Mary Rose cannon

[Owen]

My turn ... hope it looks like a mary rose cannon ... bore is about 9mm (0.354")

[Double D]

I went by this a couple of times and missed it.  Owen tell us more about you gun.

[dan610324]

it sure is beautiful .
is the surface between chamber and barrel conical ??
in the picture it looks cylindrical .

[thelionspaw]

Hey Owen!
You didn't take your RAMBO doll award with you when you moved.  You know; the one that Breechblock men get, that separates us from the the muzzle boys.

Richard

[EL Caz 66]

Yes Please!!! more info please!!! who , what, where and when? Now that have moved to your own thread, input all the input you can give... And most important some smoke and fire  pictures, videos or in person. 

[thelionspaw]

National Geographic Vol. 163, No. 5, May 1983, pg. 657

This confirms what a GREAT job Owen did with his cannon.  The article is, "Henry VIII's Lost Warship"; the Mary Rose.  Owen: Can you explain your process for making this gem?

Richard

[Owen]

Wow thanks guys .... It really started as "I’m bored, want to make some thing small". I had just finished a 1600's .62cal Matchlock musket that had taken weeks.
A friend had given me some old rifle barrels to do some thing with and I was a renactor for too many years, so all my books of stuff are pre 1600, I love the breech loaders and it looked easier and quicker than thelionspaw 15th cannon. I have a small lathe so I cut a bit of barrel up to see if I could use it on the lathe, it fit and worked nicely. Turned the barrel down to shape then fiddled with getting the breach to fit nicely, I wasn’t sure how the breech end was shaped as most of the pics I found in books and online don’t really show it so I made it up. The handle on the breech I put there to cover a miss drilled hole  but happy I did I like the look of it now. The wheels are not "right" should be spoke wheels I think, I rushed to finish it and they were easy to do.

After seeing Richards 15th cannon I'm making a big bother to my small one, with a 20mm bore have the barrel turned up now need to finish the breech for it. I want to use it as a swap over barrel and try and make two carriages for it, a mary rose one and one like Richards.

The carriage is a bit of left over walnut from the musket. Ill do my best to get some smoke out of it for you all.

Thanks again

Owen

[HuecoDoc]

I tried thinking through the physics of this type of breechloader thing when I saw the lionspaw cannon thread.  There is something to it I don't grasp.  That Nat Geo pic is interesting, with a linear cut in the barrel and multpile reinforcements there.

[thelionspaw]

Doc, What don't you grasp?  Maybe I can help.

Here's the alternate way for construction. 

Me?  I made "The Lion's Paw" the third way by combining the illustrated two examples.  i.e. the sheet of iron around the mandrel of the National Geographics, followed by the bars of Hogg's around the sheet. Then for safety (not authenticity) a seamless tube over-all which was then encircled with 1026 SupraDOM bands having tensile 99,400 and yield of 89,800.

I'm not an engineer but I still feel safe. 

Richard

[A.Roads]

"There is something to it I don't grasp.  That Nat Geo pic is interesting, with a linear cut in the barrel and multpile reinforcements there."

I would agree that the drawing, by showing only a single linear cut in the barrel, is unusual when it comes to portraying most commonly encountered "hoop & stave" constructed wrought iron barrels.

I think the photo below explains more clearly how the bore is formed, with staves, & the outer barrel layer with continuous hoops. Rather like a wooden barrel made by a Cooper - hence how barrel got its name. This barrel, being quite small, uses only four staves for the bore and, because the piece has trunnions, the hoops are not raised to "grip" the carriage.

Incidentally this one is also mounted on a replica carriage from the "Mary Rose".
Adrian

[thelionspaw]

Very interesting image. I would like to see more images of this piece.

Here is a second image from the National Geographic magazine.  It illustrates a technician working on the single iron sheet example that the artist rendered for the article that I previously posted. 

It has been my experience while visiting museums, to always see staves bundled in numbers exceeding four (04).

Richard

[Cannoneer]

The wheels are not "right" should be spoke wheels I think, I rushed to finish it and they were easy to do.

Owen,

   I don't think the archaeologists that were involved with the retrieval and study of the artifacts from the Mary Rose are themselves certain about the carriage wheels. You can find both solid and spoked wheels in different renditions of your model but one of the reproductions displayed in the Mary Rose Museum in Britain has solid wheels.

All of the modern recreations (that I have seen) of the four wheeled carriages that were mounted by those amazing bronze guns recovered from the wreck, have solid wheels and show the basic prototype of the four trucked naval carriages that were to be used for centuries that followed.

[thelionspaw]

The last one has some great block of wood as the base.  The entire piece is a good candidate for a piece of our local maple with a bit of nice grain. 

The image I have included here, is from Veytaux-Chilton, Canton of Vaud.  This carriage would lend itself quite nicely to Owen's idea of one tube for interchangeable carriages.  You think?  Add a solid beam for the trail that hinges at the muzzle as this image shows and leave the present cannon intact except for the trucks.  You think?

I really like what is going on.  It is as if we have awakened a sleeping giant.

BTW I have been asked:  The gentleman at the base of my page is my GGF.

[A.Roads]

An interesting aspect of the "Mary Rose" four wheel (truck) carriage is that the axles are fitted above the carriage bed instead of below, this places a lot of load and stress upon the "nails" holding the bed to the axle and is not considered good design practise (they are also fairly slender in proportion especially when compared with later axle thicknesses and diameters). It has been suggested that the axles had probably been fitted originally below the bed by the carriage maker and that their placement above the carriage bed was a necessary "modification" on board ship to lower the barrel to fit through the gun port.
Indeed when the Royal Armouries cast & test fired a "Mary Rose" culverin they used this carriage design - but for that particular project they placed the axles below the bed (Royal Armouries Yearbook, Vol 6, 2001).
Adrian

[GGaskill]

Is that elegant barrel original or a repro?

[thelionspaw]

Are there any fore & aft pics available?  I need pictures. 

Is the axle strapped to the bed?  Square edged and only cylindrical at the wheel?

Is something iron inletted at the base of the horizontal and the trailing edge of the perpendicular?  What for?  Or are these mortise and tenon joint?

The barrel doesn't seem to belong to the carriage.

Trunnions??  Are there iron strap/plates across the top edges? 

What is dark and round to the rear of the foward truck?  An iron rod?  A wood knot?

I wouldn't improvise and waste my time building what isn't, when an actual example is available. Historicity would suffer.   

I do not have a barrel but I want to build this carriage.  I'll put the cart before the horse.  I have a thick piece of Hard/Rock/Sugar Maple that was just given to me.  I have retired from designing and crafting custom furniture but not from making saw dust.

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

Richard



     

[Owen]

The royal armouries in England have a great video on Artillery I got my copy ... shows the making of a Mary Rose cannon and casting a large bronze cannon as well. Ok just checked the web site is now a dvd with the Artillery and first firearms in one.

Owen

[HuecoDoc]

Doc, What don't you grasp?  Maybe I can help.

I was referring to the breech design and how the pressures are contained there without separating the breech end from the tube.  I understand the forces of acceleration and inertia, but I'm not an engineer, and it's more the pneumatics that stump me.  I do understand the illustration better now.  It makes me want to build a bamboo cannon (relax, I won't).

[Owen]

a little vid

[yt=425,350]http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=1sJVsUk2X5E[/yt]

http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=1sJVsUk2X5E

[dan610324]

I just asked the man responsible for the ordnance in the Mary rose museum for manufacturing drawings on that carriage and photos of both the original pieces and the reconstruction .
will tell as soon as I know anything more .

[thelionspaw]

Doc:
The seal is never perfect and the wedge, driven in with a maul, is adequate enough.  We're not dealing with a bolt action rifle. My wedge is chained but for availabilty and not security.  I now have the block itself chained to improve the seal and restrict recoil movement.  It used to hop a bit. One might even venture to say that the release of pressure is good to have?

Richard "The Cautious"

[Cannoneer]

The last one has some great block of wood as the base.  The entire piece is a good candidate for a piece of our local maple with a bit of nice grain. 

Richard,

   Yeah, that's a pretty good sized hunk of wood about sums up the description of the bed of this carriage. I'd like to know, just how much the bed alone weighs. This is definitely the poster child image that defines the term, full bed carriage.
As for Owen's choice for his next carriage build I think he's going to have to check out the web for 15th, 16th and 17th century pattern books, models and full scale museum reproductions to pick something that interests him.

Is that elegant barrel original or a repro?

   I'm not sure; all I typed for a caption on this pic when I saved it is Mary Rose bronze gun with Tudor lions head handles. If my memory is right this is an original barrel from the wreck and the carriage is a recreation made from plans supplied by the archeologists to a british wood-working company that specialized in Tudor construction. I think this is the gun and carriage now on display in the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth, England.

[thelionspaw]

Can anyone post the underslung carriage an an attachment so I can enlarge sections of it?

Richard

[Cannoneer]

Richard's reply #15: These photos should answer some of the questions you posed.

[thelionspaw]

Thanks Boomer,
They help alot. The carriage is put together like a piece of machinery.  It looks like a knock-down-kit-built.  Possibly for ease of repair with replaceable parts?  Very little seems hard and fast. Some cotter pinning and mortise and tenon.  This project is going to take me into my 80s.  To be impressive and accent the thickness of the base (which can't be wussy), It should be 3 feet long; at least 2 feet.  I guess I should base the scale on a barrel I will never own but one that someone else might.

I told my daughter, "Look around you. This is your inheritance". She responded, "What inheritance?  I'm going to pile it on your chest and burn you like a Viking with it".  Where did I go wrong?

Somehow, this doesn't appear to be White Oak.  Adrian!  Any ideas?

rc

[Cat Whisperer]

...
She responded, "What inheritance?  I'm going to pile it on your chest and burn you like a Viking with it".  Where did I go wrong?
...

Go wrong?!  What a way to go!  I would be most honored!

[Double D]

Just don't let her find out what she could get for it Julia's. You'll end up in black plastic garbage bag.

[Cannoneer]

Somehow, this doesn't appear to be White Oak.

 

   I think this carriage may indeed be Grand Ole English Oak (Quercus robur), the other British favorite wood for gun carriages was elm but the figure in this wood doesn't look like elm (it's hard to tell).

[A.Roads]

"Somehow, this doesn't appear to be White Oak.  Adrian!  Any ideas?"

I would suggest that Elm or Oak are good candidates - Teak was also used a lot for carriages but perhaps not as much at such an early date.

The Royal Armouries modified a replica of this carriage - for test firing a Mary Rose barrel which they cast, it is the example where they placed the axles below the carriage, so there are at least three replicas of this carriage design in various museums. The Royal Armouries example is made of Elm with Ash axles & solid Elm wheels.
Adrian

[thelionspaw]

Thanks all.

Easy for you to say CW but I'd rather be feted while I'm still standing.  On the other hand, there's an Irish widow's joke that ends, "Stuff him and keep the party going".

Adrian: My vote was for Elm on this carriage.  As I remarked, it hasn't the look of White oak and I know it wasn't Teak. 

I have a little Teak in my loft now, that's suited for some carriages but I'm not into that mode.  Lots of thick Basswood for decoys. More than I'll ever use.

My daughter who is an artist, has an aged block of clear cherry in the loft that is 4 x 13 1/2 x 37 1/2 that would look great as mortar bases.  I don't think she will ever use it. 

At my friend's mill yesterday, he had just taken 12/4 x 12/4 Teak from the kiln and dressed it.  It is NOT inexpensive but what's money for?  The ability to find it is the trick. 

Attention pirates!  Great for a deck guns. 

There's an Irish proverb that says: "Poor men take to the sea; the rich to the mountains".  I am at 2,000' elevation.  Go figure?

M&T: He has one White oak log and says that he has to hold a White oak log for over a year before sawing it.  Then holds the boards sticked and stacked for another year+ before it goes into the kiln.  It is in there for well over a month, maybe 2+ or 3 to do it up right, depending upon the dimensions. He isn't a "Slam-Banger".

Caveat emptor.

Owen......You've got lots of choices here.

rc