By ALANA MITCHELSON
The world’s smallest working cannon has put a Herne Hill man in the Guinness World Records.
Smaller than a corn kernel, Marcus Hull’s scale-model cannon fires a cannonball a quarter the size of a pen’s ballpoint.
The projectile can pierce kitchen foil from 15cm.
The trained graphic designer and visual artist spent two years researching cannons to build his oak and bronze artillery piece, measuring 6.88mm by 4.34mm by 2.8mm.
Mr Hull had been designing tokens for a new war board game when friends said they were impressed by the detail in his small model of a cannon.
“So I went away and made one half the size to prove that I could make one even smaller, which blew their minds, and someone asked whether I’d thought about trying for a world record.”
In 2013 he approached Guinness headquarters, which sent him rules and guidelines, including the criteria to fulfil for a record.
“It was tricky,“ Mr Hull said.
“The process was a lot more involved than what I thought.
“The mechanics of the cannon itself wasn’t the hard part, the most difficult thing was making the barrel.“
Mr Hull read Guinness World Record books as a child, thinking how impossible each record seemed.
“All of them seemed so far beyond the achievable. I thought about my name and memory being in the records and thought to myself, ’Why not’.
“Over the two years, though, I do think it ended up becoming a bit of an obsession.“
Earlier this year Mr Hull broke an American’s pre-existing record, coincidentally on the fourth of July.
A structural engineer verified Mr Hull’s record as part of his evidence pack for Guinness.
The short-sighted designer had never realised his dexterity and eye for intricate designs until her took on the cannon project.
“Friends asked me how I could make things so tiny without using a magnifying glass or a microscope. They just thought it was really weird.
“I think I surprised myself, really.“
A newfound fascination with all things miniscule has prompted Mr Hull to pursue miniature sculpture art to find out where his talent takes him.
A link to video of the cannon is available with Mr Hull’s story at geelongindy.com.au.
See it to believe it. Watch the world’s smallest cannon launch a minuscule projectile.
