Q. What are "grease-cups"?
A. Brass cups placed on the trunnions of guns to lubricate or oil the trunnions and trunnion-beds.
Q. How are they filled and adjusted?
A. Fill up to the bevel edge of the cup with the special oil provided by the Ordnance Department. The cup is then put on and screwed down until the plunger sticks out one quarter of an inch. By doing this a spring bearing on the plunger is forced to act, causing the plunger to press upon the oil, forcing it into the grooves and channels cut under the trunnions. The plunger should be kept at this distance (¼") from the cap by screwing down the cap from day to day. When the plunger will no longer be pressed out it is known that no more oil is in the cup, and it should be refilled.
Q. State some rules to be observed in painting guns and carriages.
A. The gun is painted gray, and the carriage olive-green. These are the only colors authorized. The entire surface of the gun is painted except where the console, or tray, touches the gun. Two coats annually are usually allowed.
Bronze trays will not be painted. Steel trays, excepting the upper and front surfaces and guide-rails, will be painted the same color as the gun. No parts of the breech-block or mechanism will be painted. The unpainted surfaces will be kept clean and bright with rottenstone and oil or "Putz-pomade."
All steel and iron non-bearing surfaces, both inside and out, will be painted. This includes the exposed parts of shafts (except squared ends), bottom plate of counterweight, ladders, cross-heads, cranks (not handles), cross-head pawls (except teeth), and large bronze pieces, including web and spokes of wheels and cylinder-heads.
The following parts are not painted: All wearing or bearing surfaces, which includes the handles of hand-wheels and cranks, teeth of all gear-wheels, teeth of cross-head pawls, teeth of cross-heads, elevating-rack guides, rollers and surfaces on which they travel, piston-rods, crosshead-guides, etc.
The bronze sight-holders will not be painted, nor will the azimuth and elevating-scales and pointers and the followers of the stuffing-boxes; these parts will be kept clean and, with the exception of the sight-holders, will also be kept bright with rottenstone and oil or "Putz-pomade."