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Norwich Connecticut Armory in 1864
Norwich Connecticut Armory in 1864
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Nook version of vintage magazine article originally published in 1864. Contains 44 Nook pages with 15 illustrations.
Lots of great illustrations seldom seen in the last 140 years.
Read excerpt -
A musket is certainly a very simple piece of mechanism when seen casually in its finished state; but the reader would hardly so consider it after watching the myriad varying and wonderful processes by which it is produced, and the marvelous machinery employed in its construction. His estimation of the work may possibly be very considerably heightened by a knowledge of the one little fact that each arm, simple as it looks, is made up of no less than forty-nine distinct parts, all of which, except two that remain permanently attached to other parts, may be taken to pieces and put together again, in the space of a few minutes, simply by loosening screws and opening, or shutting springs that any one of the half-hundred pieces can be used with-out failure in the breadth of a hair in connection with any or all other parts of any one of a million of guns, so wonderfully precise is the machinery employed in its unerring operations. Then, too, not only is the gun thus divided into so many distinct pieces, all accurately fitting any part of any other gun, but the number of separate operations made upon each and every weapon amounts to more than four hundred, no two of which are performed by the same hand, and are, indeed, all so distinct in their character that the artisan employed upon one may have and generally has no knowledge whatever of any other.
The most curious part of the gun in its construction, though by no means the most vital in its use, is perhaps the stock, which in shape is so mysteriously eccentric, and runs riot in such a marvelous maze of grooves, and cavities, and sockets - of planes and perforations - that it would seem to be utterly impossible to fashion it by any species of machinery, or in any way except by the laborious hand process. And such indeed was the ease with us, as with all the rest of the arms-making world, until the now eminent machinist, Thomas Blanchard, formerly of Springfield, and now of Boston, Massachusetts, had the wonderful wit to invent a machine for the turning of irregular forms, which he speedily adapted to the manufacture of gun-stocks, and introduced into the Springfield Armory about the year 1820. Since that period the stock has been always made here by machinery, and - borrowing our models to some extent - also in the British and other European works. It is very much to this great invention, which made so complete a revolution in the armorer's art, that America owes her proud pre-eminence over all the world in this high department of human ingenuity and industry. Mr. Blanchard's discovery is now made available in a thousand manufactures of irregular forms besides that of the gun-stock; such as axe-handles, shoe-lasts, and even in the accurate copying of the choicest productions of the chisel.
Lots of great illustrations seldom seen in the last 140 years.
Read excerpt -
A musket is certainly a very simple piece of mechanism when seen casually in its finished state; but the reader would hardly so consider it after watching the myriad varying and wonderful processes by which it is produced, and the marvelous machinery employed in its construction. His estimation of the work may possibly be very considerably heightened by a knowledge of the one little fact that each arm, simple as it looks, is made up of no less than forty-nine distinct parts, all of which, except two that remain permanently attached to other parts, may be taken to pieces and put together again, in the space of a few minutes, simply by loosening screws and opening, or shutting springs that any one of the half-hundred pieces can be used with-out failure in the breadth of a hair in connection with any or all other parts of any one of a million of guns, so wonderfully precise is the machinery employed in its unerring operations. Then, too, not only is the gun thus divided into so many distinct pieces, all accurately fitting any part of any other gun, but the number of separate operations made upon each and every weapon amounts to more than four hundred, no two of which are performed by the same hand, and are, indeed, all so distinct in their character that the artisan employed upon one may have and generally has no knowledge whatever of any other.
The most curious part of the gun in its construction, though by no means the most vital in its use, is perhaps the stock, which in shape is so mysteriously eccentric, and runs riot in such a marvelous maze of grooves, and cavities, and sockets - of planes and perforations - that it would seem to be utterly impossible to fashion it by any species of machinery, or in any way except by the laborious hand process. And such indeed was the ease with us, as with all the rest of the arms-making world, until the now eminent machinist, Thomas Blanchard, formerly of Springfield, and now of Boston, Massachusetts, had the wonderful wit to invent a machine for the turning of irregular forms, which he speedily adapted to the manufacture of gun-stocks, and introduced into the Springfield Armory about the year 1820. Since that period the stock has been always made here by machinery, and - borrowing our models to some extent - also in the British and other European works. It is very much to this great invention, which made so complete a revolution in the armorer's art, that America owes her proud pre-eminence over all the world in this high department of human ingenuity and industry. Mr. Blanchard's discovery is now made available in a thousand manufactures of irregular forms besides that of the gun-stock; such as axe-handles, shoe-lasts, and even in the accurate copying of the choicest productions of the chisel.
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