174 
MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
In the third place, the head is strengthened 1 2 by being woolded near the 
top with a fine copper wire 3 (fig. 1 , pp), secured by solder. 
(2) The lody of the fuze , differs from that of the common fuze principally 
in the composition bore being lined with a paper cylinder 3 (Kg. 1, b). This 
lining serves two purposes First, in the event of the wood shrinking, as it 
will sometimes do in dry hot climates, it prevents the formation of a space or 
groove between the wood and the composition, which would cause the fuze 
to explode 4 instead of burning regularly ; and, secondly, it enables the side 
holes (Fig. 1 , pee) to be made deeper, thus diminishing the thickness of wood 
to be bored through 5 in. preparing the fuze (see Figs. 1 and 2), and so facili¬ 
tating and shortening the operation, as well as rendering it almost impossible 
for the fuze to be bored longer or shorter 6 than is intended. 
In addition to being deeper, the side holes differ from those of a common 
fuze in being plugged with rifle powder only, the ground clay being dispensed 
with. The bottoms of the powder channels (Fig. 1 , e) are not, as in the 
common fuze, closed with shellac putty, but, like those of the diaphragm 
fuze, are connected at the bottom with a piece of quick match. 
Above the level of the top side hole the composition bore is driven with 
mealed (pit) powder, instead of fuze composition, to insure greater accuracy 
when the fuze is prepared for short ranges. 7 The fuze is not primed like a 
common fuze, being merely matched with two pieces of quickmatch (each 
1 in. long) placed in two of the escape holes, and set down on to the mealed 
powder. 
(3) Dimensions: This fuze differs from the common in being altogether 
about an inch longer, to give room for the' detonator, and in being cut from 
a somewhat thicker part of the same cone. 
In other respects the construction is identical with that of the common 
fuze. 
1 The wood would be liable to split when the detonator is screwed in if not strengthened by 
some such arrangement as that adopted. 
2 The wire used is No. 21 wire gauge. 
3 “ White wrapping ” paper is used for this lining. It is shellaced on the outside before being 
placed into the fuze. 
4 On the principle of a tube. 
5 The mean thickness of wood left between the paper lining and the bottom of the side holes, is 
only about *025 in.; or between the composition and the bottom of the side holes *075 in., (the 
paper lining being *05in. thick). 
6 “ Longer or shorter” according to the inclination downwards or upwards which is liable to be 
given to the hand borer (not to the hook borer) in preparing a common fuze, unless great care be 
taken; whereas in these fuzes the borer receives a positive direction from the length of the side 
holes (see figs. 1 and 2), and is, as it were, correctly guided into the composition by these holes. 
This improvement in the construction of the fuze makes the use of the hook-borer unnecessary, as 
the communication into the composition can be made with an ordinary brad-awl, with little or no 
chance of a wrong inclination being given. 
7 Pressed mealed powder burns twice the rate of fuze composition, and thus by substituting 
mealed powder for fuze composition twice the length is obtained, the chance of the brad-awl 
cracking the composition, as it would be liable to do if it entered near the top, being thus diminished, 
and the accuracy of the fuze at short ranges increased. 
