Started on the golf ball cannon today

tennmike

Finally got all the tooling done and got to work. Set up the 3 1/2" x 14'' inch piece of round stock in the chuck and steady rest, indicated the end in the steady rest running true, and center drilled it. Used a 1/2 inch drill bit to get the hole started, switched to the 1/2" x 8" long drill bit and drilled to 7" depth. Then swapped to the drills I'd made up for deep hole drilling. 5/8" x 12" and then 3/4" x 12" and drilled to 11" deep. Got started on the 1" drill, and when I couldn't drill any deeper with it, put it in the drill holder I made and got to 7" deep before I quit. Took all afternoon to do that. After the drill flutes were completely in the hole, the drill had to be backed out and cleaned every 1/10"; that's a lot of cranking on the tailstock handwheel plus releasing the tailstock and pulling it back almost off the lathe bed. I used a lot of cutting oil, but it's running into a bucket for reclamation and reuse.

Tomorrow, I'll finish the 1" deep hole to 11" depth, and then start boring the thing out with the boring bars. That's going to take a good while as I will have to bore it to diameter in a couple of steps. Got a few pictures that I'll upload in a day or two.

NN

reclamation and carpet refinishing

:yikes:

tennmike

NN wrote: »

:yikes:

Lathe has a full length and width metal pan under it on top of the metal bench. I put a stainless steel kitchen sink drain in it to drain the oil off, and that is piped to a bucket underneath the bench. No carpet in my shop; that stuff attracts lathe and mill swarf like a black car attracts dust! :silly:

Teach

Rifled, or smoothbore?
Jerry

SirGeorgeKillian

Canon? I don't see none of that here. This thread is worthless without pitchers!

Jermanator

Give it a bit of time. He has to make it first.

KENFU1911

A cannon....for golf balls,,,,,hmmmm.....if you could make it bigger.....and fire it loaded with about 100 golf balls......at a golf course...... it might open up more space for rifle ranges in this Country........Ken

tennmike

SirGeorgeKillian wrote: »

Canon? I don't see none of that here. This thread is worthless without pitchers!

Itsa peece of steel 3 1/2" diameter x 14" long with a hole 3/4" diameter 11" deep, and drilled out 1" diameter to a depth of 7". It looks almost totally unlike what it will be when finished. Just a piece of round stock with a hole down the center. Sorta kinda like a heavy wall piece of pipe. I gots to finish drilling the hole to 1" diameter to 11" depth and then bore the hole out to golf ball size to that depth before I start on turning the outside contour. It's slow work.

tennmike

Teach wrote: »

Rifled, or smoothbore?
Jerry

Smoothbore. I don't even want to consider the trouble it would take to cut rifling in a blind hole. :tooth:

cappy54

thanks for letting NSA know lol

bullsi1911

bullsi1911

My research aid that the common wisdom on the cast canons is to line the bore with seamless stainless steel tubing to make sure the thing does not scatter across the landscape.

I want a beer can mortar. Really bad.

Not $460 bad: http://cannonthunder.com/SodaCan.html
but that gives you an idea of the right size.

tennmike

Here's two not so good pictures of the thing in the lathe. I used my not so good camera to take the pictures with as a shop is not a good place for my good one. Too much oil 'n' stuff on the tools, me, and anywhere I'd lay the camera. I'll try to do more better when I do the boring, which I will be starting tomorrow. Got the hole drilled to a depth of 11" and 1" in diameter, which is big enough for my 3/4" boring bar to get started. I'll switch out boring bars as the hole gets bored out more bigger.

tennmike

cappy54 wrote: »

thanks for letting NSA know lol

If they got in the shop and dragged out the drawer of laminated blueprints in that drawer, and looked at them, they'd crap their pants and crawl into a corner and mumble and suck their thumb! :rotflmao:

tennmike

cpj wrote: »

Since thread jacking is what we do....
How bigga piecea steel would one need for a pop can mortar? If one could cast a body from cast iron, or bronze, would that be do-able? (Don't bother with the "it's too much trouble to cast " comments. You know know me betternthat)

A coke can (I have NO idea what a 'pop can' is :tooth:) is roughly 2 1/2" in diameter. So the mortar would need to be at least 8" in diameter with a 3" to 3 1/2 inch bore cast in it. That way you could get a decent wall thickness stainless steel liner in the thing to keep it from going KABOOM! when you set it off. The liner would also need a back piece welded in place, too.

And since the trunnions are on the back of a mortar, and the mortar is rounded at the breech end, I have no freakin' idea how you'd hold that thing in a lathe to bore it. Unless you stuck the trunnions on after the tube was finished. A milling machine would come in right handy for that bit.

tennmike

cpj wrote: »

What flavor of steel do that be?

C1045 cold rolled steel steel shafting.

tennmike

cpj wrote: »

Meh. Scratch that.

What say ye?

http://cannonthunder.com/SodaCan.html

Easy to make, but would give you a hernia getting that honkin' piece of steel in the lathe chuck and steady rest. Need an overhead hoist or engine hoist to hold it while you got it chucked up and supported. And it's a piece of steel about 4" in diameter, so you need a steady rest that can handle that diameter. Mine only opens to a little over 3.5", hence the steel diameter I chose for the project. Since a golf ball is slightly under 1.7" there will be around a 1" wall thickness on the barrel.

tennmike

cpj wrote: »

Like so?

http://www.speedymetals.com/pc-1671-8230-4-12-rd-cold-finished-1045.aspx

That's the stuff. Kinda high priced stuff, though. I got mine at scrap metal price since it was a cutoff from a 20 ft. long bar.

tennmike

cpj wrote: »

And, taint a Coke can. Least not in your part of the woods. Proper vernacular would be co-cola can.

Everything in a can in these parts is a Coke, unless it's a beer.

tennmike

One of the projects I've had on the back burner for a long time is a steady rest that will hold up to an 8" diameter workpiece. I found the plans for one that uses roller bearings instead of brass dead points. Even with continuous drip oiling the brass tips wear away.

tennmike

cpj wrote: »

Crap. All I gots is 3 inches, IF that. And that's pushing it.
And the steady rest is that size, too. :tooth:


Kweshun, would you need a bearing on top as well, or would two on the bottom suffice? Or, two bearings on bottom and a brass piece on top?

You need three points of solid contact. Only supporting a workpiece on two bottom supports is asking for a workpiece to come flying out and ring your bell. Bad enough in a wood lathe, but a piece of steel weighing 60+ pounds getting launched is a recipe for disaster and severe injury to yourself and the lathe.

You need the three bearings if going with a roller bearing steady rest. Leaving the top one of brass will induce wobble and chatter as it wears unless you keep checking it really regularly.

bullsi1911

cpj wrote: »

Crap. All I gots is 3 inches, IF that. And that's pushing it.

Ahem....

That is Sig worthy

Jayhawker

My cousins golf ball cannon used a patched golf ball.....interesting results range and accuracywise

Me? I want a Bowling ball mortar....I can see me cruising the thrift shops shopping for ammo....

tennmike

Jayhawker wrote: »

My cousins golf ball cannon used a patched golf ball.....interesting results range and accuracywise

Me? I want a Bowling ball mortar....I can see me cruising the thrift shops shopping for ammo....

I've got an O2 tank that is way out of date inspection wise. Might have to cut that thing down and see what will fit down that hole.

tennmike

Gonna have to measure that O2 tank diameter tomorrow. A slice out of that thing might just be the ticket for a larger steady rest. If it's the right diameter, it would be a pretty simple welding job to get all the pieces attached to it. Wheels is turnin' in my haidbone.

SirGeorgeKillian

tennmike wrote: »

I've got an O2 tank that is way out of date inspection wise. Might have to cut that thing down and see what will fit down that hole.

Speaking of all things sig worthy....

tennmike

SirGeorgeKillian wrote: »

Speaking of all things sig worthy....

I've got 20 pieces of 4" i.d. x 1/4" wall x 5 ft. length aluminum tube I got for the princely sum of hauling it off years ago. I planned on making a couple of 10 tube rocket launchers out of it when I was messin' with homemade rocket motors. Seems the powers that be don't have any sense of humor about such shenanigans,
so I guess that won't be a happening kind of thing. Seems I can launch all the rockets I want to vertically, but putting them in tubes and launching them anywhere off the vertical in salvos is considered a bad thing by the gooberment. It's O.K. to build the launchers because they aren't verboten, but loading them would be. Kind of like they will let me have crayons, but I can't have paper at the same time. :roll2:

tennmike

Chris, if the O2 tank is big enough inside for the bigger steady rest I'll cut off a suitable slice for you. I also think I have the small ball bearings squirreled away in a jar of oil in the shop somewhere, too. I KNOW I have the bearings; where they are at is the question.

bullsi1911

tennmike wrote: »

I've got an O2 tank that is way out of date inspection wise. Might have to cut that thing down and see what will fit down that hole.

I have heard of people using tanks like that for bowling ball mortars:

http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/gun-nuts/2010/11/bowling-ball-mortar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv6Ye9Fbm34


http://www.docsmachine.com/nonPB/mortar.html

tv_racin_fan

bullsi1911 wrote: »

I have heard of people using tanks like that for bowling ball mortars:

Bro in law has the intention of building a bowling ball cannon out of one. He tried very hard to get some wagon wheels for the carriage from a sis in law last time we saw her.

tennmike

Well, I wore the brass pads on the steady rest slap out today. I knocked them out and will have to get some better material in the next couple of days to make new ones. I'll go to my metals supplier tomorrow and see if he has any hardened bronze rod. Brass is way too soft for this.

And when I get back from the metals place I'm going to cut open that old O2 bottle and see about making a decent sized steady rest with ball bearings for supporting the workpiece. Unless I find a piece of stuff at the steel place the right diameter and thickness.

If it ain't one thing, it's something else.