✅ SOLVED help on cannonball I.D.

[button king]

 

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[DCMatt]

I don't think it's a cannon ball. Looks like a counter weight of some kind.

Can you provide some measurements like size and weight?

DCMatt

 

[button king]

its 35 pounds and its 8 inches wide

 

[lockdownking]

Can you take a knife and scribe a line on the inside of this? It would appear that this object was used to heat other metals. Using the hollow tube as an introduction of oxygen to a fire of sorts to really get things hot enough to melt. Scribing a line might show that I am right by studying the different metals that have accumulated in the bottom of it. Gold, Sillver, Brass and other low heat metals.

 

[vhs07]

What would the purpose of the cross members be?

 

[button king]

I have no clue what they are for

 

[DeadElvis]

What would the purpose of the cross members be?

If it's a melting vessel, maybe to hold it above a fire or coals with a chain, or a grab-on point for tongs or a claw type lifter? Just guessing on my part. It seems to have a "V" or recessed area for pouring?

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Many specimens of that type of hollow ball with four small holes (the ends of four internal tubes) spaced equidistantly around its "equatior" have turned up on the civil war cannonball market. Unfortunately it is definitely not a cannonball. The proof:
1- Super-precise measurement has shown that none of the many specimens is the correct diameter to fit any known Historical cannon.
2- None have ever been excavated from a Historical site. Though they are sometimes rusty/dirty, all of the (many) known specimens are in "non-dug" condition.
3- These hollow balls are made of steel, not cast-iron. There were no steel roundshells in any era of Artillery History.

For several decades, many of us cannonballs collectors and artillery scholars have tried to discover what these 4-hole hollow steel balls actually are. Nobody has come up with the answer. But we are quite certain they are not cannonballs.

About 30 years ago, I was at a civil war relic show in Atlanta, when a trucker came in and asked me if I wanted to buy a bunch of cannonballs. He took me out to the parkinglot and opened up the back of his 18-wheeler. The entire floor of that 40-fooot-long trailer was covered with various sizes of these 4-hole balls. (They range in size from about 6 inches in diameter to about 10 inches.) I asked where he got them, and he said he bought them at a scrapyard. He got extremely unhappy when I measured several of them and told him they absolutely were not cannonballs.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

DeadElvis wrote:
> If it's a melting vessel, maybe to hold it above a fire or coals with a chain,
> or a grab-on point for tongs or a claw type lifter? Just guessing on my part.
> It seems to have a "V" or recessed area for pouring?

Your post arrived in the forum while I was typing mine (above). I know you said you were "just guessing" ...but I can confirm that it is not a melting vessel. Here's a photo of one of the 4-hole hollow steel mystery-balls. It is about 7.75 inches in diameter. It was seized by the police because they thought it was an explosive cannonball. They took it to an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team, who put shaped-charges on it to destroy it. The photo shows the result.

I'll also include a photo of the tubes-arranged-in-a-cross-pattern which came from another 4-hole steel mystery-ball that was destroyed by the police on another ocasion. (It is not from the ball in the other photo.)

Perhaps somebody here will recognize these 20th-Century steel mystery-balls and tell us the actual identity.

 

[DeadElvis]

DeadElvis wrote:
> If it's a melting vessel, maybe to hold it above a fire or coals with a chain,
> or a grab-on point for tongs or a claw type lifter? Just guessing on my part.
> It seems to have a "V" or recessed area for pouring?

Your post arrived in the forum while I was typing mine (above). I know you said you were "just guessing" ...but I can confirm that it is not a melting vessel. Here's a photo of one of the 4-hole hollow steel mystery-balls. It was seized by the police because they thought it was an explosive cannonball. They took it to an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team, who put shaped-charges on it to destroy it. The photo shows the result.

I'll also include a photo of the tubes-arranged-in-a-cross-pattern which came from another 4-hole steel mystery-ball that was destroyed by the police on another ocasion. (It is not from the ball in the other photo.)

Perhaps somebody here will recognize these 20th-Century steel mystery-balls and tell us the actual identity.

I stand humbly corrected That's why I check the "What is It" forum daily, I learn so much.

DE

 

[button king]

thanks for your help cannonball guy

 

[NOLA_Ken]

here's a thought I had.... The four tubes reminded me of a universal joint. I can't imagine what would have a ball type joint that big though.