Casting metal at home is somewhat tricky, but there’s no denying the results can be quite rewarding. [FarmCraft101] put his incredible craftsmanship on display, and learned a few new things in the process, by scratch building a scale replica bronze cannon and carriage.
Starting with a sufficient quantity of scrap metal, he first produced bronze ingots. Getting the actual casting right took multiples attempts. First tried a lost foam cast, which failed miserably, but provided a sample metal which was put through tensile strength testing. The second attempt was done using a wood barrel form and a split mold, and was cast horizontally which resulted in shrinkage on top of the barrel. The third attempt, arranged vertically, almost resulted in a high risk game of “the floor is lava”, with molten bronze pouring out across his garage floor after the mold split open during casting.
Attempt number four was finally successful, again using a vertical mold but with more sturdy clamping. This roughcast barrel was then drilled out and finished to a beautiful mirror with the help of a lathe and a lot of elbow grease. He then turned his attention to the carriage, which itself is a real beauty featuring custom wagon wheels with a charred wood finish and linseed oil coating.
You can check out the build video after the break, but we’ll warn you now, [FarmCraft101] never actually fires this gorgeous creation. If you’d like to try your hand at DIY cannoneering and have a 3D printer, you might want to give lost PLA casting a try, or go into mass production with some DIY silicone molds.
Worth mentioning is that youtube has basically shut this project down, and the only things you will find on youtube are talking about a ‘non-functional replica’ cannon.
the rest of the videos in the series are on (among other places) full30.com. The final video with the firing is at https://www.full30.com/watch/MDIxNjM1/making-a-bronze-cannon-from-scrapwith-a-bang-guncraft101
Yeah, yt is getting crazier and crazier.
It’s run by commiefornians so no surprise.
I’m beginning to think that any platform controlled by G-MAFIA is hopeless trash. The internet needs to be reformatted and reset.
You’ll never get the old youtube back.
Youtube became a de-facto monopoly for online video because it was full of copyrighted content and Google didn’t give a toss because they were already too big to litigate. Youtube was becoming the most popular service and you don’t want to saw the branch you’re sitting on – or in this case, piss off the viewers and owners of the most desirable delivery channel.
Now that Google has cemented their dominant market position, they’re really starting to clamp down on copyright infringement and other content they could be selling for a price – Google is getting into the paid video business itself. They’re slowly turning the regular “free” Youtube into a bunch of movie clips, trailers, and paid promotions by blocking out the user content that isn’t producing them any revenue. If the advertisers don’t like it, or it doesn’t generate clickthroughs, Google doesn’t like it, and out it goes.
There cannot be competition, because any competitor would have to do what Youtube doesn’t do: post “politically incorrect” content, or copyrighted content. One way makes them “outlaws” in the eyes of internet gatekeepers like Cloudflare, so they can’t actually buy any bandwidth from the content delivery networks and thus can’t grow as a service – and the other way gets them in court before you can spell “DMCA takedown notice”. After all, the big media corporations now have Youtube in their back pocket, so they don’t need another.
Then it’s time to get a progressive president in office and introduce them to Sherman’s hammer like they did AT&T back in the 1980s.
That’s all fine, but why would a progressive president do that?
Google’s censoring aligns with the progressive agenda. The more progressive the society gets, the more wary the advertisers get about offending anyone in fear of social backlash, also the more they have to bend over to please the government in order to remain in business, and so the more likely Google is to demonetize or boot you out for expressing the kind of “wrongthink”.
Progressivism doens’t have a problem with monopolies per se – as long as they provide the state with more power to control the society.
Hey, if they broke up AT&T they should shatter Google into a million pieces!
Agreed Youtube has really gone down hill every since Susan Wojcicki became CEO.
It’s time to start looking for alternatives.
How have I never come across this site before, thanks.
Thanks for the heads up. YouTube is getting worse and worse every day. Apparently, even mentioning the word “gun” can get your videos a strike these days.
Even lightly hurting yourself on-camera and showing a little blood can get the video demonetized and possibly a “strike” on the whole channel. Also, I accidentally reported your comment, so sorry about that.
Great to see some youtube alternatives popping up. Love this guys videos too. The AR lower from aluminum cans is awesome.
It looks about the size of a 3 pounder a friend owns.
Nice project he even made bronze bushings for the axels vs buy some bearings and steel rod from a farm supply store or similar.
But what about the based?
The nearby park’s cannon has long been missing because tge base, comolete with wheels, rotted awag. So it sat waiting for a base and it’s finally done. Not sure if it’s returning to the park.
It’s war surplus, from at keast WWI but maybe a previous war, I can’t remember. The cannon itself is in fine shape.
Michael
Sounds like a job for local makers to get exposure doing community service.
Help! I recently had milled a 6.0” long barrel with a .75” bore and sidewall. I am in need of some guidance in manufacturing the carriage. I can find nothing on line regarding the subject. Any leads are appreciated.