Neophyte needs wisdom re: 25 pounder gun refurb

[Dan Johnston]

Note the traverse equipment is now brass and green paint:



Most of the markings are still very clear:











The bore rates NRA train tunnel:



"Light frosting in the grooves, should clean up well..."

Breech mechanism is functional and feels solid to my untutored hand.



Tires are solid - holding air and appear NOS - they still have the wee moulding hairs on 'em.



So here I am, utterly new at arty or projects of this size, and ignorant in the ways of Very Large Guns. Step one in such situations is to RTFM. Alas, I can't find one. Been all over the internet, and come up empty. The IWM will run me a copy of the one they have for about a hundred Canadian bucks, and make no guarantees of quality. If any of you know of one, please let me know.

There's an interesting political/financial angle on this job. The gun is currently the property of the Friends of the Regiment Society and NOT National Defence. I'm told that this means there can be ZERO spillover in resources between ND and the organization that owns the gun. No parts can change hands, no transport resource can be employed, no labour on government time can be used. The RCA museum may have a ton of spare bits, but we can't access any of it. I understand this and am very OK with playing within the rules outlined by necessity, but it does make the job harder.

Things we need right now:
- sight mount
- associated sights
- uncut gun shield
- big-ol' round firing platform
- various bins, boxes, bags, ranging sticks, shovels and accoutrements to hang off the multitude of brackets, webbing, and such.
- a pull through about the diameter of my Popeye-like forearm.

I've done some internet nosing around. There's that outfit in the UK has the sight mount, but won't ship overseas. There's that Australian source for drag ropes. But that still leaves a lot of bits and bobs. I want that firing platform more than my next breath, and every time I look at that cut shield I die a little inside. If any of you have blueprints that would allow us to make a replica shield here, that'd be grand. The Society has corporate connections in oilfield manufacturing, and some clever bastard with an equally clever machine could doubtless make us a fresh shield with the holes in the right places.

Once that's done, I have to figure out how to do big ol' rivets...

Thank you for the benefit of your wisdom, folks.

Dan

[David Dunlop]

Interesting project, Dan.

With regards to the shield, if you can get access to an original, might it not be easier to just clone the missing upper section and have it grafted onto what you have? That way might be more cost effective and enable you to preserve the vast majority of the original at the same time.

David

[maple_leaf_eh]

Two things for you - it has been stored indoors, and the Chain of Command is supportive.

Two bad things for you - the Chain of Command can't support you, and some SOB who ought to have known better welded over the breech markings. (Some people!)

Gunner Mike in Kars, On has a ploughshares and swords museum. He is active with 30th Fd Arty's collection. There are more historic guns in his lines than active guns in the CO's.

[Marc van Aalderen]

Hi Dan,

You might want to have a look at this website for all your manual needs. Rob does very good reprints at a good price too. Look here: http://www.robvanmeel.nl/

Good luck on your project!

[James P]

Hi Dan
Nice looking project. I would check (as others have noted about restoring the shield back to its correct shape and size. Others can throw in about welding required of armour to mild steel. The goal should be to preserve as much "original" as possible. Also sad someone did not removed the brass tags prior to sand blasting, that really did a number on them. Lastly get that gun punched and de-crapified, it hurts the eyes just looking down that tubes pictures.
James

[Dan Johnston]

Thanks, gents, for the suggestions. Keep 'em coming!

Found the manual online as a .pdf, printed her off and so there's Job One done:



Much excellent reading to be done there.

I've made contact with the Limber Gunner fellows in Toronto as well as Gilles Aube of 3BAM in Quebec who are all doing now what we want to do with our gun in time. They've been very helpful indeed.

Re: welding an addition onto the top of the shield - yeah, I'd like to keep the gun as original as possible. If that weld could be done in such a way as to be invisible, that'd do nicely. My only concern is that there's a hinged piece up there that might be hard to reproduce. Bears more research. Does anyone know of a set of blueprints, or very accurate dimensional drawings we could work from?

Question to the current owner/operators of a 25 pr. Mark II - any trick to getting the striker block out of the breech block? Near as I can tell from the manual, one pulls out the catch and rotates the striker block 1/6th of a turn clockwise, then slides it out back. I can't help but think that if it was that easy, some chimp would have taken it years ago when she was parked outside accumulating that lovely patina in the bore...

I'd like to get the striker block and breech block out of the gun and scrubbed free of paint, then relubed correctly and reinstalled. That'd be easy enough, and allows us to bring loose part home where they won't fall prey to sticky fingers.

Re: brass tags - I imagine these can be reproduced if we have a set to work from. Any ideas?

And yeah, that bore. As a lifelong shooter, looking down that cruddy old pipe makes me slightly tearful. Gotta get that shiny.

[rob love]

Originally Posted by Dan Johnston

looking down that cruddy old pipe makes me slightly tearful. Gotta get that shiny.

The bore of a cannon is not supposed to be shiny....if it was it meant the troops were buffing it internally with an unapproved cleaner/polish. Dull metallic is what you are aiming for.

While I may get a little flak from the herbies in the crowd, they are well known for making life harder for themselves than it had to be.