nothing to do with RE

[rotornuts]

The last 8 weeks I've been doing my 1 year machining apprenticeship. I always admired the guys here on the board who posessed machining skills, especially Ed so I decided to make a move. The next 8 weeks I'm learning CNC programming and operation.

Every machinist builds projects during there apprenticeship schooling and I had to build a cannon as one of my projects and honestly I'm proud of the job I did so I'm tooting my own horn here. The base of the cannon is done entirely with a hacksaw an files. we even had to make the acorn nuts ourselves. I've never had so much fun learning!

I'm looking forward to applying my new skills in the word of building alternators and wind turbines(for myself at least).

Mike

[hiker]

nice .........

made one on my dads lathe YEARS ago..made from solid brass.looked real cool.had a walnut carriage around it.. it was bored out 44 cal...first time i fired it..it blew out a big cloud of smoke and flew backwards about 50 feet..real fun.[blackpowder]..

is yours a working model?  what cal. ?

[windstuffnow]

  Great work Mike, she is definately a beauty !  I can see some darn nice turbines comming soon!  

.

[rotornuts]

Thanks Ed and Hiker.

Unfortunately it doesn't fire but all the guys in shop have been tossing around ideas for making it fire. I think I'll leave it alone though.

Mike

[fukenfooser]

Doesn't Fire?

Where is your American, Fourth of JULY type of SPIRIT?

My momma raised a good boy regaurdless of my best efforts.

Maybe yours did a better job.

Cause we did shot ours! (Cannon)!

Looks GREAT I must say!

[dinges]

Hi,

My idea too; a canon that doesn't fire.... Reminds me of something else: how do you call a boomerang that doesn't return?                          (a stick)

I've been toying with the idea of building a naval-type gun (Verbruggen-design, about 1740), with oak carriage. So many plans, so little time... :-( ACAD-plans for the bore are finished though.

Anyway, drilling a bore should be possible; should you be interested, I've graduated on the subject of deephole-drilling (aka. gundrilling). My thesis can be found here (directly):

http://a_viktor.tripod.com/PeterThesisWriter.pdf

or here:

http://gundrilling.tripod.com

(goto DHM information)

Nice research topic, even toyed with doing a Ph.D. on the subject. Amazing how little theoretical knowledge there is on this subject.

Anyway, good luck with your engineering course (I hope they give you more 'practice' than over here, where it's mostly theory; e.g., art-class students know more about welding than I learned at the HTS (mechanical engineering school, one degree below university, i.e. B.Sc.)

Grtz,

Peter.

[MountainMan]

Nuts,

Where did you take this course?  Is it a local college or trade school?  I'm definitely planning to do a couple of courses like this once I re-retire.  Machining, welding, mechanical engineering for electron heads...

very cool,

jp

[rotornuts]

Hi MountainMan.

The course I'm taking was put together by a local employment services agency. They have contracted the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) to provide the regular first year machinist apprentic training and 3 of 6 components of  the CNC operator program. I've just completed the 8 weeks required by the apprenticship component and we are moving into the CNC component full time now.

Most technical institutes, trades schools and many colleges will provide machinist training as part of standardized apprenticship training or as an accelerated program for special interest purposes so I'd look around at your local post secondary schools or technical schools. Don't look at universities though as they don't typically train machinists they just use them.

NAIT here in Alberta provides a very broad range of courses with an eye on servicing the oil industry with the professionals they require. After I finish my machining apprenticship in 4 years I'd like to go back to NAIT for the 2 year Mechanical Engineering Technology course or possibly Power Engineering, we'll see what happens in 4 years.

You'll never regret having learned the skills needed to machine things(there's more than metal that needs machining).

Mike

[rotornuts]

Thanks for the links, there is alot of interesting info there.

Mike

[richhagen]

Yeah Mike, like blades.  That's really cool.  I'll have to look and see if there are any courses like that around me here.  I'm kind of self taught for the rough stuff I throw together.  That cannon looks pretty neat.  I expect we'll be reading about some more neat mills from you soon.  Rich

[rotornuts]

Hey Rich, you were one of my inspirations along with Ed and Jaqueism. You should see if you can find a CNC operator program. The one I'm taking at Nait is about alot more than program code. I have to say though I think the best CNC guys are the ones with manual experience. Thanks for the thumbs up on the cannon.

Mike

[ghurd]

Firing something like that can be dangerous.

ONLY black powder.

NEVER smokeless powder.

And only if the barrel is a proper steel.

[richhagen]

It would probably by Canada Day on July 1st (or 2nd) for Mike.  He is in Canada.  Rich