Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1917-04-20

weigh three and One-half hundred
weight apiece-and put into the FORCES,
and when they are white hot they are
dropped into hydraulic machine
which both pierces and shapes them
and from which they emerge, after a
pressure of $50 tons, in the shape Of
nine-inch shells.
That is the first operation out of
more than score of Quite separate
operations. Then the rough carcass is
''centered," its nose is bored, it's cav
ity is bored, and the screw-thread is
milled In the cavity, the beautiful
''sink-and-wave" channels are cut in
to go, the base plug is fitted (and no
mortal power could unscrew that base
plug once ii Is screwed in), the inside
is polished and vanished and the var
nish dried, the base is faced"
Then comes the copper-band bust
ness. which resembles in it's finish the
jewelers. craft. The copper band is
damned on by incredible main force, but
after 1t is on ii is treated with the
most astounding finesse, and the shell
leaves that series of operations gleam-
ing with its cut and carved bangle.
You see it next in the painting room,
where everything and everybody is of
yellOwish-brown color and where
there is not such thing as brush ex-
cept the floor sweeper. The paint is
sprayed on to the shells as they hang
in rows and thus the painting is ac-
cOmplished with an evenness. pre-
cisiOn, and a celebrity which would ia
tally shock house-painters. A few
yards further, and the shells are dried
i'm gas-heated cupboards and out of
these cupboards they are waited into
an ordinary railway wagon and they
disappear from the factory forever.
They are net yet truly shells. They
are only shell-cases. They travel every
where to be filled. Therefore you do
not witness either the beginning of the
work (the steelmaking) or the end of
it. The metal, as far as you are con
cerned. springs from one mystery and
vanishes away into another.
men Able to Endure More.
l have catalOgued by no means all
the operations, and l have given no
hint of the important differences in
the two nevertheless similar processes
for nine-inch shells and for six-inch
shells. / have offered only a general
indication. and space will not permit
more. 1t should be added that some
or the operations are done exclusively
by men (such as forging) and some
exclusively by women (such as paint
ing) and some equally by men and
women. For example. there are four
bays" of nose and body-boring ma
chimes, two bays for each sex. l was
told that in the briefer operations de-
close concentration the wom-
en- rivaled and perhaps excelled the
men, whereas in the long, tedious Op-
eratiOns (nOt demanding physical
strength) the men easily beat the wom-
en-, whose attitude was apt to be: "Oh,
bother! I've had enough of this ex-
dullnessi"
Another aspect of the colossal or
ganism is the checking and testing
aspect. If you examine this long
enough you will become obsessed by
1t, so that you will arrive at the stage
OF thinking that the manufacture of
shells consists chiefly in checking and
testing. Every shell, as soon as it has
cooled from the redhot condition, is
provided with its biography, which it |
bears on card in its cavity. Every
where on the walls are tabular state |
ments which are continually being add |
ed to. At every corner stand girls |
and men writing down figures in note |
books.
Every shell is gagged for all it's d. |
mensions. 1t is also weighed, for a |
shell may be right in dimensions and |
yet wrong in weight, in which case |
It won't do. Every gauge is periOdi- |
cally tested by experts in the gauge
testing room. And certain percent
age of shells, when they are almost |
finished, are deliberately sawed to
pieces again, and samples of their steel |
turned into bars Of a given diameter.
md these bars are fractured-or rath-
n pulled in twO-by machines of a
given power, and the quality of the
steel. thus laid bare for inspection. In
he fracturing room On shelves are
thousands of fractured bars with their
jagged ends exposed, and In them you
an see how steel differs. Under the
errific influences of the pulling ma
hines the finest steel behaves rather
Ike stale bread.
Finally, in addition to the factory
ests and the government tests within
he factory, there is the government
outside test, for which some shells 90
nto the sacred bondrOOm, where no
person may enter and
whence the chosen shells are removed
or realistic trials in distant spots.
When that is over all has been done
hat can be done to furnish the ar
Illeryman with, an utterly reliable
hell-case.
Product Of Creative Brains.
And lastly there is the esOteric as
ect and unless you have eyes to see
his aspect you will never get the
'ational Projectile Factory in true
mean the aspect of
ne creative brains, invisible and vet
-.