I have one of the Cannon thunder short golf ball howitzers, I am making my own carriage for it, I expect to make the bearings for the cannon axles out of split hot rolled steel bars clamped together and drilled in my drill press as soon as I can rig up some pulleys and belts to reduce the speed of the drill press to around 200 rpm or so for a Silver & Deming bit. I expect to use maple for the wood parts, for the wheels I was leaining towards getting someone to turn them for me again out of hot rolled plate. I want to make an elevating mechanism with a threaded trunnion that fits in a trunnion block at the breech end with a threaded rod and a handwheel, if you know these types of cannons, they have a flat breech, so I guess some sort of machined cup type arrangement would be the way to go. I have not so much as drilled the touch hole so I am not even close to firing it. This howitzer has a reduced diameter powder chamber, but for some reason the guy started drillling the powder chamber bigger and stopped about 1/4 of the way down the powder chamber. I was thinking of using some sort of electric match with a hollow point that pierces the charge bag - still have not figured how to make the charge bag/cannon ball unit.
