It's Fish Kni...er, wait.

I've no more fish knives to share! What ever shall I devote Fridays to?

I'll think of something. In the meantime, I feel obligated to post this wooden sword I made for the boy last weekend:


He's been into "The Lord of the Rings" movies lately, and wanted a sword like Aragorn's. I think the kid thinks that I can make him anything, since anytime he says he wishes he had something (e.g. a pirate ship, a sword, a bow and arrow, rocket, etc.), I scuttle off to my basement workshop and whip something together.

I only post this today because, as I see it, the boy joins a several thousand year old tradition of the little boy with the wooden sword. I had one, my dad had one, his dad had one, etc. etc. all the way back to when our Celtic and Germanic ancestors were running around in animal skins and whopping the shit out of each other with copper and bronze swords. I enjoy watching him prance around with his wooden sword, conjuring images of Treasure Island, Peter Pan, the Prince and the Pauper, and so many of those all stories that we grew up with...

Let's do cannons #2

Here's a little guy...


...patterned loosely after a Civil War field cannon. The barrel is fixed (elevation) and cast iron, so if I were to ever discharge it (I won't), I'd just use a tiny charge and a bit of wadding - no projectile. The bore is about .25 inches.

Imagine the day when toys required a black powder charge to be any fun - now a friggin' basketball comes with a "choking hazard" warning. No wonder today's youth are catatonic goth turds...

Let's do cannons #1

I figured I might as well get all of my cannons out of they way. Most are little, and could even be considered toys. However, I collect cannons using specific criteria:

First, they must all use black powder. I am not interested in carbide cannons or non-functional pieces.

Second, I don't care if they are little, but they must be able to fire a powder charge (at a minimum) or a genuine projectile - even if it's a small one.

I've included a standard U.S. penny in each cannon photo for scale. You've already seen this and this, so consider these part of the collection.


This dude is a .22 caliber bronze black powder cannon of a naval gun design. If you ever want to fire broadsides from your Sunfish, this piece is for you. You might even disable an Optimist, if you play the wind right and drill your gunners until they hate you.

Of course, on a Sunfish, you probably are the gunner, so keep shooting this little peanut until you hate yourself...

Itty Bitty # 2

Here's another tiny treasure...


The little guy next to Honest Abe is a little tiny bronze cannon, complete with trunnions, cascabel, touch hole, and all. It was reportedly found on the banks of the Thames River in London, England, and was probably an old toy dating back a few hundred years.

Although not a weapon in any meaningful sense of the word, I have actually fired this piece (I know, I know - you "condition" nuts should get a life) with a few grains of black powder, firecracker fuse, a binder clip, a bit of toilet paper wadding, and a cigarette.

It went: "Fzzpt."

And that greatly exaggerates the loudness...

But I had to do it, right?

After that, I wore it for a few years as a pendant before realizing that the true threat to it's condition was my own pungent yet alluring sweat and the risk of total loss by attrition (it was tied by the cascabel to a piece of waxed thread).

It now resides in the treasure chest.