Leather Battery Case & Igniter Case (Civil War Mortar)

[Littlef]

I made a replica Civil War Coehorn Mortar  Coehorn Mortars are a variation that was small enough for soldiers to pick up and carry around the battlefield.  The replica I made is a half scale of the smaller of the 2 variations used in the Civil war.  It'll fire a concrete filled coke can 200-300 yards.  After I built it, I caught in the regulations for the area in which I planned to fire it that anything fired with a fuse is prohibited.  So, I reworked it to fire from model rocket igniters instead of fuses.  I made a case to carry a motorcycle battery in, and a leather pouch to carry modified model rocket igniters in.  The rocket igniters are insulated so they don't short out against the steel barrel.  Then, the two legs are bound together.  The igniter compound is really brittle, and breaks off if the legs are pulled apart.  

Edited September 26, 2023 by Littlef
spelling correction.

[MarshalWill]

Beautiful cases. That should keep you going. Very nice job on the cannon, too.

[Littlef]

10 hours ago, MarshalWill said:

Beautiful cases. That should keep you going. Very nice job on the cannon, too.

Thank you very much!! I appreciate that.  It was a good learning experience, being my first case.  I made a bunch of mistakes, in order of operations, and how I laid out my original plan, but I'll be able to build on it for future projects.

[MarshalWill]

1 minute ago, Littlef said:

Thank you very much!! I appreciate that.  It was a good learning experience, being my first case.  I made a bunch of mistakes, in order of operations, and how I laid out my original plan, but I'll be able to build on it for future projects.

Few of us ever make anything that we don't plan changes to make on the next one. Nothing is more interesting than making improvements in design or layout. If you make another, be sure to post about it.

And, you got me researching those cannons. They look like a lot of fun.

[dikman]

Well, that's different (the mortar, that is). The battery case came out very nice, you did a good job on the corner stitching, it's not easy to get that right.

[Littlef]

33 minutes ago, dikman said:

Well, that's different (the mortar, that is). The battery case came out very nice, you did a good job on the corner stitching, it's not easy to get that right.

Thank you very much, I appreciate that.  The coehorn mortar was designed to be small enough to have a small team of guys pick it up and carry it around by hand as the battle evolves.  The corner seams on the case were challenging with that 8 to 10 ounce leather.  I plan to later try and make some cartridge boxes, so this was a good introduction to making cases.