446 LEWIS'S AMERICAN SPORTSMAN. 



in motion, and the whole process completed in a very short time, 

 without any further interference on the part of the workman. 



Turning by steam is far cheaper and even much superior to 

 handwork, as the process of turning with a common hand-lathe is 

 laborious in the extreme, and quite uncertain except in the hands 

 of very superior and skilful mechanics. 



The process of turning by a simple lathe is as follows : The 

 barrel being fixed in the lathe, an inch or so of the surface, both 

 at the breech and muzzle end, is turned to the proper diameter; 

 the rest is then removed to a distance of four or five inches from 

 these points, and another inch or so of the surface at either end is 

 removed, and so on ; great care being taken, however, at each opera- 

 tion, to make the depth of the turning correspond with the size and 

 calibre of the barrel. This part of the process being accomplished, 

 the next step is to file away, by means of an instrument termed a 

 "float," the projecting surfaces of the barrel intervening between the 

 parts cut out by the lathe ; the barrels are now ready for breech- 

 ing and the tests of the proof-house. 



BRAZING AND BREECHING. 



The barrels for double-guns are now filed away at the breech 

 and muzzle, to make them lie against each other snugly, bound 

 together, and then brazed with hard solder or brass for several 

 inches. The practice of brazing is highly censured by Greener, 

 who asserts that by this process the strength of common barrels is 

 diminished twelve and a half per cent., and that of hammer-hard- 

 ened barrels to a still greater extent. His ideas on the subject 

 are doubtless very correct, as the heating of the metal afresh to a 

 white heat, for the purpose of brazing, must necessarily take away 

 a portion of the tenacity or strength which it has already acquired 

 during the process of hammer-hardening. After the brazing, the 

 barrels are tapped or turned out, ready for the reception of the 

 breeches, and then sent to the proof-house. 



