Help w/ cannon pics / refs?

Do the Google thing.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laying

Color of the carriage would depend upon the country.

 

EasyMike wrote:

Color of the carriage would depend upon the country.

I would expect that pirates and other freebooters would use whatever colors were handy.

Ignore the bit in the title about American Merchant Vessels (color is color) and 1800.  These are mineral colors and would also be applicable during the age of pirates. 

Any of these colors would do,  but Red Lead, Venetian Red, Brick Red, Yellow Oxide, Verdegris, or Copper Green would look good.

from Erik Ronnbergs article on ship colors at the Nautical Research Guild

http://www.thenrg.org/displayshopnote.html?id=7

Excellent article, BTW.  Good discussion on color theory and scale effect

 

Uhm, wow.

Truly gentleman, I have never recieved a more helpful set of responses to an internet query. The links you posted were some of the most informative and useful I have ever seen.

I want to thank you very much and I am in debt to you both.

With gratitude - John Creed

Chances are, all metal pieces would be of black iron (brass/bronze cannon are expensive!!), with wooden gun trucks in any of a number of different color schemes.  Standard merchant ship cannon (which the pirates would have seized) would be in simple dark 'wood ' color, or perhaps something in a medium gray (again, gray paint is cheap, and likely in a merchant ship).  If seized from a navy ship, the gun truck could well be painted in a reddish orange, or simply red (supposedly to disguise blood during battle, to keep spirits high among the crew), and this was common in British and Spanish ships of the time............