Hey Y'all,
I have been reading the Cannon and Mortar forum off and on for years.
However I saw the contest for making a golfball mortar and my {Summmertime 05' goal} has been decided!
Its all clear now... The path is laid out before me...
"I'm gona make me a Mortar"!
A friend, old Terry Huber, who died on his motor{cycle},
43 years ago, had a cannon. It was a piece of pipe with threads on one end.
He had drilled a hole in the threads, so that the cap could be screwed over the hole, with a twist. Bent the end of a firecracker fuse so that the tip of the fuse would hang in the drilled hole till lit. As the fuse burned down, the cap was tightened. Awesome technology, and ingenius firing device, for the 7th grade.
The cannon would fire a marble like a bullet!
And a 'for sale' sign 70-80 yards away was the target, if the people wern't home.
Now, I find myself not only still alive, but 43 years older.
'I'm gona build me a mortar', as there are others like me on this forum thing, and I can pick their brains, and learn from them. And I can buy stuff now whereas in the sixth grade I never had much money. I'm really encouraged. Yeah!
Terry was smart and it was not his fault he was killed on his 305 dream, some old lady pulled out in front of him and stopped!
His chick flew over him and landed in the grass, and she was fine. But Terry hit the 'port beam' of that car and it was terrible. They were hauling... { Colorful explecitive} ... like 80mph!
Terry took the cannon making technology with him when he died.
But now I am onto a forum as cool and useful as the trapper forum, or the Hog killing forum. The cannon-mortar making forum!
I will work hard and since, as my name implys, {Jack the Knife} I have a knife shop to use. Alright! I can see it all now,
Jack {the Knife's} World famous fifth century forge, Knifeshop, Skullery,
Brewry, and now... Cannon Factory. Catchy ain't it?
After my motorcycle wreck four years ago I do tend to ramble on, but while I have y'all here ... what is a powder chamber? and how would one be manufactured? in the end of a pipe??? {I'm gona get me a welder too}
Terrys cannon used a self enclosed firecracker for the explosive charge. There was no powder chamber.
Before I found this forum I had for decades thought that a home made cannon... would need to be fired by another firecracker or a small bomb, actually.
{And legally... Probably why I never built one}
A small bulb like for a flashlight, with the glass part filed away enough to fill it with shotgun powder, {as I reload} taped over and placed in a film can full of shotgun powder, with two wires running out two drilled holes, { in the can and two holes drilled in the cannon too, and trailing to a flash light battery..... and then loading a beer can wrapped in something down the cannon barrell.
The small battery was to be used to fire the primer and with two real long wires I figured it was safe enough bacause I could fire the 'thing' from behind the wood pile... was the extent of my cannon making skill.
{Another reason why I never tried it }
{Sounds like I would still be in jail if I had survived at all.}
J. Knife
