The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1889-03-02

out Inc general design. 6uDmltL!n(
their own improvements. The lathe'
in the annexes must largely be new
| ly designed for economical handling
of the hoops and breech mechan
isms.
| Overhead will run two travelling
cranes, each with thirty-ton grip
or total power of sixty, and small
cranes will run on suspended tracks
in the annexes able to hold five-toE
chunks of steel. The lift of the
big fellows will be thirty-fve feet
from the floor. The building will
be single story throughout, of 8
maximum hight of seventy-five feet
1t will be of brick and iron covered
with slate. The south wing will
contain like number of lathes but
will be given over wholly to the
manufacture of sixteen-inch bore
breech-loading rifles. Here Mr..
Victorin believes an average of &c
of these giants can be made in a
year, or 25 at a pinch. The same
production of eight, ten, and twelve
inch guns is allowed for the north
wing. s
Gunmaking is slow business, and
this swift nation, swift at other
things, hasn't woke up too soon.
1t will take two years to complete
the shop for which these plans are
now ready, that is the center and
north wing. The south wing could
be built as quickly if there was
enough money, but there isn't and
that ends it.
Under ordinary circumstances
and luck it requires year to build
a big gun, though when this shop
is complete the department feels
sure that it can be done in nine
months. -s
The steel comes to Watervliet
from the Bethlehem foundry, which
has the 81 100000 contract, rough
forged, oil-tempered. and annealed.
Then the fine work begins.
This fine work has been going on
for a year at Watervliet under adj
verse circumstance, but with excel
lent results. In August, 1887, the
department sent Mr.. Victorin to the
arsenal to rig up gun shop out of
such materials as he could find and
set going. He did it in three months
and, thanks to that move, one s.
inch rifle is now at Sandy Hook,
where it has endured over 200 fir
ings and borne every test, while
another S-inch, one 10-inch, and
twenty-five field pieces of 3 $40
inch bore are almost ready for use.
The engineer found at Watervliet
two 4OO-foot sheds of brick built in
war time for store houses. He
pulled the ceiling and partition out
of one and made a shop out of it.
Everything in the room is a make
shift, but a pretty good one The
big crane and accompanying derrick
were made of couple of cylindri-
cal posts found at Frankford arsen-
al; the tracks and trusses and
cranes out of old gun carriages. A
shrinkage pit twentyfour feet deep
and eight in diameter was dug out
of the rocky floor, an expanding
furnace and 6O-horse power engine
put in, and in November, 1887, the
gunmakers employed went to work,
using a 92-foot lathe with 12O-inch
swing, and a 70-foot with 83-inch
swing.
The output as described repre-
sents the only steel cannon in the
possession of this country available
for coast defense. The navy is bet
ter off, thanks to Secretary Whit
ney, than the artillery branch, but
upon the few splendid pieces of
ordinance completed or in hand at
Watervliet would New York depend
alone to sing a fine song of welcome
to foreign feet from the bomb
proofs of Fort Hamilton or the
heights of Wadsworth and Tomp-
kins.
They could do it. The range of
these new eight and ten-inch rifles
is ten miles, equal to that of the
best European guns, better than
almost anything afloat, and their
effective range is eight miles. Effect
i've range means the distance at
which they can be sighted with
reasonable certainty of hitting what
they are pointed at. But the de-
fensive poverty Of this country was
never more painfully shown than
in the fact that it possesses but one
carriage fit to accommodate mod
ern gun. This is holding up new
8-inch at Sandy Hook. There isn't
another in this country. The car
riages for the old castiron guns are
made mostly at the Watertown ar
senal. Not one of their patterns
will do. To begin with steel gun
of this type is two and one-half
times as long as an iron gun of the
same bore. It decent weigh SO
much by from two 70 four tons even
then, but it kicks harder. This
wrecks carriages. The Ordnance
Department idea is to buy up soue
of the best European carriages and