Cannon Balls

Great post... now where did you find that info?

 

[musketman]

This piece of alleged history explains that in the olden days of sailing ships, cannon balls were stacked on the decks on brass plates called "monkeys."

The plates had indentions in them that held the balls on the bottoms of the stacks. Brass, however, expands and contracts with the temperature and if it got cold enough, the cannon balls could fall...giving real foundation to the phrase "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!"


The Truth:

According to the United States Navy Historical Center, this is a legend of the sea without historical justification.

The center has researched this because of the questions it gets and says the term "brass monkey" and a vulgar reference to the effect of cold on the monkey's extremities, appears to have originated in the book "Before the Mast" by C.A. Abbey.
It was said that it was so cold that it would "freeze the tail off a brass monkey." The Navy says there is no evidence that the phrase had anything to do with ships or ships with cannon balls.

In the picture below, you can see a cannon ball sitting on a brass monkey, so it must be warm in there...

It's a good thing that Salem's Naval cannons didn't use a brass bra...

 

[musketman]

Brass Monkey Expansion Test...

Coefficants of Thermal Expansion:
Brass 11.6e-06 / deg F approx.
Iron 6.0e-06 / deg F approx.

So if you were in the Spanish Armada, and your iron balls were made to fit your brass monkey, lets say they were both made in Lisbon during the summer just before the fleet set sail.

The average high in July at Lisbon is 81 (according to weather.com). You load your balls and your monkeys on your boat and set sail from Lisbon, Portugal to London, England, where the average July low is 52. So your looking at about a 30 degree F difference.

Assuming you have 8 inch balls (and we all know they made their cannon balls exactly 8 inches with a perfectly smooth surface finish), the crystral struction of brass and iron are isometric, and the coef of thermal expansion is 6e-6 in/in F

delta L = 8"*(-30F)*6e-6 "/ " F = -.00144
8"+8"*(-30F)*6e-6 "/ " F = 7.99856"

Now to the brass monkey, assuming it is a square brass plate with 16 indentations for the cannon balls...

How thick is the brass plate, 1" maybe 2"? Let's assume the total thickness of the plate is 2", with 1" indentations for the balls.

There's going to be more than 1" material between the edge of each hole, and the amount will vary depending on where it is measured, so I'm not even going to concern myself with that.

delta L = 1"*(-30F)*11.6e-6 "/ " F = -.000348"
1"+1"*(-30F)*11.6e-6 "/ " F=.999652"

Okay, this just proves my point... As the material get's thinner, the hole gets deeper. Assuming the brass is isometric, the material around the edges of the hole should contract even farther, causeing the hole to get wider as well.

Maybe the brass monkey looks different from what I am thinking...

Maybe I have too much time on my hands, another cold weekend, come on spring...

 

[Rocky Johnson]

In the hayday of sailing ship,all war ship and many freighters carried iron cannons. Those cannon fired iron cannon balls. It was necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon. But how to keep them from rolling about the deck? The best storage method devised was a square based pyramid with one ball on top resting on four,resting on nine,which rested on sixteen. Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem- how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding or rolling from under the others. the The solution was a metal plate called a Monkey with sixteen round indentations.But if this plate were made of iron the iron ball would quickly rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to make 'Brass Monkeys' Few landlubers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temerature dropped too far,the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon balls would come right off the monkey. Thus,it was quite literaly,"cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey" (And all the time you thought that was an improper expression, didn't you) Rocky

 

[Rocky Johnson]

I am not the only one with cabin fever already.Rocky