818 ' REPORT — 1886. 



The barrel is next taken to the chiming machine, where, while it is held in a 

 horizontal position between two cones mounted on a lathe bed, cutters mounted on 

 poppet heads and revolving at a very high speed are made to act simultaneously 

 on both ends of the cask. 



The heads are rounded on a special machine; the boards, havir.g been first 

 crosscut to length, are placed side by side between two circular cramp plates 

 revolving at a high speed, a fixed cutter being made at the same time to act on 

 the periphery. 



The practical result of the introduction of the machinery above referred to is 

 that a cement cask, which the hand cooper was formerly paid 8^d. for making, can 

 now be produced for a total outlay in wages of about 2ld., of which 2d. represents 

 the cost of hooping and headino- up after leaving the machines, and it is now 

 probable that, by an invention just patented by Mr. Hewitt, foreman cooper at 

 Messrs. Bazley, White & Bros.' extensive cement works at Northfleet, the cost of 

 hooping and heading will be reduced by fuUy one half This invention consists in 

 trussing the barrel in its permanent hoops, which are of steel, and four in number, 

 leavino- nothing to be done by hand but to fix the heads in place. A sample barrel 

 trussed in this manner is exhibited. 



The American slack barrel, a sample of which is also exhibited, is usually made 

 of elm or some other comparatively hard wood, the staves being cut in such a 

 manner as to make them, in section, curved to the approximate curcle of the barrel. 

 This is done by means of a slicing machine, in which the block, after being well 

 steamed, is forced against a fixed knife, the wood being caused to describe a short 

 arc of a circle as the knife passes through it. For stouter descriptions of casks 

 the staves are sawn with a curved section by a cylinder saw, while for the lighter 

 and smaller slack barrels a bilge saw is used, which not only cuts the staves to a 

 curved section, but saws them curved in the direction of their length to the bent 

 form which they would assume wheu made up into the cask. For flour barrels, 

 however, the slicing machine is almost exclusively employed. 



The staves for American slack barrels are jointed by two distinct kinds of 

 ma<;hines. In one of these the joints are formed by a fixed knife being brought 

 down upon the edge of the stave by a guillotine motion. In the other the stave, 

 being bent over a horizontal saddle, is presented to the face of a disc armed with 

 flat plane irons and running at a very high speed. 



The staves, after being jointed, are set up in a circular form, and the open end 

 is drawn together by means of a windlass. 



As this operation tends to draw the cask out of truth, it becomes necessary to 

 level it by compressing it endwise between two tables at right angles to its axis. 



The barrel is then heated, and the remaining truss hoops lightly di-iven on by 

 hand ; it is then passed to the trussing isachine, acting upon an entirely difierent 

 principle from that already described. 



These barrels are chimed and crozed at one operation : the barrel, being cramped 

 between two chuck rings, is made to rotate, while rapidly revolving cutters of the 

 requisite form for bevelling the ends and cutting the head grooves are brought into 

 contact with its two ends. 



The mode of manufacture of the heads of American slack barrels difiers from 

 that adopted in England mainly in the use of a dished saw, of a sweep correspond- 

 ing to the diameter of the head in place of a fixed cutter. 



4. The Sphere and Boiler Mechanism. Bij Professor H. S. Hele Shaw 

 and Edward Shaw. — See Reports, p. 484. 



6. On a new System of Mechanism for Imparting and Recording Variable 

 Velocity. By W. Worby Beaumont, M.Inst.G.E. 



In this paper the author described a new system of mechanism for imparting 

 variable velocity to the recording parts of speed- and work-measuring instruments 



