Hello!
A few days ago I began researching black powder cannons and became very interested in how the worked, were built and functioned. I was surprised to find that it is completely legal to build them and fire them in most areas.
While many videos and groups i found were for cannon enthusiasts firing massive cannons, bowling balls, and golf balls, I wanted to start MUCH smaller.
I found a number of articles that laid out how to safely fabricate these and made mine WAY oversized to compensate for my irrational fear of creating a massive baby-killing bomb of some sort.
Without further ado, here is a 19 picture series of my fabrication process.
A little about me: I am a knifemaker so have all sorts of metalworking goodies including a 1944 bridgeport mill, a KMG 2X72" belt grinder from Beaumont metalworks and a crapload of other metalworking and finishing tools as well as almost 10 years of experience fabricating knives. This cannon was the easiest thing I've made in a long time and I'd say it took me a total of maybe 2 hours, including the finish work.
I'll do this in a series of a few posts.
I began with a pretty solid hunk of steel. Its nothing special as I've found mild steel is more than enough for these based on research. I first cleaned up the block on my Bridgeport mill for squareness and sprayed it with layout fluid. The block began with dimensions around 2.75"X1.5"X1.25":
Next I scribed some lines to keep things relatively straight. I didn't go anal retentive on precision here as this is not as intricate as my folding knives but I am a bit OCD about certain things so its still pretty dead on. I'll be shooting 5/16" ball bearing out of this (slingshot ammo) so I first drilled a starter hole a bit smaller.
Here it is in the vice with the smaller drill bit:
And here's the initial hole. I drilled this one with a #16 drill bit. I did this for a reason I'll explain in a bit:
The bore on this is somewhere around 2". I am going to use 2mm cannon/fireworks fuse so I drilled with a 5/64" bit as 2mm fuse is around .0760 and you want almost no clearance to ensure you're not losing excess pressure out the fuse hole on ignition. Here it is all lined up. What you dont see is i have the block angled about 5-10 degrees so that the fuse burns at an angle towards the front of the bore. I let the fuse hole intersect the bore a few mm from the rear of the chamber:
The reason I started with a #16 bit is that it leaves a hole EXACTLY big enough for a .177 BB. This allowed me to test fire the cannon. Holy crap, pretty loud for even a little cannon. It blew a nice clean hole through a tin can, made me jump and started the dogs barking. Good sign.
Into my shop I went and bored the hole out to 5/16. A 5/16 ball bearing is exactly .0312 while a 5/16 drill bit is .03125 although without going crazy with tolerances and care it usually leaves a hole a smidge bigger which is what you want. Here's the full 5/16 bore done:
Next post I get into a few finish details that I chose to do.
A few days ago I began researching black powder cannons and became very interested in how the worked, were built and functioned. I was surprised to find that it is completely legal to build them and fire them in most areas.
While many videos and groups i found were for cannon enthusiasts firing massive cannons, bowling balls, and golf balls, I wanted to start MUCH smaller.
I found a number of articles that laid out how to safely fabricate these and made mine WAY oversized to compensate for my irrational fear of creating a massive baby-killing bomb of some sort.
Without further ado, here is a 19 picture series of my fabrication process.
A little about me: I am a knifemaker so have all sorts of metalworking goodies including a 1944 bridgeport mill, a KMG 2X72" belt grinder from Beaumont metalworks and a crapload of other metalworking and finishing tools as well as almost 10 years of experience fabricating knives. This cannon was the easiest thing I've made in a long time and I'd say it took me a total of maybe 2 hours, including the finish work.
I'll do this in a series of a few posts.
I began with a pretty solid hunk of steel. Its nothing special as I've found mild steel is more than enough for these based on research. I first cleaned up the block on my Bridgeport mill for squareness and sprayed it with layout fluid. The block began with dimensions around 2.75"X1.5"X1.25":
Next I scribed some lines to keep things relatively straight. I didn't go anal retentive on precision here as this is not as intricate as my folding knives but I am a bit OCD about certain things so its still pretty dead on. I'll be shooting 5/16" ball bearing out of this (slingshot ammo) so I first drilled a starter hole a bit smaller.
Here it is in the vice with the smaller drill bit:
And here's the initial hole. I drilled this one with a #16 drill bit. I did this for a reason I'll explain in a bit:
The bore on this is somewhere around 2". I am going to use 2mm cannon/fireworks fuse so I drilled with a 5/64" bit as 2mm fuse is around .0760 and you want almost no clearance to ensure you're not losing excess pressure out the fuse hole on ignition. Here it is all lined up. What you dont see is i have the block angled about 5-10 degrees so that the fuse burns at an angle towards the front of the bore. I let the fuse hole intersect the bore a few mm from the rear of the chamber:
The reason I started with a #16 bit is that it leaves a hole EXACTLY big enough for a .177 BB. This allowed me to test fire the cannon. Holy crap, pretty loud for even a little cannon. It blew a nice clean hole through a tin can, made me jump and started the dogs barking. Good sign.
Into my shop I went and bored the hole out to 5/16. A 5/16 ball bearing is exactly .0312 while a 5/16 drill bit is .03125 although without going crazy with tolerances and care it usually leaves a hole a smidge bigger which is what you want. Here's the full 5/16 bore done:
Next post I get into a few finish details that I chose to do.
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