How To ALMOST Cast A Historic Bronze Cannon Barrel... FarmCraft101 

Former worker in a steel mill here. You should cast it standing, but try to fill the mold from the bottom up. Make a channel from top to bottom beside the cannon core and conect it to the bottom of the cannon. Use the upper end of the cannon as venting hole, and cover the open risers with a thick layer of sand to preserve heat in the metal after the pour. And you could make a thin slurry from Ehanol Alcohol and Bentonite powder to give the inner surface of the Mold a smoother surface. Just a little layer inside the mold. aply with an brush. Try it on a small mold, it will help with the surface texture. IF you cast in the the same position like in this video, place your entry way on the thickest part of the cannon (The sunken in part) and make a bigger reservour on top with thick walls of sand for insulation so you have 4 Pound extra material there. After the metal is in, cover the Tank with Sand. The metal will shrink inside, and pull metal from the top inside. Sorry fo my poor english, i am from germany and didn´t talk or write much in english. i could bring up some drawings if needed, just give the word.

For the vertical pour you need to put an ingate system off to the side and let the metal rise from the bottom. At least that's how ship propellers get cast at my company.

Me: why is he cutting it in half just to stick a chunk of newspaper between and glue it back together Farmcraft101: (easily pulls back in half) Me: my God the man is a genius!

I'm so glad you don't swear or curse or lose your mind when you experience a failure....it allows me to watch your channel with my son's!

"unplanned separations going into my face" i'm dying here remembering the foam lost model flying off ...

That was hilarious when you were drawing the cannon lol i busted out laughing, thankyou for that sir :)

Gotta admire the "I WILL succeed with whatever tool and ingenuity I've got kicking around my shed" attitude , add 1 sub from England

A few years ago I made a cast iron cannon with my boss just for fun (prototype casting company), instead of a core we used a steel tube in the cannon as a barrell, that works great! I will give you a few tips: - You should use form sand with bentonite (binding water and makes the form stronger), so less sand will be washed out and gets in the mold - If you want a better surface use oilsand around the pattern (half inch will be enough), then over this normal compacted form sand - The runner goes in the cope (upper mold box) and the gates in the drag (bottom molding box) so slag flows up and less shit will flow in your cavity - Use runner extensions and no direct cutted gates, so only clean melt flows in the cavity, dirt (oxides, ...) getting pass by and solidify outside of the part or add a small blind riser bevore the cavity and the dirt will float up (this will not feed your mold consistently, no matter how big it is because if your gate with the small diamater solidify the feeding process will stop! Thats the only reason why you need risers in the top) - Make your sprue on the side with the bigger diameter, so the hotter melt can warm up this area more, this will help against the shrinkage and a open riser at other side as a vent and lil bit as a feeder - Use a few small holes as vents on the top side of the cannon (0,1-0,2 inch will be enough) - Perhaps 1-2 top risers on the highest points will help feeding the whole mold. Without a core/tube or cooling iron in the sand the solidification will need much time, so the risk is big to get shrinkage defects in the middle of your cannon. Yes you will turn this material later, but can you guarantee that the defects will not go all the way out to the wall? If you dont want a core or tube that will be okay, but then you should use risers because the shrinkage could be a bigger problem as you thought and if you wana shoot the cannon i would minimize the risk of a heavy exploding metal part near my ass :D Make the sprue (with well) in the middle of the rear side, two runners (cope) to both sides and then 1-2 gates (drag) on both sides with the extended runners (with well at the end) for your slag. The front side of the cannon should get one open riser and on the highest point of the cannon should be minimum one additional riser to feed your mold while cooling down (use a big diameter minimum 2 inch!). Engage a few vents along the entire length of the cannon, this allows the air to leak better than trough the sand and slag will float out. Greets from germany ;)

there is a large part of me that wants you continue to fail...i enjoy these videos and don't want this epic tale of man vs metal to end.

Fascinating. Remember, if at first you don't succeed... don't try skydiving! Lol. Keep on keeping on.

I worked in a brass foundry from the time I was 15 to 30 years old. I was a molder and ran the furnaces . We built several brass cannons on the side. Boss was POed until we gave him one . Never saw a happier guy. He would show it off to everyone who came to his office. I still have mine to this day 30 years later. Good job on making the pattern and the pour. It's always better to have more metal than less.

I love the emotion and reaction to "what the internet will think" in these videos. Especially on the spalding and the drawing. Well done. Very entertaining while teaching.

You need a vent at each local maximum height as well as the point furthest from the pour. The top was indented because the compressed air in that section couldn't escape after the pour blocked access to the vent you had.

I’ve been suffering from shrinkage for years. It’s always a bad thing.

Your neighbors have no idea the hell that is about to be unleashed on them do they? Great series.

Thoroughly enjoying myself, watching you, in this process. For millenia this was/is how it's done. Cannons, Halibrand wheels, Cyclone Racing Equipment quickchange, and Edelbrock intake manifolds. Life is great !

That's so sad, such a nice mold, such a nice, smooth end result, if it wasn't for that DAMN SHRINKING PROCES

I love this series. The amount of work, research, and attention to detail is really cool to see. I'm excited to see you accomplish this and I know you will.

Love how everyone is supportive here and recognise you are testing, learning and trying - great work mate!

paulson certified moulder here. always remember in MOST moulding applications whatever the size of your mould cavity divide it by HALF almost immediately due to cooling/curing of material(s).

lol the outtake of the cannon drawing got me to click the subscribe button, great vid!

your vids remind me of the old edison quote - "I didn't fail. I just found 2,000 ways not to make a lightbulb." 😬 eta - it kind of sounded like i was taking the piss & calling you a failure here. absolutely not the case. your trial & error on this project just reminded me of the edison quote. keep up the good & interesting work. by not compromising or settling, & not giving up, youve earned my respect & a sub. 🍻

I know nothing about metal casting but I do have an interest in military history and old technologies and I found this fascinating. Thank you so much for taking the trouble to share it with us!

Years ago, I was an assisting teacher during two cannon pours in a high school industrial arts department. The metal shop teacher had acquired a lot of bronze, and the department head turned wooden parts for the model, which was based on cannon from the USS Constitution. It was about three inches longer than your cannon, and two of us swung the crucible for the pour. I was only there for two pours, and as I recall, it took five attempts for them to produce three usable cannon.

So close! My own cannon casting project turned out about the same. I've been experimenting with lost shell casting (3d printed w/ pla) and the results have been pretty good so far. In fact, I may do my next cannon that way. It might be worth looking into as an alternative!

SO CLOSE!!!!! You are definitely getting there!

This guys videos are the best! Great science, story, witty, great editing, informative, and right to the point without b.s.. He is the Bob Vila of cannon casting. Real joy to watch.

Congratulations, you made the *SECOND* breach loading cannon in history! ;-)

You should cast your canon in gold instead of bronze. The thermal expansion of gold is less so that shrinkage wont be as much of an issue.

I wonder if you could fill from the bottom by having a long, parallel channel through which you introduce the molten metal. That channel could be made from a piece of 1" copper tubing. Leave the copper tube in the sand. A couple of tubing elbows at the bottom could turn the molten metal without stressing the sand and the U-turn would slow the falling metal so that the cannon cavity fills smoothly from the bottom.

Yeaaaaah I was waiting for this part 2. I saw your failed attempt with the insulation foam. Can't wait!!!! Chips check. Coke check. Big screen television check. Comfy sofa check. Now press play!!!!

*Try a trapazoid walled mold, where the smallest side is down, therefore making less room for the sand to move, and then use pipe holding clamps (sorry I can not thing of the name of those, Sir) to add a extra mechanism to hold every thing in. I do not have any experience in casting but as someone who is very interested in engineering that is what I think you should try. Also you could try to keep the cast from cooling as fast, but I think the mold shape I described is better. If I'm right, Please fire the first shot in a huge lump of wet clay. Hope this works out, can`t wait to see it when it is done, but please reply soon.

That is a long way for the metal to travel.. I would recommend casting fro your Center on the wheel mount things... and haveing a fairly large gate for shrinking

You need 47lb of brass for your total volume but you need more to fill in from shrinkage and provide enough head pressure to make sure it fills the mold cavity entirely. Otherwise, I love this video. Keep going, I'm rooting for you. Vertical casting is the way to go here, I think. On the note of the plaster, what you can do is use the wood pattern to make a silicone mold, make WAX castings of that, and then do lost-wax that way. Then you have your nice wood pattern, and you can always make another wax positive to cast from. Refractory casting can lend a better grain structure as well, and you can make a thin refractory shell and then the remainder would be greensand, as you said. That ringing is deeply concerning.

At least looks more cannonish than last time. Getting better and learning all the time.

Find yourself a copy of The Art of gunfounding, the casting of Bronze Cannon in the late 18th Century edited by Carel de Beer. Bronze cannon were cast vertically. The flask had a large reservoir at the mouth to draw metal from as the barrel cooled. The book shows the the process start to finish. Good luck in your efforts.

This pisses me off, because until I watched this vid, I didn't even know I wanted one of these.

I wonder if multiple sprues for different heights would help, or one big parallel shaft that takes the hit then empties into the bottom of the cannon to fill upwards. What about preheating the mold and increasing the temp of the pour? Looks like it was solidifying early too.

Lost foam is the way to go. Coat the foam with a ceramic coating. The pour hole is called a Sprue. Just calculate the volume of a cylinder then you’ll have a little extra. Short pour costs a lot of time and money as you learned. Flask weights should be used when you pour in a cope and drag configuration. They prevent the molten metal from floating the cope off the drag spewing molten metal down your leg and onto your concrete. Molten metal and concrete do not mix. I recommend keeping all liquids well away from your furnace and pouring. A good pouring surface for non ferrous is a couple inches of dry sand with a metal grate on top. This will save your concrete and your shoes. You are doing great! We put foam patterns in brown paper bags then poured in dry sand around the pattern. The pour weights were much less but it worked like a champ.

I'm not un-subscribing. I want you to cast this beast and show us what it can do!!!!!!!! Good luck and keep at it!

Don't cast another cannon, just make this one bolt action)

to be fair, the whole process of metalworking did take thousands of years to fully understand

I think a pivot similar to the one on the lid of your furnace for your crucible handle might make big pours a little more controllable. Love the channel.

I worked at a non-ferrous foundry in centralia, MO. We always added lead to the brass to make it pour better. Just a touch. Helps stop gassing too.

Sodium silicate mixed with sand for the mold, then CO2 to harden it. should be strong enough.

Yeah you need somebody to help you lift that Crucible

Can't wait for attempt #3. I am sure that will be a success.

That's how we learn , you are almost there, keep on keepin on.!

Cannon barrel with steel mass next to it. Subscribed

great project... keep up the good work... just dont ever mention or tell people to unsubscribe...

Aww man. So close. That final pour will be so satisfying when you break it out of the sand.

Some tips to get a horizontal pour to work with your crucible size. 1) you need to drastically increase your Sprue. Your gating system drawing showed a Sprue and Riser in series. You need to combine them into the same function. 2) Add risers to one or more trunnion. That way any hot spot or occurs outside your barrel wall. 3) Add a partial core to your mold. That way you Localize the hot spot closer to your Sprue/Riser and it gives you more metal for your part. I’d advise doing this with a chemically bonded sand system that you can drop into your mold. You can do it in green sand but you can get a bigger more structural core chemically 4) take your Sprue, risers, and gating system into account when figuring out how much alloy you need. 5) look into an insulated or exothermic sleeve for your Sprue. These keep your Sprue hotter longer helping drive hot spots out of your part and into your gating system. Also, what you are calling a “vent” is actually a riser. Vents are typically very small and don’t fill. Smaller in diameter then a chopstick and usually stop short of mold cavity. Risers vent, feed a castings, and (if not a blind riser) indicate if the casting is full. Hope this helps.

😂😂😂 I love the censorship part 😂😂 greathings from Mexico

Great work bro very informative 👏🏻. And damn that crucible looked bloody heavy 😳! 😁👍🏻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻

Hahaha “if u think I should just turn this on lathe and make a smaller cannon just go down and go ahead and unsubscribe “ lmao I was dying hahah

I love the effort! Please try again! We're all learning.

How do you lnow the brass is hot enough? Also, how do you know your alloy is sufficiently mixed?

Littlebit more heat, littlebit more metal and faster pouring should help. Dont know if the sand will hold when pouring vertically, its quit some mass hitting the bottom of your mold. Think about making a clay mold, but it will take time to dry.

Nice save at the end about keeping a large cannon. Keep at it.

Really appreciate you sharing your attempts with us. Thank you.

Can you mount the mould on a pivot so you can pour on a diagonal then rotate vertical? Thus reducing and run impact at the bottom.

You should first melt copper (highest melting point) then add zinc and then add tin. By melting them all at once you've lost most of zinc and tin when copper was not yet melted...

Put a small piece of foam at the bottom to act as a shock absorber so it doesn’t mess the sand up

Hits follow because I got to see this cannon successfully cast.

I just realised you look like you could be Cody's labs brother.

You could have weighed the block of wood, and measured it before you turned it. That gives you the density. Then weigh it after turning. That would also give you an accurate volume

I love watching this series, I wish I had the skill to make just the wood mold you made ! Looking forward to the next video.

Seeing you fail is being ten times more educational than if you succeeded. Am really hooked.

Get a second person just to help the pour . This way the metal will not cool in the crucible you might get a faster and even pour

What if you try pour horyzontly again but from center. Good luck.

I'm a new subscriber and currently following these videos along. With each one I am just more and more impressed by your ingenuity. Thanks for sharing!

Really cool video. Very impressive. You are quite the craftsman

Maybe pour at an angle having the mould at 30-40 degrees.

That is an air pocket. You should have placed a vent up there.

So close this time. I can’t wait to watch you mill one. Love the work my friend. Thanks for sharing.

Newby Caster here .I think you can improve the horizontal pour. If I'm not mistaken if you were to make a riser or a larger 'vent' towards the highest point of the casting on either side of the cannon, while it is cooling it should pull molten metal from there. I think the reason why you got the 1/2 inch shrinkage at the end is because when cooling the nearest place to pull from was the vent breach side. At 13:07 the metal that cooled in the vent was no taller than the shrunken breach side of the canon. However, if you are to continue with the vertical method, I would suggest a form of lost casting process. Make a strong negative mold out of plaster then surrounded by regular sand or green sand to hold in place whilst pouring vertical. Best regards!

XDXDXDXD you made me laugh I'm going to subscribe

That void is an air bubble and it is there because your vent was not at the highest point. Also, steam needs to be able to escape. Before breaking the mould apart to remove the model, take a straight piece of 1,5..2 mm diameter wire and poke steam vents all over the model.

Keep on casting, awesome work! We are all SOO excited to see the next step! Really cool project!

i subbed just because you told people to just go ahead and unsub love it

if you only had more vents on highest parts and all ends and of course more metal you'd have had it.

imagine the simple calculations if you used metric :| 2300ml =140,42 cubic inches or you know 2300ml = 2300cm^3

Seriously. I love the humor you use. Haha. Liked and subscribed! Greets from the Netherlands.

This isn't something I'm pursuing - came up on Chromecast autoplay. But THANK YOU for posting failures. So much more to learn than only seeing perfect processes and not understanding why you're having setbacks.

Keep going dude, your doing awesome. This is way more interesting than any of the crap on telly.

Love your tenacity. Can't wait for the next video.

Wow this was SO worth the wait! The new casting method is really cool man, good luck on the next one!

Redo lol ! You'll get it next time. Make the mold the same way just with the spru in the end of the canon, seal the sides in wood and stand on end . but don't listen to me I've never made one ! Great videos. Please keep them coming. Thanks bro Anthony Kent

You should use a smaller tapered sprue. Those 2-inch straight sided sprues just suck air into your casting leading to lots of defects and internal porosity (that's part of why the casting is lighter than you expect, there is some air in the metal). Totally agree, the entrained air is not the cause of the shrinkage, that's just typical metal contraction when you don't have a riser. It also looks like your metal was not hot enough (it looks like it poured like sludge at the end, so you were not up to pouring temperature). Yes, I agree you need risers for a casting this size. Yes, use a riser for the vertical pour too. I agree no core, a core is not appropriate for a canon. For the vertical pour, definitely feed from the bottom, use a small tapered sprue. Offset pouring basins help to keep your flow rate consistent and keep from entraining air as long as you keep your pour consistent and the basin full until the risers are filled. Looking forward to seeing your next attempt.

Having found you today and watched the progression of these videos along with the gunmental ones the thing that sticks out most is your determination. Think of those ads RU-vid plays from people saying "Wanna know how I got so rich? By failing over and over"... Yada yada, Thomas Edison, yada yada... I think you get what I'm saying. You're going to succeed because you keep trying, and instead of exerting the most energy on being upset you focus it in on learning what you did wrong. This type of thinking is a dying art, but boy do I really enjoy watching it! Keep it up!

Flipping Amazing!! Great Video!

Hey much better this time! Looking forward to the rest! Great job. Makes me want to do more stuff

Dude you are great, I just got into small casting with pewter and silver, I'm really glad RU-vid recommend me these vids

I've always been interested in why we do things one way, and not some other "easier" way. Thank you VERY much sir for making this video. One day I hope to make a pair of decorative aluminum cannons for the driveway. This helps incredibly!

Very cool man I’m excited to have stumbled upon this series and am looking forward to the next instalment in the cannon saga

i didn't realize i was on time for this series. great videos

Just found your channel and love it ... time to binge watch

I think you are making great progress. Thanks for letting me learn with you. Can't wait to hear the ring when you finally fire i.

Absolutely love this project and these videos. Best of luck on the next pour. I cant wait to see what happens.

Where I worked we moulded parts for stone crushers, I didnt work in the foundry, but to keep the sand in place, they had some bonding agent in the sand, and they had a vaccum pressure conected to the flask that if I remember correctly helped to pack the sand so that the mould got packed really hard, the mould was in two halfs and the top and bottom was only covered with a sheet of plastic, they said it was a japanese technique and I myself have only seen it used there. I think they also coated the moulds before the pour. thanks for making great videos.