Brass Miniature "6-pounder" Cannon... polish?

Johnson's Paste Wax.

Does it work??

That is an absolutely beautiful piece. The fella that made it was a highly skilled sort.

The optimum products for the wood depends on what the finish is. But overall you can't go far wrong with Johnson's clear wax for both wood and brass. When re-polishing periodically wash or hands well before to remove excess skin oils. Or even better is to wear some sort of rubber, nitrile or thin cotton gloves to avoid the whole skin oil issue in the first place.

Eventually the brass will still tarnish despite twice a year wax and rub down sessions. When that happens avoid using anything like Brasso or similar polishes. Why? Because they remove some of the metal from the brass. And it'll be impossible to avoid wiping the black from the rags onto the wood where it will stain badly and be darn difficult to remove.

Instead if you really much remove the tarnish try a cloth soaked with a little laundry detergent and about 10% vinegar to 90% water. I use something similar for cleaning my brass and it comes out super shiney without a lot of black in the water. Once it's cleaned and dry re-wax with the Johnsons or similar clear paste wax.

That really is nice. I am envious.

You must be a highpower shooter.

First
Ya gotta git it durty
Want some powder to go with that?
robert

The Germans make a paste metal cleaner called "Flitz" that is the cats Meow. I have yet to find a better polish. It cleans as well as protects. Give it a try you will be surprised.

I would *not* polish the brass, the tarnish adds character, and it took 40 years to get there. Maybe put a thin coat of wax on it is all.

Polish the carriage instead.

You gotta at least fire a blank! What size is the bore?

Do a search on rennaissance wax. Mighty good stuff.

on my brass, I use Meguiar's NXT if you can find it, cleans as it protects.

Leave it or polish it, your choice.

I polish the brass on my ML's, I like them clean!

1KPerDay said:

I have some... maybe I'll start taking it out for July 4 and New years.

Thanks for the kind words... Innit cool? Every piece hand made. He did up a bunch of them in larger scale and used to set them up at the local symphony concerts when they played the 1812 Overture, and set them off with remote switches for the finale. He was touring the western states to different symphonies doing it for a while.

DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DUT DUT DAAAAAAAAH! *BOOOOOOOM*

Not yet, but I do run Garands and M1As in 3-gun on occasion. I'd like to learn how to actually shoot rifles accurately. Any hits I get now are pretty much down to luck.

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A friend of mine who recently passed away a young man in his late 40's had a small version of yours... that we'd fill with a quarter pound of powder and touch off new years eve... one year someone else must had something similar because we set this thing off with paper packing and few minutes later we heard this "boom" off in the distance... so we packed another load, only this time he rammed some cardboard down on top of the wadding and touched off... wow... what a bang when its packed properly... anyways... we got a response and for a half an hour or so we had this shot and response going on... it was fun...

Later in the eveniong though someone must have set off a couple of trashbags with acetelyn or something.... cuz they quieted the neighborhood fer a while... almost thought it was thunder.... fun evenings... but them cannons I gotta say is the most fun you can have on a new years... especially if you've a mind to be mischiefmakin...

1KPerDay said:

A quarter pound??

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Give or take a couple of hundred grains.... That actually was his description of the procedure..... and I natcherly.... stood firmly behind him....

When you actually think about it... that's 4 oz of powder... lot's of pressure with that just from the weight of the load itself but considering the stream of flame from the bore a bunch of it ignited outside of the bore.... Don't know if he passed from a heart attack thinking of some of his practices or not...

1KPerDay said:

I suppose if you didn't pack it behind some cardboard or paper that might be okay. LOL

I'm going to make firing this a family tradition for July 4 and New Year's, methinks. Usually I just blast my .50 Hawken.

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Actually he was just wadding up newsprint at first, but then he took a cardboard square and packed it over the paper... and the report difference was extremely noticeable....

Watched the video, that is one cool piece. Think I read somewhere that the device holding the cannon balls is called a brass monkey, hense the saying "More balls than a brass monkey. They were used on war ships to keep the cannon balls from rolling around.

A friend of mine who recently passed away a young man in his late 40's had a small version of yours... that we'd fill with a quarter pound of powder and touch off new years eve.
A quarter of a pound of powder was the service load for the 12 pound mountain howitzer with a barrel that weighed well over a hundred pounds!!!

I had a 1/3 scale service gun (Old Ironside main battery gun) with a barrel that weighed 75 pounds.. a 12 guage shotgun shell full of powder would send a 1/2 pound lead wadcutter clear trough a pickup body at 100 yards.

Can we say overload here??

whughett said:

Watched the video, that is one cool piece. Think I read somewhere that the device holding the cannon balls is called a brass monkey, hense the saying "More balls than a brass monkey. They were used on war ships to keep the cannon balls from rolling around.

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Might want to check your sources on the quote. I heard it was "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey." Wrong, I believe, in either version. A wooden warship in rough water wouldn't be stable enough to keep cannon balls neatly stacked in a pyramid.

See: http://www.snopes.com/language/stories/brass.asp

I couldnt tell the scale of it till i seen your hand in the video. It looks larger because everything looks so to scale.

Coyote3855 said:

Might want to check your sources on the quote. I heard it was "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey." Wrong, I believe, in either version. A wooden warship in rough water wouldn't be stable enough to keep cannon balls neatly stacked in a pyramid.

See: http://www.snopes.com/language/stories/brass.asp

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Well old hoss score one for you.