The Ancient Petard..... What is it? What purpose? Building a Fortress Door.

[JeffG]

Kabar,
I suspect your neighbors already find you as odd as my neighbors find me.
Who cares?
Zulu

We all share that label to one extent or another,eh? 

[Double D]

I am not odd, all the rest of the neighborhood is...I'm normal.  Ask anyone here that has met me.  No don't do that, they are wierd.  just take my word for it, I am normal.   

[Androclese]

 To Seacoast: In the usage I became accustomed to, charge tamping can be any means of encouraging the force of an explosion as much as possible towards the object you want it to act upon. The iron bucket hung on the door, or gate, managed this okay if not optimally. The addition of props, and A frames etc. helped in that regard. the effect of a given charge would be much different if it were just a sack of powder hanging on the door, the blast will go more in the direction of least resistance than through the target. Roughly the same process that makes a H.E.S.H. /HEP shell so effective.  Newton's law of conservation of linear motion sorta stuff.  (I think)

[seacoastartillery]

George wrote:

I wonder how well those are anchored to the door; perhaps striking with your ram at an angle would dislodge them.  If the anchor bolt goes all the way through, I think it would significantly weaken the door.

      I agree that you could loosen those spikes by bashing at an angle, but wouldn’t they be difficult to withdraw, even after being loosened?  All those rivets in many of the doors we looked at go all the way through.  Would they go to all the bother to make them that way, if that construction weakened the door.



Rivercat wrote:

I must admit I am finding this post very interesting Glad you started it!

     Thanks for the figurative “kick in the butt” you gave us after we let this idea lie dormant for three years!  As a mater of fact, I was so thrilled after reading your "Door Petard" thread that I took my .455 Cal. Webley Mark VI out for a target session in your honor.  Gary and Mike slobbered and fawned over it so much, I finally had to give them a few scarce cartridges each.


Built in 1915, this big Webley Revolver may be the best military revolver ever built.




The first four inside 2.5 inches at 20 yards off hand ain't too bad.





Double D. wrote:

Shaped charge does not require a  copper cone, it only requires a cavity, the copper cone or angle enhances the Monroe effect.

      The bottom of a wine bottle can be used to form the cavity along with three twigs rubber banded  on for standoff.
 

KABAR2 wrote:

How are you going to construct the door?   A proper fortress door should be three layers thick  with the center layer being laid across the others and then riveted and reinforced many times the locking bars were made of iron and were in three locations one near the bottom one at mid hight and one nearer the top.........
 
     Our double door construction will be three layers thick on each door.  Two new layers of Baltic Birch plywood will form the outer layers and a matrix of old fixture pieces, also Baltic Birch, will form the interior third.  The finished thickness will be  54mm  (2.125”)  Holding these piece together robustly will be glue, rivets and bolts and bolted iron straps.  These will be stout doors! 
 
     There will be one large timber locking bar at about mid-height of the rectangular section of the doors.  I think that iron push bolts, even three in number,  would offer very little resistance to a powerful blow against the doors.  Other than a few larger bolts, we now have all the materials assembled in the shop and I am extremely anxious to get started.  I have decided to take Saturday off and start on the construction of Petard Target Doors immediately!  This is the point at which I must remind myself to measure twice and cut once!! 
 
 Kabar,
 I suspect your neighbors already find you as odd as my neighbors find me.
 Who cares?
 Zulu
 
      Once Mike’s neighbors saw Mike and I unload 400 pounds of steel plates from the back of the Smart car.  We were picking up drafting supplies and on the way back to the shop, when we decided to stop at our favorite steel surplus yard.  We spotted deals and overloaded that poor car!  We had the Paixhans Monster Mortar parked in front of Mike’s house one Saturday a while back while we re-arranged a new  spot for it in his backyard.  Now the kids in the neighbor hood refer to us as the “Cannon Guys”.
 
JeffG writes:

   We all share that label (odd) to one extent or another, eh?
 
   A more true statement has not ever been penned on this board.
 

Double D. writes:

 I am not odd, all the rest of the neighborhood is...I'm normal.  Ask anyone here that has met me.  No don't do that, they are wierd.  just take my word for it, I am normal.
 
     I think that DD is in denial.     However, nobody will give you a more genuine, “Big Sky” welcome to Montana, when you travel to one of his “Model Cannon Shoots”,  than Douglas.


 Androclese wrote:

  To Seacoast: In the usage I became accustomed to, charge tamping can be any means of encouraging the force of an explosion as much as possible towards the object you want it to act upon. The iron bucket hung on the door, or gate, managed this okay if not optimally. The addition of props, and A frames etc. helped in that regard. the effect of a given charge would be much different if it were just a sack of powder hanging on the door, the blast will go more in the direction of least resistance than through the target. Roughly the same process that makes a H.E.S.H. /HEP shell so effective.  Newton's law of conservation of linear motion sorta stuff.  (I think)


    I Don’t know anything about HESH or HEP or that particular Newton’s   Law,  but I agree 100% with you on the rest of it. 
 
     To reduce this concept of an “equal and opposite reaction” to a memorable  illustration from my past, the true story of a “stump removal” may serve to explain the simple concept of “tamping” to provide resistance to forces produced by “Rapid Oxidation” of gunpowder and force vector management against the target tree stump.   After all, when called upon to remove a medium size stump due to a parking lot expansion by your company, who could refuse?   It was a 12” Dia. oak tree stump with lots of roots, so I chopped all the surface roots with an old axe I had, then I dug a 6” dia. hole 2.5 feet long with a slender spade, under the stump at about 30 degrees to the ground’s surface.  I placed 2 Lbs of BP in a cardboard tube at the end of this hole wired with an Estes rocket igniter.  The charge was in line with the proposed stump trajectory which was a vector AWAY from the company delivery trucks and into an open field.  I “tamped” the charge with about 10 pounds of rock-free mud gathered from a nearby mud puddle.  The distribution manager moved an older maintenance truck to the end of the line of nice looking delivery trucks, to face the tamping mud.  I ran the bell wire down to the battery of the third truck in the line.
 
     After checking to see that everyone had cover and no vehicles were approaching the facility, contact was made.  A low, muffled thump was heard and the stump rose majestically on a column of white BP smoke and headed for the open field on a typical parabolic arc and landed 20 yards away with a “thump”.  The tamping mud made a mess of the old maintenance truck’s side, but resisted the force of the blast long enough to break all the sub-surface tree roots and boost the 200 Lb. stump into the field.
 
     The weight ratio of tamping mud to tree stump weight was 10 to 200 or 1 to 20.  The tamping proved effective at a ratio of 1:20.  Certainly the tamping (petard/mortar weight ) of 200 Lbs. will be effective against the approximate 200 Lb. weight of the “fortress doors”.  This ratio is a very robust,  1:1.  Right?
 
We will see! 
 
Mike and Tracy
 

[Zulu]

M&T,
You mentioned you still need a few larger bolts for the project.
How big?  How long?
I have a lot of that kind of stuff hanging around.  I built communication towers for 25 years and managed to hang on to some things in case I ever needed them.
I have some larger bolts I would be willing to donate to the cause.  I love this kind of thing.
Zulu

[seacoastartillery]

M&T,
You mentioned you still need a few larger bolts for the project.
How big?  How long?
I have a lot of that kind of stuff hanging around.  I built communication towers for 25 years and managed to hang on to some things in case I ever needed them.
I have some larger bolts I would be willing to donate to the cause.  I love this kind of thing.
Zulu   

     Thank you for this generous offer, Zulu.  I am laying out the construction details on the doors at this time.  Probably by tomorrow I should know sizes and lengths of the larger bolts which will depend on the iron strap thicknesses.


Tracy

[Victor3]

     Thanks for the figurative “kick in the butt” you gave us after we let this idea lie dormant for three years!  As a mater of fact, I was so thrilled after reading your "Door Petard" thread that I took my .455 Cal. Webley Mark VI out for a target session in your honor.  Gary and Mike slobbered and fawned over it so much, I finally had to give them a few scarce cartridges each.


Built in 1915, this big Webley Revolver may be the best military revolver ever built.





The first four inside 2.5 inches at 20 yards off hand ain't too bad.

 Well dang... If I'd a known you wanted to shoot it on the cheap I'd a sold you this instead of auctioning it off. 


http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=329265401

[seacoastartillery]

 Victor3 wrote:
 
 " Well dang... If I'd a known you wanted to shoot it on the cheap I'd a sold you this instead of auctioning it off.  "
 
 
      This was in response to my comment that I was compelled to hand out the last few cartridges that I had for the Webley.  Now, Mike has come to my rescue and developed a die which can squeeze the rim of a .45 Colt case out to original Webley cartridge dia. using our 20 ton hydraulic press and also a collet to hold it in the horizontal case trimmer.  He first made a couple from .45 Auto Rim cases which are .010." less than the chamber dia., but the .45 Colt ( some people call it .45 Long Colt, incorrectly) is far better, because the case is only .003" under the chamber dia.  He says you can also make it from .45 Schofield cases if you have any of those. 
 
 
 
      Now, back on task, I am forced to report that we have decided to go the extra mile to make our Petard Target a very authentic and heavily built Fortress Door a full  7 feet high and 5 feet wide.  We have ballooned our budget out to $375 and it will probably go to $450 before the sawdust settles.  We try to save 1,000 per year to spend on special projects and for three years we have not spent any of this fund.  The safety rammers were built with inexpensive stock we had on hand. 
 
      We will be adding two more layers of wood on the outside of the doors front and back bringing the total thickness to 3.125".  These layers of oak will harden the extremely strong interior and resist rivet and bolt pull- through. The boads will be the same 2.5" wide format with bead between as shown on the old doors re-posted below.  The iron (low carbon steel) hardware will be duplicated as well as true perfectionists can craft it.  Although there will be no surround of stone work, there will be robust door hinges swinging on solid steel rods 1.25" in diameter, heavily braced to resist deformation under extreme stress.  Together the doors and attached hardware will weigh slightly more than 250 pounds.  We believe if you are to give something an authentic, full-scale test, then you certainly better build it as the original was built, in alternating direction layers, with properly bolted and riveted construction.
 
 Mike and Tracy
 
 
 Here is what it will look like when complete.  We think that 4 weeks of spare time hours should see this door assembly completed.  We will update every week or so with pics.
 
 
 

[Cannon Cocker]

 
 
 Here is what it will look like when complete. 
 
 

Wow.  Really?  It's going to look like that!  Could you please make two, one to blow up and the other one for my front door.  While you're at it, lets go full Eli Whitney on this.  I'll be working on a web site and calling on builders while you guys churn them out for me.  $450  right?  That's what you said $450 right?

[BoomLover]

    Just completed a class on blasting, and the idea of the Petard is in common use today. We built a "shaped" "Rock Crusher", using 3 one pound sticks of 60% Dynamite, molded into a plastic funnel.
Set it off with a blasting cap, much like the idea of the model rocket igniter you used, set up on top of a 5,000 pound boulder.
     The largest piece left intact was about 100 pounds, the rest cobble sized and smaller. I predict you will have matchsticks, toothpicks, and sawdust, (well, maybe not THAT small!), along with assorted metal fragments, after your experiment! The key is the cone shape, making it directional.
     We also "mudded" it over, which helps just as your shot with the tree...Looking forward to pics and/or a video of your experience!     BoomLover

[KABAR2]

Kabar,
I suspect your neighbors already find you as odd as my neighbors find me.
Who cares?
Zulu

It may have been when I dug the moat & stocked it with pirana......... you don't think I'm anti-social do you?

[Androclese]

To Seacoast: This is a quicky Wiki rip about HESH, HEP munitions, and how they work. Think of them as flying Petards that use the energy of the impact to help (although its not required) tamp the charge, and cause most of the blast to go to the target.

" High-explosive squash head (HESH) is a type of explosive ammunition that is effective against buildings and is also used against tank armour. It was fielded chiefly by the British Army as the main explosive round of its main battle tanks during the Cold War. It was also used by other military forces, particularly those that acquired the early post-World War 2 British 105 mm Centurion tank, including Sweden, India, and Israel. In the United States, it is known as HEP, for "High Explosive, Plastic". HESH rounds are thin metal shells filled with plastic explosive and a delayed-action base fuze. The plastic explosive is "squashed" against the surface of the target on impact and spreads out to form a disc or "pat" of explosive. The base fuze detonates the explosive milliseconds later, creating a shock wave that, owing to its large surface area and direct contact with the target, is transmitted through the material. In the case of the metal armor of a tank the compression shock wave is conducted through the armour to the point where it reaches the metal/air interface (the hollow crew compartment), where some of the energy is reflected as a tension wave. At the point where the compression and tension waves intersect a high-stress zone is created in the metal, causing pieces of steel to be projected off the interior wall at high velocity. This fragmentation by blast wave is known as spalling, with the fragments themselves known as spall. The spall travels through the interior of the vehicle at high velocity, killing or injuring the crew, damaging equipment, and/or igniting ammunition and fuel. Unlike high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) rounds which are shaped charge ammunition, HESH shells are not specifically designed to perforate the armour of main battle tanks. HESH shells rely instead on the transmission of the shock wave through the solid steel armour."

[seacoastartillery]

 

 Wow.  Really?  It's going to look like that!  Could you please make two, one to blow up and the other one for my front door.  While you're at it, lets go full Eli Whitney on this.  I'll be working on a web site and calling on builders while you guys churn them out for me. $450  right?  That's what you said $450 right?     

 
      Yep, just like that last pic I posted.  Cannon Cocker, if you really want one, we can build you one, but please don't forget about the labor charges.  I don't mean to scare you, but we try to keep the local car dealership in mind when we charge for services rendered.  We set our labor rate to exactly half of what the nearest Chevy dealership charges to fix a car or truck in Broomfield, CO.  As a result of this easy to explain formula, we presently charge $55 per hour for all work, hand or machine.  You also forgot that we did not explain what the metal hardware raw material would cost.
 
       It is surprisingly expensive. in addition to the $375 that we mentioned before for the plywood and beaded oak slats we have to add another amount for the metal stock.  Just for the 360 rivets alone, we will have $625 invested in raw material if we use 3/4" dia. 12L14 steel which is as close to malleable iron as we can get.  The charge is less if you use 1018, only $422, but the job is much more difficult as 1018 is fairly easy to machine, but quite difficult to cold form as we found out when we tried to use it for making all those rivets on the Chassis and Carriage of the 100 Pdr. Parrott Rifles M1861 that we built. 
 
      So, if you include the 1018 for door hinges, $55 and the 1018, steel hinge rods 6 feet tall at $96 for two and the 3/8" X  4" X  36"  (4X) steel hinge straps at $168, to be bandsawed and filed to the correct sculptured, tree branch form, and $84 for 4  timber locking bar brackets 3/8" X 4" X  18" for a total of  $1,403  just for raw materials.  Labor and delivery is not known at this time, but could easily run twice that amount more for an approximate, total cost of $4,200.
 
      What say you, Cannon Cocker?  Are you anxious for us to Eli Whitney it now??  How many pre-qualified customers have you lined up?  What's that,,,,,,ah.......I can't quite make out what you are saying.  I wish Bill Dauterive (pron. Dough-Treev), the Army Sgt. whose MOS is that of a barber, on the animated series, King of the Hill was here to say: "Ah Can't Hear You!"
 
 
      Boomlover, pics we will take and videos we will make.  Thanks for your interest.  Sounds like a very interesting course you are taking.  Reminds me of some stories my father in law told me about his construction and hard rock mining jobs.
 
      KABAR2,   You, anti-social?  The last time we had lunch in Virginia Beach, you were friendly, convivial and generally good natured!  Not anti-social.  I thought that was a swimming pool and I guess I didn't notice the little ankle biters at all. 
 
     
      Androclese wrote:  "Think of them as flying Petards that use the energy of the impact to help (although its not required) tamp the charge, etc."
 
      Thanks for bringing me up-to-date on the relationship between our subject of this thread, the construction and use of the ancient "Petard" ,a powder actuated door opener of the 15, 16, 17, and 18th centuries, and modern tank munitions which use  “momentum tamping”  for slight additional advantage against armored targets.  Always take care to relate any reference to modern artillery or munitions to the principles of construction or use of pre-1899 black powder artillery, the stated subject of this information board, just as Androclese has done.  Thank you.
 
      As we wait for wood and metal stock to be delivered, we are working on drawings and layout of parts for which we have materials.  Some pics of those efforts will be shared tomorrow.
 
 Tracy
     
 

[rivercat]

Mike, Tracey,
Just had a couple of visits to some places here in the UK and some of the doors on these had a complete metal covering which I had not thought about before, this would be about the time things were changing so although I think you are still going the right way it would be interesting to see the result if the doors were clad in metal. It would appear that the metal covering is about 2 to 3mm thick a bit hard to tell after the number of years of paint etc.
Very impressed with your doors by the way, keep up the good work.

[Cannon Cocker]

  I wish Bill Dauterive (pron. Dough-Treev), the Army Sgt. whose MOS is that of a barber, on the animated series, King of the Hill was here to say: "Ah Can't Hear You!"
 
   

Ahh tell hew what.  I'd barter for prhopane and prhopane accessories.

[seacoastartillery]

Mike, Tracey,
Just had a couple of visits to some places here in the UK and some of the doors on these had a complete metal covering which I had not thought about before, this would be about the time things were changing so although I think you are still going the right way it would be interesting to see the result if the doors were clad in metal. It would appear that the metal covering is about 2 to 3mm thick a bit hard to tell after the number of years of paint etc.
Very impressed with your doors by the way, keep up the good work.     

     Rivercat,    Thank you.  We will try to make these target doors as strong as we possibly can.  360 low carbon steel rivets will certainly help, but I forgot how much all of them would add to the weight of the doors.  Believe it or not, they will make each door weigh 250 pounds instead of 125, for a total weight of approximately 500 Lbs.  Now I have to beef up the hinges!  And so it goes.  I bet a door clad in thick sheet metal almost 1/8" thick (3mm), would provide a good deal of protection for the door so equipped.  My guess is that almost any timber locking bar could be defeated, but protection from axemen would be pretty much assured.

  I wish Bill Dauterive (pron. Dough-Treev), the Army Sgt. whose MOS is that of a barber, on the animated series, King of the Hill was here to say: "Ah Can't Hear You!"     

Ahh tell hew what.  I'd barter for prhopane and prhopane accessories.

     Tell you what, I'll be needing a big tank of propane and a bunch of accessories to build my Zinc Melter Maximus to feed my 2.890" mold I'm buying for the next 1/2 scale cannon to be built by Seacoast Artillery, specially for the 2015 Montana Scale Cannon Shoot, a real Fort Pallet destroyer, an authentic, 1/2 scale, 24-pounder Flank Howitzer Model 1844.  Maybe we can do a deal after all?

     I can give you a special deal just like Hank Hill got from his "Car and Truck guy", you know that special one that the dealer made Hank promise not to tell his friends about, the one where he was promised, "Not one penny over sticker price".  A special deal like that should put a smile on your face, I know it will put one on mine.

 Here are a few pics of recent Petard target door layout.
Tracy
 
Swinging a large 30” radius on one of the two doors.  I’m going to feed these layers one at a time through the wood bandsaw to get the top of door arch.  The door will be too heavy after it is assembled.




Here I am making a six inch wide strip template, 30 inches long of heavy bond paper with a one inch square grid so I can layout the tree branch style hinge straps (8X) that these doors will require.  The visible part of each 3/8" thick hinge strap tapers from 6" to 4" and is 29" long. 



Here I am measuring the image of the widest part of the door strap which I know is actually 6" wide so I can find out what the width of the smallest branch will be at the other end.  The formula that we always use goes like this:  6": .957" = X : .650"  Then multiply 6" X .650" = 3.90"/.957"= X      X=4.075"  X we round to 4.0" to keep things simple.  Tapered lines are then drawn on the hinge strap layout with a taper of 6 to 4 inches.
 


Here I am double checking the calculations and you can see that I have drawn the flare of the large end of the hinge strap as it nears the door edge.  It is a full 6" wide where it will be welded to the hinges which are 2.50" O.D. and 1.25" I. D. making them .625 thick all around.  This extra thickness is due to the increased weight due to all those rivets, a whopping 125 Lbs. per door!








 
 

[GGaskill]

Would they go to all the bother to make them that way, if that construction weakened the door.

If the grain is alternated, I guess that would eliminate the weak spots.  But if the grain were parallel, then you would have columns where 25% of the wood had been removed for rivets that would provide no strength in bending.

[KABAR2]

As far as best revolver of that era I think it's a draw between the Webly and the M1917 S&W I have a fondness for both a M17 S&W and a MKII Webley also a Webly Pryse at the moment though I have to settel for a Spansh made 455 break action that is british proofed and service marked used in WWI as a suplemetry weapon when pistols were in high demand and sort supply...... Some day we'll have to talk pistols somewhere on the forum because it sure is hard working them in with cannons......  M&T sending a PM......

[seacoastartillery]

 Would they go to all the bother to make them that way, if that construction weakened the door.
 
 If the grain is alternated, I guess that would eliminate the weak spots.  But if the grain were parallel, then you would have columns where 25% of the wood had been removed for rivets that would provide no strength in bending.    

 
      George,    We certainly agree with your statement in red above.  When we take these experiments up 4 or 5 months from now, we will show evidence of alternating construction in our test doors.
 
 
 KABAR2 writes:
 
 As far as best revolver of that era I think it's a draw between the Webly and the M1917 S&W I have a fondness for both a M17 S&W and a MKII Webley also a Webly Pryse at the moment though I have to settel for a Spansh made 455 break action that is british proofed and service marked used in WWI as a suplemetry weapon when pistols were in high demand and sort supply...... Some day we'll have to talk pistols somewhere on the forum because it sure is hard working them in with cannons.   

 
      I owned a  S&W 1917 Revolver in .45 ACP during my Army stint 1970-1972.  I liked it a lot and it was very well built and functioned flawlessly.  Who knows why I sold it while still at Fort Polk; I just can't remember.  I have never read anything bad about them either and I read have done lots of reading about revolvers over the years. 
 
 
 Unfortunately, we will have to put the Petard project on hold along with everything else we have been working on.  As early as next week the general contractor we have selected will be bringing equipment and workers in to perform our shop expansion and most of our equipment will be piled up in Mike's basement where I was working on the target doors.  The contractor says it will be 3 to 4 months before we will have power to the shop again.  For our part we will have about 2 more months of work to do ourselves due to cost considerations.  So we will be done for 5 to 6 months, but the benefit to us will be to have the whole shop on the same level and this will mean a lot to me.  I just don't move up and down stairs the way I used to!  Everything will be so much more convenient and we will gain 200 sq. feet of floor space as well.  We are going from 822 to 1,055 sq. ft.  So, as of next week this thread will be on the back burner for a while.  If you have any good ideas concerning it, you can PM us at anytime.  Thanks for your interest.
 
 
 Mike and Tracy
     

[RocklockI]

Good Grief how have I not seen all this !
 
You have me signed up for some interesting adventures . I'm surprised "head splinter catcher" has not even been offered yet .
 
If Mike finds out about this he'll make you sit in the corner and 'think about what you've done this time' .
 
 
 

[Zulu]

1055 sq. ft.?  Wow!  I only have 288 sq. ft.
Zulu

[Cannon Cocker]

 
 Unfortunately, we will have to put the Petard project on hold along with everything else we have been working on.


"Well that tears it"-Hank Hill

I do understand you have to take advantage of the availability of the contractor and gear up for the adventures of the future.  So, I'll let you off the hook (this one time) for getting us all exited about this and then leaving us in a lurch. 

[Victor3]

 I knew I'd seen that rugged, long haired dude before...








 Sorry for the off-topic but what the heck, seeing as petards are on hold and all...

[Double D]

Tracy,

While the contractors are there would be a nice time to go take CAD.

Douglas

[seacoastartillery]

      Rocklock, if you want the title "Head Splinter Catcher", you have it!  As far As this project goes, Mike is completely onboard with it and has made several suggestions about miniturization of the Petard which I have completely ignored.  He does agree, however, that Baltic Birch is the proper core wood product to use so we have something left of the doors after a first test on which to do a second test with a different type of timber locking bar.
 
      Zulu, you are so efficient and prolific in your production with your 288 Sq. Ft. that you only need more storage areas.  Oh, I
 forgot, you have that covered with porches, porticos, driveways, dens and living rooms for that purpose!
 
     Cannon Cocker, if Peggy was here to say what you said we would hear this, "En primer lugar, te emociona, te deje en la estacada!" in her "fluent Spanish".  An exact translation according to Google Span-Eng Trans. is this:  "First, you get excited, you leave in the lurch." I thought this contractor business was several weeks or maybe a month off, but I was wrong.  We are still determined to do this eventually, but you must remember we still have "Real Work Priorities to deal with too.  You, in particular should be pleased to learn that Mike is working on a new rifling head in order to advance the 1" Rifled liner product development we spoke about several months ago.  We showed pics of the precision 1026 steel tubes we bought for this product several weeks ago.
 
      Victor, now we know what working near LAX does to a guy after years and years of exposure to all that JET noise!  After 30 years of inspecting parts for several aerospace, aircraft and computer hardware companies, I have a very thick hide, so I am slow to take offense.  As I looked at those images I began to grin, then smile and finally laugh.  Thank you, once again, for bringing a little humor to this thread. 
 
      Double D. you are right, of course.  In between checking the thickness of concrete, the application of vapor barriers, and the squareness of intersecting walls among other things, I really should attend to that.  Good idea. 
 
 Tracy

 
This is the new, refined rifling Head and the end of the 1" liner.






This photo shows the rear supporting V-Block being built up with wood and metal pieces until the tube is level just as the Rifling Head is.  Dimensions will be taken tomorrow in order to machine a large aluminum block and apply hardenened steel wear pads to it just as the near V-Block has.  Also a 10 Position Indexer Ring must be machined so that 10 groove James rifling can be created.


 

[Cannon Cocker]

[quote author=seacoastartillery
      You, in particular should be pleased to learn that Mike is working on a new rifling head in order to advance the 1" Rifled liner product development we spoke about several months ago.  We showed pics of the precision 1026 steel tubes we bought for this product several weeks ago.
 
   
 
This is the new, refined rifling Head and the end of the 1" liner.






This photo shows the rear supporting V-Block being built up with wood and metal pieces until the tube is level just as the Rifling Head is.  Dimensions will be taken tomorrow in order to machine a large aluminum block and apply hardenened steel wear pads to it just as the near V-Block has.  Also a 10 Position Indexer Ring must be machined so that 10 groove James rifling can be created.




Well, if you think you can cheer me up by reminding me that I will be getting one of the awesome rifled barrels that you will be producing, all I can say is....petard....what petard.   

[Double D]

Let me re spell that...

Tracy,

While the contractors are there would be a nice time to go take CAD.

Douglas

[Double D]

 
 
      Double D. you are right, of course.  In between checking the thickness of concrete, the application of vapor barriers, and the squareness of intersecting walls among other things, I really should attend to that.  Good idea. 
 
 Tracy

Something about staying the heck out the way and let the man do his job. 

[Victor3]

I have a very thick hide, so I am slow to take offense. As I looked at those images I began to grin, then smile and finally laugh.  Thank you, once again, for bringing a little humor to this thread.

 Heck, I'm always flattered when someone compares me to Sean C. (happens quite often, ya know.    )


 Back to petards.... You may have a customer with a Federal agency if you can come up with something like this one you posted.





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

[seacoastartillery]

      Victor,   I love the way the gate starts to swing open the moment that the agent clears the dangerous part!  And the others walk right in. 

     You fellows who have some interest in this subject will be happy to know that today we visited K&K Surplus, our favorite steel yard and got some 1/4" X 6" X 240" cut in four 5 foot easy to handle pieces as we need eight 30" pieces total for our door hinges.
     Also I have the hinge pattern almost cut out and bought more Dykem with which to paint the steel.  The hard cardboad pallet-separation panels, surplus from our local Costco will last long enough to allow for scribing the eight steel plates.    Then it's off to the metal cutting bandsaw for some intricate sawing and then to the filing bench for many hours of hand filing.

     Mike also pestered me to visit our favorite surplus aluminum yard, ALRECO in Henderson, CO.  He got enough 6" round cut-offs to make 4 indexing collars for the Rifling Machine we are using to cut 1" rifled sleeves that we are tooling up to make.  The last large chunk of aluminum we had was used by Mike to machine the rear V-Block to hold the tube in alignment with the Rifling Head.

Tracy and Mike