The Roanoke daily times. (Roanoke, Va.) 1895-1897, 1896-08-13
How shot IS DROPPED.
AN INTERESTING PROCESS THAT
Is CENTURIES OLD.
Ancient Method of Sortirg-Many Sizes
of Shot Are Obtained From a Colan-
der in Which the Apertures Are All
of the Same Size


continent In the main the processes
are as simple and rs primitive as those
of the ancient arrow-maker in the land of
the Dacotahs. Shot is made on the edge
of the Swamp about as it is made by the
Mexican peon. But the trade has its
secrets and II certain jealous pride of in
heritance that have operated to hedge il
in from intrusion.
The shot towers of Manhattan Island
looming above the venerable buildings
that surround them, suggest the history
of an earlier day. Their interiors are
dark and grinning and filled with strange
shadows. On either side the great brick
walls, pierced by infrequent portfolios
slope upward into the blackness
Through the gloom men are seen at work
with ladies of boiling metal and caldrons
that send up an alien odor. There are
flashes and CLEANS at the windows,
where the light falls on the leaden hail
that is dropping from its lofty elevation.
Down in the depths the water boils
and sputters rs the molten shot..strike $
it. y cool breeze blows in your face.
and you discover that IL blast of air,
sprayed with moisture, is ascending
from below to meet the dripping metal.
There is Il ella. X of chain machinery as
the shot is elevated from the pool, to be
finished in the heights of the tower
Sometimes fiery glow enveloping the
furnaces shows spectral forms. wreathed
i'll fumes, bending over kettles in which
is brewing the potent witch broth of
war. 1t is all very quaint and unlike.
Many who pass in the street stare with
the vaguest surmise at the slender tower,
and wonder what manner of thing is 90.
ing on inside.
There are four shot towers in New
York. One of them, and the largest, is
the disused pile of bricks Mt the foot of
East Fifty third street. 1t is g. years
cid. The other three are below the bridge
on the east side of the island, but only
two of them are often worked. The out
put of these two places New York at the
head OF the hot-producing cities of the
country. st. Louis is its chief rival, al
though shot is made in half a dozen
other cities. The foreman of one of
these. shot. towers showed the Mail and
Express reporter through the building
this week and explained the different
steps of manufacture.
You first visit the basement where the
alloy is being prepared The raw lead is
neither ductile nor hard enough to as
sumo the globular form or accomplish its
death dealing errand. 1t has to be min
gled with arsenic in the proportion of
~.OO
pounds of the metal. Then the two are
cooked in caldron.. until they boil up like
a fiery sorghum as the sooty-faced work
men stirs the metal with his steel ladle
The arsenic is confined in bag and held
down under an iron cone in the bottom
of the caldron, so that only the fumes
may ascend through the boiling lead
ut will he eight hours before the fires
will be taken from under the alloy ex-
plains the foreman. You follow him TO
the roof.
Here is another kettle and colander.
The latter his a sheet steel sieve for its
bottom and the whole is half foot deep
by little over foot in diameter.
Through it drops the molten metal
that become Il perfectly globular pellet
before it strikes the water in the DEPTHS
of the tower. The kettle is filed with a
compound made by the melting eighty
pounds of the alloy with 500 pounds of
pure lead. The workman ladies it into
the colander, and it oozes out below into
a thousand silvery drops that plunge at
| once into the abyss. And really that is
all there is to shot.making, for the pei
lets are practically ready for ones fowl.
ing piece after they strike the water So
far the process does not differ from that
of century ago But there are other
steps and the foreman explains them:
1T may be news to you but you can
get as many as sixteen sizes OF shot at
the same time from a colander in which
| the apertures are all of a size The CEN
| ter of the collnder is made hotter by the
molten lead than the circumference, and
the hotter the ..colander the smaller the
| shot. They get progressively larger as
| they drop from the apertures approaching
| the circumference. Now, when we get
otr1at .Nr,t,, .s.~ 3
want to cast only that size The problem
of maintaining an equal temperature is
| solved by depositing in the bottom OF the
! sieve about two inches --of lead scum
made by skimming off and saving the top
dressing of raw st. Joe lead. This. when
| heated, has about the consistency of but
| ter, and the molten globulars 90 right
| through it and reappear under the colan-
der. Each shot is larger than The hole
| through which it passes
! The next visit.i to the basement at the
| foot of the drop. n workman holds q
| lantern, and the hardened but still
| heated pellets are seen peppering the sur
| face of the limpid pool into which they
| fall like raindrops on Il lake. An endless
chain with little cups, such as is used in
! grain elevators, lifts them Il second time
to the tower, where they are dried by
| steam heat in revolving cylinder. They
| come down a chute into another revolv.
ing cylinder containing graphite Con-
tact with this substance brighten them
| into the sembance of Silver
| Then follows the simplest and quaint.
| est step in shot-making. y small num-
Der of the pellets are sure to be fiattened
elongated, rough or imperfect in some
way, and these smuse be Separated from
their companions. All come dashing out
of a chute and start on run down four
| polished stone tables set at slight in