First carriage

[Cannoneer]

Well, I went to Home Depot after work yesterday and found some Alder that I like for the cheeks, wheels and stuff, some Poplar for the axles and some non-descript 1/4" hardwood dowel for the spindles. The Alder is in the form of 1/4" thick boards which I'll need to laminate, then plane to 3/8". I don't have a planer, so I'll need to do that work on my router table. Maybe tonight... if I'm not too whipped from the work day.

BTW: It's kinda sad; I work pretty close to MacBeath Hardwood (they have a lot of cool wood), but I really, really hate Berkeley and don't like going there.

Is that Berkeley, as in home of the radical?

[grymster]

Is that Berkeley, as in home of the radical?

Yup. Berkeley, CA.... I really do despise that place, but I occasionally make exception to my no-enter-Berkeley policy for lunch with important contacts... they have a lot of good restaurants there!

[Cannoneer]

Well, I went to Home Depot after work yesterday and found some Alder that I like for the cheeks, wheels and stuff, some Poplar for the axles and some non-descript 1/4" hardwood dowel for the spindles.

Grym,
I made some cabinets for my garage out of red alder; that will be a good choice for the cheeks. I also did a search here on the forum, and found that one of the guys made a fine looking poplar bed for his Coehorn mortar. Here's an interesting factoid about red alder that I just found while looking up its properties (probably untrue): Red alder is the second most used wood in America, after white oak.

[grymster]

OK, it's not much, but I do get to bump my carriage build thread from page five!   Today I cut the cheeks, next I'll double-back tape the paper templates to them and and rough bandsaw the steps and the radius along the bottom (forget what that's called). Then, I'll stack them against an angle plate on my little mill and finish the steps. After that, I think I'll buy a drum sander for my drill press and finish the radius thing. Back in the mill to cut the trunnion and axle reliefs at the proper angle. I'll cut the bed pieces on the saw (maybe finish them on the mill), turn the wheels, paint and build hardware. OK, so all that isn't going to happen before my camping trip at the end of the month. But I'm hoping I can get the woodwork done, make some capsquares and cheat the hardware enough that I can mount the barrel and shoot it on the camping trip.

I should mention that I didn't like how I laminated the Alder, so I found some 1/2" Poplar in the basement and had a friend plane it to 3/8". Actually, being a machinist, I asked the guy to plane it to a "fat" 3/8" and he, being a woodworker, made it ~.415", rather than the .380" I expected.  

[grymster]

Today I cut the bed piece and the axle and trunnion reliefs. I decided to do this before the cheek steps and bottom radius thingy so I'd have nice, rectangular pieces to work with on the mill. I buggered up the cheek on the far side in the photo, because the chuck came loose in the spindle taper and slid down. I'm not in the habit of putting side-milling cutters into drill chucks, but my equipment is pretty limited here and I couldn't find a collet. I dunno, I guess that's why they make wood putty and paint.

The axles shown are just a couple sections I rough cut for an assembly demonstration. I think I'll need to reduce the cross section on the final parts to accommodate paint, because they're pretty tight at the moment.

I find myself completely and absolutely frustrated with the little Sherline mill. I probably have a few thousand hours on Bridgeports size mills and I kinda know what I'm doing. With this thing, it seems like all work and no fun. I really need to upgrade here.

[Double D]

Any update?

[grymster]

Any update?

Well, I haven't logged in here in a while, but I did accomplish a bit more (OK, little bit more  ) on the carriage. Since I buggered up one of the cheeks while milling the axle reliefs, I decided to start over. I now have the cheeks completely profiled. Need to work on the axles and wheels, then start on hardware and paint.

Between work and Mrs. Grymster's demands on my time, I really don't expect to accomplish much in the near term.

[Double D]

We can furnish you tons of  good advice on dealing with building a carriage and you will comeout with very nice carriage.  We can also offer you a ton of advice about dealing with the Mrs. but most of it won't work.

I have been having problems with arthritis in my hands, so 20-30 minutes at a time is sometimes the best I can do. Projects take a while that way, but they eventually get done.  Try a few minutes a day. 


I'll include some  wife advice.  Tell her you need to work on your cannon so can have it ready to go when you take her to Montana next Summer for the Cannon Convention.

[grymster]

We can furnish you tons of  good advice on dealing with building a carriage and you will comeout with very nice carriage.  We can also offer you a ton of advice about dealing with the Mrs. but most of it won't work.

I have been having problems with arthritis in my hands, so 20-30 minutes at a time is sometimes the best I can do. Projects take a while that way, but they eventually get done.  Try a few minutes a day. 


I'll include some  wife advice.  Tell her you need to work on your cannon so can have it ready to go when you take her to Montana next Summer for the Cannon Convention.

You missed your calling! I'm pretty sure you should have been a marriage counselor! 

Sorry about your hands. Something wrong with this world; as soon as we have time to do the things we like doing, our frail bodies suddenly become uncooperative.

I'll try and post a couple shots of the carriage soon.

[Double D]

Don't feel sorry for my hands, they are what the are, and they ain't going to stop me. 

If you can hear laughter coming from the atmosphere, it will be my wife laughing when I go up and tell her you said I should have been a Marriage counselor.

[grymster]

So I remade the cheeks. Chop sawed rectangles to size, band sawed the steps rough and finished machined them on a buddy's Bridgeport. Used a Makino KE55 to mill the axle and trunnion reliefs.

For the wheels, I sawed some rough octogons, punched a hole through the middle and mounted them on a piece of threaded rod in the Bridgeport spindle. Mounted a lathe tool in a vice and turned them using the quill feed.

I forget the proper term, but I cut the arc in the bottom of the cheeks on the Bridgeport, using a 5/8" endmill to plunge mill a bunch of points, then finished with a little drum sander. Of course, I first wrote a program for my computer that generates the points. That was fun too. 

The capsquares were made on a Wire EDM by a friend who installs and services those machines. I have to shorten them up a bit, but the hard part is done.

Hopeful I get to work on it a little over the Christmas holiday. I must seem not only amateurish to some of you, but painfully slow also.

[Cat Whisperer]

The first one is always the coolest  -  as you learn SO much in the process!

 

[GGaskill]

... but painfully slow also.

I have a lot of experience doing machine work but it has never been my day job so I can't say I am real fast with it.  Plus projects tend to be one-offs and there isn't a lot of reuse of set ups or special tooling, so nothing goes quickly.  I usually plan to do three or four things in any given period of machine work, but am lucky to get two done.

Don't worry about being slow.  Worry about being right.

[armorer77]

A wise man once told me " It doesn't matter how fast you can make scrap ."  Nice cannon .

[grymster]

I'm thinking about how to bolt the carriage together and it turns out that bolting through the capsquares, the cheeks, the axles and whatever clamp thingy I make for underneath the axle, will result in an angle of about 8 degrees off of perpendicular to the top of the cheek. Won't it look kinda funny with the head of the bolts canted over at that angle?

I didn't notice that in DD's SAMCC build, but maybe his angles were not quite so severe?

[GGaskill]

My 24 pounder carriage bolts are mostly vertical but the front one is about 9° off vertical and the back one is also slightly off vertical.  The head of the front bolt is at an angle to the shank of the bolt and it is a special head which is slotted for a key.

[Double D]

Front to back there is draft.  Top to bottom may need adjustment of the bottom widths to adjust for width dimensions of your barrel. And, no mine is not square, and I will be deeply offended it you come near my carriage with a square....   

[grymster]

Here's a pic of the angles.

[GGaskill]

On mine, the middle bolts are vertical and the rear one has only a slight angle.  But the front bolt on the rear axle does not go through the center of the axle; it goes through the forward part of it.  Since the axles are all wood, there is no reason the bolt should go through the center.

[grymster]

Thanks.

My axles are only a 1/2" wide and I think I'm going with a 2-56 bolt, which will require maybe a .095" hole, so there won't be a lot of room.

[GGaskill]

Also, while both axles have a rectangular cross-section, the long axis is vertical on the front axle and horizontal on the rear one.  So there is a wider slot in the rear.

[grymster]

Also, while both axles have a rectangular cross-section, the long axis is vertical on the front axle and horizontal on the rear one.  So there is a wider slot in the rear.

Yours was probably designed for some degree of historical accuracy..... mine, well... not so much.  The axles are 1/2" square.

[Double D]

Oh those angles.  If you go to my post on building the carrige you will see how shimmed the cheeks to get the angles.  Also On the rear Axle it seems my axle was wider and both holes went through the Axle.

[grymster]

Oh those angles.  If you go to my post on building the carrige you will see how shimmed the cheeks to get the angles.  Also On the rear Axle it seems my axle was wider and both holes went through the Axle.

I must have missed the cheek shimming posts. I'll take a look again.

Meanwhile, I'm on my way to your place with square in hand! 

[grymster]

Yesterday, I cut the axles to length and drilled holes in the ends to accept the spindles (1/4" hardwood dowels). I bought some 2-56 threaded rod and some 4mm key stock. I plan to make nuts from the keystock. I'll take some of the nuts, screw them partially onto the threaded stock, then puddle a little weld in there to make the bolts. Then clean the "heads" up on the lathe.

I also finished designing the brackets that will mount under the cheeks and connect the cheeks to the axles. I think I'm going to have these wire EDM cut by my friend also. Same guy that made the capsquares for me. I hate outsourcing any part of this to others, but I really dislike running my Sherline mill and need to get a more appropriately sized unit soon. I can use another friend's Bridgeport, but I don't really like doing that too often either.

[Double D]

Those axle support if you needed it for this small a cannon could be cut out with a hack saw from a piece of banding material and shaped with a file.  

This is a tiny little cannon with some incredible detail in the carriage! Wow.

[grymster]

........ This is a tiny little cannon with some incredible detail in the carriage! Wow.

I guess I could just glue it together, paint it, then attach the capsquares with some wood screws..... don't temp me! 

Thanks for the banding material idea. I'll think about that.

[Rickk]

On my 1"-er, the capsquare bolts aren't really bolts. They are threaded 1/4-20 SS rod that have been epoxied in place in holes drilled in the side boards with JB Weld.

They are long, and go most of the way through to add structural strength. They stick up through the top of the capsquare and through the capsquare enough to get a washer and an acorn nut over them. The rod is not at any angle... the holes they are sunk into are square with the top.

It's not authentic, but it is easy.