Spanish Cannons on Lake Erie

[Cannoneer]

Cannonmn,
Do you have these four on your groups (can't remember the acronym) list?

Spanish Guns in Erie, PA

[BoomLover]

Fantastic "Patina"! Thanks for posting this one, interesting story and great pics. BoomLover

[cannonmn]

Thanks for posting, I just sent it around to the SARA group.

Unfortunately the bright blue-green appearance is evidence of advanced acid-rain corrosion.  The process gradually removes the markings from the cannons and roughens the surface.  The solution is to gently clean the residue off the cannon, dry it thoroughly, prime, and paint it.  The paint color can be chosen to match the present color if desired.

This problem is beginning to get some media attention at the Washington Navy Yard, and I won't be able to say any more about it at this time.  The Navy has chosen to ignore the letter I sent them on this topic about 5 months ago.

[cannonmn]

There's an interesting side-story to these four large bronze guns.  They were sold sometime ca. 1980, to a cannon collector and arms dealer who was a friend of mine, so that's how I got the story from him about 10 years after the fact.  He got a licensed heavy truck driver to go to Erie with him and load the cannons for the drive back to the northeast where the dealer wanted them.  They kind of forgot about the limitations of the rural roads which had to be traversed to get them to their destination.  One such limitation was a "5 ton" bridge.  The two folks and the semi-trailer were headed down a hill toward this bridge with a total load of probably dozens of tons, and had a brief debate about crossing the bridge, then decided to "go for it."  They made it across, fortunately for them and for the cannons.  

It wasn't long before the cannons were missed and the facts came to light about the cemetery director selling them with no authority to do so, and before long the cannons were retrieved through a legal process.

[williwm]

I know nothing of cannon, so a couple  questions. Those appear to be rifled, is that so? Would they have been rifled at a later date?

[Cannoneer]

Williwm,
These bronze Spanish cannon would have been rifled many years after they were first cast. I'm guessing that the rifling would have been done on these cannon by the Spanish, sometime in the latter half of the 1800's. I may be crawling out on a weak limb here just for the sake of appearing well informed, (I learned this from a member named Cannonmn, and I may have learned it upside down) but I think the bore in the photo shows three groove rifling done in the Beaulieu method, a rifling system which was named for its inventor, the Frenchman Treuille de Beaulieu.

[RocklockI]

I was wondering why those old guns where rifled ?
A bronze rifle w/dolfs ! No banding ? Good luck chuck .

Gary

wonder what the service charge would be?

"uuuhhh , Sir ! Could I maybe transfer to the mortar corps ?

I wonder how many times it was shot after rifling ?

[williwm]

boom j, thanks for the explanation. mw

[Cannoneer]

I was wondering why those old guns where rifled ?
A bronze rifle w/dolfs ! No banding ? Good luck chuck .

Gary

wonder what the service charge would be?

"uuuhhh , Sir ! Could I maybe transfer to the mortar corps ?

I wonder how many times it was shot after rifling ?

Gary,
Many of the older cannon (from different countries) that we see rifled, were experiments done for testing and trial. We and Britain did the same thing, here Gen. Charles James at first used M1841 6-pounders to test his rifling system. In Spain's case I think the reason was primarily economical; by the time these old guns were rifled, Spain was far from being a super-power on the world stage. They had antique (for the time) bronze rifled cannons like these at both of their Colonial holdings Cuba, and the Philippines during the Span-Am War.
I agree with you though, there's something incongruous about the appearance of these old cannons profiles and the rifling in their bores.