First of all, Happy New Year from Mike and Tracy who are Seacoast Artillery Company. We have been very, very busy lately getting our display ready for the large Las Vegas Antique, Sporting Arms and Knifemaker's Show which is this weekend, Jan. 5,6,and 7 of 2007. Mike is there, answering questions, and I am stuck here in Colorado Shoveling Snow!
Mike and I sincerely hope that maybe one or two of you members or guests decide to go for it and actually build a rifling machine which can produce accurate rifled cannon tubes. Be forewarned, however, that this project is a long, sometimes frustrating, and toward the end, very difficult one. Our purpose in releasing this information is to promote SAFE and ACCURATE small cannon shooting. We encourage anyone really interested in this topic to OBTAIN ALL THE INFO YOU CAN FIND ON THE SUBJECT INCLUDING THE INFO YOU MUST PAY FOR. We are NOT selling any information here. Others are, and we encourage you to buy their stuff. We did, and we used elements of everything we could find to build our machine. The reason you need ALL OF THIS INFORMATION is that this is the only way to increase your options. After all, your application may demand a slightly different or modified machine from the one that you learn about from a single source.
Another warning: if you expect to build a rifling machine in a few weekends or if you expect to build one, based on our information, capable of satisfying big commercial contracts, forget it. It ain't gonna happen. Our machine is a small, hand-driven, special design intended to do onesey-twoseys only.
If it's O.K. with the moderators, we would like to allow Two (2) Weeks for the membership to send their questions to this thread. Mike and I will check it every day and incorporate the question and answer into the Step By Step which will start to appear at the end of that time. The Step by Step will be divided into Three Sections. the FIRST will be an explanation of how to make a sturdy, rigid, Chassis including the sine bar, the carriage, the rack and the parallel ways upon which the carriage rides. The SECOND section will show how we built the drive mechanism which moves the rifling head into and out of the cannon tube. The THIRD will be the explanation of how the rifling head is built and YES, don't worry, all the angles on the cutter will be detailed and discussed. Please remember that these angles depend on YOUR application and are definitely NOT GENERIC. Lots and lots of experiments on your part will be NECESSARY for you to get a proper, smooth-cutting tool.
So, please send your questions about any aspect of this topic which interests you on this thread only please. The answers will not be instant; the only logical way to present this material is to incorporate them into the Step by Step. We will attempt to credit each member's question within the format of the Step by Step. Don't get torqued if we forget to include yours. A gentle reminder via email would be appreciated. This is a very complex subject and there are about a thousand details to think about as we create the Step by Step instruction. AFTER the Step by Step is presented, we will entertain any follow-up questions in the normal manner.
That's about it. Send those questions in. Answers coming in APPROX. two weeks.
Mike and Tracy
Seacoast Artillery Company, Inc.