Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1887 — The Great Guns of England. [ARTICLE]

The Great Guns of England.

England's big guns are made of liars such as just described, coiled spirally, and Welded into solid mass by the hammer. These red hot furnaces contain a straight bar; at a word the door is slightly raised, and with huge nippers its head is seized by loops made for tho purposk A steam winch draws out the glowing mass, and brings it to a horizontal capstan fixed before the door. A water hose is turned upon the loop, and while it blackens under the chill a stalwart fellow, wielding a heavy sledge, fixes the loop on a nut projecting from the capstan wheel. Then the machine revolves with resistless force, curling the hot metal round and round on its drum neatly and smoothly, a£d as easily as one of Jordan-Marsli’s girls would wind ribbon. Ho the coil is formed, whether for the breech piece or the body of the gun, or for its jacket. This again is cooled, and after a while is refined for welding-under the hammer. You ought to see the Woolwich hammer. It weighs forty tons sheer weight, and when it drops it falls forty feet on to a block that rests on spiles, massive masonry and enormous quantities of iron. Between two great shafts this hammer is suspended, a solid block, which, driven from above by steam, and gathering impetus as it fall, strikes with a force of many hundred tons. A veteran workman has charge of this massive hammer. He starts and drops it by a touch of his thumb and finger. I saw an open face watch laid down on the block; then he dropped the hammer, and he stopped it just in time to break the crystal—and nothing more. They call this last operation of the furnace the “great heat,” and about every monarch there is in Europe has seen it, just as I did yesterday. While I am wondering what. they thought about it, the furnace to be emptied is firing with impatience. Through the interstices of its great door blue, red and purple flames are leaping nut. A huge crane swings round a pair of pincers, at the end of which a dozen Britons cluster. The door rises a little, the white light blinds us, and, although I am at least twenty yards away, the heat burns my face uncomfortably. Water is thrown into the awful gap, and then the men perceive their prey. The huge arms part and firmly close, the door rises to its fullest extent, a clash of the crane gear, a shout from the men and out it comes, easily and softly, a monstrous coil. The crane swings about and places it on end upon the anvil. Then the hammer falls, shaking the solid floor beneath us, crushing the red-hot mass inches down at a blow, welding its coils together so that they can never part. But the inside hollow has been knocked out of shape by this process, so, when the tube has beefi reduced to its proper length, a solid mandril is deftly slipped betwixt the hammer and the iron. For two or three blows the contracted coil attempts resistance, but it gives way, and the. mandril slips to its base, as into butter. Then the great pincers are used again, and it drops the mass on its side, where again it is battered and struck all around. The irregularities caused by all this hammering are afterward removed by the plane; as I have already mentioned, and then the gun is made by other machinery.—Cor. Boston Herald.