Heritage

Cannon Article 1

Written for Canadian Community News by Mike Sterling

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One of the two massive 32 Pound Cannon at the mouth of the Saugeen

How many people have to think about making three cannon from plans conceived in about 1800?  I don't think there are many, but we are among the lucky few.

I work on a team headed and organized by noted marine archaeologist, Ken Cassavoy.   The team includes people with all kinds of skills.  All these skills have all been used, first on the big digs at the beach that resulted in the discovery of the HMS General Hunter and now in the work on the exhibit. at the Bruce County Museum and Archives to open in June 2012.

Over time working with the team I've morphed into what's known as a Wrangler.  By definition that is somebody involved with horses or livestock or closer to the mark, one involved in a long and arduous dispute.  I'm trying to wrangle out of the past the details of how to do things.  It's an argument with history.  My part of the exhibit is small as you will see in June.

What I do is take on tasks that involve doing lifting or construction of some type.  So I kind of wrangle with problems over a period of time to make things easier for the rest of the team or to make something that they need.  They needed a big 1000 pound mast erected in the Museum.  Where is the Wrangler?  See Saugeen Times article about the mast raising.

Ken also gave me the project of making 3 cannon full scale for the exhibit.   This is the first of a series of articles about how I went about making them. The purpose of the articles is to expose some little known facts  First some historical background.

Cannons were the 'fist' of the fighting ships of the British Navy.  Of course they had been used for hundreds of years in various forms, but the British Navy perfected them for their purposes.   They allowed a tiny island based country to dominate two thirds of the world's geography.  The were the cruise missiles of their day.

Think about a Brig like the General Hunter coming into view and approaching Kincardine, Port Elgin or Southampton with bad intentions.

They could stand off as much as a mile from shore and lob iron into the harbours of those communities and without fear of reprisal, bring them to their knees.  They did not have to care about accuracy.  Fear is very accurate. 

Every community of a strategic nature had to have on hand a giant white flag that they could wave heroically. That's why so many villages, towns and cities throughout the world have a string of forts around them.  They needed them.  If they did not watch out, the ships would load some of the lighter cannon on board a big dory and use them as shore based artillery.

Why were the Brits able to do so well making cannons?  Here is what I've learned:

• They had designs that were developed over time that allowed them to project the power of gun powder.  They paid attention to failure and had very strict quality control standards as opposed to the French who let down on the quality and speed of manufacture as an important tandem.

• The manufacturing techniques were held somewhat secret and given to but a few companies in Scotland and England.  So, the French could capture a big cannon, but they could not do justice to the manufacturing process by just seeing the results.

• The British Empire developed a technique called Parametric Design that is just now creeping into modern Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing.  It was more than 200 years ahead of its time and seems to have been lost.

I'm making three guns.  Two are called long guns and one is a carronade.  The long guns are a 6 pounder and a 4 pounder and the other is a short 12 pound carronade. They are so named because of their type and the weight of the ball they fired.

These are representative of three of the 10 guns aboard the Hunter in the Battle of Lake Erie and were selected by Ken Cassavoy for the exhibit.  The carriages for the guns are being fabricated by Bob Trelford from old design information.  These designs are equally interesting an not often seen.  We will show them too.

Ken and his team gave me old documents and sketches to dig through.  There is a lot to be learned from the Internet too, but they real stuff is in archives in England and Scotland and contained in scholar's writings.

So, if you will come along with me, I will tell you about building three cannons and unlocking their secrets.  I'll try to do one article every week or two and make it a series.  Two of the cannons are done (4 and 6 pounder) and I'm working on the third. 

The future articles will concentrate on the parametric design and its secrets and the pseudo-manufacturing process that I used to produce the cannon.  We'll also touch on some of the broad strategies involved.

All these articles will be encapsulated in a button on the main page of the Saugeen Times for easy reference and also in the Heritage section.

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Sunday, January 22, 2012