Badger Busting Cannon

[gunmaker]

That thick walled tube at scrap yard is likely Shelby tube.  Good stuff, watched a piece of it turned and threaded for a breech plug in a machine shop years ago. Made a nice cannon, think it was 2-3" bore.  ...Tom

[hotfxr]

Had some time this evening, and much to "She who must be obeyed"'s dismay, decided to work on the Badger Buster for awhile. I scored some used rigid urethane casters from a shop that was replacing some on their carts and made my Rube Goldberg rotisserie contraption thingy.The only thing I had for speed control was a few old rheostats from some intercom speakers. Before they burned up it worked great. I think I got almost 10 seconds of grinding bliss from one of them. I will pick up something a bit more heavy duty tomorrow and really go to town on it.









I need to get a real main pulley instead of an old one I made from wood to smooth it out. I have the plumbers tape across the top just in case it decides to go all "Prius" on me and speeds up and jumps the wheels. It's getting to darned heavy to just pick it back up. The two pillow block bearings are there to keep it from creeping off the rollers lengthwise and falling upon my" already been crushed once by heavy falling metal" toes.

[beowulf]

a fine example of true maniacal .. I mean mechanical genius   

[Red Badger]

Just think what he could do if he put that talent to use instead of wasting it in a doomed attempt to beat me..... 

[Hawken50]

  Well Red Badger we gota hand it to the Californio. He does hold to the whole On The Cheap part.  Pretty ingenious hold it and turn it thingy.

[hotfxr]

Just think what he could do if he put that talent to use instead of wasting it in a doomed attempt to beat me..... 

Doomed attempt??!!??  I don't think so Tim! (It's a quote, not your real name, sheesh relax already.) Your imminent demise is a foregone conclusion written in the stars. The heart of the cannon is complete and true, all this is just for cosmetic details. When "Bruce, Badger Buster of the Wild Frontier" is done transforming your rather large, yet slow moving countenance into tiny crimson badger bits spread out over a large area of the prairie, I just want your soul to rest easy knowing you were dispatched from your earthly toils by an historically correct, half scale, durned good looking cannon. My level of respect of you and your leadership demands nothing less. Although I will be sad (no really, I will, for a while anyway) at least I will be comforted by the fact that I will have the prettiest cannon on the West Coast and might even make some extra $ doing badger eradication after proving myself by ridding Oklahoma of it's largest burrowing varmint. 

Back over to the technical side of things, I have figured out how to make a vent liner that can be used as a touch hole or a fuse hole. Now I think I shall honor my second, Mr. Dogshirt of the North, and figure a way to include percussion caps as a form of ignition in addition to the aforementioned two. I have seen a couple around the 'net and since I like to keep my options open, I will attempt to make it all work. Too bad RB will just be a memory in the furthest reaches of our minds by then, he would have appreciated it.

                                                                                                                                                       

[beowulf]

dixie sells these for $24.00  but it looks simple enough anyone could spend much time and money building one himself ! 

[hotfxr]

The Baleful Badger can breathe easy for a while, I am off to Iowa to greet my first grand child who was supposed to be here two weeks ago and will definitely be here tomorrow. It's only 2000 miles in a truck with half an engine (Plus the AC stopped working yesterday, oh my!) so I am hoping to be there by Friday night and most likely won't be back to continue working on Bruce until the 4th. So the badger Man has a few more weeks to get his affairs in order. Lucky him.

[hotfxr]

After a long and tiring couple of weeks on the road and spending three days working on a reluctant sewer pipe I can relax and get to work on the cannon, I can't let RB get to complacent now can i? Oh what's that, "She who must be obeyed" said no more cannon work until the fountain in the back yard is done and the french doors are finally installed. Why? Oh, the prodigal daughter is coming home in a couple of weeks and she wants to have a graduation party in the back yard. Yes dear. But she was gone for a couple of hours today and I got a little bit of time in. My rotisserie turning thingy didn't quite work out as well as I had hoped using just stuff I had hanging around. It kept throwing the drive belt off and bounced too much or lost traction. So I pulled an old lazy susan swivel off the wall and made it a bit more upright and now things are cooking along.



Using an old 1/2" drill at the bottom for power I can control the speed and now material is coming off much easier.

I had to spend a bit more money today to get a piece of steel for the breech cap which I have to shape a lot but I am down to the muzzle band, breech cap & ball handle and a bit more shaping. Then it is on to the trunnions and sand blaster. Started shaping the trunnion clamps and have to go scavenge the wood to start on the carriage, but the end is in sight.

Another side note, I was talking to an engineer type friend and after a bit of scribbling on a piece of paper, he determined that this cannon would be at least ten times stronger than an original one. I think that maybe it could achieve a low orbit with enough powder in it. Hmm, something to think about.

[pilgrim]

       Could maybe hit a target just NW of Tulsa, Oklahoma??             

[Red Badger]

NAW he got himself a pretty thing there but the proof will be which end the ball comes out of, and if it survives it first test firing....     

[York Fencibles]

This post has inspired me to get a move on with all my DIY projects. Especially since none of them are quite this awesome. A homemade cannon. Epic

[punjab]

About that Engineer type friend,is he licensed to practice in California?You need to be careful about that stuff,Cal. gets real picky about that stuff.If the word got out that an unlicesed party was practising Engr.you could have inspectors from the licensing Board all over you.By the way how are you going to get enough powder to fire that thing or do black powder substitutes work in a cannon?

[hotfxr]

After untold hours of welding and grinding and welding and grinding, I finally have this stupid, ah magnificent cannon to a point where I can weld on the trunnions. I am starting with some 1" safe door bolts then sliding 1" black pipe over the bolts and welding them in place. Then making the bearing faces out of two more layers of pipe and welding caps over the bearing and the end of the trunnions, for extra strength.  Here it is so far.



You can see the little jig I made up to make sure the trunnions are square and plumb on the lower left side of the cart. I couldn't find it for the picture taking but I got a 2" hitch ball for the handle at the breech. That rockets my cost for this thing so far up to $35. Man this is an expensive hobby. After many days and websites of searching, I decided to go ahead and make the carriage wheels myself. I have more than enough scrap oak to do it and I can't see paying $145 to $300 apiece plus shipping for already built wheels. I don't care about proper "dish" as I don't really plan on strapping this thing on the back end of a horse and heading off into the prairie lands to fight indians or blue bellies so I really just don't care if I have the proper steel on the wheels. Back to the grind(ing) for now.

[Hawken50]

   Looking good.