Bytown Gunners restore a 17 pounder ATk Gun

[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