looking to make my first cannon but need some help!

[s10w355]

Ill start of by inducing myself. my name is Jeff ,I live in ny and id been intrested in cannons for ever just never took the plunge.  well here it is, one of my good friends owes me a bunch of favors and hes very good machinist. id like to have him turn out a small scale cannon around 12 inches or so with a .50 cal bore out of 1018 steel and im having trouble finding detailed prints to give him so if any one could help me id greatly appreciate it. thanks -Jeff

[GGaskill]

First thing to do is surf the Civil War Artillery Encyclopedia hosted by Robinson's Battery.  There are several pages covering most artillery used in the Civil War.  Once you have decided what you like, go to the Antique Ordnance Publishers catalog page and see if they have a plan folio for it.  The plans are all full scale so you or your machinist will have to do some math to resize for a small one but that is not all that difficult.

Half inch bore is going to make for a relatively small cannon if built to scale.  For example, the 12 pounder Napoleon is 4.62" bore and about 6' long.  Scale bore size at 1' long would be .77" which would be a good fit for 3/4" shot.

[Cannon Cocker]

You need to determine what style barrel you want to make.  Two common areas of interest are Civil War and Revolutionary War.  Google pictures of barrels with those keywords to get an idea what you like.  Most would agree here that if you are going to make a small cannon barrel, you might as well make it as close as you can to true reduced scale proportions. 

[KABAR2]

First welcome to the Forum!
at the top of the board are some stickies to look through......
http://www.gboreloaded.com/forums/index.php?topic=41634.0
.
http://www.gboreloaded.com/forums/index.php?topic=2814.0
The above link has a section on cannon plans.....
this should give you a place to start