MECHANICS AND USEFUL AKTS. 101 



centage to its value. The hand made barrels generally used for good flour 

 cost in New York State from 35 to 45 cents each, and in many milling loca- 

 lities as high as 60 cents ; while barrels made sufficiently tight for containing 

 oil are sold at nearly or quite five cents for each gallon of cubical contents. 



A machine, or rather set of machines, designed for the purpose of manu- 

 facturing the parts of a barrel with perfection equalling or excelling that of 

 hand labor, has been lately invented and put in use by Mr. Geo. TV. Liver- 

 more of Cambridgeport, Mass. The practical working of the invention leaves 

 no room for doubt that it is capable of producing barrels absolutely perfect in 

 form, strength, and tightness, as well as in beauty of appearance. This last 

 element depends in a high degree on the perfection of the planing machine 

 previously employed upon the stuff, a species of machinery of which the 

 powers are well understood, and therefore may be passed over very slightly. 



In Mr. Livermore's invention the staves are " shaped" by a process some- 

 what analogous to the steaming and bending in common use, or perhaps still 

 more to the ship timber bending about which some noise was made a few 

 years since, but which, like the electric telegraph in the country legislator's 

 grave opinion, " would do well enough for small bundles, but never for large 

 packages." In one vitally important point, however, it differs from any such 

 process, and that is its instantaneous action. The bending is accomplished in 

 a twinkling by passing the flat sawed stave, after smoothing it in a Wood- 

 worth's planing machine and exposure to a mixture of air and steam at about 

 310 degrees Fah., through a series of some half dozen pairs of slowly revolving 

 rollers, so shaped and disposed as to curl it both edgewise and endwise, and 

 at the same time slightly compress and fill its pores. The wood slightly 

 straightens itself again as it leaves the rolls, and then retains its form under 

 all circumstances with a very commendable pertinacity. The previous sawing 

 of the stuff is done as usual by circular saws, and the seasoning by a few 

 hours' exposure in a suitable kiln. The previous planing having reduced the 

 stuff to an uniform thickness, the only remaining operations of interest are 

 crozing the grooves across the ends to receive the heads, bevelling the chimes, 

 and jointing and planing the edges. These operations are all performed by 

 the same machine, each stave being separately clamped in a horizontally 

 swinging frame, an operation which springs it into its correct form, whatever 

 may be the tendency of its own elasticity. This clamping is performed very 

 rapidly by a single movement of a lever operated by hand ; and by urging the 

 frame first against a rapidly working vertical plane on one side, and then against 

 a similar planing device on the other, the edges are jointed with perfect 

 smoothness, and in the perfect varying bevel desired, while the operations of 

 crozing, sawing off, and chamfering at each end, are done by circular cutters 

 revolving on a vertical shaft, past which the stave is compelled to move in the 

 transition. The heads are turned in a lathe, being chucked in as many sepa- 

 rate pieces as desired, by a very simple and familiar arrangement. 



In the size ordinarily wrought sixteen staves of equal size are required for 

 a barrel. A set of machines consists of one shaper, one head-cutter, and four 

 jointing machines. The shaping is performed at the rate of twenty staves, or 

 1 barrels per minute. The jointers each finish four staves per minute, and 



