The Gun CarriageIn Part Two we looked at seven steps to building a barrel for a replica naval gun that was both lightweight and portable. The completed barrel needed a gun carriage, however. So, starting at Step Eight, in this Part we will explore one way to make a simple gun carriage to support the barrel.Step Eight Once again, the result had to be lightweight and robust, not only to support the barrel but to survive the rigours of transportation and manhandling. As shown below, the stepped sh| Tastes Of History
The Gun BarrelThe core element, the cannon's barrel, is so named because the earliest guns were constructed with iron staves bound securely by hoops as was the case in coopering a cask or barrel. The other key piece is the gun carriage. The challenge for this project is how to build both elements as light as possible but robustly enough to survive the rigours of transportation and repeated use. What follows, in Part Two, is one possible solution for constructing a replica gun barrel, the named p| Tastes Of History
The BackgroundHistory Part One of this series begins with a very brief look at the history of a typical naval gun in use with the Royal Navy of the 18th- and 19th-centuries. The story of such cannon, however, begins in 12th-century China where gunpowder, the first explosive, was discovered [1]. Gunpowder was employed in Chinese warfare to some effect from at least the 10th-century in weapons such as fire arrows, bombs, and the fire lance before the appearance of the gun. The earliest European r| Tastes Of History
The Gunners' EquipmentIn Part One, where we established the background to building our replica cannon. In describing the firing drills a number of pieces of equipment were needed for the crew to serve the gun. In Part Five, therefore, we explore how to recreate the gunners' equipment. Each item will be addressed in the order a gun crew would use them, starting with the sponge.The Sponge was a long staff, often combined with a rammer, that has a piece of sheep's fleece or lambskin wound about it| Tastes Of History