The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-02-10
AMONG THE GUNS AND SHELLS.

senal--Making Wheels for Gun Car
 riages
 One of the most curious of the sight'
 at Woolwich is the making of the cart
 ridge eases for the Nordenfeldt ant
 Hotchkiss guns The process is very
 similar to that employed in the making
 of the cases for bullets described il
 these columns the other day, only that
 instead of taking a little flat disk ol
 metal, say, as big as a shilling, anc
 squeezing and stretching it into bull
 let case perhaps three-elghths of an inct
 in diameter and somewhere about one
 and half long, the machines for the
 large missiles may start with what
 looks to be a circular slab of brass
 three-quarters of an inch thick and as i big as the crown of your hat. In much { the same way as the bullet caseG are
 formed these solid slabs of metal are forced by Irresistible piston power
 through series of holes rather toe small for them. The piston drives right into the middle Of the disk, and squeezes 1t into the hole and out the other eide.
 Just as one forces his finger into a tight fitting glove, so the pistons in these successive machine drive into the cup formed of the solid metal, and with the more apparent ease and snothness than the glove stretching, the metal cup is elongated until it has become a tube, closed at one end, perhaps six inches in diameter and a foot and a half long, or thereabouts. These are to be filled with cordite. In the middle of the cordite, however, is a little pow der magazine for exploding 1t, the pow der itself being first fired by fuse. In the firing of the shrapnel shells this fuse is little piece of clockwork that may be set like an alarm, to go off af- ter a certain interval, so that the firing of every shell may be taken to involve the throwing of timepiece at the ene- my
 The gun carriage shops are extremely interesting, more particularly the mak ing of the wheels. The actual carri- ages are complicated structures of metal for the most part, and the uninitiated stranger can do little more than stroll through the vast wilderness of ma chimes that are drilling and boring and turning and punching and slotting in the hardest of metals aa though ti were chalk or cheese. They have a huge circular plane' in one of the shops. The thing IS ponderous crossbeam turning on a central pivot and cover ing a circular space for twenty-five feet in diameter Over this space the cross beam thrusts down some half dozen tools, each capable of blaming away the surface of the hardest steelas easily as a carpenter will take off shavings from q deal plank. One of the6e tools brought to bear on plate of steel ad- justed not 'too far from the centre of the machine-where of course 1t Is most strip off a shaving an inch wide and sixteenth of an inch thick. In connection with this gun car riage work they have steam hammer, but nobody takes much notice of that. It is puny affair that might be un- pleasant to get down upon a bad corn, but compared with the big one further off is not much thought of. The ham, mer itself weighs only seven tons, and It strikes a steam engine blow of 40 tons. That is all. What Is that com pared with a hammer of a hundred tons coming downwith a drive of a thousand -ons. Yet either of these machines will track a nut without damaging the ker- lel if required.
 But the making of the wheels is the orettiest part of the gun carriage fac .ory at Woolwich. These wheels must lot only carry very heavy weight of metal, but they may be required to go zI.t. leels of a team of horses going at the op of their speed. They may go plung ng down into trenches or humping ,ver rocks, and the giving way of wheel means the disabling of the guns. Every part of every wheel, therefore, is l he subject of the closest study, and | hough they are made of wood for light | less they. are practically unbreakable | inder almost any conditions of strain. | The box in the centre of the wheel, l trough which the axle runs, is made | if gun metal; the spokes are of oak | nd the outer rim of ash.
 Th3 cutting and turning of the srokes. re particularly pretty processes to watch. They are oval in form, and they 1 re turned with copying lathe. The
  Il iron. This iron model is part of the and from 1t the wooden copy 5 exactly reproduced. Every spoke is hus bound to be exactly true in form. The fitting of them into the box, build 1g round the outer rim in sections and $ swift revolution against cutting Jade and all are effected with an ease nd precision and celerity that give you lmost the impression of natural pro- ess.
 The completion of the wheel is the ap- lication of the tire. In the making of rdinary Whels the iron tire is put on adhot, when, of course, it is consider bly, expanded When it has been firm secured to the wood it is plunged in- ) cold water, and the sudden contrac on tightens it up But there is no eating of this stout steel band. It is )rced onto the whel quite cold, and len it is laid in a circular bed with 1 { 0werful hydraulic rams all round it. l it all round there is a grooming and creaking as of some Wretched body Z nder torture. The spokes are forced to the box, the rim is driven in upon le spolles, and the cold steel tire is I ghtened round the rim, the solid metal I self being contracted and condensed, Id thus losing no less than five inches t its circumference The wheel of gun ( etal oak and ash and steel is thus \