Reinforcing: Leather case to carry a motorcycle battery

[Littlef]

1 hour ago, TomE said:

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?

The battery is agm.  I think plywood might be way too thick for this size bag.  I was contemplating on adding a piece of Formica; however, the battery itself is a hard plastic box. I'm not sure that adding another layer really changes the equation.

[fredk]

If the case is made tight to the battery, the thick leather and straps underneath should be sufficient to prevent any 'sag', (imo)

[chuck123wapati]

On 9/7/2023 at 9:41 PM, Burkhardt said:

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.

lol do you remember being able to buy m80's and cherry bombs at the fireworks stand as a kid? our mortar was a piece of pipe buried about two feet into the ground with a pop can full of sand as the ammo, we would drop in the m80 then the can then run like heck because the pipe was pretty much straight up.

[Littlef]

1 hour ago, chuck123wapati said:

lol do you remember being able to buy m80's and cherry bombs at the fireworks stand as a kid? our mortar was a piece of pipe buried about two feet into the ground with a pop can full of sand as the ammo, we would drop in the m80 then the can then run like heck because the pipe was pretty much straight up.

lol, that's funny -- that's not too far off from the mortar I built.  Growing up, I couldn't ever find m80's in my area, so we'd put a few m60's together.  Doing plenty of nonsense that we shouldn't have been doing.

[fredk]

deviation; I think the very dangerous thing I/we used to do as youngster would be called a 'mortar'

Here, the real fireworks had long fuzes, which gave you 20 to 30 seconds to do anything.We got a length of plastic water pipe. Stuffed a 'sky rocket' firework down it. On top of that we put a paper cup or paper cone filled with fire-crackers. We lit the fuzes on the fire-crackers or other small fireworks. Then one of held the pipe as another lit the fuze on the sky-rocket. The tube was hastily shoved into a bucket of sand or soil, at an angle off from vertical but close to. The sky-rocket fuze had been cut short so it would go off well before the fire-crackers. If all worked well the skyrocket launched taking the paper cup up and as it exploded it sent the fire-crackers flying out, and then they went off, whirling and twisting as each section exploded. Sometimes, one of us (usually me)  had to hold the bottom of the pipe to stop it falling over, and sometimes (a lot of times, ) the fireworks didn't go skywards but dropped on to somebody's house roof 

PS. as my friends knew I was from Chicago they gave me the nickname 'Chicargo Chuck-a-boom'

Edited September 9, 2023 by fredk

[Cattleman]

A older gentleman I know told me a story about building a cannon when he was a teenager. It was built to fire 6oz soda cans filled with cement. Once the barrel was done he wanted to "Proof" it by loading it with an inordinately large charge. He poured a double handful of black powder down the barrel followed by a cement can. The barrel was not yet mounted to a carrage, so he propped it over a small dirt burm and placed 3 heavy haybales on top of the barrel. He aimed for the base of a HUGE cottonwood tree about 1/4 mile a way with nothing behind it. Lit a 30 second fuse and hid behind the barn. The barrel performed excellently... But the 3 haybales were not enough to keep the barrel down... When it went off everything went flying. He quickly cleaned up the mess and put it all away before he got into trouble.

 

Several miles away lived a Japanese-American couple... He had served in WWII... The cement can came down almost vertical through the roof and wall, striking just inside the edge of the concrete slab floor, ricocheted through a chest of drawers, another wall, cut a solid wood door in half horizontally, destroyed a large antique China doll and came to rest in a stud of the opposite exterior wall. The cement can still had burning powder stuck to the bottom and thus had ignited the clothing in the chest of drawers.. The house was filling with smoke. The gentleman told police that it sounded just like artillery impacts he had survived in the war, and that he had reacted as if it was... "INCOMING!!!"  and hit the deck.

No one was injured, and the couple knew the kid who had accidently "Shelled" thier house... No charges were pressed, but the sheriff confiscated the barrel. The kids father made him work off the damages by helping on the couple's farm for free the rest of the year.

That story can still be heard occasionally among older folk from around the area in the local coffee shops. The kid that was responsible is now about 75 years old, he personally related this story to me about 10 years ago... I never laughed so hard in my life, he is a very animated, charismatic fellow... He has since built 4 other cannons.

[fredk]

[Burkhardt]

12 hours ago, chuck123wapati said:

lol do you remember being able to buy m80's and cherry bombs at the fireworks stand as a kid? our mortar was a piece of pipe buried about two feet into the ground with a pop can full of sand as the ammo, we would drop in the m80 then the can then run like heck because the pipe was pretty much straight up.

Can you imagine the news stories about the idiotic society we live in now that would be losing body parts.

[Littlef]

20 hours ago, Cattleman said:

A older gentleman I know told me a story about building a cannon when he was a teenager. It was built to fire 6oz soda cans filled with cement. Once the barrel was done he wanted to "Proof" it by loading it with an inordinately large charge. He poured a double handful of black powder down the barrel followed by a cement can. The barrel was not yet mounted to a carriage, so he propped it over a small dirt berm and placed 3 heavy haybales on top of the barrel. He aimed for the base of a HUGE cottonwood tree about 1/4 mile away with nothing behind it. Lit a 30 second fuse and hid behind the barn. The barrel performed excellently... But the 3 haybales were not enough to keep the barrel down... When it went off everything went flying. He quickly cleaned up the mess and put it all away before he got into trouble.

 

Several miles away lived a Japanese-American couple... He had served in WWII... The cement can came down almost vertical through the roof and wall, striking just inside the edge of the concrete slab floor, ricocheted through a chest of drawers, another wall, cut a solid wood door in half horizontally, destroyed a large antique China doll and came to rest in a stud of the opposite exterior wall. The cement can still had burning powder stuck to the bottom and thus had ignited the clothing in the chest of drawers.. The house was filling with smoke. The gentleman told police that it sounded just like artillery impacts he had survived in the war, and that he had reacted as if it was... "INCOMING!!!"  and hit the deck.

No one was injured, and the couple knew the kid who had accidently "Shelled" their house... No charges were pressed, but the sheriff confiscated the barrel. The kids father made him work off the damages by helping on the couple's farm for free the rest of the year.

That story can still be heard occasionally among older folk from around the area in the local coffee shops. The kid that was responsible is now about 75 years old, he personally related this story to me about 10 years ago... I never laughed so hard in my life, he is a very animated, charismatic fellow... He has since built 4 other cannons.

As with any well-crafted tale, they tend to take on a bit of exaggeration over time.  But it does illustrate the importance of understanding the equipment you are using, and approaching it with a degree of respect.  In this same area where I go, someone constructed a bowling ball canon, loaded it up with a large black powder charge.  The bowling ball came down a few miles away.  It went through the roof of a barn and killed a cow.  That guy went to jail.

 

The machinist who turned the barrel for this mortar, had been making them for several years.  With several years of development, he determined the max charge should be 200grains.  I'm operating at just under half of that.  I'm dropping these within a couple hundred yards, in an area with a clear line of sight.  I mark the location of each one with a flag so I can see the distribution as I'm shooting.  I also plot each one in my GPS, so I'm compiling more data after each trip.  My goal is to be able to drop a can right where I want it to land, versus just trying to put cans into orbit.  I think it makes for a much more interesting meaningful session.  

 

I picked up some hardware from Tandy yesterday, and made some revisions to my preliminary leather pattern last night.  Hopefully this evening I'll start cutting leather for the battery case.