Neros 1.atempt to build a Napoleon 1857 Model

[neros]

Hi all..


I have for a long time wanted to build a M1857 12 pounder, but lack of plans and drawings has put me off starting a build.
Finding this board was a good start, and with great help from DoubleD I now have 3 set of plans from AOP. The AOP plans/drawings are fantastic, well detailed drawings with dimension on allmost every detail of the cannon. They are cheap, and well worth buying even for those of you that dont have ambitions on taking on a build..


My machine park are not up to heavy duty use, so they restrict the size of scale. This model will be in a 1:5.5 scale.
I have a Myford ML7 from 1952, a Sherline mill that I have converted to CNC and a scroll saw, basic tools, 2 hands, poor eyes and bad hearing. The last thanks to my years in the Norwegians Coastal artillery     


Iˋm not very experienced using lathe and mill, and certenly not using cad/cam drawing for programing the CNC mill. But I belive in "learning by doing", and I will report my faults as they are produced.. And there will be some, trust me 


Building a shooting device is not legal in Norway without a license, and thats almost impossible to get. SO, official I am building static models. Building a blanks gun is in a legal grey zone so I take my chances, and fire them off to amuse the kids and friends :-)


You will see me build cannons that are bending the normal safety norm on this board regarding bore and breach wall. I DO NOT RECOMEND OTHERS TO FOLLOW MY EXCAMPLE ON THIS BUILD. STAY SAFE WHEN BUILDING A SHOOTING GUN..!!


I build this model using mostly brass and oak, with some parts made from drill rod/silver steel. 
I have done some work and would like to post pictures with explenation on what, and how I have done things. But Iˋm not sure how to post pictures that apears embedded in the post with text under each pictures.. Anyone that can explaine the correct way to do this..?


First picture show progress so far: The tube is not done, it need some work to correct the profile. The fellos are cnc-cut, but Iˋll get back to the details in future post..


Hope you find this interesting 

[Double D]

Looks like you are off to a good start.  I will send you an email on on picture posting.  There are instruction in the sticky post at the top of the board.

[neros]

Thanks for the info DD, hopefully my pictures will be posted OK..


Ok..


The build started with a stock of 60mm x 370mm brass bolt. I dont have any good ways of drilling out the bore, so this was done by a friend that works as a CNC operator. (he cant see the point of manually turning a barrel, taking houres turning, filing and sanding, when he knows he can CNC cut the barrel in aprox 1minute :-) Anyway the bore was a perfect cal. 20mm, and the finish was superb.





First the bolt was lined up in the lathe, and the first truing up cut was done. The bore is facing the tailstock.
And here I made my first BIG mistake... Ever heard the frase: measure twise, cut once.. Well, I measured once and cut once, and started the ending of the breach 15mm short from the bottom of the bore..













The bad thing about this is that I now have comprimised the safety distance of 2xbore vs breach thikness.
So this leaves me with a static tube, or at best a blanks gun with a very reduced load. If the carriage is a sucsess, I will make a new barrel for this model
.


Here the taper profile is cut.  and leaving a good amout of material to shape the mussel swell.








So, then I roughly cut out the rear end of the barrel, but do not seperate the barrel before the taper and mussel profile is done.





Now the mussle swell is almost finished, profiling is done free-hand using files and sandpaper. Great care should be taken using a file on a rotating part.. one wrong move, and disaster is what you get.







After the breach is cut of the remaining bolt, the barrel is turned around and the breach end is placed on a steady rest. I leave a rim for the steadyrest to wear on instead of the barrel, this way I dont have any wear marks on the barrel. This rim is removed as one of the finish stages of the barrel..









The steady rest is closed, and the rear end is done again free-hand using files and sandpaper.. Be also carefull to cover the lathe bed when sanding, you dont want any grit on the bed and sadle as this will premature wear out your lathe..





When done with the profiles, sanding and polishing is whats left to do. I also do this in the lathe..
This is my way of doing a barrel, others may have better ways of doing it, and Iˋm open for suggestions and advices.. 


What I have ended up with is now a barrel with 20mm bore and breach walls of 15 mm. Not acording to safty recomandation, and is not to be used for live firing. At best, mildly loaded with BP and light wadding..

[neros]

Starting on the wheel..




This is proberbly the biggest show stopper for most people building this model. 7 fellows 14 spokes to be carved out from wood can make your hair turn gray only by the thought..
I must admitt that this has taken most of my time so far on this project, and thats before a single cut has been made.
I have decided to cheat a little by cutting fellows and spokes using a CNC mill. The mill is a small tabletop sized Sherline, that I have converted to CNC by mouting stepper motors on 3 axes, and build the stepper controller from a kit. The conversion way easy, understanding CAD, CAM and CNC software is another story. Up til now I have not used it as a pure CNC machine, but used the mill semi-manual by driving the axes with motor instead of handcranking..
So it has taken me a couple of evenings to get a understanding of the sw-part of using CNC..


First of I started to draw the outlines in a CAD\CAM program, this is easy. The more demanding task of the software is to program how the cuts are to be made along the lines of, in this case the spokes. There are no ending to how many options there are in the sw, so a little trial and error is the only way to learn


This first picture show an isometric picture of the spoke, and the path that the endmill will follow cutting this part in 8 sequenses.
I am cutting light cuts, and frankly it could easy been cut in 2 or 3 passes..





When happy with the set-up in the CAD\CAM software, the data is stored in a file that are used by the CNC- software, that is the sw that is driving the CNC directly from the computer.. Next picture is from this sw, and again here we see a window of the tool path, and the semi circle you see is how the end mill is entering and exiting the material at each step of the cut. By using a lead-in/out there is no way to tell where the mill has started and stopped.





Now that the program is loaded, the material needs to be aligned on the mill. I have here a 15 mm oak piece for doing a test run to see if the program is done correctly. The spoke are to be 7 mm, so later on I need to find some thinner planks..
Here we are ready to press "play"







And some minutes later, we have a perfect cut spoke, though in need of cutting loose from the 0.5 mm material left in the pocket from the mill path. And of course, it need to be reduced from 15 to 7 mm thickness..







And here we are.. The first cut spoke blank, and some allready cut fellows.    Now, only 27 more to make



I will await doing more spokes before I have decided how to attach them to the fellows. My initial plan are to drill a center hole of 4mm at the outer end of the spoke, and drive a dowel trough the fellows into the spoke. Any thoughts on this issue..??


I also needs to come up with a plan on how to make the rounded profil to the spokes.. And decide how to make up the nave for the wheel, and how to cut the holes for the spokes. I have one radical idea, but will get back to you on that one..

[neros]

The carriage stock and chin..


The stock and chins was cut out from oak using templates made from copying and resizing the plans from AOP.
One word of caution.. Do NOT copy and cut temples for the fellows, spokes and then cut them out on a band saw/scroll saw.
If you do, your in for a nasty surprice.. The plans, how nice they are, are NOT correct geometrical. The wheels in the drawings are NOT circular, so if you makes temples directly,  you end up with a wheel thats out of shape..


The stock was cut using a scroll saw, and the  pockets and taperd sides of the stock was milled to correct size an angles. Nothing fanzy about this, just alot of dust 





Yes I know, not much support on the far end of the stock, but cutting lightly there was minimal chatter during the cutting. I ran out of X-axis, so the end piece was cut of using a scroll saw, and finally sanded flush...


Again some work done using the mill.. Its has to be said that using the mill is NOT time saving, it can be done a lot quicker by
traditional tools, saw, files, sanding, but the precision on the cuts are for well worth the extra time used..



And a final word on CNC, its a curse and a blessing. It produces perfect results, and each part are identical. Right down to the smallest mistake, how do I know..? Well, I have 7 fellows that are perfectly cut, but they do not ad upp to a 360 deg circle... Reminder to myself: every decimal is important when working with degrees..


More to come 

[Cannoneer]

Neros,
Thanks for starting an informative thread, your Napoleon is looking fine.

[neros]

Thanks for kind words Cannoneer..


Only done som small work today. I needed a tool for profiling the spokes, there is no way Iˋm sanding these to shape as Iˋm going to make 3 more of this model (will be making the 3 others to my 3 sons) So its nice to have tools for the most labour intensive work at hand.


I took a drill rod and turned it down to 10mm so i would fit my mill tool holder. I then cut a 3.5mm radius at the end, and shaped the cut surface on a wheel grinder. Sorry, dont have piccis of these steps.



The picture below shows the cutting tool, and the a test cut to see how it worked. It was a suscess, so I will harden the tool bit, and start cutting up the rest of the spokes..
(Sorry for the poor picture quality)

[neros]

there is no way Iˋm sanding these to shape as Iˋm going to make 3 more of this model (will be making the 3 others to my 3 sons) So its nice to have tools for the most labour intensive work at hand.

Hmm,  it looks as I might eat these words   
After aligning one spoke blank on the mill, doing muliple cuts on 4 corners, and STILL have to finetune the shape by manual sanding, it would be faster to do this by manual sanding all the way..


Sometimes the old fasion way is the better than overengineering the part..

[GGaskill]

I set up to make some wheels once and the first thing I realized was that the only way I was going to make 14 spokes that were anywhere near being the same was to make a set of jigs that would allow me to do each process on all 14 pieces one after the other.  If I were making four times that, it would be even more important.  So don't begrudge the time making the jigs/fixtures first as the making of the parts will be both faster and better.

[neros]

GGaskill


You are probaly right..


But as the spoke blanks are cnc-cut, they "only" need to have the rounded profile sanded to shape.
I have a pretty good free-hand skill in sanding, a leftover benefit from scratch building rc-airplanes for years. So Iˋm
kind of confident that I may get away with it. But a good set-up is needed to get repeted accuracy..


I will try to sand down a few spokes, and then decide witch way to go further.. Anyway you look at it, it will take time 

[neros]

I left the wheels for a moment, need to rethink my aproach regarding the spokes. Building jigs or shape them free-hand..(?)
While thinking, I needed do the axel body.


So I started up by squaring up a piece of oak and getting it cut to right dimensions, again using the mill.







So after its squared up, its placed on an angle plate to cut the proper sideangles..





Then a dry fit to see if it all lines up...  I will wait with milling out the axelshaft pocket until I have the axel ready





Now, back to the cumputer to draw a fixture/jigg to mount the  fellow in, to drill pilot holes for the spokes...

[neros]

Not much of an update, but have got some work done (dayjobb and kids been taking up time lately:-)


Have made the distance pieces between the main stock and the cheeks, and are now cutting up spoke blanks.
Still not decided on how to form them to final shape 


Anyway, progress so far...

[Double D]

 


And a final word on CNC, its a curse and a blessing. It produces perfect results, and each part are identical. Right down to the smallest mistake, how do I know..? Well, I have 7 fellows that are perfectly cut, but they do not ad upp to a 360 deg circle... Reminder to myself: every decimal is important when working with degrees..


 

...and if you convert from inches to metric, rounding will compound the stacking error.

[Doc Brown.]

(he cant see the point of manually turning a barrel, taking houres turning, filing and sanding, when he knows he can CNC cut the barrel in aprox 1minute :-)

I would like to see your friend turn the profile on more fancy 18th century barrels with a CNC Lathe or milling machine without the use of any free hand machine work. Call me crazy but I think it would be slower If not impossible.
 
Thanks for the build thread. Looks great.

[GGaskill]

If he decides to make something like this on his CNC lathe, I would love to see a video of the process.  At 37 cm length, he might be able to do it in 2 minutes.

[de_lok]

(he cant see the point of manually turning a barrel, taking houres turning, filing and sanding, when he knows he can CNC cut the barrel in aprox 1minute :-)

I would like to see your friend turn the profile on more fancy 18th century barrels with a CNC Lathe or milling machine without the use of any free hand machine work. Call me crazy but I think it would be slower If not impossible.
 
Thanks for the build thread. Looks great.

 
No, not impossible. Actually quite practical. Below is a barrel done entirely on cnc, profile od turned on cnc lathe, trunnions turned on cnc lathe, trunnion pockets machined on cnc mill with 4th axis cnc rotary table. Total machine time: 37 minutes !    22.750 length, 4.00 dia at breech, bored for golfballs.....................................................
 
Dewayne
 

[Doc Brown.]

I want both of the last two barrels pictured! They are awesome.

[neros]

Gentelmen..


My friends comment was kind of a  "tongue -in cheek" remark. BUT, I have seen one of the machines he operates at work, and beleve me it would spit out barrels at an impressive level. The limiting factor on his machine is spindel bore to feed stock material (80 mm) and the cannon bores lenght. He could not bore out my barrel as it had a to deep bore.
(cant remember the limitation right now)
The machine is a combined multi-axis lathe/milling machine, and it can do extreme complex 3d work and at a incredible speed and finish. Iˋll see if i can find some demo videos of the machine, its as impressive as its high price 


Now, back to my own little cnc-mill to cut some more spokes....

[neros]

OK, things are going slow, but have now made all the fellows and spoke blanks are trimmed to correct thickness.
I have made up some extra spokes to rigg the set-up on the milling machine for cutting the contours.
Starting to get a little tired of working with wood now, so looking forward to start on the metal hardware


I have a question regarding the iron outer wheel rim, how are they made originally? Are the wheel rim ends forged to to a complete circle,or are the ends riveted to the underlaying fellows as they meet..?

[rampa room artillery]

very good work i am impressed, i wish i had your cnc knowledge i would be on a production level if i could. can you show us more about your cnc machines.
  Rick bryan

[Max Caliber]

neros, wheels for the 1857 Napoleon had hoop tires, made from one piece of wrought iron with the ends forge welded together. The tires were made a little smaller than the wheel, heated to expand the tire then put on the wheel. When cooled, the tire would shrink tightly onto the wheel. Tires were secured to the wheel with bolts through the center of each of the seven felloes segments.

Very nice work, by the way. I like your wheel building process.

[neros]

Rick.. i dont have any skill worth mention regarding CNC stuff, but I have no fear of moving into unknown territories when it comes to trying something new.  So I jump in with both legs and hope that some usefull comes out of it, most times is total failure, but once in while Iˋm able to produce something. Either way, I learn something usefull for my next atempt   


My little mill is a Sherline table top size mill, that means SMALL.. Its an accurate litte bugger, but it small size is sometimes frustrating.  and its shortage in power and mass, means that cuts has to bee done in very small steps not do overload the machine. Works for me, but I really would like a bigger machine for bigger that 1:5 scale cannons.
The conversion to CNC is quite simple on these machines, but it does cost some money.


Here is a piccie of the mill I use..

[neros]

Max


thanks for info, and kind words..




Iˋll do the same then.. Iˋll weld the joint, trying to get it a Hair tighter than the wheel diameter and try to get a tight fit.
I dont think I will crimp it on to hard as Iˋm concerned that the preassure will be to much for the wheel integrity.


Looking forward to doing some metal work now, after finishing the wheel nave...

[neros]

yet another short update..  not any big progress to report, but has begun making the nave/wheel hub.

Started by gluing 4 pieces of oak together, then mounted it to the lathe.. Iˋm using a very sharp round nosed cutter, and are using the lathe as if I as cutting metal.. The odd shaped wood block is mounted in an 4 jaw chuck and the rough cylinder is done.


Now time to mount the cylinder shape in a 3 jaw chuck and center drill and finalize the cylinder.

 
Here is my set up for milling out the pockets in the nave. The cylinder is mounted on a center shaft beween the rotary table and the small tailstock. The 4 way chuck are there only to get a grip on the cylinder..



Always nice to see a set up that actually works for a change 




After a lot of counting turns and double checking before making a cut, I finally have cut out 28 holes at the right place.
As you see the holes are not square due to using an end mill, but I will put the reinforcment bands close to the spokes, so the halfmoon ends will be covered.. A little cheating is ok I think..



Now, next is to place the cylinders back on the lathe and shape the hub to correct shape.. And then I have to get down to get the spokes done, have been putting them on hold for a while..

[neros]

Getting harder and harder to find spare time to put into this project.. Spring is here and house, garden, dayjob and my boat are taking up time. I hope Iˋll get the wheels done befor summer kicks in, so "only" the hardware are left.

Got the wheel hubs/nave rough cut on the lathe. Used the same shaft as in the mill, but ca-glued the hub to the shaft at each end.








Felt the need to do som motivation pictures, to see if it starts to look like a Napoleon.. 

[The Jeff]

Very nice! Thanks for showing your in process pictures. It's always interesting to see other's setup.

[GGaskill]

I hope you reoiled your lathe after cleaning up all those wood chips.  The sawdust just wicks away the lube better than a solvent bath.

[neros]

GGaskill... Dont worry, this 60 year old lathe is my baby, and it gets more love and attension than my wife (according to her:-)
Another thing to be aware of with wood is that it contain acid that may be deluted in the oil and if left over time it may stain the bare metal parts like the bed.. I normally keep an vac close to the cutting tool when turning wood, but I had a mishap with my vac.. The internal filterbag had a hole in it, and the vac send a cloud of fine wood dust in the air in my workshop.. A hell to clean up, and a major fire hazard

[rivercat]

yet another short update..  not any big progress to report, but has begun making the nave/wheel hub.

Started by gluing 4 pieces of oak together, then mounted it to the lathe.. Iˋm using a very sharp round nosed cutter, and are using the lathe as if I as cutting metal.. The odd shaped wood block is mounted in an 4 jaw chuck and the rough cylinder is done.


Now time to mount the cylinder shape in a 3 jaw chuck and center drill and finalize the cylinder.

 
Here is my set up for milling out the pockets in the nave. The cylinder is mounted on a center shaft beween the rotary table and the small tailstock. The 4 way chuck are there only to get a grip on the cylinder..



Always nice to see a set up that actually works for a change 




After a lot of counting turns and double checking before making a cut, I finally have cut out 28 holes at the right place.
As you see the holes are not square due to using an end mill, but I will put the reinforcment bands close to the spokes, so the halfmoon ends will be covered.. A little cheating is ok I think..



Now, next is to place the cylinders back on the lathe and shape the hub to correct shape.. And then I have to get down to get the spokes done, have been putting them on hold for a while..

Hi Neros,
I would not mind getting a copy of your plans for the wheels as I have a 6pdr field carriage to restore at Fort Amherst and as I have never built a wheel before any help I can get would be helpful, I understand that the hub should be in Elm with the spokes in Ash and the outer wheel parts in Oak is this what you have used?
Rivercat

[neros]

Still working On it 

Doing a test assembly to see that the geometry is correct..
Tomorrow is the Norwegian national day, and the Napoleon barrel will bark as I hoist the flag.