get busy damn it , or i wont have a place for my trinkets to be finished .
unfinished trinkets stink BIG time .
gary
Oh Gary, you are going way, way out on a limb here! You must be even more naive than we had imagined!
Your trinkets statement reminds me a lot of "The Optimist" that I read years ago. I goes something like this:
An optimistic, first-year, college student writes his father to plead for money.
No mon,
No fun
Your son.
His father, a wise man and a realist writes back.
Too bad,
So sad,
Your Dad.
Heck, I could probably take all your partially finished trinkets lying about our shop and get 100 dollars down at the scrap yard. And what the heck is this 10 foot long steel pole with some grabber-gadget in the middle on the kitchen floor? Are you still thinking about going native on us? Is this thing a giant spit for a ritual Polynesian pig roast or what?
gary
I think its your obvious duty to help them 
you disturb their very tight time schedule when they help you
so I hope that you will help them in return
2,5 months each , wow thats tight
you guys sure will be busy with all the details
how many details is it in one completed cannon ??
Listen to Dan, Gary. He is a very wise man! Just do the red, Gary, do the red. To be fair, Gary gave us almost unlimited help on finishing the Monster Mortar, so we have a lot of respect for him on that score.
Dan there are approx. 360 details or pieces of hardware in each 100 pounder Parrott.
In the Big Bad 7" Brooke Rifle, there are fewer, about 230, but the recoil strap and trunnions and other larger details make it equally difficult to build. There are more than 60 pcs. of hardware in the platform alone.
Here is a photo of the bolts for the four units of the upper Brooke carriage that Mike made during the last week of Monster fabrication. You can quadruple the no of pieces here of course, as this pic does not show the nuts or two washers each that are required for each hardware set. If you need an angular washer too, then you need a 5 pc. set.
Thank you Allen! Sounds like you know exactly how small batch production is done. You are right, it does take a month to do all the polishing of this large pile or parts. The secret is to learn how to use polishing stones until you get down to 320 grit, then wet and dry snadpaper takes over. Oh, yes, we glass plate polish hundreds of parts too for absolutely dead flat surfaces.
NO BUFFING WHEELS ON ANYTHING!! One last thing, want a challenge? Try drilling a straight hole through three pieces of white oak, all at different attitudes, and there is a 4" gap between two of the three pieces. The re-entry surface is at a 45 deg. angle. How would YOU do that? The hole must be very straight and correctly sized because the corresponding bolt can have only .005" clearance to properly draw-up all assembled parts into a square, tight assembly. The drill must be 10 inches long and the bolts are .167" diameter.
Thanks guys, gotta get back to work now. I have to set-up the geometric die head; we are making more bolts. There are 20 required for the pintle-plate to secure it to the pedestal part of the platform. It must be secure, because 140 pounds of tube, upper carriage and chassis revolve around it AND
recoil against it.
Regards,
Tracy and Mike
