Author Topic: Verbruggen carriage (Read 5845 times)

threepdr · « **Reply #30 on:** May 05, 2011, 12:10:04 PM »

THe mock trunnions to test fit and angle is a great idea! I'm building a Kings Howitzer this year and I'll steal that idea when I build.

The carriage looks great BTW!

Zulu · « **Reply #31 on:** May 05, 2011, 01:31:32 PM »

Gary,
Thanks.

threepdr,
Do you already have the barrel? If so, you don't need mock trunnions. If not, I strongly suggest you wait till you have the barrel in your hands. It has happened to me too many times. I am told the trunnions are a certain size, then when you get the barrel they are different . Then your carriage dosen't fit the barrel and everyone blames you.

Zulu

gunsonwheels · « **Reply #32 on:** May 07, 2011, 03:02:08 PM »

Kinda new to the Forum and the Verbruggen... Is the field carriage version of this the "grasshopper" and does anyone on this forum have a copy?
I have a 42" long 40mm tube I think I would like to get SBR to use as the sleeve liner in the Verbruggen. We are already in negotiations for a 3/4 scale 1841 six pounder which will use my other 40mm tube of 48" length.
Very nice job Zulu on the carriage work... make sure if he is shooting metal projectiles he uses the anchor rings on the cheekstock sides to extend a rope forward to a drag of some sort. Without it, the projectile goes one way and the gun/carriage the opposite...

Zulu · « **Reply #33 on:** May 08, 2011, 03:11:49 AM »

gunsonwheels,
I assume your 40mm tube is rifled. So you would have a rifled Verbruggen? What is the bore size? What is the overall diameter of the tube?
I think you are correct on the grasshopper carriage.
jer2349 is quite aware of how easily his carriage rolls with the beringed wheels. I'm sure he will take precautions againt runaway carriage.

Zulu

gunsonwheels · « **Reply #34 on:** May 08, 2011, 10:59:18 AM »

I don't have a clue about the Verbruggen... I started talking with Paul Barnett before he passed about the possibilities... Lutz doesn't have anything on that tube and I don't know where to turn to get a dimensioned drawing... any help...

maybe jer2349 has his by now and I can get him to take some measurements. Jim Olsen at SBR is a one man operation so it takes time to get him to help. I do know SBR is selling their's with a 2.75" OD liner/casting-drilling with a 2.25" bore and is NSSA approved so if I have a 2.75" OD liner with a 1.578/1.618 (land/groove dias.) then it should all work out.

Yeh the 40mm tubes are both rifled and in addition I have another 40mm tube turned with a machined/threaded plug and cascabel in an 1861 Ordnance Rifle configuration... needs trunnions welded on but have a mold and set of CustomWagons.com 1/2 scale wheels for that build. With three cannons and a BB mortar to finish and a disabled wife I need to divest... just having trouble deciding which projects to give up on and sell out their parts collection(s). Also have a collection or H/W for a .632 scale CW field carriage (lunette, trail plate, prolong hooks, wheel guards, trail handles, worm earplate and key, etc.). We're on 40 acres in rural Wyoming with a 100 foot bluff at the back of our property to shoot into so I need to get something up and finished.

gunsonwheels · « **Reply #35 on:** May 08, 2011, 11:06:23 AM »

Zulu,
Just checked out your website... you need a 40mm 1/2 scale Ordnance Rifle for that carriage you have...

Zulu · « **Reply #36 on:** May 08, 2011, 01:57:13 PM »

Quote from: gunsonwheels on May 08, 2011, 11:06:23 AM

Zulu,
Just checked out your website... you need a 40mm 1/2 scale Ordnance Rifle for that carriage you have...

gunsonwheels,
Thanks for looking at my website.
That 1/2 scale #1 carriage you are talking about supports a wooden barrel. It looks real but it is illusion only. It would never hold the weight or stand the forces of even blank fire. It is static display only.
To make a proper #1 carriage of any scale involves a tremendous amount of hours, and a skill set for the metal that I'm not sure I posses with the current tools that I have. And That's a lot!
Maybe jer2349 will give his insight concerning his dealings with South Bend. I know he has a lot to say because I have heard it. But it is not my place to pass that info on.
I own a South Bend swivel barrel (36" long, 1 1/2" bore) and am quite pleased with it. I bought it back in 1998.
Zulu

gunsonwheels · « **Reply #37 on:** May 08, 2011, 03:37:11 PM »

Way Cool

I have a 13x54 South Bend. Wish I had a large Diameter Roller Tip steady rest for it... another unfinished project.
I was going to ask if the steel was embedded in the axle but...

When I did my first 40 back in 1969 I was in college and did a complete force and motion analysis for a design class I was taking. After the analysis but before I was done with the gun I showed up to a shoot and a guy was there with a 40 on a naval carriage he built... course first thing the range officers did was to order a proof firing before he could compete... double maxium charge... I tried to talk to him about his mass and the resultant velocity of his barrel and carriage but he dismissed me as a smart a__ college punk and... projectile went one way and the gun the other... about (not quite) as nice of woodwork as you did for jer... really scarred the gun up and he went home without competing. Before he left I did get him to listen about how in naval engagements there were two or four burly seamen holding rope ends extending up into a block and tackle arrangement between the ship and gun to both check the recoil travel and to pull the gun back into battery after it was serviced for the next round.

So... yeh I know the difference between a decorator and heavyily loaded live fire...

gunsonwheels · « **Reply #38 on:** May 09, 2011, 07:57:02 AM »

You were talking Replicas and I responded with Lathes... senior moment... sorry. I've seen quite a few of Paul's barrels (SBR then) and they were all excellant... don't know about Jim O. (SBR now) but Paulsen Bro.'s say the quality has NOT fallen off one bit... That's a pretty good recommendation

jer2349 · « **Reply #39 on:** May 09, 2011, 02:08:18 PM »

The Carriage will arrive today, as I just recieved a call from Fedex & they are lost. Any dimensions you are in need of I would be happy to relate all. I drove to South Bend to pick up the tube and had a beer with Jim at the shop. The quality of any product he produces is 100% no doubt. If you don't have a time frame you are concerned with, he is the man. I was shocked to see the 10s of tubes / mortors he was working on. The econmy being the way it is I would have thought cannon production would have been slow or not at all. After pondering this massive cannon production, it became quite clear why production is up. . Cheers jer

(MOD: There is a forum on GBO for politics...not here please...post edited..DD

gunsonwheels · « **Reply #40 on:** May 09, 2011, 03:22:30 PM »

Are all of us rednecks on this site...

Cat Whisperer · « **Reply #41 on:** May 11, 2011, 04:59:52 PM »

Quote from: gunsonwheels on May 09, 2011, 03:22:30 PM

Are all of us rednecks on this site...

YUP. Some moreso than others too!

Zulu · « **Reply #42 on:** May 11, 2011, 05:09:33 PM »

jer2349 has the carriage and the barrel.

We are just waiting for him to put pictures together for us.

I have not seen it together yet and am very anxious.
Zulu

gunsonwheels · « **Reply #43 on:** May 12, 2011, 04:02:06 PM »

Quote

I own a South Bend swivel barrel (36" long, 1 1/2" bore) and am quite pleased with it. I bought it back in 1998.

Zulu,
Are the pictures at the beginning of this thread of your swivel gun or of jer2349's Verbruggen? I know they are quite similar but the Verbruggen is a little more "girth"ive.

Thnx

Zulu · « **Reply #44 on:** May 12, 2011, 05:01:54 PM »

gunsonwheels,
Those pictures are of the Verbruggen.
This is my swivil gun barrel.
Expect pictures of the Verbruggen soon. It is off to be powder coated now.
Zulu

gunsonwheels · « **Reply #45 on:** May 12, 2011, 07:00:56 PM »

Very, very nice piece! Did you do all the carriage work for your swivel gun? The carriage looks a lot like the ones I'm finding for the Verbruggen field carriage.

Here's a link for an outfit that does metal coatings... including bronze... anyone know anything about the process and if it might yield a look like the original bronze Verbruggen?

http://www.liquidmetalcoatings.com/

Zulu · « **Reply #46 on:** May 13, 2011, 03:16:28 AM »

gunsonwheels,
Yes, I built the wheels and carriage.
Pictures of that build can be seen buried in this thread. It was one of my early postings.
I know nothing about coatings.
Zulu

http://www.gboreloaded.com/forums/index.php/topic,181921.msg1098884859.html#msg1098884859

gunsonwheels · « **Reply #47 on:** May 13, 2011, 11:02:07 AM »

Zulu and jer2349,
The powder coating Zulu mentioned:
As I've been surfing the web and researching the Verbruggen... the barrels were cast bronze but were originally coated in a way to yield a black finish (kind of like SBR finished jer's barrel). However as restorations have taken place, museums and parks like Yorktown are have stripped the barrel clean and even polished to bring out the beauty and color of the bronze.
So the "powder coating" Zulu speaks of... are we going to the bronze finish?

Zulu · « **Reply #48 on:** May 15, 2011, 01:51:12 PM »

I know the powder coating is gloss black. I haven't seen any finished pictures yet. I know it is off to the engravers next week to get the same engraving as the original on the top of the breach. The engraver wanted it after the powder coating.
I know jer2349 has fired it and had a visit from the sheriff.

Now the sheriff wants to be invited to the next shooting.

I love it!

I know pictures are coming but I don't know when. $:-\$
It has been raining there. We need rain here very badly.

Zulu

gunsonwheels · « **Reply #49 on:** May 15, 2011, 03:59:23 PM »

Well.. our water will be headed your direction soon enough... we have over 200% SWE in some of our river watersheds and the state as a whole is over 150%... you folks downstream better hitch up your waders'. $:-\$

Zulu · « **Reply #50 on:** May 17, 2011, 02:27:39 PM »

jer2349 sent me some pictures of the powder coated Verbruggen and asked me to post them.
It is now at the engravers for a copy of original engraving. I hope to have those pictures soon.
Zulu

gunsonwheels · « **Reply #51 on:** May 17, 2011, 02:49:38 PM »

Truly a thing of beauty. I think we should all send jer2349 a set of billiard balls ($22 a set on the internet)

Rayfan87 · « **Reply #52 on:** May 17, 2011, 02:55:18 PM »

Very good looking set up. I know paint might be the historically accurate thing, but it should be a crime to cover grain like on that carriage.

gunsonwheels · « **Reply #53 on:** May 17, 2011, 03:04:42 PM »

I think some of the parks and museums decided the same crime was committed when they "painted" the original beautiful bronze barrel black. They are bare metal and some even polish them. I'm hoping to see some of the bronze coating work that Denver outfit has done so I can decide what to do with mine. They say it leaves it looking just like it was made from the metal product coating... we'll see...??

Zulu · « **Reply #54 on:** May 17, 2011, 03:10:01 PM »

Does anyone know why some cannon barrels have the trunnions set lower than center? I personally don't like it. It seems that the barrel should be sitting lower in the carriage for a more balanced center of gravity.
Zulu

gunsonwheels · « **Reply #55 on:** May 17, 2011, 03:37:38 PM »

The Brits were doing it through the 18th century... Americans for the same reasons you cite center axis'ed them with the bore... However... if you don't get it dead on the barrel axis, and get them a tad high, the barrel will "pinwheel" up off the quoin/elevation-screw and usually do that BEFORE the round clears the muzzle... Reed Radmull in Utah had a half dozen rubber tarp tighteners wrapped around his cascabel and trail-stock because his barrel as-cast had the trunnions just a shade high. When I welded mine on my first gun I intentionally welded them .060" low because I knew the elevation screw would be there to counter the forces. Upon proof testing the barrel, it "folded" that trail-stock right in two.

The next trailstock was laminated from hardrock maple, no 45 degree grain (all at 180 degrees plus/minus five) with resorcinol glue (used for structural beams). In the photo I posted in the "Just Curious Where is everyone located" thread the gun has just cleared the slug but the trailstock had bent like a bow (from ONLY that .060" offset) and is shown about 15" off the ground with chain jumping from the violent rebound. How the Brits kept those guns from launching themselves I do not know... There is a lot of physics at work when we fire heavy projectiles.

Double D · « **Reply #56 on:** May 17, 2011, 03:53:49 PM »

I don't know which is worse polishing a bronze barrel or letting sit out and go rotten green with verdigris, either act should be chargeable as a criminal act of willful destruction

Double D · « **Reply #57 on:** May 17, 2011, 04:32:09 PM »

From John Muller's Treatise of Artillery 1780.

"Trunnions
"The method of placing the trunnions fo that their axis touches the lower furface of the bore, as is practifed all over Europe, is fo abfurd, that it is amazing no author or artift has thought proper to change it; the only reafon I have heard given for this practice, was, that by this means they were fronger fixed to the gun, and of confequnece would not break off fo foon as in any other place. As ifignificant as this reafon is, it ferves however to defend that old eftablfhed cuftom"

Do You know how hard it is to purposely type f for s?

Zulu · « **Reply #58 on:** May 17, 2011, 05:36:32 PM »

DD,
I'd say you have been dipping into the martini picture.

Zulu

Double D · « **Reply #59 on:** May 17, 2011, 05:58:24 PM »

That's quoted from the Treatise...I shoot Martini's i don't drink them