A PIC OF 19TH C BARREL GRINDERS

For those who may be interested.

Very interesting .

Cool old picture. What is the back story ? Any book and location, US , British maybe and any factory info

Thanks
O.R.

Cool. Makes you wonder how many fingers were ground down along with the barrel.

Hi,
It is in Birmingham and in the Birmingham Small Arms Factory during the 1830s or so. It comes from a book about industrialization in the arms industry. Barrel grinding was noisy and dangerous. The wheels sometimes splintered injuring or killing the worker. These men were highly skilled and represent one of the few tasks in the gun industry in the UK where mechanization was accepted early in the 19th century. As a whole, the trade resisted mechanization except with barrel making and grinding despite pressures from the company owners. The Birmingham Small Arms Company (BSA) was a consortium of Birmingham gun makers and formed to handle large contracts and volume of gun manufacture but in the peculiar British fashion, which instead of replacing men with machines turned men into machines by extreme divisions of labor. In America, we had a dirth of skilled hand labor so we adopted machinery very quickly and well as a force multiplier for the limited workforce. The UK had a wealth of skilled hand workers supporting manufacturing and export, and mechanized industrialization really threatened the livelihoods of thousands of skilled workers. Even up to our Civil War, the UK gun industry employed many more skilled hand workers than US gun makers. BSA was a major military contractor well into the 20th century. Most of all arms made and labeled "Enfield" between 1840 and 1940 were made by BSA. They also made bicycles and motorcycles.

dave

Thanks Dave. I lost any detailed references to that pic. Just thought it was interesting.

Gun maker Hacker Martin was also a miller. Martin ground the flats on his rifles with a mill wheel.

@LRB , @dave_person Great photo & info, Thank you. The old crafts and manufacturing processes always intrigue me.
Many metal grinders in the trades of that period had it rough. In the axe factories the grinders or millers suffered not only from the mill stones breaking but also lung injuries from the wet airborne stone & metal particles. It was similar to the coal miner's black lung.

Thanks,
O.R.

silicosis...not unlike asbestos in the lungs

https://www.concentra.com/resource-center/articles/what-is-silica-and-why-is-it-dangerous/

OldRust said:

@LRB , @dave_person Great photo & info, Thank you. The old crafts and manufacturing processes always intrigue me.
Many metal grinders in the trades of that period had it rough. In the axe factories the grinders or millers suffered not only from the mill stones breaking but also lung injuries from the wet airborne stone & metal particles. It was similar to the coal miner's black lung.

Thanks,
O.R.

Click to expand...

That is why one should wear a respirator when running a belt grinder. Guilty of not wearing mine as often as I should!

OldRust said:

@LRB , @dave_person Great photo & info, Thank you. The old crafts and manufacturing processes always intrigue me.
Many metal grinders in the trades of that period had it rough. In the axe factories the grinders or millers suffered not only from the mill stones breaking but also lung injuries from the wet airborne stone & metal particles. It was similar to the coal miner's black lung.

Thanks,
O.R.

Click to expand...

Pictures I have seen and may have somewhere, show that the stone wheels for grinding on knives went through a water trough below as they turned. The man grinding was laying frontal body down on an angled board mount. Maybe Dave has or has seen that, or a pic of that.

LRB said:

For those who may be interested. View attachment 194341

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Very interesting ! I grind the flats on my barrels . Carrying on a long time tradition I guess . Very neat !

LRB said:

For those who may be interested. View attachment 194341

Click to expand...

I'm re-reading Game Guns and Rifles by Akehurst. He quotes W. Greener's description of an early 19th century gunsmith shop. The above sketch is pretty spot on as to his description.

It's a great book for anyone interested in English and Belgium made 19th century muzzleloaders.