The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-06-02
Bottom and, side View of American Enfield

wonders. The bayonet weighs just two ounces over one pound. It is a short sword with point like needle, and of steel so tough that 1t will cut a cent in half if wielded just right. The bayonet is so accurately made that it can be put in or jerlSed out of the gun with twist of the wrist, and still 1t is as tight as thought 1t were a part of the barrel.
 I began my visit to the factory at the water shop, going through one vast room after another, where the forgings brought from the steel plants of different parts of the country, are pounded into shape by enormous hammers run by electricity. These hammers knead the steel, as though 1t was so much dough, into the parts required for the gun. A bayonet, for instance, will start into the forge as Q square bar an inch thick and perhaps two inches long. It will be laid red hot under the hammer and pounded into the long, thin knife which forms the end of the gun. The hammer is direct ed by 8 mechanic, who lays the hot metal under it and sees that it shapes the bar into a bayonet
 It is the same with the barrels. They start in as red-hot billets and pass through steel rollers. which make them longer and longer until they come out
 
 than the barrel of the gun. They are cut off to just the right sizs, and are then run through other machines which press them to the cylindrical shape of the bar rel. After this they must be ground, smoothed and polished. and the holes are bored through them with electric steel drills In this work the drill remains stationary and the machine whiris the barrel arou1d against the drill until the hole Is bored through Then comes the rifling. This Is done by automatic machinery, which runs back and forth through the barrels, cutting the grooves that give the bullet the twist as it whirls or bores it's way through the air.
 Tn other departments I saw them grinding and sharpening the payo- nets, and in others they were testins each bayonet to see that it would slip on and off of the barrel of the gun with the least possible exertion on the part of the soldier. The bayonets are tested as to the quality of the metal in them by tapping each against q piece of steel. The man knows by the ring whether there is any defect. It is just like testing counterfeit dollars. If the metal 10 not right the sound is dead and tue bayonet is thrown to one side.
 In another place I saw them tenn pering the parts of the gun. Every thing must be hardened to Just the rtpht degree. and much of this is done in baths of boiling chemicals. Some of the parts are dipped into cherry rcd mixture of salt, cyanide and soua ash. They como out red hot ana are then dropped into a tub of oil. which bofls with tho heat of the metal Other parts are put into furnace in a crucible filled with bone ash. Tho bono ash is largely carbon, and some of the carbon in the ash goes Into tho outside of the metal making It haf der and less easy to rust. while the insidc remains as tough as 1t was betors treatment.
 do not pretend to understand the science of gun-making and I will not try to describe the various processes saw during my trip through the shops. I will say only that the mak- ing of the guns for our soldiers Is a business which requires extraordi- nary skill and in which everything Is measured and tested to the thickness of a baby's hair. Every bit of metal used in the guns is inspected by the government through chemical and physical analyses before 1t comes here, and the parts are tested again and again as they go through the shops
 The machinery required has to be manufactured by expert toolmakers and there must be thousands of dupli- cate gauges and other machines to equip the plants for large produc- tion went through shop after shop where men and women were measur- ing each of the ninty-odd parts which go into a gun, and I was told that the gauges have to be watched lest they become worn and do not register accurately. Some gauges re- quire replacing for every 4000 or 5000 parts tested. and others do not be- come inaccurate until after double that uSe Tn tasting the harre1s fba