Cannon Restoration + Test firing

Cannon Restoration + Test firing

Restoration of an antique salute cannon from around 1860’s. I will restore this beautiful treasure and repair all the necessary defects and test shoot it with 3 salute cannon shells.

ABOUT THE SALUTE CANNON
This is an antique salute cannon bought at an auction here in Sweden. The cannon is from Hällefors Bruk in Sweden and this cannon is dated to be around the mid 19th century. The cannon is made of cast iron and is in two parts, the cannon stand and the cannon barrel. The two parts weigh around 14 kilos.

Hällefors Bruk was founded in 1652 and is well known all over the world for making solid cannons used for defense and battle. They are also known for making iron pipes, iron stoves, cast iron pans and a lot of other iron stuff.

THE RESTORATION PROCESS
I started by inspecting the salute cannon and directly took it to sandblasting. I sandblasted the cannon barrel and the stand and used regular sandblasting sand as my media with high (6.5 bar) air pressure.

After sandblasting I removed a lot of very fragile metal from the barrel using my new flexible shaft machine. I also removed a lot of excess iron from the casting process to improve the overall look of the cannon.

There were some marks on the cannon barrel that could indicate that the cannon once was deactivated and later activated again. But it was sold to me as a functioning salute cannon.

I did face a little problem with the cannon barrel though. After so many years standing outside in the Swedish harsh weather, the last 20 millimeters of the cannon bore was totally blocked by rust. That means it was unable to fire salute shots in this condition and had to be repaired.

So I drilled all the rust out of the bore with a very long cobalt drill and the supporting tool that I have made for this occasion to support the long drill and to ensure that the bore would be drilled 100% right so it could function correctly again.

There were a few holes in some very thin cast iron at the bottom of the barrel plus the bottom was hollow. So welding it was not an option. I decided to fill the whole bottom of the barrel with tin. And this repair turned out really well. After this I thoroughly cleaned the bore and I soaked the barrel in motor oil for a few days to ensure that there was oil in every little corner of the cannon. I painted the barrel black using heat and linseed oil.

The cannon stand was in really solid cast iron and painted and therefore in OK condition after all these years out in the weather. I did some minor grinding and refreshed the H for Hällefors, which was engraved in the metal a long time ago. After that I powder coated the stand in green army color and painted the bottom black.

I also cleaned the small cannonballs which came with the cannon. NOTE: they are only for decorative purposes since they don’t fit into the cannon bore.

I filled some old fireworks in the cannon and did 3 blank salute shots (all shot were blanks and I was using maximum 8 gram black powder) in a very safe and uninhabited area environment. So do not test this in your garage, please! Even 8 grams of black powder can be very powerful and cause serious injury and fire if used wrong.