AT SHEFFIELD.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15612, 9 June 1916, Page 9

AT SHEFFIELD.

MANUFACTURE-OF MUNITIONS

A Christchurch resident lias received the following very interesting description of a Sheffield munition factory from a friend, late of Christchurch, who is employed there :—

The works arc very extensive, and cover a good many acres of ground, being divided up into various departments. each liaving their owp name, as "East Gun Shop." "South Gun Shop," "Gun Shop," and so on. At present there aro 11,000 men employed here. The hours of working are long, from 6 in tho morning till 5 p.m., then from 5 p.m. till 6 in the morning (night shift). On arriving you enter a large enclosed building, and round tho sides aro furnaces, not small forges, but largo >rick furnjices, thirty, forty, or sixty feet deep (according to the size of gfe to bo Treated and forged). Then •when tho gun. or rather the metal from which tho gun has to be made, has been placed in position in the- furnace. the front of the furnace is built up with firebrick and the metal is then heated with gas (everything is heated with gas),- and takes about 14 or lo hours to get to the desired heat. Tho metal is then drawn from tho Bessemer furnace and handled by cranes (electric) just as easily as you would handle a piece of wood, then conveyed to a hammer, 100 tons power, and forged to the required size with apparent ease. Some of these pieces of. metal weigh 60 to 70 tons, so that appliances used must bo in esress of tho weight to bo handled. A fifteen-inch gun ("Queen Lizzie") weighs when complete 98 tons, and is G3 feet long. Tho bl-eech block alone weighs 5 tons. "Wo do not mount the guns here; they aro all sent to Barrow-in-Furness to be mounted, but every part of the gun is mado so accurately that, while it is manufactured in Sheffield and the monntings in Barrow, they go together like clockwork— simply placed in position and bolted up, then desoatched to their destination. I am working in what is called the tool room. This is a room where appliances and tools of extreme accuracy aro made with which various parts arc constructed and finished. ~Wo are sometimes allowed a one-thousandth part of an inch limit of error in our finished work, sometimes not that much.