Author Topic: newby (Read 1622 times)

quackgr · « **on:** May 30, 2006, 02:10:14 PM »

Hi, every body, I just signed in and want you to know I'ved been watching this site for about a year now. somebody posted a picture of my bowling ball mortar & the funny painted ball I did at last year cannon shoot at Casper. Well this year me and the other old fart decided to go full out and we are building 3 Cohorn mortars, they are about 87 percent of scale. they will shoot a 16 lb. iron balls. we are about done with one so we can be at this year Casper shoot. hope to be able to post the pic, we have of the one we are bringing. but I have to figure out how to post them. all three barrels are done, but the wood bases are in progres.
Gerald

Cat Whisperer · « **Reply #1 on:** May 30, 2006, 03:52:14 PM »

Quote from: quackgr

Hi, every body, I just signed in and want you to know I'ved been watching this site for about a year now. somebody posted a picture of my bowling ball mortar & the funny painted ball I did at last year cannon shoot at Casper. Well this year me and the other old fart decided to go full out and we are building 3 Cohorn mortars, one to sell and the other two for our selfs. they are about 87 percent of scale. they will shoot a 16 lb. iron balls. we are about done with one so we can be at this year Casper shoot. hope to be able to post the pic, we have of the one we are bringing. but I have to figure out how to post them. all three barrels are done, but the wood bases are in progres.
Gerald

Gerald -

WELCOME to the board! Where is Culbertson NE? I grew up in Iowa and taught for a year in Omaha - MANY years ago.

I'd love to see how you put together the 16 lb IRON balls - sounds like a good weight to toss around (if you EVER find them).

Cat Whisperer · « **Reply #2 on:** May 30, 2006, 03:55:22 PM »

Gerald -

Just looked it up. I spent a summer out in Maxwell many many years ago.

Looking forward to pictures of your other toys!

Double D · « **Reply #3 on:** May 30, 2006, 05:01:28 PM »

Gerald,

Welcome aboard. Glad to have you. Go to the top of the board and look for the instructions on posting pictures. We sure would like to have alook at what you are shooting.

We also are very much interested in your projectiles tell us more about your 16 lb balls. How are you making them? I shoot 6 PDR that I cast from zinc

I had to edit you post just a bit. Bad wording made it sound like you were trying to sell a mortar and the board rules doesn't allow for anyone but sponsors to post ads for sale on the message boards.

If you did want to sell a mortar you could always post it over in the GBO classified ads.

quackgr · « **Reply #4 on:** May 30, 2006, 05:14:00 PM »

thanks for the wellcome sorry for the wording. the balls were easy, 16 pound shot puts. got them from the mfg. still working on the pic. hey when the field is not planted behind my house we shoot the mortar right here! If planted like now we have a freind that lets us blast away on some pasture land, we do long range shooting so we have the pasture marked out to 900 yds.
Gerald

GGaskill · « **Reply #5 on:** May 30, 2006, 05:45:17 PM »

How much do they cost?

quackgr · « **Reply #6 on:** May 31, 2006, 01:44:31 PM »

The balls cost 14 bucks to LA. cal, but freight from LA to NE double that! I tried to regester with my hosted pics, they claim they sent e mail to actvate, but we never recieved an email. checked with server they never seen anything also, double checked our email address it was right. sent them a email to phone me, no answer. so I can't post any of my pics. we finished it up today , ready to fire.

Gerald

Blaster · « **Reply #7 on:** June 01, 2006, 03:09:43 AM »

Hi there quackgr and welcome to a great forum. Really a nice bunch of blackpowder cannon/mortar folks out here. Hey, I attended that Casper shoot last June, as a spectator, and it was well worth trip from Southern Colorado. If it just wasn't so blasted hot at that shoot, it'd have been just perfect. I enjoyed hearing the vehicle alarms go off when some of the BIG mortars were fired. What is the date of this years' shoot?? Finally, I presume Dan McC is running the show again this year??? Sure hope you get the picture posting resolved soon! Thanks and again, welcome to ya.
Blaster (Bob in So. CO)

Dictator · « **Reply #8 on:** June 01, 2006, 02:18:48 PM »

Welcome aboard Gerald,
Do these look familiar. I ran into Blaster Bob there last year. He's right, it was big time hot. I'm coming back this year again to shoot w/ the guys from the Iowa 2nd Light Artillery & maybe try some sabots I've been working on. Hope to see you guys out there.
Joe

Blaster · « **Reply #9 on:** June 01, 2006, 02:41:34 PM »

Dictator Joe...they sure look familiar to me. I sure enjoyed the sound, sight and smell of those big guns being fired. Since you have indicated that you'll be attending the Casper Shoot this year, perhaps you can let me know what the Shoot date is?

Thanks and hope to see you there and let's have some cool/tolerable temps this time!

Dictator · « **Reply #10 on:** June 01, 2006, 02:56:49 PM »

Look forward to seeing you again Blaster Bob. It is June 17-18. Bring some cool temps this year would ya

quackgr · « **Reply #11 on:** June 01, 2006, 05:08:53 PM »

thanks for the welcome, the shot is like dictator sez,s June, 18th. well the big day is friday we'l touch her off and do a little load devlopment. we are only bringing the new mortar to Caspar, we'r to short handed to bring our bowling ball mortars. still trying to up load pics, but no luck.

Gerald

GGaskill · « **Reply #12 on:** June 01, 2006, 06:45:48 PM »

Here are Gerald's pix from my verizon space. He said the following about them:

The mortar is not done yet, here in these pics, barrel machined from solid billet 41 hundred steel, the chamber is a machined billet also, then press fitted and welded . Base is solid walnut from Yuba City, CA.

Click the last three images for larger versions (as large as 887K.)

Double D · « **Reply #13 on:** June 02, 2006, 05:42:24 PM »

quackgr,

Tell us about you gun. Dimensions, bore, powder chamber. Also how about some detail on how you made the gun. Is that an insert for powder chamber?

On the board to help define scale our Dean of Detail, Blaster Bob came up with the idea of shooting a picture with a powder can by the cannon so we can a get a true idea how big or small you gun is.

Be sure when you take a picture to take the picture from the side and not straight down from above. Pictures from above make things look small.

I want to hear more about this gun, please tell us.

GGaskill · « **Reply #14 on:** June 02, 2006, 06:20:31 PM »

More pix from Gerald via my verizon space. He says the following:

First firing. If you look closely, you can see the ball just above the smoke in one pic, and up and to the left of the smoke in the other. [You have to view the full size pix for this detail.] The ball shows up as ivory colored.

Gerald . PS--I'm the short old fart; our team is called The Old Farts + One.

Click the images for larger versions (up to 395K.)

intoodeep · « **Reply #15 on:** June 02, 2006, 06:39:46 PM »

Wow, Great photos! You even have the dog trained to retrieve the balls...

Double D · « **Reply #16 on:** June 02, 2006, 07:08:14 PM »

Guys be sure and click on that middle picture with the cannon ball retriever dog...you can't see it very well in the small picutre but in the big picture you can see the ball inthe air.

Dictator · « **Reply #17 on:** June 03, 2006, 05:00:57 AM »

Nice looking mortar. What material are the balls made from?

quackgr · « **Reply #18 on:** June 03, 2006, 02:42:04 PM »

here is the sizes: the barrel is 14.025 in. long and is 7.431 in. at it's widest point. the bore is 5.100 in. the powder chamber at the top is 2.577 in. wide the length is 3.651 in. the dia. at the bottom is 1.718 in. the trunnions are 2.5 in in dia.
the platform is 15 in. wide by 31 in. long, the side wood is 2.5 in thick and the end blocks are 10 w x 8h x 5 thick. the wood is solid walnut.
the balls are 16lbs. iron shotputs, same as in use at track & field games.

the dog is a chesse, she is a powder hound, she beat us to the impacks of the balls and started digging before we could get there. we had to put her in the car so we see how big of dent the ball made!

yes the chamber was machined seperate and then pressed fitted, then welded to the barrel. no butt welds.

Gerald

Double D · « **Reply #19 on:** June 03, 2006, 05:36:27 PM »

So basically what you built is a Federal 24 built slightly under sized to fit you ball. Nice work Gents!!

Why did you make you powder chamber separate? Why didn't you make it as as part of the bore?

CU_Cannon · « **Reply #20 on:** June 04, 2006, 03:56:39 AM »

Quote from: Double D

Why did you make you powder chamber separate? Why didn't you make it as part of the bore?

From experience I can tell you it is a pain in the butt to remove that much material from the barrel when making it from solid. It is much easer to make the chamber separate and weld it in. From a safety stand point they are virtually identical. The trunnion goes across the breach of the barrel supporting the barrel and the breach plug. In a cannon a barrel machined from solid is much safer but on a mortar of this style I see very little difference.

Very nice work! I need to get off my butt and get working on my 12 pdr again.

Double D · « **Reply #21 on:** June 04, 2006, 04:16:12 AM »

I think I might have missed something here.

So what we are saying is that this mortar was not turned from a piece of solid, but was made from a piece of seamless that was just opened up a bit for the ball. The a breech plug with chamber was made and pressed in.

If that's what you saying now everything makes sense.

Machining from the solid full length bore diameter then making and pressing in a chamber from the front, then welding it in place didn't make sense.

quackgr · « **Reply #22 on:** June 04, 2006, 11:44:37 AM »

that is how this barrel was made, not only that but it was on a brand new cnc lathe and new cnc mill, our freind did it for us. we milled the trunnion hole, because the new mill he had pucked and we where running late for the Casper shoot. this one is one of 3 we are doing, all barrel work is done.

Gerald

Double D · « **Reply #23 on:** June 04, 2006, 05:51:07 PM »

Tell us about the seamless that you started with. What were it's dimensions and where did you get it?

quackgr · « **Reply #24 on:** June 05, 2006, 05:38:21 PM »

I found out tonight that the barrel was 4130 with a inner bore just under 5 ins. Our third partner who lives in the Sacramento area got the steel from a steel suply house in Sacramento, also the powder chamber plug was a 6 in. dia. solid piece of 1018 steel, don't know what they cost because he paid for it as part of the deal we have with him.

Gerald

freddo · « **Reply #25 on:** June 06, 2006, 01:35:38 AM »

Thanks for those pictures-Very interestind! If those two balls lying out in the field are earlier shots then it gives one an all round view of what a mortar does from the point of view of blast,smoke,trajectory, range and impact- all in one picture Very well shot on both accounts