Coehorn Mortar

[sheriff john]

Thanks for posting this. Excellent job.
The Missouri state museum in the state capitol building had a confederate mortar on display for decades. It was made from a large log with a steel/iron bore and very heavy bands around the outside of the log. Memory fails me as to what the story was regarding the piece. Anyway ..enjoyed your post. Thanks.

 

[zulu]

Sean,
Is one handle on each side of the mortar beds sufficient for lifting one of those things up?

 

[MAPMFF]

Sean,
Is one handle on each side of the mortar beds sufficient for lifting one of those things up?

Michael,

Yes it seems to be, the posts that the handles are set with are about 4" deep into the wood. I cheated somewhat and added some construction adhesive into the holes to help increase its strength. I have picked it up with one handle and they didn't move at all. That said the bed by itself is about 90 pounds so I won't be doing it often! They are unwieldy pieces of kit!

 

[MAPMFF]

If anyone is bored, I typed up a blog post of the process of rebuilding this. It is more or less the same things that were posted in this thread but in a more concise, article format.

Coehorn Mortar Blog Post

 

[MAPMFF]

Brought the mortars to our first event!

Proofed the tubes with a slow fuse. We went to do some more drilling with them but the vent meets the powder chamber at the very, very rear of the chamber and the rounds I made didn't fit that. So I'll work on making a round thats more cylindrical in shape on the bottom to better fit the chamber.

Quick photos, I'll add some video in a while.

 

[MAPMFF]

While referencing this post on another thread, I realized I never uploaded the video.

 

[MAPMFF]

More work to be done, the way I made the cartridges really doesn't lend themselves to sliding into the chamber well, the bottom of the powder chamber is concave, so some more work needs to be done to make the bottom of the cartridge more cylindrical to fit well. These will be fun once we get that dialed in!

 

[MAPMFF]

 

[MAPMFF]

 

[MAPMFF]

Put the mortars to work over the weekend for a film shoot.