Carronade signal cannon help

[Old Tanker]

I bought a Hern Iron Works 5/8 scale carronade about a year ago. This was before I found this forum. I do believe I have a shootable cannon now. I did have to enlist the help of my friends milling machine to square up the bore and drill and tap for a touch hole liner made out of brass. Then I wondered why they had painted the cannon so I striped the paint off and scraped out the putty from the casting flaws. After a good sand blasting I decided to throw it next to my friends cannon in his shop where it has sat for six months. I decided I needed to learned more about cannons and how to build a carriage for it. My friend bought a carriage kit from a maker in Canada and it was beautiful and expensive. I am pretty good with my hands and decided to make my own carriage. I bought some red oak and have cut out all of the pieces so far for my navel carriage. I did pull out my cannon and Sand blasted it again and refilled the casting flaws with epoxy metal smoothed and painted it black. I am currently making my trunnion caps and starting to drill the bolt holes in the carriage.

[Old Tanker]

Here is the cannon that Hern got there design from for there U.S. carronade. It was quite hard to find this picture, it was on a German sight. I still don't know who made this or were it is from. or why they call it a carronade.  



This is a picture of my first cannon in progress. I have been working on the trunnion caps at Lee1966's shop and we are about ready to finish them up. the carriage is almost done I will make some minor adjustments and then drill for the bolts

[Cat Whisperer]

Old Tanker -

Here are 3 links (from the references sction) that explain the Carronade (named for the company that manufactured them).

http://riv.co.nz/rnza/hist/car.htm
http://www.hms.org.uk/nelsonsnavycarronade.htm
http://www.palmersarmoury.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view &id=12&Itemid=40

It looks (since the trunions are on the sides of the tube and not below) like it is a later version.

[Old Tanker]

Thanks for the links! I realise Hern dose not know what a Carronade looks like. I am still curious about the origin of this cannon design. If it is just a cute signal cannon I would love to know, than I can call it my cute signal cannon. If any one has a clue I would love to here about it. I would also like to here your best guess on it's origin.  I can not wait to finish this cannon because I am already having visions of a firecracker cannon for my next project.

[GGaskill]

What was the German website with the image?  I gather they didn't have any information regarding the gun?

[Cat Whisperer]

Thanks for the links! I realise Hern dose not know what a Carronade looks like. I am still curious about the origin of this cannon design. If it is just a cute signal cannon I would love to know, than I can call it my cute signal cannon. If any one has a clue I would love to here about it. I would also like to here your best guess on it's origin.  I can not wait to finish this cannon because I am already having visions of a firecracker cannon for my next project.

I haven't delt with Hern folks, so it may be that they found a cannon made by Carronade (hence could be called a Carronade) that we are not yet aware of.  On the other hand, they could have just taken the principle - a short barrelled, large bore naval cannon with trunions below the tube or below center - and just made up something that would sell like hot-cakes.  Place your bets.

This is one of the reasons for using 'original sources' in research.

[John N]

Here is a picture of what I believe is a Carronade sitting on the pier next to the USS Constellation in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. It's hidden in a corner behind the Visitor's Center / Ticket Office and obviously hasn't received a lot of attention or care in recent years.

[Old Tanker]

GGaskill:
The site was selling two of these as antique cannon one of them was just the cannon the other was in a diorama of the inside of a ship. After translating the site they did not give any history on the cannons. I have not been able to find that site again.

John N:
Thanks for the great picture!

Cat Whisperer:
I believe you hit the nail on the head! I think I will call it a Hernade!