"Lights, Camera, Action!"
No, it's not George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch special effects shop, although they are not far from here, just south of Petaluma.The 1939 16mm Model E Cine-Kodak is a prop for my inspiration (I probably couldn't afford a 100-ft spool of Kodachrome today); the scene represents the cannon being hauled up the cliff in
"The Pride And The Passion."
Of course, you want to see what the camera saw:
You'll have to imagine the river valley in the background, over the poor man's "blue screen";. If you saw the movie "The Pride And The Passion" you'll remember an early scene resembling this one, when Cary Grant and hundreds of Spanish extras haul the "seven ton cannon" up the cliff.
Construction is mostly scrap pine and fir, with a 1-1/2" .080 PVC tube for the barrel liner (might be able to "shoot" it like the old "Big Bang" carbide cannons). The metal straps and tire-strakes are all Simpson Strong-Tie builder's hardware. I have a little detailing to do yet, including re-turning of the muzzle-swell, but must make a jury-rig tail-stock extension to accomodate the full length cannon. The carriage is 5/8-inch stock, and the metal straps are 3/4", so I will have to do little number with the grinding wheel.
Good thing I have only a Jet Mini lathe, as I have these construction braces that resemble the trunnion-caps on a cannon, and they would fit a trunnion 1-1/2 inches in diameter, that's twice the 1-inch=1-foot scale of the cannon I'm building , and the full-size movie gun had 8-foot wheels and an eighteen-foot barrel!
My artist-friend Mimi has pledged to help with a "Fimo" sculpture of the "Kings Head" (seen over the touch-hole in the movie) to help complete the decorative details of the barrel.
Now I have to tackle the second wheel; I'm going to build some jigs this time, as the first wheel was not a "piece of cake!"
Of course, you can't lift a heavy cannon without blocks and tackle:
I made these up before looking in my Ship Model building handbook; kept forgetting about it, and just plunged in. They will get re-worked to fancy them up functionally a bit.
In a couple years time, I think this will end up as a toy for little Nathan!
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