The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-05-10
AMONG GUNS AND SHELLS.
Some Curious sights In the Arsenal
Mt WOoIwich.

from the London News.
One of the most curious of the sights at
Woolwich is the making of the cartridge
cases for the Nordenfeldt and Hotchkiss
guns. The process is very similar to that
employed in the making of the cases for
bullets described in these columns the
other day only that instead of taking
little fiat disk of metal. say, as big as
a shilling, and squeezing and stretching
II into q bullet case perhaps three-eighths
of an inch in diameter. and somewhere
about one and half long. the machines
for the large missiles may start with
what looks to be circular slab of brass
three-quarters of an inch thick and as big
as the crown of your hat. In much the
same way as the bullet cases ore formed
these solid slabs of metal are forced by
irresistible piston power through a series
OF holes rather too small for them. The
piston drives right into the middle of
che disk, and squeezes 1t into the hole
and out the other side.
Just as one forces his finger into
ught-htting glove, so the pistons in these
successive machines drive into the cup
formed of the solid metal, and with more
apparent ease and smoothness than the
glove stretching the metal cup is mar
rowed and elongated until ii has become a
tube, closed at one end. perhaps six inches
in diameter and a foot and half long,
or thereabouts. These are to be filed
with cordite. In the middle of the cordite,
however. is a little powder magazine for
exploding 1t, the powder itself being first
fired by fuse. In the firing Of shrapnel
shells this fuse is a little piece of clock
work that may be set like an alarm, TO
go off after a certain interval, SO that the
firing of every shell may be taken to In
Volve the throwing of timepece at the
enemy.
The gun carriage shops are extremely
interesting, more particularly the making
of the wheels The actual carriages are
complicated structures of metal for the
most part. and the uninitiated stranger
can do little more than stroll through
the vast Wilderness of machines that are
drilling and boring and turning and
punching and slotting in the hardest of
metal as though 1t were chalk or cheese.
They have a huge Circular plane" in one
of the shops The thing is a ponderous
cross beam turning on a central pivot
and covering a circular space for TWEEN
ty-five feet in diameter. over this space
the cross-beam thrusts down some half
dozen tools, each capable of planning away
the surface of the hardest steel as easily
as a carpenter will take off shavngs from
a deal plank One of these tools brought
TO bear on a plate of steel adjusted not
too far from the center of the machine
where, of course, 1t is most powerful
will strip off a shaving an inch wide and
a sixteenth of an inch thick. In connec-
ton with this gun carriage work they
have a steam hammer, but nobody takes
much notice of that. 1t is a puny affair
that might be unpleasant to get down
upon a bad corn, but compared with the
big one further off Is not thought much
of. The hammer itself weighs only
seven tons, and it strikes q steam engine
blow of 140 tons. That is all. What Is
that compared with a hammer of 100 tons
coming down with a drive of 1000 tons?
Yet either of these machines will crack a
nut without damaging the kernel If re-
quired.
But the making of the wheels is the
prettiest part of the gun carriage factory
at Woolwich. These wheels must not
only carry a very heavy weight Of metal.
but they may be required to go dashing
across a rough country at the heels of a
team of horses going at the top of their
speed They may go plunging down into
trenches or humping over rocks, and the
giving way of a wheel means the dis
abling of the guns. Every part OF every
wheel, therefore is the subject OF the
closest study and though they are made
of wood for lghtness they are practical
w unbreakable under almost any condi-
lions of strain. The box In the center
of the wheel through which the axle
runs. Is made Of gun metal; the spokes
are of oak and the outer rim Of ash.
The cutting and turning Of the spokes
are particularly pretty processes 10
watch. They are oval in form, and they
are turned with copying lathe. The
required form of the spoke is produced In
iron This iron model is part OF the ma
chine, and from It the wooden copy is
exactly reproduced. Every spoke is thus
bound 20 be exactly true In form. Inc
fitting of them into the box, the building
round the outer rim in sections and its
swift revolution against cutting blade
are all effected with an ease and precision
and celebrity that give you almost the M
preston Of natural process.
The completion Of the wheel is the APP
pltcation Of the tire. In the making or
ordinary wheels the iron tire is put on
red hot when, of course, II is consider
oblv expanded. When 1t has been firmly
secured to the wood Il Is plunged into cold
water. and the sudden contraction tight
ems II up But there is no heating OF
this stout steel band. 1t is forced onto
the wheel quite cold. and then 1t is laid
in a circular bed with powerful hydraulic
rams all around it. AS the water power
begins TO crush in upon IL all round there
is a grooming and a creaking as of some
wretched body under torture. The spokes
are forced into the box, the rim Is driven
i'm upon the spokes. and the cold steel tire
is tighAened round the rim the solid metal
iieAif being contracted and condensed,
and then losing no less than five inches
Of its circumference. The wheel Of gun
metal oak and ash and steel is thus
tiehtened. and compacted into a whole
almost without any joints whatever, and,
the pressure being perfectly circular form
Is secured. 1t is the very perfection OF
the wheelwrights craft, and can DO seen
only in first-class work.
-s-s--s------
Many prominent railroad men have
baen matching the competitive tests of