Colossus Carriage

One day back when I found the stern area of the Wreck of Colossus, I found a loose piece of wood. This bit of oak was about 4feet long, 6 inches wide and wedge shaped- Tapering from about 3 inches to about  3 quarters of an inch over its length. This wood I left out in the rain for about 5 years to see what would happen to it if it went untreated. One day I took it indoors and let it dry out for another year or two. Eventually I picked it up and decided to see if it was of any use. The surface had gone all black and wrinkled. So I scraped this wrinkled layer off and was amazed to find that there was perfect wood beneath. So I decided to make a small gun carriage with it. I made a few pattens to work from and discovered there was only just about enough for the job. The image below shows one end of the bit of wood before cutting the shapes out. You can see a blackened area which was an original slot in the wood. It is how the whole thing looked before I scraped the black wrinkled layer off.  The oak beneath is perfect old English oak. I am holding a plywood patten of one of the side cheeks above the piece.

I found a diagram of how to construct a late 18th century carriage then, scaling that down to suit the iron gun I was given, I set about cutting out the individual components.  Two side cheeks; two axels; 4 trucks; 1 front transom; 1 gun bed; 1 pig; and a quoin. As are laid out below.

    

Pig Bed & Quoin.

Then, after putting it all together, and making holes tor all the ironwork I carved these latin words on the front of the transom- MATERIA CAPTUS EX NAVIS COLOSSUS which roughly translates to- Material taken from the ship Colosuss.  

I then sent the carraige away to a friend who made all the iron parts for it like- the bolts to hold it all together like the axels o the side cheeks; the trunnion straps which hold the gun down; and the litch pins to hold the wheels (trucks) on. He also added a few rings for where the ropes that move a gun about should go.  The iron gun itself was a gift from another friend.  All the iron bits can be seen in the images below. So now, ever since, I have had an actual part of the ship inside the house. One of my prize possessions and a fabulous reminder of the wonderful time  (2 years 1999 &2000) I had on the site before all the toss pots turned up to spoil it. I later made a full size gun carriage out of a big bit of local elm and it now stands outside my house in the front garden, but thats another story............