GUN-BORING MACHINE.
GUN-MOULD.
“Ordnance,” or great guns are made of cast-iron or of gun-metal (a mixture of copper and tin), but experiments have lately been made with wrought-iron and cast-steel, with the view of obtaining a tougher and more durable material. They are cast solid, and afterwards bored with a machine. The following account of gun-casting at Woolwich Arsenal appeared in the “Times” of January 22, 1858:—“As the plug was drawn the glowing mass leapt out like a stream of silver, filling up the moulds for two twelve-pounder howitzers that were to be cast, and leaving a bright, hungry-looking flame playing over them, making everything red-hot which it approached. In this workshop about twenty men and boys produce twelve brass guns per week, as well as tangent-scales for ships’ guns, lock-covers, brass fittings for machinery, &c., and iron castings. Each gun cast requires two days to cool, when it is removed to the turnery to be bored; and it was to this workshop that the royal party next proceeded, and saw the guns in all their stages of trimming, finishing, and boring. Three-quarters of an hour suffice to cut a gun to its proper length and remove the rough sand which adheres to it after casting. It is then turned over to another man and another machine, and the whole of its outside shaping and marking is completely finished in two days, when it is again turned over to a fresh machine, and bored and drilled ready for service in a day-and-a-half more. With the present machinery the turnery at Woolwich could finish thirty brass guns in a week, though at this time it never completes more than ten or twelve.”
FIG. 6.
The ordinary form of “gun” is shown by [fig. 6]. The knob at the right-hand side of the cut is called the “button,” the next division the “vent field,” beyond this to the rim the “first reinforce,” further on, the “second reinforce,” from which a cylindrical bar projects on each side for attaching the gun to the carriage, called “trunnions.” Beyond this to the next rim is called the “chace,” and beyond this again to the end the “muzzle.” Guns are chiefly used to throw solid round shot of cast-iron, accurately turned to a sphere, and the weight of these determines the character of the gun, as a thirty-two pounder, &c., the words “heavy” and “light” designating the thickness and consequent weight of the metal composing it. There is a smaller and shorter kind of gun, called a “carronade,” which is held to the carriage by a projection underneath, having a hole for a bolt to secure it, instead of trunnions. Another kind of gun, called a “howitzer,” is of shorter proportions than the ordinary gun and larger in the bore; it is chiefly intended to throw shells at a slight elevation. The mortar is still shorter, and of much thicker metal; it is held to a sort of platform by trunnions at its extreme end, and is intended to throw shells to great distances, and at a great elevation.
BULLET-CASTING, WOOLWICH ARSENAL.
