A few small cannons

[inonickname]

I hadn't uploaded this before due to the poor quality of my last camera.

 

Oh well, 3 small cannons, each 4mm bore. Machined from stainless steel (one is banded with copper). They'll easily put a steel bearing through 1.5mm steel plate from about 6 meters away, so due to their small size and power finding somewhere to fire them is a PITA. I don't have a fuse that will fit down the tiny little pilot hole, so I simply poke a heated wire through or fill the hole with fine powder and use it as a flash tray.

 

The cartridge is .50 BMG.

 

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii259/nonicknameowns/cannons006.jpg

 

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii259/nonicknameowns/cannons005.jpg

[LittleOsama]

Very nice

[OneEyeCharlie]

Très bien. Charlie like

[dagabu]

Skylighter has 1mm fuse, if you are coming to PGI, I will give you my bag of 20', I will not be using it for anything.

[TheEskimo]

I've been meaning to make one of these, so that I can have an excuse to have BP sitting around.

What type of steel is best for this application?

Is there a specific inside length?

What would be a good total thickness to ID ratio?

I wouldn't mind making one like that size due to it being cheaper than getting a huge rod of SS. Perhaps I will go larger, because that does look fairly small.

My uncle has one that he made out of ?brass? that has a bore of perhaps 1inch.

I'm not worried about machining, due to the fact that I have a neighbor down the road that has a full shop.

[inonickname]

Strength wise, the steel isn't massively important when you have fairly thick walls. However, a metal that resists corrosion is better as most propellants make a LOT of corrosive salts as by-products. Brass and stainless steel are good. You can use mild steel if your happy to deal with corrosion. If you can apply a finish such as bluing, that would extend it's life.

 

There's no specific inside length. Obviously, the longer ones are more powerful than the shorter one.

 

I know one recreational cannon club uses the general rule "at least the wall thickness of the chamber around the chamber". Another good way is to find plans of an existing cannon and scale them down (the mountain howitzer is quite common). Modern steels are far superior to older ones, so you can get away with thinner walls.

 

Larger scales are definitely an option. Roughly normal muzzleloading calibers are common, around .50 to .75 in some. There are of course larger and smaller sizes. Be aware it will be VERY loud.

 

 

Thanks for the offer dagabu, but I don't live in the US and thus wont be attending.

[dagabu]

I have a 1" canon I made some dozen years ago out of sched 80 pipe, double walled at the breach. It takes 1oz of 4FA and a 4oz lead sabbot (looks like a pellet gun pellet but really big). I have to fix the firing mechanism but it was a .308 shell cut down to the web, a spring and firing pin that was released by pulling out a tapered pin from the back of the pin.

 

I try to shoot it once a year at a local black powder shoot.

[AprenticeChemist]

Those are awesome my only question is how did you mount them to the wood? Also how is the recoil on them? I'm going to get back into making a few small cannons but the ones I made previously were very effective just EXTREMELY CRUDE. As in they were just pipes or block of wood, fuse, BP and a projectile haha.

[inonickname]

Those are awesome my only question is how did you mount them to the wood? Also how is the recoil on them? I'm going to get back into making a few small cannons but the ones I made previously were very effective just EXTREMELY CRUDE. As in they were just pipes or block of wood, fuse, BP and a projectile haha.

 

The ones I've made have either had a magnet and latch, a concealed screw or simply glue. I'm making one for charlie at the moment, which has proper trunnions. It's based on a garrison cannon.

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii259/nonicknameowns/003-2.jpg

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii259/nonicknameowns/002-2.jpg

[OneEyeCharlie]

Those damn photos are akin to being in a strip club. I can look, but can't touch.

[Twotails]

 

thats the (not so pretty) barrel of my cannon, still need to finish it up a bit, but i'll rig it up for testing soon while i finish the ornate wood peice.

[Peret]

Here are some pictures of real black powder cannons under construction at the Elswick works, England (late 1800s). A bit out of our league but they may be interesting.

 

The firt picture shows forging a barrel with a 5000 ton hydraulic press - the barrel is being squeezed down from a short fat ingot into a long thin tube. The iron is red hot and could be worked for 2-4 hours before it had to be put back in the furnace and reheated. Forging could take months. After this it was bored out to rough size, heat treated, then put on a gigantic lathe and turned down to amazingly close tolerances.

 

The other picture shows a breech coil being shrunk on. This was wound out of thick square section wire under tension of about 40 tons per square inch, afterward heated and forged into a solid mass, then bored out to precise dimensions to be an interference fit on the barrel. It was heated red hot, lowered into place and allowed to contract. If it had trunnions, these were forged as part of a separate ring and shrunk on last. When everything was settled down the barrel was bored out to caliber and rifled. Guns this size used about 150 pounds of propellant and developed an internal pressure in the order of 20 tons per square inch (45,000 psi).

 

The largest guns made at Elswick were 16.25 inch caliber, weighed 110 tons, and used 960 pounds of black powder (3rd picture). The trunnion ring in this case is bolted on and the gun is on a rail carriage for proof firing. Some of these were barbette-mounted at Gibraltar to cover the straits, but most went in turrets on battleships.

 

Pictures and info from Encyclopedia Britannica, Google Books.

[jwitt]

Very cool! I have a book titled "The Arms of Krupp" that chronicles the Krupp Gun Works and family. Haven't read it, but these pics reminded me I should.

[OneEyeCharlie]

Very cool! I have a book titled "The Arms of Krupp" that chronicles the Krupp Gun Works and family. Haven't read it, but these pics reminded me I should.

 

Good book. I read it about 30 yrs ago, so some of it went over my head, but still an interesting read. If it's the book I'm thinking of, the dust jacket is black with a family crest on it?

 

Apparently, I had the "cannon bug" already as an early teen

[jwitt]

By your description, yep, that's the book! And I'm not just talking about the dust jacket...it's sort of a tough read, but really interesting. As a side note, I'm picking up a SxS 12 ga with Krupp Fluid Steel barrels for the coming duck season.

 

 

 

Man I wish I had a lathe, I'm jonesin' for a little canon.

[SB15]

Nice cannons Ino. What are you using for a propellant? Do you have an estimate of the burst pressure of the chambers?

[kiss]

WOW! I want one of them little jobs. Thats really cool.

[jimbo]

hi dag,I said a while back I'd show you our b.p cannon so I went to my brothers shed and made a little vid to show you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alRwNa7MZ2A it's not that small though.