazed in one one.  Just waiting for more braze alloy to come in before I do the second one.  The next step will be to drill out the bores and install the steel liners.

Surface preparation of the cross bore for the trunnion to remove any oxides:



Trunnion prepared for the installation of rings of braze alloy by lathe cutting grooves:



Braze alloy wire installed in one set of grooves:



Once the trunnion cross bore and trunnion were fluxed, I hammered the trunnion into place and set the barrel up on my modified* BBQ grill:



Took about an hour and a half to bring the barrel temperature up to the 550 F required to get the Hi Force 44 braze alloy to run:



* I cranked up the gas supply pressure to get more heat out of the grill than is required for cooking....

[ScottH]

Awesome! You continue to amaze me with your projects! 

[J. Talbert]

Awesome! You continue to amaze me with your projects! 

Ditto. 

Jeff

[Craig Wilcox]

Going to take a pretty good-sized drill press to bore that for the liners.  You going to go horizontal or vertical?

[davec2]

Craig,

I will set these barrels up in a lathe to bore them.  Too big a pain to do vertically.  The bores need to be 19 inches deep.  I will need to make up a long drill (or purchase one) that will drill that deep.

[Craig Wilcox]

Dave, that will be one heavy drill bit!  Not having one at present, I hadn't thought of a lathe - boring bar should do well, as long as it's stiff enough to not bend over that 19+".  Thanks for keeping us abreast of the progress.  Might have to schedule a trip out west to see them mounted on your pulling boat.

Stand by to repel boarders!

[davec2]

I had a little time to work on these bronze cannon and cleaned up the trunnion braze joint on the first barrel.......



That process came out well enough that I set up the second barrel for brazing and got that done yesterday........



The long drills I need to bore these are on order and should be here shortly.

[davec2]

Long drills arrived...........

[Craig Wilcox]

You are going to get enough bronze chips to make a third cannon.

Take some pics of you lathe boring those barrels.  And how much do you allow for the steel liner?  Wouldn't think it would have to be very thick - 0.0625 to 0.125" would be enough, I believe.  And probably a 2-oz powder charge would make a golf ball disappear.

[davec2]

Craig,

Liner will be DOM, 1" ID 1.250" OD chrome moly steel, welded in steel breech, epoxied into place and then drilled for the vent.  So cannon will be just a touch under 4 gage.

[Clark Badgett]

I do not envy you that deep hole drill in bronze. Do you stone the cutting edges of the drill at a reverse angle?

[davec2]

Clark,

In solid bronze I don't think this large drill will grab, so I will start out with the drill sharpened as it is.  If it does grab, I will cut back on the lip rake angle.

[Chocktaw Brave]

Those look great!
Can’t wait to see them in action!
Here’s one my dad made back in the 70’s, a copy of an early hand held cannon. And yes it was fired.

[davec2]

Chocktaw,

What is the bore diameter on that hand cannon ?