In 2017 I went to Historic Locust Grove in Louisville. KY that was hosting a Colonial time period market fair and saw a small portable cannon that one of the British Reenactors had brought with him. At the time I took a single picture of it because definitely thought it was telling people about.
Two years later in 2019, I went back again to look around and watch some of the blacksmiths at work. There was a Merchant there called Flying Canoe Trader who happened to have two Cannon barrels for sale. The barrel was unfinished and needed a carriage built for it. I figured what the heck, if I found some free time it'd be a fun project to tackle. Besides, if needed a forever home.
Over the next couple years, I worked on the finish of the barrel. It was cast from an original museum piece at a foundry in Ohio and had a rough finish. It took a lot of filing, sanding and polishing had to get close to where I thought the finish should be. It was now time to get started on the wheelless carriage. It was supposed transportable by canoe or bateaux so I wanted to make it just like the one I saw at Locust Grove.
Next it was onto getting some lumber. A local gun maker and friend from Nashville, IN named Jerry Scales and his twin brother Jim went with me to a sawmill in Spencer to help locate some wood. I settled for some Sassafras boards and took advantage of some warm days in December to get lumber down to the sizes needed. I thought it might take two days to put it together but it took nearly two weeks to get carriage built. Paint will be going on this week and hope to test fire this coming weekend.
It's been a fun project, took a lot more time than I figured it would due to trying to keep it time period correct all the way down to the screws.
