Painting late medieval cannons

[expendablecinc]

In some instances looking at how ancient and medieval items look now is completely different to how they looked when new and in actual use (eg greek statues).

I dont want to make this mistake with some late medieval heavy artillery I am painting for my late russians (to be reused for early DBR at some point)

What would late medieval/Early renaisance cannons be made of and what colour would they be?

Bronze?Iron? Iron banded with bronze (the cannons I have are a long tube with more ornate bands reinforcing them them.

Colour:
Bronze /shiny / tarnished / dark grey / black?

[deadtorius]

I would guess the bands are iron and are there to help hold the barrel together if it explodes, a common occurrence. The carriages, as they were, would be natural wood, perhaps on the darker side. I think paintings I have seen always show the barrels as being black, and I believe they were iron. Although I think I have read of wooden barrels being used occasionally but they don't hold up too well. The barrels would be cast and air bubbles in the casting were the main cause of barrel explosion, or so the books always say. One thing to keep in mind is that after loading the charge and then the shot lime mixed with water would be packed in around the shot to seal in the explosive power. Then it would have to sit for a time while the lime hardened then the flame was applied and everyone hoped they would still be around after the boom. This applies to larger guns the smaller ones would probably get the shot shoved down the barrel and hope for the best. I think shot was normally stone, rounded off by a mason, I don't think cast shot will show up for a while still.

[CheerfullyInsane]

It should be iron, both the barrel and the reinforcing bands.
And the bands aren't there to reinforce the barrel in case of an explosion, that would be like trying to stop a speeding truck with Saran wrap.

The bands are there for one of two reasons:
1) They there to keep the barrel sitting in the wooden trough it's mounted in, or
2) In case of early artillery, the gun-barrel isn't a barrel. It's simply a bunch of cast-iron rods held together with iron bands, with a wooden plug in the end..
Not exactly effective, since a lot of the propellant gasses will escape through the cracks, but at this point in time artillery is as much a danger to the owner as to the target.

Bronze-cast weapons don't start to appear until the 15th century, at which point advances in gunpowder fabrication also start to make artillery a force to be reckoned with even if it's still molasses-slow to reload.

As for the projectiles used in the early guns, deadtorius is right, they were primarily stones.
If you were really lucky you had a mason to round 'em off, but otherwise you simply grabbed whatever you had lying around that would fit in the barrel. Stones, scrap-metal, dead cats, you name it.
Solid iron shot starts to get introduced in the early 15th century.

As for the colours.....Well, the darker the better IMO.
These are field guns of low-grade iron, carted around the country-side and sitting in a sulfuric cloud with unnerving regularity.
They're definitely not polished parade-pieces.

CheerfullyInsane

[flameberge]

They were made of Iron or in some cases wood but the wood ones were tightly wrapped down its entire length with rope so unless your mini has rope modeled on the fig I'd paint it iron.