Delaware State journal and statesman., 1867-10-22
HOW KRUPP's STEEL GUNS ARE
MADE.

One of Krupp's steel thousand-pounders
is at the Paris Exhibition. A correspondent
describes the manner of manufacture as fol-
lows:
The gun consists of an inner tube, strength
ened by rings shrunk on in threeiold layer
over the breech, and twofold layer over
the mnSzle. The inner tube weighs twenty
tons, and has been reduced from an ingot
originally forty and quarter tons in weight
by the removal of the deadhead in turning
and boring. The outer rings are of soft
steel, not tempered; they are made in
the same manner as Krupp's railway tires,
which have attained such celebrity.
large ingot Of crucible cast steel is forged
out into flat rectangular piece correspond
ing with the required weight, and split down
the centre for a certain distance. The slot
is then enlarged and opened out into cir
cular form by inserting and driving through
wedges and cylindrical punches till the
forging assumes the shapes of ring, only
rather less in internal diameter than is re-
qured, so that it may afterwards be bored
out. In the whole ring there is no joint or
weld liable to prove weak point; the metal
becomes condensed IN the process of forging,
and the fbres run in the best direction.
This immense gun was in progress of
manufacture day and night for sixteen months
without Interruption; and as the railway pos
sessed no wagons strong enough to remove
it to Paris, the manufacturer had to construct
its own wagon, which is made of steel and
iron, and weighs twentY-four tons. The
steel gun carriage on which it rests at the ex-
hibtion weighs fifteen tons, and the twenty
FIVE ton tuintable on which it should work
could not be sent to the exhibition for want
of space. Taken as specimen of steel
forging, nothing could possibly be more per-
feet than this monster cannon. From be-
ginning to end of the bore there IS not
fault to be seen, and one is astonished at the
marvellous organization of labor that must
have been required to cast so perfect an in
got, OF such immense size, when it ia re-
membered that the units of melted steel from
which the great mass is formed are not more
than, at the outside, sixty pounds each.
For such a cast as this several hundreds of
men are employed, and the most perfect
precision must be observed in emptying the
crucibles of molten steel al the exact mo-
ment INTO the troughs destined to convey
the metal to the reservoir, and thence to the
mould; for were the stream to cease its con-
tinuous flow the cast would be spoiled. And
then when, long afterwards, the huge forty
ton cylinder, which has been kept at the
heat known as cherry-red, is brought Under
the steam hammer to be forged, who can fai
to wonder at the perfection of the machinery
which enables one man, by movement of
his arm, TO regulate the mass of fifty tons
that falls from height of ten ieet,. with
blows that, though they seem irresistible,
scarcely perceptibly affect the forging? AS
a triumph of the metal workers art, com.
bining both selection of material, casting
and forging, this great gun is almost unrival-
led; and it excites little surprise that the
price put upon it should be nearly $4,000,
or with carriage and turntable complete
e22, 900.