Old Ironsides Replica Cannon

Joined
Aug 27, 2021
Messages
390
Points
278

Location
El Paso, Texas
Recently I purchased a NOS kit for a replica cannon of those on USS Constitution. Scale is approx. 1:15 by length or 1:13 by bore.

As a teen I had one of these. When I showed this to my 12 year old son he expressed an interest in building it so I agreed. I think it will be a fun project for the two of us. Currently he is sanding all of the wood pieces.

20211204_120106.jpg

20211204_120146.jpg

Did I happen to mention it's .45 cal black powder ;)

Glenn
 
Have fun with working together with your son
A great team project - and he will be proud afterwards (and will also remember this cooperation his whole life, and I guess you also)
 
Have fun with working together with your son
A great team project - and he will be proud afterwards (and will also remember this cooperation his whole life, and I guess you also)
You are correct, we will both remember this.

Thank you for your kind words!
 
Very nice video you posted. Thanks for sharing it.

Good luck to you and your son as you work on this project!
 
Very nice video you posted. Thanks for sharing it.

Good luck to you and your son as you work on this project!
Glad you enjoyed it, I've enjoyed that channel for years.

We've worked on it some over the past weekends. The wood, red oak, is all sanded with one coat of Medium Walnut Watco Danish Oil. Needs another coat or two. He did the sanding and staining after I showed him how.

I used Jax to blue the hardware and cannon barrel. I need to get some pics so I can post them of our progress.

Glenn
 
20220213_140200.jpg

It's finished. Sorry but did not get more pics of assembly.

My son applied one coat of medium walnut Danish Oil, then a coat of dark walnut Danish Oil. Neither one did much to darken the red oak but the Danish Oil gave it a nice finish over all.

Here is a pic of my son applying wax prior to final assembly.
20220213_124226.jpg

Assembly was basic screws that hold it together with one bolt.

I took care of the bluing. Initially I tried JAX, but it was too blue. Actually a nice shade of blue but not suitable for a cannon. So I got some proper cold bluing from an online firearms parts seller (Midway, here in the US) when I ordered the other items we will need to shoot this such as ball ammo, ramrod etc... I just applied the bluing over the JAX and am happy with the results. I did one application on the hardware and 5 applications on the barrel. Here is the cold blue I used.
114383.jpg

And some pics of the finished cannon.
20220213_140141.jpg

20220213_140149.jpg

A targets view.
20220213_140324.jpg

20220213_140212.jpg

20220213_140234.jpg

A gunners view.
20220213_140257.jpg

20220213_140403.jpg

We have everything needed to fire it except the fuse, it's due to arrive today. Weather permitting we'll have some action pics this coming weekend. I'll try to get some video as well.

Thank you for looking,
Glenn and Dylan
 
Steel. Not sure what kind of steel, I'd have to call it "gunmetal" ;). This one doesn't show a brand, but the identical one I had as a teen was made by CVA who made several blackpowder firearms kits. The barrel is marked "Spain".
 
Finally had a successful shoot. I say finally because the first attempt was a failure. It had been so long since I fired black powder I did a rookie mistake: failed to run dry patches down the barrel. Wound up with an oil soaked charge that simply would not fire. Had to take the cannon back home and fortunately was able to remove the ball and fouled powder using compressed air. My son learned a few things that day including how to deal with disappointment yet continue to work the problem while maintaining a level head and positive attitude.

Next attempt my son made sure the barrel was dry prior to leaving the house. So we get to our spot to fire the cannon and get set up. Load the cannon, insert the fuse and light it. Fuse burns all the way down...nothing. Thinking "not again" I waited a few minutes to insure all sparks had burned out then went up to the cannon. Using a piece of wire I had brought I cleared the fuse hole then proceeded to pour a bit of powder into it then worked the powder in with the wire. I continued this until it would accept no more powder. Inserted a fresh fuse and we lit it. BOOM! It fired!

I talked over what I thought with my son. There was a space between the bottom of the fuse hole and the powder charge with no powder. This time we inserted the fuse FIRST in the loading sequence so it would contain the powder where it was needed. Success! We were able to reliably fire it once we made this adjustment in the loading sequence.

My son did take some video, I need to get it from him so I can post it.

Glenn
 
Sounds like you had fun with this project. Look forward to seeing video of the shoot.
 
Back
Top