The pieces that fail are all carefully examined with a view to ascertain whether the giving way was owing to a defect in the welding, or to some flaw, or other bad quality, in the iron. The appearance of the rent made by the bursting will always determine this point. The loss of those that failed on account of bad welding is then charged to the respective operatives by whom the work was done, at a dollar for each one so failing. The name of the maker of each is known by the stamp which he put upon it at the time when it passed through his hands.
The barrels that stand this first test are afterward subjected to a second one in order to make it sure that they sustained no partial and imperceptible injury at the first explosion. This done they are stamped with the mark of approval, and so sent to the proper departments to be mounted and finished.
The bayonets, and all the other parts of which the musket is composed are subjected to tests, different in character indeed, but equally strict and rigid in respect to the qualities which they are intended to prove, with that applied to the barrel. The bayonet is very carefully gauged and measured in every part, in order to make sure that it is of precisely the proper form and dimensions. A weight is hung to the point of it to try its temper, and it is sprung by the strength of the inspector, with the point of it set into the floor, to prove its elasticity. If it is found to be tempered too high it breaks; if too low it bends. In either case it is condemned, and the workman through whose fault the failure has resulted is charged with the loss.
THE FORGING
The number of pieces which are used in making up a musket is forty-nine, each of which has to be formed and finished separately. Of these there are only two – viz., the sight and what is called the cone-seat, a sort of process connected with the barrel – that are permanently attached to any other part; so that the musket can at any time be separated into forty-seven parts, by simply turning screws, and opening springs, and then put together again as before. Most of these parts are such that they are formed in the first instance by being forged or rather swedged, and are afterward trimmed and finished in lathes, and milling engines, or by means of files. Swedging, as it is called, is the forming of irregular shapes in iron by means of dies of a certain kind, called swedges, one of which is inserted in the anvil, in a cavity made for the purpose, and the other is placed above it. Cavities are cut in the faces of the swedges, so that when they are brought together, with the end of the iron rod out of which the article to be formed between them, the iron is made to assume the form of the cavities by means of blows of the hammer upon the upper swedge. In this way shapes are easily and rapidly fashioned, which it would be impossible to produce by blows directed immediately upon the iron.
The shop where this swedging work is done at the Armory contains a great number of forges, one only of which however is fully represented in the engraving. The apparatus connected with these forges, differing in each according to the particular operation for which each is intended, is far too complicated to be described in this connection. It can only be fully understood when seen in actual operation under the hands of the workman. The visitor however who has the opportunity to see it thus, lingers long before each separate forge, pleased with the ingenuity of the contrivances which he witnesses, and admiring the wonderful dexterity of the workman. There is no appearance of bellows at any of these works. The air is supplied to the fires by pipes ascending through the floor from a fan blower, as it is called, worked by machinery arranged for the purpose below.
THE STOCKING SHOP
The Stocking Shop, so called, is the department in which the stocks to which the barrel and the lock are to be attached, are formed and finished. The wood used for gun stocks in this country is the black walnut, and as this wood requires to be seasoned some years before it is used, an immense store of it is kept on hand at the Armory – sufficient in fact for four years' consumption. The building in which this material is stored may be seen on the right hand side in the general view placed at the head of this article. It stands off from the square, and behind the other buildings. The operations conducted in the stocking shop are exceedingly attractive to all who visit the establishment. In fact it happens here as it often does in similar cases, that that which it is most interesting to witness is the least interesting to be described. The reason is that the charm in these processes consists in the high perfection and finish of the machines, in the smoothness, grace, and rapidity of their motions, and in the seemingly miraculous character of the performances which they execute. Of such things no mere description can convey any adequate idea. They must be seen to be at all appreciated.
A gun stock, with all the innumerable cavities, grooves, perforations, and recesses necessary to be made in it, to receive the barrel, the lock, the bands, the ramrod, and the numerous pins and screws, all of which require a separate and peculiar modification of its form, is perhaps as irregular a shape as the ingenuity of man could devise – and as well calculated as any shape could possibly be to bid defiance to every attempt at applying machinery to the work of fashioning it. The difficulties however in the way of such an attempt, insurmountable as they would at first sight seem, have all been overcome, and every part of the stock is formed, and every perforation, groove, cavity, and socket is cut in it by machines that do their work with a beauty, a grace, and a perfection, which awaken in all who witness the process, a feeling of astonishment and delight.
The general principle on which this machinery operates, in doing its work, may perhaps be made intelligible to the reader by description. The action is regulated by what are called patterns. These patterns are models in iron of the various surfaces of the stock which it is intended to form. Let us suppose, for example, that the large cavity intended to receive the lock is to be cut. The stock on which the operation is to be performed is placed in its bed in the machine, and over it, pendant from a certain movable frame-work of polished steel above, is the cutting tool, a sort of bit or borer, which is to do the work. This borer is made to revolve with immense velocity, and is at the same time susceptible of various other motions at the pleasure of the workman. It may be brought down upon the work, and moved there from side to side, so as to cut out a cavity of any required shape; and such is the mechanism of the machine that these vertical and lateral motions may be made very freely without at all interfering with the swift rotation on which the cutting power of the tool depends. This is effected by causing the tool to revolve by means of small machinery within its frame, while the frame and all within it moves together in the vertical and lateral motions.
Now if this were all, it is plain that the cutting of the cavity in the stock would depend upon the action of the workman, and the form given to it would be determined by the manner in which he should guide the tool in its lateral motions, and by the depth to which he should depress it. But this is not all. At a little distance from the cutter, and parallel to it is another descending rod, which is called the guide; and this guide is so connected with the cutting tool, by means of a very complicated and ingenious machinery, that the latter is governed rigidly and exactly in all its movements by the motion of the former. Now there is placed immediately beneath the guide, what is called the pattern, that is a cavity in a block of iron of precisely the form and size which it is intended to give to the cavity in the wooden stock. All that the workman has to do therefore, when the machine is put in motion is to bring the guide down into the pattern and move it about the circumference and through the centre of it. The cutting tool imitating precisely the motions of the guide, enters the wood, and cutting its way in the most perfect manner and with incredible rapidity, forms an exact duplicate of the cavity in the pattern. The theory of this operation is sufficiently curious and striking – but the wonder excited by it is infinitely enhanced by seeing the work done. It is on this principle substantially that all the machines of the Stocking Shop are constructed; every separate recess, perforation, or groove of the piece requiring of course its own separate mechanism. The stocks are passed from one of these engines to another in rapid succession, and come out at last, each one the perfect fac-simile of its fellow.
DIVISION OF LABOR
We have said that the number of separate