How to make a mortar

I played with some metal working equipment last weekend after not touching anything for several decades. While mostly successful I “learned a lot” without any permanent damage to the item I was working on and without leaving any of my blood or body parts behind.

Then yesterday I was looking for something else and saw this video of how professionals do things these days:

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5 thoughts on “How to make a mortar

  1. Not sure if it’s because I’m looking at this on an iPhone, but not seeing any video/link?

    • It doesn’t show up on my Windows Phone either but viewing it on my desktop browsers everything is fine.

  2. That CNC stuff sure has a lot of wasted motion, at least in this clip.

    • My thoughts, too. Also, it looks like more “how to make a mortar SHELL” than a mortar.
      What are those side holes for? Is it like a recoilless rifle shell where the powder charge comes out the side, and the ‘head’ of the shell blocks it, and the mortar tube has to contain the sideways pressure from it, and THAT’S what makes it go? I was always under the impression that it was (only) the charge jetting out the back end of the tail-pipe that pushed it forward. Anyone have a definitive answer on that?

  3. It’s not even a mortar shell, just the tail fin assembly and it looks like a slow tedious process even when done by robots. Oddly, it seems like the only job of the humans is to check the manufacturing tolerances and frankly, even the robots could do that.

    Considering the stresses involved during firing, you wonder why they use machined aluminum parts, a simple casting would suffice, perhaps even sheet metal stampings. It’s not like mortar rounds are precision munitions.

    Oh wait I forgot, Uncle Deep Pockets is paying the bill so price is no object.

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