This is an odd ad!

[rob love]

So it has been just over a year since recovery of the 2 guns, and I have been meaning to post a bit of an update. I selected one of the guns to begin restoration and have pretty much dis-asssembled it as far as I am going and begun repairing the caisson.

Disassembly was not too bad, with the exception of course of the breech. After oiling and heating, I finally just removed the tube and breech, and ran them over to the press for disassembly. Much quicker and no damages that hammering would have caused. Much thanks goes to Rob Nixon who advised me through the process. I did have a bit of a hiccup on the muzzle brake though. I warmed it up a bit, and managed to get half a turn before it stopped. I asked Rob if it was left hand thread and he responded that it turns clockwise, so I thought that meant right hand thread. I had about 8 feet of bar through the brake, with the wife standing on the end and me whacking the bar with a sledge....almost no movement. So I reversed the direction of the pipe, put the tractor bucket against the pipe and with a single whack of the handle, the brake just spun off. Looking back at Rob's advice, I guess clockwise is subjective to which way you are standing.

Photos will tell it better than I can.

[rob love]

So the next step was to deal with some of the damages aquired by rough handling of the gun over the years. The bracket that stored the tool box was of concern, as was the hole punched through the top near the hitch, and the bent "wings". I used a porta-power C-clamp to straighten the wings, and it moved them like hot butter.

[rob love]

Collecting all the tooling and accessories has been going along well, albeit expensive. But here are a pair of larger accessories I managed to drag home. It was only a couple thousand kms for these, but as per my usual operating procedures, one pair of socks went out the back window.

[Rob Fast]

where did you find these limbers? Jealous! Need one! Cheers Rob Fast

[rob love]

Came out of a farmyard in the next province. Sorry Rob, there was just the pair, and I have 2 guns.

The axle is missing from one of them, as are bits and pieces here and there. Shouldbe very easy to restore one to exc condition, and the other may be a 10 footer....that is to say it will look good from 10 feet but wouldn't meet the judging at a display.

[Robert Bergeron]

Hey Rob,

What did the farmers recycle the limbers for when they were disposed of by Crown assets ?

[rob love]

They didn't. In general, limbers had no civilian application. Very heavy, and very small. There is no frame so to speak, they are the original unibody construction. To even get the axle out you have to cut the limber open, and cut all the linkages from the impact brakes to the handbrake system.