Reinforcing: Leather case to carry a motorcycle battery

[Littlef]

16 minutes ago, Littlef said:

 

standard sized motorcycle battery.  Its about 7.5 lbs.    That's a good idea.  Adding a couple rivets or screw posts would probably make it bullet proof.  Cool, thanks!

Oh, and sorry.... the battery is to fire a replica Civil War Mortar that I built.  After I built it, I was reading the fine details of the regulations where I planned to fire it.  I caught that there is a prohibition against anything fired by lighting a fuse. (I assume that is to prohibit people lighting fireworks.)  So I reworked it, and modified model rocket igniters to fire it.  Using battery power is definitely an anachronism, but ....Need to stay legal.  I want to make this, so the aesthetic, at least visually, goes with the era.  

[fredk]

That looks the size of a car battery! I'm used to motorcycle batteries being much smaller, weighing just a couple of pounds. Do you really need so much power?

[chuck123wapati]

man that sounds really cool.   I'm thinking like Fred estes rocket ignitors only take 4 aa batteries from what i remember. piezo ignitors can be bought also or scavenged off of old barbeques. we used to use them for our potatoe guns lol.

[Littlef]

20 minutes ago, fredk said:

That looks the size of a car battery! I'm used to motorcycle batteries being much smaller, weighing just a couple of pounds. Do you really need so much power?

This is no where near the size of a car battery.  There's more than one way to skin a cat.  I could do it with a lessor battery, but I have this as an extra battery for my motorcycle, and its rechargeable.  I'm not hiking with this all day.  Its basically just taking it from the car and walking 30 yards out into a field.  

[chuck123wapati]

duh i was thinking gas on the piezo ignitors don't mind me I'm old i doubt they would work reliably on pyrodex.

[Littlef]

10 minutes ago, chuck123wapati said:

man that sounds really cool.   I'm thinking like Fred estes rocket ignitors only take 4 aa batteries from what i remember. piezo ignitors can be bought also or scavenged off of old barbeques. we used to use them for our potatoe guns lol.

Yea its a good time.  It can lob a concrete filled coke can (about 2 pounds) about 300 yards with 200 grains of black powder.  I'm slowly scaling up the charge.  I put together this little video of it being fired last time I went out.  You can skip ahead a bit and not listen to me talk to just see it fired

 

Edited September 6, 2023 by Littlef

[Doc Reaper]

Saw the canon, well damn!

[Littlef]

6 minutes ago, Doc Reaper said:

Saw the canon, well damn!

 

It makes for a highly entertaining day.

 

[Burkhardt]

I expected by the time I got this far into the thread that Frodo would have had a insane story or video. @Littlef look forward to seeing the carrier when done.

[TomE]

Reminds me of a grownup version of the tennis ball cannons we built as kids, powered by lighter fluid.  One idea for the case is to incorporate 1/4" plywood in the bottom to prevent sag.  A number of the larger cases in Stohlman's book have wooden reinforcements, usually sandwiched between leather layers.  Is this an AGM type battery?