I've been spiked

I've been spiked :hmm:

Went to clear the rust out of the touch but my drill stops just short of the bore on both cannon.

I can only think someone has hammerred a case hardened sleeve down into the breech to block off the touch. This will require close investigation of the constriction before I start sawing so I'm cross posting and asking everyone who might know...

Have you ever heard of a gun being disabled like that

Squire Robin said:

Have you ever heard of a gun being disabled like that

Click to expand...

Actually yes, as well as filling the bore half way with cement...

This was done to a cannon in the town park in Newton Falls, Ohio...

Perhaps your cannons were on public display at one point in their existance...

They were on public display :applause:

When the shipping line closed because it became just too dangerous with the outbreak of WW1, the two cannon were placed on a tourist attraction schooner parked at Newquay. They stayed there until some vandals set the boat on fire, then they were rescued and returned to the owner of the line who put them outside his house.

They stayed there for 50 years during which time the old man died and his son inherited them along with the house.

When he died, the house was sold and the cannon dumped in his son's back yard where they stayed until I picked them up.

There is a little gizmo called a spark eroder. I have used it to remove broken taps from metal parts that I was making. It is a primitive cousin of an EDM machine. Either of these two devices will remove your spike with minimal effort. The spark eroder weighs about 10 pounds & is portable. The EDM machine probably weighs as much as your cannon & will probably be found bolted to the floor of a shop someplace. A carbide endmill or Hi-roc drill are other options, but if the hole is as long, narrow as I expect it is, then you will probably break off the tools & have an even bigger problem to deal with.

I measured it... Revert to plan B :rotf:

Now I wonder how they did that :hmm: A hot rivet perhaps???

First thing that comes to my mind is to core drill it and sleeve it.

Find/make a hollow drill that will fit over the obstruction, drill clearance down to it then use the core drill to remove the obstruction, then sleeve the now-oversize touchhole.

Depending on how they were spiked, ( I'm thinking maybe the pins were frozen to VERY low temps then hammered into the hole, where they warmed and expanded. though this would require a different metal than iron...) you may be able to remove the spikes by cooling the cannon then punching them out... (of course my line of thought could be idiotic/useless...) :rotf:

Can you see anything looking down the bore? Is there anything on the inside, or protruding from where the touch comes through?

Can you take a pin punch and go down on it and then just tap it out the inside? I'd be careful not to chip anything out around the hole. If you had a way to heat the barrel, the touch hole would expand and you could probably just carefully punch the spike on through.

Bill

Hi Bill

You obviously think like me :thumbsup:

Today I ordered extra long pin punches and an inspection mirror on the end of a long stick :g

best regards

Squire RObin

tryed a carbide tip drill down the touchhole?

What? No touch hole? Where is it

And why does the rust stop mysteriously just before the bottom end :hmm: :rotf:

Squire Robin said:

What? No touch hole? Where is it

Click to expand...

Rotate the barrel 180 degrees... :haha:

This is better then a mystery novel. Perhaps the holes were never completely drilled in the first place, and even if it was spiked, your punches will just flare up the back of the spike. You are going to have to break down and drill the thing, use lots of good cutting fluid, a quality HS drill, medium speed, and retract the dill often to clean the chips. :v

Run a tape measure down the barrel and measure the distance to the back, then compare that on the outside to see if they just pushed a slug down the bore to keep it from being fired.

Perhaps the cannon was never drilled through, and was meant only as a display piece? But then, why the cannon ball down the bore in the first place?

Maybe the spike is just flush with the bore, which would be quite a coincidence, but I suppose it could happen. A bit of rust on the inside, and the hole would virtually disappear.

One thing for sure...if you had mentioned that the cannon was spiked BEFORE you got that ball out, the imaginations would be running rampant on this board. All kinds of visions of sealed papers, historical treasure and such at that point.

Either way, if you can manage to drill through the blockage, you can still end up with a very fine piece. Drill it out and consider it one of "life's little mysteries."

Keep up the good work. You have a most interesting project going there.

Where is Geraldo Rivera when ya need him! ... he could figure out this mystery! :grin:

Davy

Squire Robin said:

I measured it... Revert to plan B :rotf:

Now I wonder how they did that :hmm: A hot rivet perhaps???

Click to expand...

Plan "C", know anyone with access to an X-ray machine?

Squire Robin said:

I measured it... Revert to plan B :rotf:

Now I wonder how they did that :hmm: A hot rivet perhaps???

Click to expand...

Plan "C", know anyone with access to an X-ray machine?

it's a false cavity - there's still treasure down there :grin:

Bradley said:

Perhaps the cannon was never drilled through, and was meant only as a display piece?

Click to expand...

Aw, how to rain on my parade :rotf:

Fortunately, one of them leaks air and electrolyte so there definitely a hole in there somewhere if only I can find it.

I just turned it and got the sun shining down to the bottom and even my old eyes can still focus fairly well at 42", I am fairly convinced there has been shenanigans going on down there :thumbsup: