My first taste of cannon/mortar use came from the purchase of a Birchner BNA mortar in golf ball bore. The mortar was also all stainless steel and is a great display piece. I saw a video of the very same piece being lit off and the poor mortar did five backwards somersaults before coming to rest upside down several feet behind the ignition area. I realized then that the four blind holes on the bottom of the mortar had a use. I measured off what two side by side 2X6's were and cut four pieces to that length. I glued/screwed the first two together and then went the other direction on the top two and sunk a bunch of deck screws into the whole thing. I also put steel corner brackets on each corner and built a steel surround for the mortar and drilled four mounting holes corresponding with the BNA mortar. I then put one handle on one edge and four eye screws so I could stake the bed down into the grass.
Trouble was, that was not the last stainless mortar I was going to end up with. I ended up finding a 1" triple bore piece and then from the same maker bought his double bore 1"er. Then I was looking for a stainless, golf ball bore Thunder Mug. A guy said that he could hook me up, but I ended up with a piece of high pressure stainless pipe that had a breech plug threaded into the pipe and welded leaving two blind holes in the bottom to mount to the same mortar bed as the BNA mortar. I then bought a three barreled 1/2" bore unit and finally I found the stainless golf ball thunder mug. The BNA mortar was fired the first fourth of July that I had it and all the other pieces were acquired after the fourth.
I found a source for fuse and ended up using 3mm premium waterproof fuse. Not sure of the exact burn rate, but it is rather slow and I know when to run. I found a mounting place for all of my pieces (except for the Thunder Mug, it has to sit nearby). I was messing around with the known fuse I was going to use and burn times between the individual pieces. The first to go off is the double then the triple of the 1" bores. BNA mortar comes next followed by the pipe mortar (just to launch confetti) then the three 1/2" bores and ending with the Thunder Mug. I have made all of the powder measures that I need for each different piece out of sweat soldered copper pipe. I came up with a 9" length to time my shots through the BNA mortar firing sequentially. I then have the confetti pipe, the triple 1/2"ers and the Thunder mug.
Sure I can figure out how to make the balance go off sequentially, but was wondering if after the BNA mortar I could make the balance go off all at once using the quick match type of fuse. I've seen the MythBuster use a similar type of fuse on some of the stuff they have shot off. Does anyone have any experience with really fast burning fuse to where it seems like everything is going off at the same time? I figure that by the time I light the initial fuse and six bores go off sequentially, that I'd be far enough away to cap the balance all at once. Open to ideas. Smithy.
