[KABAR2]

I worked on a friends house who does wood turning,
I asked him to turn something for me in exchange for my work
This morning I found this on my desk waiting for me

Meet Woody! (the 1 lb powder can is there for scale)

What pray tell is this you ask ? and how is this related to building arms?

This is the start of a wood form used in sand casting a bronze Coehorn mortar

I'll post photo's as the form continues to take shape.

Allen <><

 

[wonderwolf]

Something like this

 

[Rory]

whoa allen that looks great!!! if you are able to do more than one in a run let me know the details of the ruff pour... i might be in to having one of these.

 

[realsnook]

Thats pretty cool wish I had good surprises????

 

[KABAR2]

Rory,

PM sent

 

[Taverndog]

You know with all that un-reloadable brass people leave at the range in 1 weekend one could have enough brass for one of those.

Back in when I was in the Marine Corps I had deployed to Cuba with a engineer company and while we were there we did all of our yearly retraining on the rifle pistol and machine guns. We saved all of the brass and one of the engineers had made on his spare time at the base machine shop a Brass bell for our CO who was the best CO that I ever had. The bell had the date we deployed company name and the CO's name one it. We mounted the bell on our flag pole one morning before the Co woke up and and he did not notice the bell until it was time for Morning Colors we rang the bell and raised the colors.

 

[KABAR2]

You know with all that un-reloadable brass people leave at the range in 1 weekend one could have enough brass for one of those.

Brass is fine for bells but Bronze is the metal of cannon & mortars, brass is too brittle for cannon making and would fail under the stresses of firing.
It works fine for cartridges because it is contained by the chamber and bolt, and with it's ability to expand on firing forms a good gas seal.



Allen <><

 

[panaceabeachbum]

so if you found that on your desk in the morning , I guess that would officialy qaulify as "morning wood"

 

[KABAR2]

Well I had a few minutes to spare before I left work so I ran into the wood shop and did a little work on the mortar

First i found center and marked the area to be scored with the band saw

next I made a series of cuts and then used one of my stock making gouges to remove the material to the contour,

when finished it wasn't deep enough so I went back to the band saw to score it deeper,

Then I got brave and decided to try contouring it with the bandsaw!

 

[KABAR2]

once done I opened it up a little with the stock making gouge

Here it is with the trunnion set in place, now that I see it in the photo
I want it a little deeper into the base of the mortar so tomorrow I'll
cut it a little deeper. At least now it's starting to look like a mortar

 

[panaceabeachbum]

looking really good , gonna have to split it to make the match plate soon.

You going to ram up the mold and pour yourself or take it to a foundry?

 

[KABAR2]

looking really good , gonna have to split it to make the match plate soon.

You going to ram up the mold and pour yourself or take it to a foundry?

Yep, once I get the reinforce blocks between the tube and the trunnion made I'll be slicing it in half.......... it's good to have a steady hand!

I'd love to set up a small foundry but I live in a development and
I think those pesky neighbors would get silly about some smell and noise so for now I'll be talking to someone about casting.
I can do small castings I have a small electric furnace and have made sword and knife parts,
brass pans for muzzle loaders and a few trigger guards in the past, but nothing this big.

Allen <><

 

[panaceabeachbum]

is it going to be iron or bronze?
since your going to all the effort you should probably ram up more than one mold and pour a few

 

[KABAR2]

I'm going for Bronze and am hoping to to do these in small runs,
I have 3 or 4 people interested in raw castings depending on price, by raw I mean cast solid no bore...... "U" bore.

If I have enough interest I'll offer them as follows

Raw casting U finish.

Raw casting bored U finish.

Completely finished with oak base and implements

Maybe after I find out pricing I will see about a group buy to start the ball rolling.........

 

[panaceabeachbum]

I am interested in a rough casting also