Conservators Clean Civil War Ironclad USS Monitor's Guns

From the February 25, 2020, 13 News Now by Christopher Collette.

Crews are busily working on the ship's Dahlgren cannons at the Mariner's Museum.  These guns fired at the CSS Virginia in one of the most famous naval battles in history in 1862, then they went to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean when the ship sank later that year off North Carolina's Cape Hatteras, taking 16 men with them.

The Monitor's wreck was discovered in the 1970s and recovery of parts, including the famed turret in which the two cannons were located, started in the 1990s.

On Tuesday, they started to clean  the 11-foot bores in each of the massive guns.  A good video accompanies the article.  They need to use a special-made tool to do this  to remove the marine growth inside the guns.According to them, the Monitor's guns are the largest ever to be bored.

All told, the project is expected to take another ten years.

--Old B-Runner