[TheForge] Interesting iron object

[George Rousis]

where are you from grant???
i hope this doesn't seem to forward???
someone who met a grant....


actually i've never been given a grant i didn't like.

george




On Aug 30, 2006, at 5:28 PM, Grant Marcoux wrote:

> Mike:  What you are describing might be a projectile fired in a  
> Coehorn
> mortar (18th C.)  These projectiles had a wooden base held in place  
> with
> iron strapping.  The base had a function that related to fusing the
> projectile in a way that would not allow it to pre-detonate.  The  
> fuse was
> originally hand-trimmed or pre-cut to burn according to the range  
> it was
> fired to. The wrought pin may have held the base to the ball, via  
> the straps
> of iron.  Grant
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
> [mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net]On Behalf Of Mike Spencer
> Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 1:22 PM
> To: theforge at mailman.qth.net
> Subject: [TheForge] Interesting iron object
>
>
>
> A neighbor gave me a pair of rather crappy book-ends he found at a
> flea market, made from heavily rusted "found objects" stuck onto bent
> pieces of aluminum.  I discarded the pieces of aluminum and rescued
> the "objects".
>
> They're both about 6"-long, fractured segments of hollow cast iron
> spheres.  The one I'm electro-cleaning in phosphoric acid is part of a
> sphere 9-1/2" or 10" in diameter, about 1-3/4" thick.  My best guess
> is that this is a fragment of a 17th or 18th century mortar round or a
> similar munition.
>
> Of course, I don't know that the original object was a complete
> sphere.  It might have been a hemisphere.  The fracture suggests a
> pretty violent and uniform event.  No marks of a heavy blow to the
> surface, so an exploded sphere seems the simplest explanation.
>
> An interesting feature is that at some point a ca. 3/8" hole was bored
> through the cast iron shell and a wrought iron nail or pin driven into
> it.  The fractured surface passes through the middle of the wrought
> pin so that, after pickling, it is easily distinguishable from the
> surrounding cast.
>
> The other "object" is similar but a bit thinner and a bit smaller in
> diameter, doesn't have an embedded wrought spike but has what may
> prove to be, after I clean it up, part of a larger hole, possibly the
> port through which the black powder charge was loaded.
>
> Ten inch diameter seems a bit big for a howitzer but would be, I  
> think,
> just about right for a mortar.
>
> I've googled around on the net for detailed info on period mortar
> shells but found nothing helpful.  There was a Polish artillery manual
> from the raising of the Siege of Vienna, late 178th c., with a lot of
> smallish, kinda blurry pics but no text details.
>
> Anybody know a lot about early ammo, can explain what the wrought
> pin/plug is all about?  They surely wouldn't have driven an iron pin
> into a iron hole after the thing was loaded with powder.
>
> FWIW,
> - Mike
>
> --
> Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~.
>                                                            /V\
> mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
> http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^
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