FAT Fast 17 pounder recovery

[Gunner]

Success! With the help of your photos, Rob N, and a bodged pulling tool, we pulled the elevating cross shaft out on Thurs night. The gear wheel was a bitch until we figured out the little removable bar in the arc support! The elevating arc and the elevating gear both are missing a tooth where someone tried to cut away the monument welds. Same for the traverse arc and gear except the traverse gear is worse and is missing three teeth. Hopefully our welder can build up the missing teeth and we can hand cut them back to true.

Took a first stab at pushing the block down. Framed the breech ring with massive 10 inch "I" beams and one inch threaded rods. The 20 ton jack then groaned and nothing moved. We will try some heat along with the jack next week. Last major moving parts to free up are the spades. Then its cleaning and polishing time in order to reassemble the beastie.

Missing bits: we are pretty complete except for some odds and ends. The mops and bags would be nice. We have a panoramic sight for the 25 pounder which can be shared by the 17 but they were only used for indirect fire anyway. We have a six pounder direct fire telescope which fits the 17 pr mount but has the wrong graticle pattern. We need a set of cleaning staves. We have lots for the 105 C3 so we can fake it for now! The funny bill hooked machetes seem to be quite hard to find in Canada and our rivet counters are trying to find a T handle shovel as they don't believe me when I tell them that the Canadian army used both the T and the D handles!

Ubique! Mike