Well...I did it. After lurking and spending much time on this website, I finally registered. After reading and rereading most of the articles on black powerd cannon and mortars I thought that the beer can mortar just looked like a lot of fun to build and would be a blast to shoot. :-D
So after looking at some pictures and even printing a few off, I made a Coehorn beer can mortar. I am not new to building things...Ive been doing it since I was 15.
It just so happened that I had a 5" piece of 4140 about 8" long sittin in the shop collecting dust. Approx. 6 hours later I had a fully finished mortar. I thought about attaching the trunions with allen head capscrews, but elected to weld them on.
I may not have things exactly to scale, but I beleive that when building guns or things that go bang that too much steel is definaltey better than not enough. I built a powder chamber in it, its 1.250 dia. by 1.250 deep. Dont know the exact formula for a powder chamber but it oughta work.
Now I've got to get busy building a carriage for the thing. Any ideas or pictures ? When I can get my digital camera back from my youngest son, I'll post a picture of it. It looks pretty much like one that "Powder Keg" built, in fact it was his picture that I used for a model.
I did use a radius cutter for the radius at back though...I figured it was a lot easier since I had one. :wink:
So...whats the best design for a carriage ? I'd like to keep it authentic if its possible. I used 1.5 inch stock for the trunnion.