• 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

Cast Iron Cannon Composition???

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
Messages
6,767
Reaction score
9,093
Location
Summerville, SC
What is the current, or best way and material to use is casting cannons? What iron is best suited for cannon use?

You guessed it, I am thinking about having some built!

Can anyone recommend a good iron forge?

Regards

Mule
 
Malleable cast iron, I think they add magnesium and then cast crankshafts and stuff like that.

Probably easiest if you cast around a steel pipe with the end welded shut to make the bore.

That's about everything I know on the subject :thumbsup:
 
Ductile Iron used in modern water systems would be a good source of material for cannon making. It's some pretty tough stuff. Unlike the older Cast Iron that will fracture with a blow of a hammer; Ductile Iron will bend before it breaks.
If you stop by a water job, they will most likley give you some scrap to get you started,or stop at a scrap metal yard,(you'll have to pay for it there) though!

Ductile Iron is clearly marked on the outside of the pipe usualy in yellow writing. Look for this to be sure of what you are getting.((((Remember,anything can be blown up!!!)))
Hope this helps in your search for material :thumbsup: Ronnie...

P.S. You could research Ductile Iron on the net to find the actual material content, Im sure there are several grades of this available, but the pipe will be most common.
 
Send Claypipe a pm. He knows his steel!I think he makes handgonnes. Also Wedgetail made a nice cannon, I'm sure
between the two, they can outfit a rebellion!
I think the best way is casting it solid and drilling the bore. I do beleive the strongest way would be machining the
whole thing from a solid stock bar, but casting could be
a lot cheaper. Maybe a 4140 steel sleeve inside a cast iron
exterior? What's your budget? You say you'd like some made, maybe cheaper buying several at a time of a stronger steel than having a single cast?? :front:
 
What is the current, or best way and material to use is casting cannons? What iron is best suited for cannon use?

Can anyone recommend a good iron forge?

Regards
Mule

First let me say, ANYONE interested in cannons or mortars, artillery of any size, should not only read, but buy a copy of "The More Complete Cannoneer" written by M.C. Switlik and read it cover to cover at least twice.

For best results, a cannon tube should be poured solid, then bored. Reason being that when metal in a molten state cools, most of the impurities are trapped in the center of the item cast. For instance, take a look at an ice cube made from tap water. You will notice that it has a milky white center. This is the impurities such as excess oxygen and chlorine, should your water be chlorinated, being trapped in the center of the ice cube as it is formed in your freezer. The main reason for barrel failure in a cast barrel was due to a pocket of slag. This would often prove to be the point of rupture in early cannons.

From the Confederate "Field Manual for the use of the officers on Ordnance Duty"

Bronze for cannon, 90 parts copper, 10 parts tin

Iron for cannon, the most important quality, after a medium strength of 25,000 to 30,000 pounds per square inch, is uniformity.

Wrought Iron and steel: Experimental guns have been made of wrought Iron and steel, giving satisfactory results.

Just :m2c:
 
Okay, I"m really working hard here to remain NICE. Grandad was a tool and die maker for the Government. Flown all over the country during WWII making parts and machinery to make parts for tanks and the big guns. And two things he always impressed on me was, the right tool for the right job, and the right metal for the right part.

If you are going to make a gun of any sort, then you dang well better use the right metal! There is a big difference between a gun/gonne maker and metal worker. You want to make NON-FIRING metal models, fine, make sure you mark them as such and don't completely drill the vent hole. You want to make something that goes boom, then you better well know what you are doing and mark them as such. But most of all, be sure what you counsel others of is safe.

Proper Bronze/Brass for cannon making:
Copper Alloy No. C90300, 86% Copper, 8% Tin, 4% Zinc
Copper Alloy No. C83600, 85% Copper, 5% Tin, 5% Zinc
Copper Alloy No. C84000, 81% Copper, 7% Lead, 3% Tin, 9% Zinc

Proper steel for cannon making 4140, 1137 and 12L14.
12L14 is used by three of the leading custom muzzleloading barrel makers, Colerain, Getz, Green and Rayal, prestigious barrel makers all. But, Trigger Mortise doesn't seem to think much of Colerain, Getz or Green Mountain.

Claypipe
Yes, and I have read many similar reports. But, the question remains, what was the steel used? 12L14 is used by Getz and Colerain. And Green Mountain uses 1137. If its good enough for these prestigious barrel makers, its good enough for me.

Trigger Mortise
These so-called prestigious barrel makers are just fugal, and are trying to minimize their manufacturing cost by using a product such as super free machining leaded steel and a free machining grade of medium carbon steel like 1137.
I personally would not use these types of steel, and least of all 12L14 on gun barrels.

The short and the meat of it is this, use the wrong metal and there is a good chance someone is getting hurt. Maybe not today, or next week, but sooner or later things will go boom in a BAD way.

Also, Please note I said "The More Complete Cannoneer" not "The Complete Cannoneer". There is a whole section dedicated in this edition to BAD CANNONS. A lot of the stuff in that section is down right scary.

Just :m2c:
 
I have started conversing with an iron forge company, and they flat out reccomend ductile iron for cannon barrels. Based on the conversation, it is quite clear they have made some already.

Will keep posted as developments take hold

Mule

That little cannon I bought will hit my front door tomorrow! Cant wait, and will post pics!
 
12L14 is used by three of the leading custom muzzleloading barrel makers, Colerain, Getz, Green and Rayal

And so is my L.C. Rice.

Iron was, and is, used in the fragmentation grenades, dumb bombs and shells for projectiles. It shatters and forms shrapnel pretty darned good. You don't want the one that shatters under the sudden force of explosion, you want the one that is ductile enough to pass the projectile and explosion. Even the same components will form a different internal structure depending on how they are formed and cooled. If you don't know which is which, maybe you're not ready to make a cannon.

I'm with Claypipe. Use the right metal for the job.
 
Ahhh, there's the rub. Mild steel, I believe is the term you used. That term covers a lot of territory. Too mild, or too hard, a steel and one has a handgrenade. Gun metal has to breathe, expand and contract. Too soft, it bulges and eventually let's go. Too hard and it can shatter without notice.

As for welding barrels, it is a D-A-N-G-E-R-O-U-S! practice. There is a way to add trunnions without welding or drilling the barrel. There is a trick that Grandad showed me. I'll give you a hint, hot, cold, chinese puzzle box. Now, let's see if you can figure it out.

Old time machinists, that I knew, looked upon welding like white-out, something you did to fix a mistake.

Just :m2c:
 
Freeze the trunnions and heat the barrel, then slip them into their recess and let contraction fix them in place...

Or, freeze the barrel and heat the trunnions, depending on how it's made, both uses the contraction method to secure the item in place...
 
That's half the equation. Can you guess what I mean by puzzle box. BTW, the barrel is frozen.

:grey:
 
I assume the trunnions has a slot in it and the barrel has a lip for it (like tongue and groove floors), the barrel is contracted "froze" and the trunnion is expanded "heated" to fit over the lip, as both go to normal temperatures, the parts interlock with each other...
 
It could be done that way I suppose. But what about slippage from recoil when fired?

By the Eternal, look at the smoke pouring from those ears! Why, yes I am enjoying this. Remember I said Grandad was a tool and die maker.

::
 
C.P
I have been told that carbon steel is commonly referred to as mild steel in the industry, steel which has a low carbon content of say between 0.1 to 0.2 % carbon.
1018 would be a good example of mild steel, your much-loved 12L14 would be considered mild steel. The only difference between 12L14 and 1018 would be the addition of lead and some other chemicals added to 12L14 to give it that free machining quality (easy to machine, and easy on the tooling).
To make a steel fragment like a grenade, it needs to have a much higher carbon content, somewhere in the range of 4.5 % carbon, like in old style cast iron.

As for you reference to old machinist and their welding phobias, these guys were never introduce to the modern welding process during their apprentice training and basically most of them know nothing about it.

Here are some pictures of small naval brass cannons the trunnions have been slightly recessed in the cannon body with a support bridge on the bottom of the cannon, if they were made out of steel, I would have welded the trunnions nicely onto the cannon body.
Picture152.jpg

Notice that the carriages are made from
 
The way grandad would add trunnions was to make a special two piece reamer.

He would machine his trunnions with a tapered shoulder and a curved base to match the curve of the barrel side.

These would go into holes in what he termed a pressure band.

This pressure band was drilled through, the minimum diameter of the trunnions.

Then using his two piece reamer he would inletted the inside of the band at the trunnion holes to allow for the taper shoulders of the trunnions.

There was also a shoulder machined on the barrel itself to prevent the pressure band from sliding forward from recoil.

Barrel went into the freezer for three days. On the third day the pressure band would be heated till it hinted a glow of black red. Trunnions went into their holes and the pressure band would be slipped over the breech until it butted against the barrel recoil shoulder.

Allowed to air cool, I never saw one budge or have a loose trunnion. Did see a pressure band split once though. But that was in the days when machine work was an artform, more than a science.

Vent hole was the last step of the process.

Just :m2c:
 
That was my Mother's Father, those pieces went to my Uncles. All I got was good memories of my time with him, a set of genes and bill for his funeral. :(
 
Back
Top