Coehorn Mortar

hawkeye2 said:

I have never seen an example of a barrel bound to the base as in your photo but I would imagine that the rope had been tared.

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I agree on the rope. As to the rope tying the barrel to the base, me either. So I'm trying to figure out more about that, I've reached out to the Royal Armories curator to see if they can explain it or have any period documentation as to the practice. I've combed through Mullers and can't find anything on it their either, so more work to do to that end.

That is a wonderful piece of artillery. You have done a fine job.

Jay Templin said:

At my first museum we did our artillery demos with a LaPan six-pounder. Their guns are top notch, and your restoration looks great!
Jay

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Jay thanks!

I'm working on acquiring a 5" howitzer at the moment and a 6 pounder as well. I'd love to come across a LaPan piece, they are rarely for sale and command a pretty premium!

SOLANCO said:

That is a wonderful piece of artillery. You have done a fine job.

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Thank you!

Looks very good indeed!

Did these fire an explosive shell or solid shot when originally used ?

I’m really surprised that it was listed in FB Marketplace. I thought they forbid the selling of guns and mortars
Nice find.

PathfinderNC said:

I’m really surprised that it was listed in FB Marketplace. I thought they forbid the selling of guns and mortars
Nice find.

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Me too! Was listed as a "brass coehorn" and nothing more, so if I had to guess it skirted whatever automatic filters they have in place.

Mrdix said:

Did these fire an explosive shell or solid shot when originally used ?

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Mortars fired explosive shells. The issue is that the fusing was … inconsistent. The French originally used a method called “firing at two touches,” where they would light the fuse on the shell, THEN light the priming charge. The issue of course being that if the gun didn’t go off, the fuse on the shell was still lit…
Jay

In my area there are lumber yards that cut railroad ties. There is a late pile of discards. Ones that had a split/crack and are sold as firewood. If you can find a similar yard you may be able to get a chunk of better wood for the base.

Nice job cleaning the barrel, now you just need to burn, piss, and wax it. . .

My long term goal for a personal piece is a bronze 8" howitzer, I've started sourcing what I need already.

Commodore Swab said:

In my area there are lumber yards that cut railroad ties. There is a late pile of discards. Ones that had a split/crack and are sold as firewood. If you can find a similar yard you may be able to get a chunk of better wood for the base.

Nice job cleaning the barrel, now you just need to burn, piss, and wax it. . .

My long term goal for a personal piece is a bronze 8" howitzer, I've started sourcing what I need already.

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8" howitzer would be amazing!

I've got a 3lb cannon coming to me and a source on a complete 5.5" howitzer and hope to have a 6 pound gun in the next two years as the 250th cycle really gets going.

MAPMFF said:

Original beds are one piece and made of oak. This one appears to be pine.

This one appeared to be one piece, hard to tell if the horizontal line you can see more clearly in the photo above is a natural long running imperfection or if they had tried to laminate a few chunks together. It is to the regulation size of 28.5" x 14" x 9"

I had gotten a few ideas from a local saw mill, and may eventually replace the bed with white oak, but for the cost, I wanted to see if I could get this one up to snuff for reenacting. I did some googling and came across a product called Goodfilla Wood Filler, and it's good on small to big cracks, a thick putty. It worked really well as you can see in some of the areas I have already sanded. Filled in knots and cracks without issue and sanded smooth.

View attachment 254810

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I turn wooden bowls and that line is the pith ( center) of the tree from which this was cut. when harvesting and cutting bowl blanks, this is cut out of the wood to decrease the chances of cracking while drying the wood. The cracking visible on the end grain ( side) is also from the drying of the wood. These can be filled with epoxy ( cyanoacrylate) aka superglue if you want a good solid repair. You can get thinned out superglue that will penetrate the cracks as far as the crack runs into the wood. It can then be sanded, stained, etc… or you can color it black or tan. If you intend to paint, then color does not matter. As for a white oak base, a chainsaw will allow you to collect / harvest a block from a downed tree. Hand planes can be used to smooth / level out surfaces to final dimensions. I can send you basic instruction, but any green wood wood turner should be able to do this / coach you locally. Look for the local American Association of Woodturners chapter. A traditional lumber saw mill will cost you a small mint because they will see this as “lost” lumber and will charge you for quarter sawn white oak on a board foot basis. There are specialty hard wood timber suppliers, but white oak is pricey, but not as expensive as cherry or walnut. Given you dimensions the raw block alone would be ~37 board feet with no waste. Prices on white oak timber vary a lot depending upon quality of the wood, figure / grain, green or air dried or kiln dried, etc. Rough sawn green wood ( not select or prime) can be as little as $5 / BF, clear straight quarter sawn and dried will be much more expensive because they cut those timbers from much larger pieces of wood as a starting point.

BTW mortar looks awesome…

@CW the ShopDog

That's a great response with some really helpful advice. I went on the woodturners website and there is an active chapter right near me so I will reach out to them.

I'm split on whether or not I should continue my look for a more authentic full sized wood block, or to visit a more specialty store and stack/glue smaller pieces of already dried wood to get to the dimensions I am looking for.

Set of implements and a tompion for the mortar made by our very own, and very talented @zulu

About the only progress I've made recently on this project, have a second coehorn tube which I am cleaning up, and I still haven't had much luck getting new blocks made for them both. But the implements are top notch!

Found new mortar beds, after posting on a local wood working FB page I was directed to a local guy who has a small mill. I was able to obtain 2 good blocks of Norway Maple. Whilst original mortar beds were made out of white oak, it's a happy compromise to make as finding wood of this size was proving difficult and didn't want to have to laminate smaller pieces together.

Picking them up this week, I'll be waiting for the hardware for these for a month or two so they'll just hang out in my basement and continue to dry out.

great stuff! thanks.

Grabbed the new blocks today. Not too bad, about an hour's ride each way, the guy who sold them to me was really thrilled about the grain on the wood. I didn't have the hear to tell him I'd be painting over them eventually..

Either way lugged them into my shop....phew..they are some solid pieces of wood: 125 pounds and 122 pounds respectively, hoping they'll lighten a little bit as they dry out, but I'm sure it won't be a huge difference. Got them propped up on some wood to continue to dry, with a dehumidifier and space heater my shop is sitting at about 72 degrees and 37% humidity so they'll hopefully continue to dry out. It was a little drizzly where I picked them up at, and they were somewhat wet but they didn't appear to be super saturated to begin with. So we'll reevaluate them in a month's time and see where we are at!

Starting in on the mortar beds.

Cutting out the trench the trunion sits in, a combination of chisel and mallet, drill and router to get them cleaned out.

Top left you can see some wood filler as the blocks split (more than I'd have liked, but certainly still serviceable) so I'm filling some of those cracks up.

More to follow over the next couple days and weeks.

I wonder who had bought that ... as that was For Sale at a local gun shop only 2 streets away from me ... for many, many years ...

https://www.laibids.com/auctions/31263/lot/209171-brass-signal-cannon-mounted-on-oak-block

Hello,

Curious how much you paid if you don't mind. I see one at an auction coming up. Auction also has BP rifles & pistols in it as well as modern.
My FnL bought one about 50 years ago and unfortunately it sits on the barn floor with wood rotting. He used to shoot loaded beer cans wrapped in cardboard. Cans were loaded with store bought fire crackers that went off down range. His son 85 has no recollection of loads. I can't find any load recommendations. It was a great way to start 4th of July family picnics.