• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades

British 6 pdr Restoration Help

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Thanks for all your input/suggestions guys! I have found a chap to make an oak carriage to the spec I want and I've started on the gun itself. I removed the wooden plug in the barrel (Elm) and the barrel was full of sand/shingle/seashells!!. I emptied about 8lb of the stuff out :shocked2:
 
aboatguy said:
the consensus was they were not original and the axles should be wood.

The story goes that they were made for the Reed shipping line c1800, decommissioned with the out break of WW1 and put on a tourist attraction schooner at Newquay. Vandals set the schooner alight and the cannons were returned to a Reed descendant who put them outside his house. His son fired one with a load of golf balls and damaged someone's house. I bought them off the grandson who was emigrating.
 
We got the restoration done and the Carronade has been sitting on the Quay for several months now and has been well received by the people of the Town. We managed to find a chap who made a bespoke carriage for us from 'Greenheart' and my colleague and I did the work on the gun itself.
 
Another view of the Gun. Black Labrador is LOLLY. Rope is there to stop the barrel being moved, chain to stop it getting wheeled away!
 
I wondered how you all were coming along with this project. You all REALLY did a fine job on the restoration. The Carriage looks great and I understand you could not have exactly authentic Iron Straps over the Trunnions as thieves could open the straps and steal the gun and perhaps use it nefariously.

I also liked the Lion Head decoration on the front of the Gun Carriage, both to identify it as being from Great Britain and because it signifies how the Gun could ROAR back in its day.

Back in the 50's in my adopted home town of Fredericksburg, VA, it seems the Town was awakened to the sound of an "UnCivil War" cannon being fired AND a couple of Cannon Balls flying towards town. At that time, the cannon had not had their touch holes plugged and the cannon balls in the pyramids on display with them were loose. Seems a guy who had something against the town, got drunk, brought a 10 pound keg of black powder to one of the historic cannon on display and was FIRING ON THE TOWN. (There were then and still are original cannon all over the place near the town because of the National Battlefield Parks there.) They said he used a push broom handle to load the balls, but no one ever said how he got the powder down the bore, though he figured out some way to do it.

Fortunately, he did not actually hit anyone or anything of value in the town, before the Cops got there to stop him.

As a result of that drunken fool, all the historic cannon got their vent holes plugged and the cannon balls were spot welded together in the ball pyramids.

Gus
 
Thanks Gus, great story!! Local legend has it that this gun was last fired to celebrate the 'Relief of Mafeking' during the Boer War, c1899. It is said that the blast broke most of the windows on the Quay! You can see the gun on its original carriage in this c1885 postcard. The Pub on the left is where the gun sits today.
 
Dave,

Wow, that's neat to have the gun in a 19th century post card.

However, and not trying to be picky, but is the gun carriage in the post card the one on which you found the gun? IOW, was it an old reproduction rather than the original carriage?

Gus
 
The carriage which the gun was on, was built for it in around 1969/70 by the pub landlord. Before that date, it was built into the seawall. This was presumably done when the height of the wall was raised at some point. When the wall height was raised again, it was removed from the wall and ended up with a new carriage in 69/70. I remember the gun being in the wall, when I was a youngster.
 
Dave,

Thanks for the additional information and post card photo.

I keep looking at the Gun Carriage in the 1899 Post Card and it just seems too small for the Carronade. I have seen original ship’s guns and carriages of this type at different museums or historic areas. What may be throwing me off is because the gun seems to be elevated to its full height and makes the carriage look smaller.

Gus
 
Gun has just had a 5 year refurb, a coating of good quality exterior wood oil, looking good again!
 

Attachments

  • 20221208_130715.jpg
    20221208_130715.jpg
    789.2 KB · Views: 0
  • 20221208_130659.jpg
    20221208_130659.jpg
    1.3 MB · Views: 0

Latest posts

Back
Top