Year: 1878

The following description Of the manu-
facture of the celebrated Krupp guns at
Eisen, Germany, although of necessity full
of technical terms vet will be sufficiently
clear to be understood Every visitor to
the Centennial at Philadelphia, will re-
member the big Krupp gun which cost
one hundred thousand dollars to manufac-
ture. The expenses of war in these days
are becoming monstrous to contemplate.
England is making just such expensive
gans as these By the score, and iron-clads
costing two million dollars each to carry
them. What an utter waste Of labor and
sweat of her people If the United
States should ever be at war with foreign
power, how many such guns as these would
be required along the vast stretch Of coast
on the Atlantic, the Gulf and Pacific, to
say nothing of those necessary for our iron
clads on the sea II would seem to be
better to submit to arbitration and even
be cheated out of few millions, rather
than waste so much treasure in conflict
where all that could possibly be gained
would not pay for all that would be lost


The desperate strifes of these days, with
iron-clad ships and forts, with torpedoes,
with giant powder throwing shells of a
half-ton weight from monstrous guns,
make fearful havoc with life and treasure


And when, as is too often the case, the
contest turns upon point or two involving
no real principle Of honor, honesty, or mo-
rality, it makes us wish for the speedy
coming of that day, "when nation shall
not lift up sword against nation, neither
shall they learn war any more"


Krupp guns are made Of solid low cast
steel, manufactured in crucibles. The pig
iron used at the works is manufactured
from ores free from sulphur and phospho-
rus and rich in manganese. Il is manu-
aactured ut the firms various blast fur
rnaces from ore taken from mines owned
by the firm, so that the manufa sture not
af the guns alone, but of the crude mate
riais xsed, is under the same control. All
the metal to be used in the crucibles un-
dergoes a preparatory pudding. One
quality of pig iron is puddled to steel, af-
terward being placed under the hammer
and then passed through the rolls. " hen
taken from the last rolling it is cut up into
rectangular bars, which are broken into
pieces of size suitable for insertion in the
crucibles. Another sort Of pig is puddled
still longer until wrought iron is produced


This, like the crude steel, is rolled, barred
and cut into lengths suitable for transfer
to the cruciblcs. The mixture placed in
the plumbago clay erucibles consists of
the steel and wrought iron in certain pro-
portions, which long practice has shown
to be most advantageous, and of several
other ingredients not known to the outside
world. In the casting department there
are sufficient furnaces TO accommodate
1000 crucibles, having an average capaci-
ty of seventy pounds of metal each.


The proportions of each crucible are
regulated with great accuracy, and con-
slant analyses are made to see that the
ingredients 10 all of the crucibles, to be
used for the casting of a gun, are of the
same quality, so that the grade of steel
poured into the casting pit from the nu-
merous crucibles shall all be the same.


After the manufacture of the steel in
the crueibles, they are carried to the
casting pit. The crucibles are emptied,
as they arrive, into an immense vessel
placed over the mold and tapped from the
bottom. Thus a contiguous stream of
molten steel is kept up until the cast iron
gun mold is full. The fluid steel, rising
in the mold, is constantly stirred to induce
homogeneity and to facilitate the rising of
the scoria, until the contents of the last
crucible have passed in. With such reg
ularity does the work 20 on that the cast
ing of the ingot for the tube Of Seton
14-inch gun is an affair of but compara-
lively few minutes. In about twelve hours
the core is taken out and stream of water
let in. This treatment is continued for
several days until the mass is some
what cooled. The ingot is then hoisted
by a steam crane from the pit, and taken
to the part of the building set apart for
that purpose, where it lies for months with
sister ingots, being kept covered with hot
ashes from the furnaces, which are con.
stantly renewed. The metal, from this
treatment, undergoes a process of anneal-
ing, which softens, toughens and tempers
it. This process, it is claimed, answers
better than the tempering by oil practiced
in England and Russia. After this the
steel ingot is transported on a car to the
smithery, and run, car aud all, into the
heating furnace, preparatory TO the forging.
The heating takes several days, the tenn
perature being kept constant and moder-
ate. On being brought to the required
temperature, the Car and its load are drawn
out and on TO the hammer The heating
Of such large masses Of steel uniformly
throughout without burning the outside,
is an operation of great delicacy, and is
very successfully performed at the Krupp
works. On arriving at the hammer, the
crane chains are placed around the ingoi
and it is hoisted TO the anvil, underneath
the hammer For the immense Bottom
steam hammer, which is the largest in use
at the works, the anvil or casting which
receives the trasmiIted blow weighs 300
600 pounds aud rests upon foundation
which is built up from an excavation 100
feet in depth. After being wrought under
the great steam hammers to give the metal
the texture required and the gun ingot
the necessary form, the tube ingot is taken
to the boring and turning establishments,
where the interior is turned smooth to re


eeiye the first layer of hoops, the breeel
block is cut, and the interior ehannc
is bored out In the operation of turning
the ingot loses half its weight in the lathe