Artillery

[MikeBjerum]

January has settled in, and that means sloooooooow times at Amigos Foods.  We are heavy into "make work."  My week so far has been one trip where I took an empty trailer to Minneapolis, traded with another driver so he could go home that day while I ran his route.  I will probably do the same for another driver in DesMoines on Friday/Saturday.

This means lots of home time to get in trouble    This morning I'm watchingTriggers:Change on AHC (American History Channel).

Does anyone realize how easy it is to make a basic cannon or mortar?  I'm tempted to build a scale REPLICA just to see what it's like.  They showed the construction:  Copper tube, wrapped in wrought iron, rolled in leather, and steel bands to hold everything together.  Ammunition is a cloth cartridge containing black powder and 18 lead balls.

[tombogan03884]

It used to be a hobby at one of the sheet metal shopsI worked at. Ammo was a juice can full of cement.
 It was all fun and games until some one fired the mortar and took the door handle off my uncles car..
Was still fun and games to every one else, but he got pissy.  LOL

[crusader rabbit]

Back at the dawn of the Iron Age (when I was just a kid) we took a lot of pride in manufacturing cannons in the 9th grade General Metal shop class at the local Junior High. 

Mr. Beatty was the instructor and dedicated to imparting wisdom to any accepting vessel.  He's get so wrapped up in explaining stuff to one or two kids that he overlooked many things the rest of us were doing right there in the fully functioning machine shop. 

His dedication to improving the wisdom of the few allowed those of us less inclined to learn things and more inclined to make stuff essentially free access to the lathes and milling machines without a great deal of oversight. 

None of us lost fingers or eyes, but we did manage to turn any number of cannons--mostly out of 1" round stock.  We'd drill a 1/4" hole through the round stock about 5" from the end, tap it, and run a threaded rod through.  We'd then cut the rod on each side and what remained formed the axis of the fulcrum to raise or lower that which was to become a cannon.  Then we'd drill a 1/4" hole about five inches deep into the round stock to form the barrel.  We'd turn a taper from the barrel tip to the butt and when all that was done, we'd turn a stylish knob at the butt end, drill a touch hole to ignite the powder, and the result was an historically inauthentic but fully functional 6" cannon.

In those days, black powder was available at the local hardware store to anyone with the necessary couple of bucks to buy a one-pound can.  And a one-pound can would propel a huge number of 1/4" ball bearings, one at a time, into imagined enemy forces or into real cardboard boxes.

We may have even made a .22 zip gun or two for personal enjoyment--but I'm not saying.  What I will say is we had great, good fun with those little cannons. 

Some of the guys made carriages in wood shop, complete with wheels and miniature tow rigs, to go with the little cannons.

I have no idea where mine ended up.  I suspect it was discovered by one or both parents and deposited in the trash can.  My parents paid a bit more attention to what their kid was up to than did Mr. Beatty. And they had a better feel for the sort of trouble I could get into.

Hadn't thought about that in years.  Thanks for a stimulating walk through my personal history, Mike.

Crusader Rabbit

[MikeBjerum]

Back when pop and beer cans were steel, we would take four of them, and through a combination of cutting out ends or punching with a church key, and judicial use of duct tape, we would end up with a tennis ball cannon.  We were kicked off many parks and play grounds for playing with these, but in 10th grade science a few of us got A's for our demonstration.

[alfsauve]

We use to dig holes in the ground.  No worries about your barrel exploding.   Simple system was to put rocks in a tin can, then tape an M80 to the bottom.  Light and drop in hole.    Getting real creative we tried putting an M80 in the middle of the can with a longer fuse.

I'm guessing this is sort of a cross between artillery and infantry, but we use to tape M80s on the end of arrow shafts.

Oh, such fun.

[Sponsor]

[Big Frank]

I never tried it but heard about people setting fire to the ball in a tennis ball cannon. You have to soak it in gas or something like that.

[Timothy]

I never tried it but heard about people setting fire to the ball in a tennis ball cannon. You have to soak it in gas or something like that.

Guilty!

Pop was none to happy when his Zippo ran dry...  we used all his lighter fluid!

I still have that Zippo too!  Pop probably had it during WWII

[MikeBjerum]

I never tried it but heard about people setting fire to the ball in a tennis ball cannon. You have to soak it in gas or something like that.

We fueled the tube with cigarette lighter fluid.  We would swirl it down the sides from the muzzle and then swing the tube with the muzzle down.  When we slid the tennis ball in it would wipe the excess fuel off.  At dusk and later the fuzz on the ball would burn for most of the flight.  Soaking the ball would have been a good idea.  Another thought I have had is the match head bombs:  I have read that if you cut the heads off strike anywhere matches and pack a tennis ball full of them, they will explode on impact.  Might want to make sure you are clear at launch in case the pressure of the ignition sets them off.

[Timothy]

I shot light anywhere matches out of my Crossman pellet gun wrapped in tin foil and a bit of gun powder from .22 ammo...

[MikeBjerum]

Aaaaaaaand???