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Time to craft another cannon as a spring project. Would like to make scale Civil War Era cannon.
Anybody have a Traditions cannon or kit they can patiently take measurements for me? Mostly need the cannon barrel dimensions, as I can swing the carriage off that and pics.
I would like to make a Mountain Howitzer or a Napoloen style with carriage wheels. Third choice is a ship style Ironsides.
I have a lathe and a mill. Need measurements to insure its got the strength for mild BP loads.
That's going to be a tough one.
There's all sorts of blueprint type drawings for them on the www, but even the plans for sale don't show exact measurements.
You're supposed to scale them up yourself from a few known dimensions like wheel diameter, or barrel length.
When I did mine, I found pictures of Civil War soldiers standing beside an ordnance rifle with wheels about 4' tall.
I bought a pair of 36" Amish wheels and scaled it from there as best I could with a 2 1/8" bore.
Another BP project was a Civil War era siege or costal defense mortar.
This one shoots bowling balls, but you could make a more true to scale one to fire golf balls.
Just wanting to get some basic measurements from a cannon, maybe .50 cal or so. Peace of mind of getting the bore thickness in a safe range. Not looking for anything larger or making one to place in the Smithsonian.
Last year I made a 1/3 scale Coehorn mortar firing golf balls.
Attachment 295713Attachment 295714
For barrel thickness, you might could look at various pictures of them straight on, and do a ratio-proportion sort of calculation
of the wall thickness in relation to the bore dia.
If you're using a decent steel alloy, with .50 bore and BP--- check out how thin musket barrels are.
For a .50 BP cannon- there's no way you'll shoot your eye out if it's wall thickness is 1/4 inch or more.
I've got a 50 caliber cannon. I don't know if it's a CVA or Traditions. I've used it for decoration and have never shot it but the guy I got it from did. He said to pin it to the ground or it would fly back. Don't know how much powder he used. The barrel is 10" long and the wheels are 6" diameter. The breach of the barrel is 1.65" in diameter and the muzzle is 1.29". The bore mikes at .50".
I saw one at a thrift store for a couple bucks. Almost got it but it wasn't fire able. I though about getting it and shooting it anyway with a super light load. Of coarse I would be no where near it when it goes off but decided not a good idea so I left it.