What in nature are y’all thankful for?

[ThomasPowers]

One nice thing about casting them solid is that the "trash" in the melt tended to be in the last stuff to crystalize and so would be in the center and be what was removed by boring.

Boring cannon  is one of the things that helped prove that heat wasn't a liquid; as a dull  boring bit could produce pretty much an infinite amount of hear rubbing on the inside of a barrel. Thus the caloric theory wan't the Joule that people had thought it was!

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Y’all need to stop talking about cannons.. yalls waking up my annual longing for a full size ships carronade! I’ve wanted to get one for years but I just can’t justify buying one to my wife,  dixie gun works is has them though

at least once every year I still look at them! I think all the mounting hardware would be easy enough to make! The wood frame I think could be made from oak or hickory and I’d use steel wheels instead of wood. 

[ThomasPowers]

TW when I lived in OKC I made two falconettes from thick walled high pressure flow pipe.  Drill collar would be even better!  I don't fire them as often but if you dig around there is a story of me firing them  on the Santa Maria replica Columbus Ohio had floating on the rive through the enter of town...

[Frosty]

Uh Thomas: When you say you fired them "ON" the Santa Maria replica, were you ON the boat or firing AT it? 

I have a story about an oxy acet cannon, beer cans of ice and a Coast Guard Cutter. Another time perhaps. Ships are really BIG targets. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[George N. M.]

Twisted:  You may want to check out Hern Ironworks.  They have some very cool items and the costs are not outrageous, IMO, for what they are.

If I had my wish list I would have a full scale 3" Ordnance Rifle (actually rifled, of course) or a bronze barrel 12 pound mountain howitzer.  Both with cassions.  Of course, moving the Ordnance Rifle around by myself could be a bit impractical.  Maybe I could use a garden tractor as a prime mover.  The mountain howitzer would be more practical since it breaks down for mule pack loads.  The 200 pound barrel would be no worse than moving my larger anvil.

I have no apologies for bringing up artillery.  I am an old red leg and will take any opportunity to turn the discussion in that direction.

Thomas:  If you are ever in Cheyenne, WY at F. E. Warren AFB there is a 1557 English falcon made by Robert Owyen displayed on the parade ground.  It was captured in the Philippines in 1901 and brought back to Fort D.A. Russell (the former name of Warren AFB) as a regimental trophy by the 11th Infantry Regiment.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[ThomasPowers]

Frosty; you should remember the etories. 

George, I did the proof firing of my falconette near OKC with a couple of folks in the Artillery from Fort Sill "consulting".  Boy cannon fuse always takes twice as long to burn as you expect it too!  (We were in a ditch for the "proof" firings.)

Later we had a family friend who owned a good sized spread in NW AR and had a cannon range on it---he did ACW stuff.  I was invited to bring out my falconette and had a blast.  The other folks had a fancy DGW mountain howitzer; I remember that the carriage for it cost 100 times what my falconete cost me and I had a lot more fun as I wasn't worrying about rain, scratches, etc all the time.  (The story about taking out the old outhouse with my falconette has already been posted here at least twice IIRC).

 

[Purple Bullet]

My brother (now deceased) made a small cannon ( I guess it would qualify as a falconette - ammo was juice cans full of concrete) with a naval carriage. He put an elevation screw made from a large "C' clamp threaded rod. I had it on a concrete pedestal in my front yard. Fortunately, someone stole it before I got into REAL trouble with it.

11 hours ago, Frosty said:

Ships are really BIG targets. 

One of my diving colleagues built an "egg cannon" out of plastic pipe, a quarter turn valve with a hose hooked up to our compressors. He was on a boat inspecting pipeline after it was laid out by a barge. After experimenting with the right pressure and wadding, they practiced firing at the lay barge, hitting the side and well away from where anyone was working. It was the only convenient target. Once, they had to tie up to the barge to transfer supplies and the whole barge crew came out and covered the compressor, chamber, and dive station with eggs. Beware of targets that can hit back!

[Frosty]

I made a small cannon as a jr. high metal shop and history class project. The metal shop instructor said if the bore and primer hole met I'd never take another shop class in California, ever. It was a "replica" of an early naval gun on a nice oak carriage, a wood shop project for a friend of mine. We both did really well grades wise, we both got A's in history and I got a B in metal shop, he wasn't looking at anything but the steel.

We got our grades and took it home where I put it in the drill press and drilled the primer hole the rest of the way and we went to the dry wash to fire it.

It had a 5/8" x 7" bore and wonder of wonders most marbles are or were just under 5/8" dia. and we brought a few. Charged it with about 1/2 tsp. of FFF black powder. Yeah, 1/2 tsp! What did we know? At the time a 14 yro could buy gun powder, cannon fuse, etc. at almost any gun store without a note let alone ID.

Anyway, we tamped the powder down, wadded with toilet tissue and rammed the marble home, got maybe 10' away to one side and watched the shot.

The target just exploded, a 20 yard pistol target taped to a cinder block at 6 paces. The carriage splintered and the cannon was about 25' from where it was. Even the steel pin trunions were sheared off. 

Sooooo, from then on we just backed it against something heavy with a piece of 4x4 cushion and reduced the charge to a scant 1/4 tsp. The duplex charges were impressive. It'd fire a marble through a car crosswise and make  a fist sized hole in the water jacket in an engine. 

We never got around to using the .62cal bullet mold, one steel bearing convinced us marble were plenty good enough shot.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

I used cannon powder in my cannon: F   I also tended to use undersized "shot" as I tell folks the major difference between a pipe bomb and a cannon is whether the round exits the barrel through the open end!   I'm not competing for accuracy and if I needed a round to Hit a pound of ball bearings would do a pretty good job.

[Frosty]

The marble cannon had walls almost as thick as the bore and it wasn't mild steel. 

We stopped talking about it at all. When word got out kids were making cannons from water pipe and self amputating appendages. Less than a week after we test fired it and Darwin started taking bids. 1/2" pipe, pipe cap, crushed match heads and a 1/2" ball bearing. 

Taught the two of us a good lesson, some things are just too easy to do fatally wrong. Nobody I know of died but I was feeling really guilty for giving idiots ideas. 

Our little group got a lot more secretive.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

Yup there is some self censoring done on IFI by folks worrying about folks not knowing/using the safety *REQUIREMENTS* on stuff getting discussed.

Having fun at the office today: come in the buildings front door and there is a sign on the elevator saying "Out of Order, Please use Elevator on North Side of the Building" walk 1/2 way around the building to the North Elevator and it has a sign saying "Out of Order, Please use Elevator on South Side of the Building".  It would be funny if my back didn't hurt so much climbing 4 flights of stairs!

[JHCC]

On 8/23/2021 at 12:34 AM, Frosty said:

I have a story about an oxy acet cannon, beer cans of ice and a Coast Guard Cutter. Another time perhaps.

You've told that story elsewhere on the site, and I'm sure the Coasties are still talking about it as well.

21 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

Having fun at the office today

I am reminded of this passage from L. Frank Baum's Ozma of Oz:

Quote

To their disappointment they found the door tightly closed. A sign was tacked to the panel which read as follows:

+----------------------------+
|                                                |
|       OWNER ABSENT.            |
|                                                |
| Please Knock at the Third    |
| Door in the Left Wing.           |
|                                                |
+----------------------------+
"Now," said Tiktok to the captive Wheeler, "you must show us the way to the Left Wing."

"Very well," agreed the prisoner, "it is around here at the right."

"How can the left wing be at the right?" demanded Dorothy, who feared the Wheeler was fooling them.

"Because there used to be three wings, and two were torn down, so the one on the right is the only one left. It is a trick of the Princess Langwidere to prevent visitors from annoying her."

Then the captive led them around to the wing, after which the machine man, having no further use for the Wheeler, permitted him to depart and rejoin his fellows. He immediately rolled away at a great pace and was soon lost to sight.

 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

4 hours ago, JHCC said:

You've told that story elsewhere on the site, and I'm sure the Coasties are still talking about it as well.

Must have been before I joined, would love to hear it.

Semper Paratus

[JHCC]

 

[Frosty]

Thanks John, it was MUCH easier to write this time tough I got a little bogged down reading the other posts in the thread. Good memories all round.

Frosty The Lucky.

[BillyBones]

Closest i ever came to building a cannon was potato and tennis ball guns. We did however make some, lets say, devices that wreaked some havoc. When i was 16 we blew up a stone fire place that was in a shelter at a local park. 

When i was a yungin you could got to the hobby store and buy fuse. Back then people would use it for model rockets. Which model rockets and "devices" became a thing for a while. Anywho you could buy fuse by the foot in different burning speeds and even underwater fuse. 

[Frosty]

Estes Model Rockets. I launched a few! It was hard getting a second stage to fire until Dad suggested wrapping flash paper around the fuse. VIOLA!

Frosty The Lucky.

[BillyBones]

Living this close to Wright Pat AFB model rockets and remote control planes are really popular hobbies. 

Speaking of that Memorial day weekend they have a kite festival. All my time here i have heard about this and thought yeah ok, whatever. One weekend some family came to visit and wanted to go to the AF museum, just happened to be that weekend. I was totally blown away by the kites. Many of them you look at and will be amazed they fly. 

[lary]

Get home after work and there's 4 empty humming bird feeders. So I go out there with just 1 to start with and stand real still for about a minute...

[BillyBones]

I came home one day and inside my enclosed porch a hummingbird got trapped and couldnt find its way out. I had to corner it and take it out. Carried him out nice safe and sound. I think it is pretty cool that i actually have held a hummingbird in my hand. 

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Lary that’s an awesome picture! 

Billybones, that’s a pretty cool memory you made, not many people can claim that!

[Frosty]

Deb got home from the K 9 Nosework trial on the Kenai Peninsula yesterday. Taking it easy means spending a  night half way(ish). She stopped at the Russian River campground and parked with a view of the river. She videoed some typical Russian River during the salmon runs wild life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSSJV4CAdIs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIfbf9Tim40

It's a yearling cub. Mother bear disappeared and a little later it's twin. It's a well known local resident bear. It MAY be old enough to den up and make it through the winter, it's been through one with momma so hopefully it'll remember how. 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

We have bears around here but very very few, they were wiped out decades ago, there is a repopulation problem started some years back an I guess they are starting to make a comeback,

  I’ve never seen one personally but every great once in awhile someone will get a picture of one on a trail came set up, 

that’s cool that y’all can see them all the time up there

[Frosty]

There are places here you can see bears all the time, happily not where we live. A good fishing spot is a good fishing spot, same for picking berries. Once mating season is over they start fattening up for winter.

Happily that cub was looking pretty fat for late August, hopefully it remembers where the den is.

Frosty The Lucky.

[BillyBones]

Somewhere buried my parents have an old 8mm home movie of my uncle being chased by a bear in the Smokey's. He is one of those ... who tried to get close and feed the bear. Luckily he is married into the family. "The Great Outdoors" bear dump scene always reminds me of him.