Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-03-24

self. This comes to the plant in the
shape of forgings consisting of the
finest and toughest Of steel. which have
been run through high-power forging
machines. and reduced to the shape of
rough iron pipe of about the same shape
as the shell. This work is done under
enormous pressure. Some OF the ma
chimes for making the forging exert
pressure of 100000 pounds to the square
inch, the metal having been previously
heated in furnace more than 1900 de-
grees Fahrenheit. The forgings are
punched out of billets of steel, the pres
about ten tons to the square inch. BY
means of these enormous pressures the
metal is kneaded like dough into just
the right shape.
This is only the beginning, however.
The hollow, pipe-like forgings have to
be made tougher and harder. Iney mus.
be rounded off into a nose at the front
end and cut by machinery to the exact
shape and size of the gun. After this
they are loaded with their wells of
death and the fuses put in. AS they
come to the factory the forgings have a
tensile strength of something like 49,
900 pounds per square inch; that is,
bar an inch thick would hold up with
out breaking as great weight as
forty horses could haul upon wagons.
This strength is doubled by certain heat
treatment, but this is only after the
forgings have been run through the
lathes and ground and cut into just the
right size The heating is done in an
electric furnace which contains a bath
of chemicals raised to more than 1,400
degrees Fahrenheit. The shells remain
in this bath for half an hour, and they
are then dipped in another bath OF cot
tonseed oil and this into another OIL
bath of different nature when Is
1000 degrees Fahrenheit.
The heating doubles the strength of
the shell and makes it so strong that it
will not burst when the charge in 1t is
exploded The shell has to also be fit
ted with a rifiing band. ribbon of
copper which runs around near the
bottom, and fits into the groove of the
gun, to give it the whirling motion
which is necessary to make 1t ny
straight to its mark. All OF this work
must be exact, and the shell is meas
ured again and again during the proc
ess The girls pass them through
gauges which show their accuracy to
the thousandth of an inch. They have
gauges for the inside of the shell as
we'll as the outside and score or more
different instruments of this kind are
made for testing the work on the
shrapnel. During the making the
shells have to be washed and cleaned
from time to time.
The bullets which are put into the
shrapnel steel shell are not of ordinary
lead They are mixture of lead and an
timony, which is harder than lead. They
not cast, Dut are pressed out OF lead
wire by machinery that will turn out
$40 bullets a minute. Each bullet is
half-inch in diameter and they weigh
about forty-one to the pound. There
are between two and three hundred of
these bullets in the she'll chamber They
are sent forth by a charge of black
powder in the base of the she'll They
are packed around a tube which runs
from the fuse at the front end of the
shell to this powder. a wad of gun cot
ton plugging the pipe just over the
powder. This gun cotton is terribly ex-
plosiye. 1t looks just like cotton; but
il a match touches it, it will go off in
blow you to pieces. AS l looked at
them putting the STUN into the shells
the manager of the works told me how
a rat ate up some not long ago and
how his remains spattered all the sur
roundings.
The manufacture of shrapnel has
greatly improved since the war began.
Americans. and American machine
tools for shell making have been sent
to Europe and are used in the factories
there. The number of shells of shrap-
mel made in this country is almost be-
yond computation. Long before we en-
tered the war our different factories
were turning out hundreds of thou
sands of shrapnel week, and 1t was
due to this demand for munitions that
enabled US to turn out the big product
we are now making. This is SO not
only of shrapnel. but of powder and
explosives of all kinds. Before the war
one company was making about 400.-
per annum. another was turning out
500 twelve-inch shells per day, and q
third making 100000 loaded time fuses
q month. FRANK q. CARPENTER.