Wooden cannon

[thelionspaw]

The Tirol in a war with the French, produced a very rare example of a replacement cannon made of wood. It was captured in 1809. Caliber 3.5 inch.

[KABAR2]

Yikes! even if the cracks are from 200 years of age........ that is a scary proposition to fire.....
the gunner lighting this off must have has much faith in Saint Barbara

[Cannoneer]

I wonder if that piece of metal seen on the muzzle face is a liner that goes all the way down the bore?

[dan610324]

of course it must be a liner , but still ....
the swedish army did some experimenting with leather cannons

[KABAR2]

Yes I would say that is a metal liner

the Moro's in the Philippines would take gas pipe cover in wood with iron bands
they also reinforced  pipe cannons with wire windings non of which is recommended
for use these days

[dan610324]

the leather cannons had a copper pipe with hamp ropes tight around it and a leather outer skin

those pieces was actually used in combat for a short time
but it wasnt any success

[Victor3]

I wonder if that piece of metal seen on the muzzle face is a liner that goes all the way down the bore?

 Prolly so but I don't see why they needed it. After all, it obviously met the "one caliber rule" without it. 

[Cannoneer]

Rich; do you know enough German, or did you try a net translator, to get a general idea of what the plaque says?


Right, Victor; if we filled up those wide splits with some Minwax epoxy wood filler, I'd feel as snug as a bug in a rug firing this thing today.

[Cannoneer]

the leather cannons had a copper pipe with hamp ropes tight around it and a leather outer skin

those pieces was actually used in combat for a short time
but it wasnt any success

I had read about the king of Sweden supposedly being the innovator of this concept, and I knew these guns weren't a success on the field, but I didn't know the extant of the 'leather cannon's' failure.

"The reinforcing material acted as an insulator, and did not let heat dissipate fast enough. Thus, after only a few shots the gun became red-hot. The heat would either deform the tube and drastically decrease accuracy or at the very least prematurely ignite the gunpowder, severely injuring the loader. As a weapon, it turned out to be a fiasco."

[dan610324]

yeah they was too hot , the odd thing is that the hemp ropes actually held the tube together

[thelionspaw]

John: I translated the German and without frills, that is what was written. Simple enough but you know Germans and their long words; like Greek names and Welch train stations.

Isthereanythingelseyouwanttoknowaboutit?

[Cannoneer]

Rich,
I'm sure you'd have already mentioned it if you knew, but just in case; do you happen to know what type of wood was used to make this tube?

Slightly off topic: Have you ever had occasion to work with 'lignum vitae/guayacan'?

[thelionspaw]

John:
It's dead wood. That was easy.

I was told that Lignum Vitae was used for shaft bearings on Victory Class ships during WWII and yes, I have a piece of lignum vitae. Actually it is a policeman's night stick.

[Cannoneer]

Rich,
I think it's a crying shame that 'vaudeville' went the way of the 'dodo': Then again, maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.


I wanted to know if you had ever cut or carved lignum vitae, not if you had a club intended to crack somebody on the noggin, made out of it.
Does the billy seem very heavy for a piece of wood its size? How about an experiment in the bathtub; does it sink or float?

[dan610324]

what I know there is only one dried wood that sink , thats ebony .
but I could be wrong at that

[Cat Whisperer]

I was going to say "Iron Wood", then I did a search:

COMMON NAMES:  Lignum vitae, Guayacan, Palo santo, ironwood
SPECIFIC GRAVITY:   1.05

[thelionspaw]

John & Dan:
I don't know if the stick will sink in a bath tub and it was too far to schlep down to my pond in slippers but I can tell you that it sunk like a stone in the goldfish pool off the deck.  tah-da-duh-daaaaaa

I've never worked with lignum vitae. Rosewood was tough enough. I believe I still have a good sized board of it, up in the loft. Nice for a small carriage with a bronze/brass barrel. I've worked Zebra, Blood and some other exotic very hard woods that would have done well with minatures. I might have a box of scraps?

BTW it is 23 3/4" long, 1 1/8" thick and weighs 1 pound.

[Cannoneer]

Thanks for conducting the experiment, Rich. I've read in a lot of different sources that lignum v. is so dense that it sinks in water, so I believed it to be true; now we don't have to believe, we know.

Cat: I knew it was sometimes called ironwood, but there are a bunch of other (very hard) kinds of woods that are also referred to as ironwoods.

Dan, there are more than a few 'very hard woods' that (reportedly) have a density (dried) greater than water. I think we've even got a couple here in North America, and in Africa there are some types of lumber that have a higher density than ebony.

 

[dan610324]

nice info , good to know that I dont try to build a raft from it 

[thelionspaw]

There's mucho confusion about "Ironwood".

Blue Beech, Muscle Wood, Water Beech  (usually the same tree) are called "Iron Wood" around here. Hop Hornbeam and American Hornbeam are also called Iron wood around here.  I fell them in the woodlot to burn in the stove. I've also been burning my Locust fence posts, since we stopped running beef. Now that's a hard wood. Tough to drive a staple in. Anything that burns better 'n snow, goes in the woodshed.

Some of these woods were supposed to have been used for wagon parts, e.g. the tongue.  The trees never attained great size (Hornbeam 10 inch max) so I doubt they were ever used for a single limber shaft or cannon trail. Oak being plentiful and a single tree being able to offer numerous boards/beams for carriages.

I don't think they're anything worth pickin' over for our purpose; minature or otherwise.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

The Tirol in a war with the French, produced a very rare example of a replacement cannon made of wood. It was captured in 1809. Caliber 3.5 inch.

I don't know why but it reminds of that episode of "Myth Busters" when they made and tested a cannon made from Duct Tape. 

Very nice pictures, by the way.

History is cool.

[Cannoneer]

History is cool.

Greetings, Rock Home Isle! Yes, it is.

[Cannoneer]

There's mucho confusion about "Ironwood".

Blue Beech, Muscle Wood, Water Beech  (usually the same tree) are called "Iron Wood" around here. Hop Hornbeam and American Hornbeam are also called Iron wood around here.  I fell them in the woodlot to burn in the stove. I've also been burning my Locust fence posts, since we stopped running beef. Now that's a hard wood. Tough to drive a staple in. Anything that burns better 'n snow, goes in the woodshed.

Some of these woods were supposed to have been used for wagon parts, e.g. the tongue.  The trees never attained great size (Hornbeam 10 inch max) so I doubt they were ever used for a single limber shaft or cannon trail. Oak being plentiful and a single tree being able to offer numerous boards/beams for carriages.

I don't think they're anything worth pickin' over for our purpose; minature or otherwise.

Rich,
You mentioned rosewood being hard to work; the only thing I've ever done with rosewood was to try and 'sharpen up' the checkering on some inexpensive repro Luger P08 grips with a knife edge needle file, and that project didn't turn out too good.
The reason I asked the question about lignum v. was because I wanted to know if you had ever worked with what are classed as the "ironwoods," the hardest wood that I've ever cut and sanded was southern live oak, and that was some hard stuff, but it's not even classed as an ironwood. Hardwoods

"But of all the so-called "hardwoods," the most spectacular species are the "ironwoods" that actually sinks in water. Fifteen[sic] of the world's heaviest ironwoods with specific gravities between 1.11 and 1.37 are listed in the following Table 2. All of these seasoned, dry hardwoods will sink in water, with a specific gravity greater than one:
 
Lignum Vitae
(Guaiacum officinale) Caltrop
(Zygophyllaceae) S.E. U.S. &
Caribbean 1.37

Snakewood
(Piratinera guianensis) Mulberry
(Moraceae) South
America 1.35

Leadwood
(Krugiodendron ferreum) Buckthorn
Rhamnaceae S. Florida
and Keys 1.31

Burma Ironwood
(Xylia xylocarpa) Legume
(Fabaceae) India
Burma 1.29

Quebracho
(Schinopsis balansae) Sumac
Anacardiaceae Argentina
S. America 1.28

Womara
(Swartzia leiocalycina) Legume
Fabaceae British
Guiana 1.28

Wawra
(Combretum imberbe) Combretum
(Combretaceae) Zimbabwe
South Africa 1.23

Billian
(Eusideroxylon zwageri) Laurel
(Lauraceae) Borneo
Malaysia 1.20

Pau d'Arco
(Tabebuia serratifolia) Bignonia
(Bignoniaceae) Brazil
S. America 1.20

Knob-thorn
(Acacia nigrescens) Legume
(Fabaceae) South
Africa 1.19

Brazil Ironwood
(Caesalpinia ferrea) Legume
(Fabaceae) Brazil
S. America 1.15

Desert Ironwood
(Olneya tesota) Legume
(Fabaceae) S.W. U.S.
Mexico 1.15

Ceylon Ironwood
(Mesua ferrea) Mangosteen
(Guttiferae) India/Burma
Ceylon 1.12

Ebony
(Diospyros ebenum) Persimmon
(Ebenaceae) India
Ceylon 1.12

Mountain Mahogany
(Cercocarpus ledifolius) Rose
(Rosaceae) S.W. U.S.
Mexico 1.12

Black Ironwood
(Olea laurifolia) Olive (Oleaceae) South
Africa 1.11

Table 2. Fifteen[sic] of the world's heaviest ironwoods.

Some readers might wonder why I placed the South African black ironwood (Olea laurifolia) at the bottom of my list, while each year the Guinness Book of World Records lists this tree as the world's heaviest wood with a specific gravity of 1.49. In addition to the fact that most wood references do not concur with the Guinness Book, I studied a sample of this hardwood and the highest specific gravity I could obtain was 1.11, far below many other ironwoods. In fact, Acacia nigrescens (Acacia pallens), a common tree of the Kruger National Park region of South Africa, has a much heavier wood with a specific gravity of 1.19. Called knob-thorn acacia, the trunk is covered with woody, conical knobs each tipped with a thorn. Like other African acacias, the knob-thorn acacia is a painful tree to climb with bare hands. Some remarkable swollen-thorn acacias of Africa and Central America have hollowed-out thorns inhabited by symbiotic stinging ants that protect the trees from herbivores and epiphytes. According to Wood Density Phase 1--State of Knowledge, Australian Greenhouse Office, Technical Report No. 18 (Oct. 2000), there are several Acacia species in Australia that could be classified as ironwoods. Acacia xiphophylla has a specific gravity of 1.3 and another species called waddy wood (A. peuce) has a density of 1425. If this value is in kilograms per cubic meter, its specific gravity would be 1.425."

[thelionspaw]

Why the interest in these woods John?   Are you planning on something different for your new eBay cannon treasure?   I did some carvings for James Earl Jones in Rosewood.   I don't believe I ever put a knife to any of the others.  I have a few new walnut gun stocks left that I cut-up when I have the need for the wood.    Waste not; want not.  You know what we say in Polish? "Free for nothing; take. If it don't eat; keep it." 

[dan610324]

it would be a few things that eat I could consider to keep anyway
any of the worlds 10 richest women for example   

[Cannoneer]

This came in the mail around three weeks ago; 15¼" OAL, .75 caliber, 13" bore length, 2½" breech diameter, cast bronze. I'm knocking around some ideas about what kind of wood to make the carriage out of. I've got a piece of African mahogany 3" x 6", 37" long, 2 boards of black walnut ¾" x 9", 34" long, and 2 boards of African bubinga ¾" x 7¼", 29" long, and 22" long.
The photos aren't very good, there from the auction, and I didn't take any of my own yet.