Bytown Gunners restore a 17 pounder ATk Gun

[Gunner]

30th Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery (The Bytown Gunners) have a heritage troop of guns used by the Regiment. So far the collection consists of a 9 pounder Rifled Muzzle Loader circa 1872, a 25 pounder with trailer No 27 (limber) and, our most recent acquisition, a 17 pounder anti-tank gun.

The 17 pounder was used by the Bytown Gunners of 51st ATk Bty, 1st ATk Regt, RCA from introduction in 1943 to the end of the war when the Regiment was stood down.

The specific gun in question sat for over 40 years in front of the library in Carleton Place, Ontario. It was replaced by a pair of 105mm C1 howitzers and, after some interesting negotiations, it was acquired by the Regiment in the summer of 2012. With the full support of the CO and funding from the museum committee we convened a team of serving and retired members to get the gun into parade ready condition. The team includes some very talented folks including a retired RCEME LCol, a retired naval PO, a Master Gunner, an Instructor-in-Gunnery, a Chief Warrant Officer, two Assistant Instructors-in-Gunnery and a slew of artillery NCOs and Gunners. We work out of the Gun Shed at the new "Morrison Artillery Park" (MAP) just off Hunt Club Road in the former CFB Uplands.

I hope to do a running restoration blog as time will allow so here goes:

Unfortunately, the poor old beast sat under some pine trees during its time as a monument. The annual coating of acidic pine needles ate away significant chunks of steel including large parts of the rims... careful work by a talented local welder put those to right and a search for affordable 9.00X16 NDCC tires found us a good deal not far from where the gun had sat for so many years. A bit of bead grinding got the US type tires to fit the British rims, not the best option but one anyone restoring Canadian or UK origination 16 inch rims is stuck with.

With the gun now able to trail behind a truck, we hauled it into our friendly welding shop where some mangled and missing bits were repaired and replaced. From there it was hauled to a local sandblaster for cleaning and priming... this was seen as key to freeing up many of the rusted parts as the corrosion was deep in many places. I will post photos of the gun as found and during the recovery once I get them from the chaps that handled that part.

Meeting on alternative Thursday nights, the last month and a half has been spent removing the traverse and elevating mechanisms as well as freeing up the trails and the trail locks. Through many "trails" and tribulations we have reached the point where we can manually swing the gun up and down but something is still seizing the traverse even with all the mechanisms removed. We had hope do avoid lifting the shields and the tube/recoil mechanism but it may be inevitable if we can't get the traverse freed with lube and brute force!

One priority right now is freeing the spades which are resisting heat and brute force. In a typical "design failing to consider repair" the spades can only be dismantled if they are in the deployed position... ours are frozen in the stowed position! @#&#%$!!!

Another key step is freeing the axle pivot so the gun can differentiate when the trails are manipulated and finally we need to free the breech block which is rusted into the breech ring.

Anyone interested in helping out or simply dropping in to see what we are accomplishing is welcome to send me a PM for an invitation the Gun Park. Its a secure military facility so just dropping in unannounced is frowned on!

First photo- part of the team of volunteers working on the 17 pounder.



Second photo- Mr Gnr Robinson, myself and Bdr Derouin discuss options to removing the traverse mechanism.



Third photo- the frame and 20 ton jack which we hope will push the block out!



Stayed tuned for more from MAP!

Ubique! Mike

[Robin Craig]

Mike,

Interesting read, good project.

Is it just me or do other have issues with the photos not opening individually?

R

[maple_leaf_eh]

Originally Posted by Gunner

... 30th Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery (The Bytown Gunners) ... We work out of the Gun Shed at the new "Morrison Artillery Park" (MAP) just off Hunt Club Road in the former CFB Uplands. ...

Who was Mr. Morrison?

[Frank v R]

word of warning on the tires , do not play with the beads, to much weight to take a chance on a tire blowing up and someone being hurt or killed, these rims have tons of meat on them to be machined, others have done this with outstanding results, 7 Tor had no end of problems with their tires , do it right the first time and no worries for the next 20 years, hope you guys put the gun up on stands when not in use, hope to see it on the road at some time,
Frank

[Rob Fast]

I tried 2 tire shops, they both gave up on the tire install. Yes, we had to shave down the tire beads slightly...scary stuff. Plus one of my rim/snap ring retainers was slightly warped. If anybody has a spare ring, I am looking for one. Looks great Mike. Cheers Rob Fast

[CWO (ret) Gilles Aubé]

We at 3BAM had a wheel rim that exploded.
Not the tire,and it was on the road.
This rim was installed on a 25 Pdr.
What an experience !
Gilles

[Gunner]

Hi Guys: Thanks for the kind words... to reply to some of the questions:

Robin: I've been having some problems with photos as well. I ended up downloading a malware cleaner and resetting the defaults on my browser to kill the nasty thing that was making a mess of my computer.

Terry: Major General, Sir Edward Whipple Bancroft Morrison, KCMG, CB, DSO was a hero of the Boer War, John McCrae's boss and best friend and Commander of all the British Empire's Heavy Artillery on the Western Front. He mentored another famous Gunner who rose to greater fame in the Second World War- Gen AGL (Andy) McNaughton. See http://www.rcamuseum.com/English/Gre...s/morrison.htm

Frank, Rob and Gilles: I agree that we have to minimize the risk as much as we can so I had the work done at a professional tire shop that specializes in heavy truck work. They did a great job getting the rebuilt rims and the US tires to mate. I am confident we have struck the right combination.

Rob's point about his bent locking ring begs the question; why are the artillery wheels different from the truck rims? We have nice, safe bolt together rims for our CMP trucks (which was specified by British milspec of the day) yet the 25 pounder, 17 pounder and the trailers (limbers) were fitted with a less reliable and inherently less safe split ring rims! Interesting that the truck rims fit both guns no problem and that the Quad Polsten was fitted with CMP truck rims versus artillery rims!

Alas, tomorrow night I have to do h'occifer stuff and go to a conference downtown so the gang will be in the highly capable hands of CWO Normand Roberge and Mr Gnr Robinson.

More to follow next week!

Ubique! Mike

[Gunner]

Well my boring h'occifer meeting was, boring... the beer and schnitzel afterwards were lovely but did they have to choose the most expensive restaurant in Ottawa? $50 for a beer and a schnitzel is a bit much even if you do print the schnitzel in fancy french en jus citron avec de qu'el-que chose!

The Master Gunner left me a sitrep to pass on... he and four of the lads showed up on Thursday night so they limited themselves to working on the recalcitrant spades with little movement (pun intended) but they did enjoy success with the axle pivot pin which they freed up, cleaned up, regreased and reinstalled. The axle now articulates properly which means that both spades now sit firmly on the ground instead of having the left spade floating three inches up in space! never did like those leftie barstards...mutter, mutter

In my initial post I failed to give credit to a great gang of guys who have been helping and cheering from far off... the three Robs: Rob Nixon from the UK, Rob Fast from Steinbach and Rob Love from Shilo who have all provided advise and have saved us from some head banging as they have already been where we are going! Thanks, guys!

I dropped into my favorite welding shop yesterday to see if there's been any work done on our damaged gears and arcs but they have been swamped with priority work on broken snowploughs this past week... seems that the City of Ottawa no longer does any fancy welding of their own... they just farm the work out to private welding shops... Robin, you could likely name your own price at the Ottawa workshops based on the number of ploughs my chum had in his shop and the number of times I've had to repair my mailbox this year... looks like the drivers are being a bit rough on their gear!!

Sorry no photos with this report... so stayed tuned for the on going adventures at Morrison Artillery Park!

Ubique! Mike

[Gunner]

I decided to start dating the posts so it will be easier to follow progress.

This past Thursday night Ottawa was hit with another brief but intense snow storm... messy streets limited the team to just four, myself, two young Bombardiers (one is nicknamed "two-dads" due to his hyphenated name- yes Oz-men, we get your Sea Patrol TV show here! ). The fourth member of the team will be familiar to the Ottawa crowd, my old chum, Captain Graeme Milne. Graeme lives just around the corner from the new armoury so I have convinced him to come out.

Our photog was one of those folks snowed in so the photos in this post are actually from last week.

We have run up against a snag with getting the gun to traverse. We have lifted all the mechanisms and cut any obvious welds but the beast is firmly stuck. Looking over the diagrams carefully, we have either too much corrosion in the rollers and bearing surfaces (large wedge shaped arcs that the rollers, uh, roll on!) so the only thing left is to lift the shields and pull the gun and recoil mech. This will also allow us to take the tube and breech mechanism into our favourite welding shop where he has a 200 ton press that should pop the breech block out like a watermelon seed in a six year old's fingers!

To this end, Two-Dads and the other young fella removed the 20 one inch bolts that held the shield on while Graeme and I worked on the locking nut for the muzzle brake. The locking ring was seized tight to the breech-wards end of the threaded muzzle so we had to abuse it a bit to get it moving... it'll have to go to the welder to fix damage from several folks before Graeme and I including one unknown twit who used a cutting chisel on round holes!

The lads' job sounds a lot easier than it was... none of the 20 bolts were designed to have a ratchet put on them and even a thin walled box end wrench was a tight fit, so it was a steady hour and a half of 30 degree swings then resetting the wrench for anther 30 degree swing... we've all been there and its enough to try the patience of a Saint!

Putting two bolts back in so the shields don't fall on anyone during the next week left us with a bit of time to tackle the spades again. We managed to free the locking rings on the big pivot pins so we hope, next week, to drive the pins out and remove the spades.

Its amazing how much work we can get done in two to three hours each week. With disassembly nearly finished we will start cleaning and polishing what's been removed. Last week some of that was done so the photos show one of the lads at the degreaser cleaning gears and somewhat corroded shafts. Another shows the Master Gunner freeing up the extractors to help free the breech block and finally, the whole crew heaving on the barrel in an effort to pop the traverse loose... no luck! Our 25 pounder is visible in the background.

Well that's it for this week. Stay tuned for more adventures at Morrison Artillery Park.

Ubique! Mike

[rnixartillery]

Excellent job well done to those involved , you have a very nice looking shed there !
Mike C visited my shed in September and showed me some pics of the progress, nice to see the Jockey wheel bracket still in place.

Rob.....................rnixartillery.

[Rob Fast]

beautiful restoration, and a very nice well lit shop, I wish mine was that bright! Great job guys and gals. Cheers Rob Fast