I've been spiked

Gentleman of Fortune said:

I can't help but wonder what your day job is Squire.

GoF

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He manufactures chronographs for air rifles. No, I'm not joking.

Squire, I am still waiting for an update to the spiked bore! I wanna know what happens! When will we get the next installment??

I electrolysed the bores, burnt the touch clear and came out behind the plug in the breech end of the bore. I bought a cannon sized version of a CO2 ball discharger, then things got chaotic so I put it on hold temporarily.

The cannon are at the new house and I move my office over there next Wednesday when the 'phone lines transfer. Then I move the machine tools and I will finally have the workshop next to the cannon so I can renew the assault.

Next thing is to pump oil at 90 bar down the touch and see where it comes out. That takes a bit of organising :thumbsup:

Good deal! Keep us updated! I want to see you clear that out!

An update please Squire Robin. BTW, that cannon should be magnafluxed and X-rayed for latent flaws. You may not need to shoot it now that you have your own EDM.

So, why not buy some old battleship propellor shaft and EDM your own cannon from the shaft? Maybe even go modern and make a Blakely Gun. :thumbsup:

Hi Gary

Don't tell anyone, but I'm waiting 'til everyone goes out for the day before I drop a few grains of black down the spark eroded touch, insert a length of cannon fuse then wedge it all shut with a piece of dowel.

All my other plans seem much too complicated so I'm going to try unsubtle. Need to get this moving again :thumbsup:

Squire Robin

Okay, before you do the un-subtle, a suggestion. Stand the barrel on its cascabel, take a magnet on a cord or twine and see if the face of the breech is ferrous. I have a sneaking suspicion that someone may have poured either zinc or aluminium down the bore. Over the years, it may have been stained by the corroding iron.

If so, can it be drilled and threaded so an eye bolt can be threaded and a rope or chain attach to pull it free?

CP :hmm:

Seeing if a magnet will stick I can do, magnafluxing and X-rays are something else :thumbsup:

Hang on two ticks... It is iron :hmm:

That's another good idea that didn't work

The blast lifted the oak block several inches above, but didn't impress the plug...

Well ... looks like its time to bring in the big guns! :hmm: :thumbsup:

Davy

Davy said:

Well ... looks like its time to bring in the big guns! :hmm: :thumbsup:

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Hi Davy

If Swiss #2 couldn't fetch it, I don't have much hope for the sledge hammer. The wood plug I put over the top came out like a tracer bullet :rotf:

Squire Robin

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W'all what in the dickens is all thim bags? More powder to stuff down it! :shocked2:

It go boom!!! fer shore! :grin: :rotf:

Davy

What if someone really wanted to DEWAT a cannon for good. Say, by heating the lower third up to orange and pouring molten iron or steel down the tube... :shocked2:
That might be tricky...

Hi John

The blast loosened some scale from the inside. Question is, is this cast or wrought :hmm:



When a cast cannon rusts do you get flakes like this? I think I got a very different kind of rust out of the muzzle end.

Here's a rusty cannon pic...



best regards

Squire Robin

As I'm no metallurgist; I'm not qualified to give a definitive answer, but especially from what I see of the top righthand piece I get suspicious.
First: The metal scaled and broke in a relatively flat manner.
Second: The pieces seem to show fracture lines along the same direction in which they separated from the mass inside the cannon.
If someone actually dumped molten ferrous metal into an unheated cannon, the situation might have gone as follows.
1. Plug metal heated till liquid in a small crucible with just enogh material to fill the breech.
2. Crucible loses a bit of heat as carried to the unheated cannon barrel causing the metal to become rather like slurry.
3. Metal gets dumped through a meter of cold air (bore length) in a less than optimal stream due to it's already thick consistancy. (Think Ploppity-Plop).
4. Oxidation takes place on all surfaces of the molten mass as it descends down the tube causing a layered structure.
You end up with a ferrous plug that although integral, is porous, and is subject to oxidation and volume increase that could do a dandy job of wedging it where it is.
If this is indeed what happened you're in a better
position to worry the plug out than if the job were done with higher temps and a preheated barrel.
As I said; I haven't seen the cannon or the fragments in real life. This was just pondering.
Good Luck!

Looks like cast to me. Can you grab one of those pieces and try to break it? Maybe that would show grain.

Or maybe touch a piece to a grinder to see how it sparks. Wrought & cast should look quite different.

WRussell said:

Or maybe touch a piece to a grinder to see how it sparks.

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It put out a few sparks then stopped sparking all together. Odd that :hmm:

I've had organic rust remover down one for the last 3 days and it's finally stopped bubbling. I'll empty it out tomorrow and see what has been revealed :thumbsup:

The suspense is incredible! I love it!!

I've had enough suspense I want to shoot it :grin:

Cleaning it all back to bare metal didn't reveal much. I think I need a closer look, so I just ordered a tiny web cam thing with headlights that will fit down the pipe :hmm:

Squire Robin said:

I've had enough suspense I want to shoot it :grin:

Cleaning it all back to bare metal didn't reveal much. I think I need a closer look, so I just ordered a tiny web cam thing with headlights that will fit down the pipe :hmm:

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" ... ok red alert! ... we are goin in men!" :hmm: :shocked2: