VICKER'S WAR FACTORY.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 January 1918, Page 7

VICKER'S WAR FACTORY.

SHEFFIELD AT XIGIIT. ICEBERGS OF STEEL Red flames are spurting from the tups of tall chimneys which loom ghostly through the ivmrkiness, writes Douglas ■Robertson, special correspondent of the Empire Press Union. Dull glow of forges, furnaces and tens of thousands of lamps slioot Bearch-liglit rays into the fumes and vapor. Surely a tempting target for the night-flying Hun! But, no, the dense pall of smoke wljich forever hangs over this scene of industry makes a screen, a sort of sky camouflage, enveloping the entire works. Overhead the skiei reflect no fiery radiance. The brightest beams are soon stifled in that dark cloud. And, furthermore, should t'lio midnight murderers venture thus far afield, presto! Snuffed is every lamp, darkened every Btac-k and furnace, and, on the instant, this myriad luminosity is swallowed up in Egyptian darkness. A large door baa suddenly opened, a.blinding light, a scorching heat shoots forth which sends the visitors staggerir.g backwards, hands to their lace;:. Imps armed with long, iron rods piance at the door of this fiery furnace and drag forth in triumph a block of white-liot "steel some Ave toy ten by fifteen feet in volume. The temperature of the place slioots up ten degrees. ROLLING ARMOR-PLATE. Then two Titanic arms of steel drop down from the roof, and, clutching the ingot, hauls its sizzling bulk over steel rollers set in a floor of steel, under a monster press. Such is the rolling mill which, squashing and squeezing the block until flames gush forth from innumerable little fissures, moves it backwards and forwards. Toughened tremendously by sucli a mauling the mass of metn.l is finally rolled flat into plate of from two to fifteen inches in thickness—armor-plate able to withstand the heaviest shells. Great warships are clothed in as much as (MOO tons of this protection, "Look out!" shouts one of the imps advancing with a bundle of dry 'bunchw which he tosses on top of the fiery ingot. "Happen you'll think a bee stung 'you if a spark of yon gets down vour neck.' 1 A crackling, r roai of flames, and clouds of smoke as of a bus?i fire in the dry season, fills the place as the block is rolled to and fro with this strange Due. lire on its back. At c-acii move the attendant imps plv their long prods, scaling o ffthe loose flakes of iron. "Do we drink any beer on thia job?" exclaimed one of these works, amazedly —no imp at all, but seen at close quarters a sturdy North Countryman. "Wc do that. I'm just off for a good one right, now." Come ann we them pouring the molten mixture for thess armor-plates—Can-adian nickel and chrome steel—from the furnaces into the moulds. Men with blue goggles are hurrying about and one of them presents the visitors with lorgnettes of blue glass. White le.it of 1070 degrees centigrade blazes from the r-revises of those gas-furnace doors. The naked eye winces at the glare, but Ihrough the protecting "specs" one may ?nze with impunity. The interior of the furnace they have just opened presents an extraordinary appearance. The blue glass turns it white. Like an ice-cave in the gplar regions it looks, like a little grotto hanging with cool stalactites. The "stalactites" are nothing but 'lrips of white-hot metal. In the unthinkable heat of this furnace blocks of cold, hard metal melt like butter on a hot stove. As we watch on the other side of the furnace, an attendant prizes awav a stopper of clay With a burst of l'iglit and showers ol' brilliant white, sparks, which oddly enough do not bum, /m*. rushes a molten torrent, to pour, a fiery Niagara, irto the fire-brick lined 40-ton ladle v/hich av.'aits its reception. An awesome sight it is to see hardened steel reduced to liquid, bubbling and tossing right belov/ one like a kettle of jam. And as with the homely jam pot a scuin of dross rises to its top. It is midnight, hut it might well bo big'h noon. For the clamor of machinery rises everywhere from this mighty plant, which never slumbers. Trains puff and fro among the scores of buildings (many of them new) which cluster thickly on an area of one hundred and twenty acres. In all this host of workers so variously employed there are but few colonials—no Canadians at all. or New Zealanders. no visible South Africans, and but few Australians. An Australian it was who held a record here for high wages. He drew £24 a week. Thia sturdy so.s of the Southern Cross worked on screw breeches for fS-in guns, handling these 00ponnd baubles alone, and so quickly and skilfully that he was cheap at the price. But he got rich and quit. '\es, there's good money here," quoth another Australian, pausing at his lathe to talk to the writey. "but. (frowning at the overcast skies outside) I want to get back into the sunshine down under." ELECTRIC ARC THAT BLINDS. "Don't attempt t:i look i;i -Ihct furnace door without first outting ou these glasses," warns cur guide, pointing to an electric (ureace. "That arc flame in literally blinding. Jt ./ill ~Ht, H t o-ie's eyes fit of business, to It will render one sightless for forty-eight hcr.ui, musing inttr.se pai i, with «;raj;ulatio;m which feel '.ike grains „f i;..der the eyelids." } Wo Keccpt !:ia advice i.r.d pin-.,' i.i i:ie dazzling white fire in which stet-l trimmings and varioos scrap sizzle i,is'-»ttl.v. and trickle dov.'a into a reeeptaele[%urified mere thoroughly by (lame alone than is possible by gas or coal furnaces. Or. through interminable shops, where motor parts are stamped out of hot blocks, where lailway carriage wheels are wrought, on through armor-plate shops, into the cannon department we walk. ? T ere guns of all shapes and sizes lie in the rough—howitzers, field guns, mortars, and immense naval cannon—-in crude ingots of solid metal, some to 'be trimmed, bored out on lathes for delicate inner casings, and others hollowed and worked up for outer coverings. The chief sight of the works is tin tempering room for these monsters. Picture a structure whose glass roof, to •- erins 120 feet above the enrthern door, is hid from view in the «mokp which swirls about its iron rafters. Up in this dimness is a crane of great lifting bapaeity. Imagine a species of chimneystack sixty feet high standing within this building—an iron, fire-brick lined chimney whose side swings out on hincs. and from a, crevire <!own whose whole length red flames issue forth, and black, sooty smoke. Suddenly the sides swing open, levered hv men on engirdling fire escapes, revealing a (10-foot cannon inside, suspended by a chain and glowins cherrv red. Roasted in this gas-blast, furnace, whose acrid fumes tickle the n»g. t!«e » pub is ureses t J p lov^r.

Ed into a GO-foot subterranean tank of oil immediately .below the 'blazing Black. Tims art guns tempered to withstand the shocks of war. In the finishing shop we presently see men working on tin: delicate mechanism of the breeches of these guns, measuring to the one-thousandth part of an inch, polishing, adjusting with it watch-mak-er V care, the, all important fitting ol' the.*. 1 mighty engines of destruction. Die riding of the bore shines like silver in that monster barrel through which a boy. giving the finishing touches as ne goes is drawn by a rope. Ere >orig, ton sholls will lie whirling through this burnished passage way on their teivmile flight into German forts and German ships. Such are some of the scenes at Messrs. Viclcers' works in Sheffield, nhotvr. by cm'.rtcsy of the management to & party of correspondents from the Overseas Dominion?.