The Strength of Silver Solder

by John

I needed to add some substantially strong rings to the slide of the Armstrong 80pr on the wooden chassis. These rings are the attachment points of the blocks and tackle which are used to point the cannon in the direction of fire. i.e. the traversing mechanism.

Scaling off photographs and drawings I determined that the rings had an o.d. of 100mm, and an i.d. of 50mm. i.e the material was about 25mm diameter.

I had made some rings for a previous project, and had some of the material left over…

But, when I cut off the coils to make the rings I decided that they looked too spindly.

So I annealed some thicker rod which was 2.5mm brass…

… and wound it around a 5mm steel post….
….cut off the individual coils with heavy side cutters, and straightened them in the vice.
Then positioned them on an aerated concrete block to some 3mm all-thread….and silver soldered the rings to the all- thread. The lump of steel is just to keep the bits in position during soldering.
Drilled the slide beams after careful measuring, 3mm tapped as deep as possible, then completed the tapping through the 30mm beams with a long length of 3mm all-thread.
Screwed the eye bolts into position, and locked the other end with square nuts. Eventually the square nuts will be buried in the beams.
No where near finished, but looking more interesting with some bling bolted in place?