This past weekend I hosted the 5th annual Central-Texas Armour-In...a get-together I've been doing since about 2000. We had to skip a couple years due to moving and such, but it has become a summer tradition now.
I now have most of the basics of the trail and cheeks assembled on the Sikh Standing mortar project. It got to see it's first *real* projectile firing. We launched a 6" x 6" concrete-filled can around 100 yards into the field. It was quite loud and fun to watch. Everyone seemed surprised to be able to watch the projectile tumble through the air. I said "Aside from the boom, that's the best fun of it...watching them sail out downrange!". Here's a few pics from the weekend....
Here's a side shot and a quarter-on shot of the mortar sitting on the carriage frame. I haven't finished the front end yet or the elevation device so we used a pipe-section and a brick to get to 50*. The blue paint job was interesting. I mixed a few different kinds of paint I had on hand, using an alkyd lead based white as a starting point. I had a beautiful light blue that dried to a slightly darker-than-wanted blue. 24 hrs later it cured into this faint pastel blue. I'm curious what chemical reaction took place! I guess I'll have to break down and spend the whopping $10 on some custom mixed paint!
Here's the pics and a link to the video of a couple shots. the first is the concrete shot, the second is a lb or so of flour over 2.5 oz of 2F.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX-OZFwjG4w
Here's a pic of some of the armour that was worked on. This is a 15th century German Sallet getting the visor and bevor(face and chin) hot-worked. Pretty cool!
Here's a knife for ya'll. It's a D-gaurd bowie I did as a gift for the guy who got me started with cannons and such. Well, not a complete gift...I needed a bit of powder for the weekend so we did a bit of horse-trading! ;D Done in a rustic style with a heat-treated and etched d-guard. We spent about four hours doing hands-on pattern welding 101 Sunday with several others. It was a lot of fun and there's going to be some sore-armed guys this week!
Hope ya'll enjoy the video and pics!