Drilling holes in the 1860’s

[VicParticipant @vic]

[VicParticipant @vic]

Drilling holes in the 1860's

A period of history that has always fascinated me is the American Civil War, particularly the ships of the Union navy. The first purpose built ironclad the USS monitor was built in just 120 days. The whole ship was fully armoured but the turret housing two 11 inch Dahlgren canons had 8 inches of plate armour. Originally intended to have either two layers of four inch plate or four layers of two inch plate they had to settle for eight layers of one inch plate as the equipment was not available to roll anything any thicker. These eight layers of armour plate were riveted together with hundreds of rivets. It's hard for me to tell from the pictures but the rivets look to be about 1 1/2" diameter?
Not only the turret was riveted but the whole of the ship. How on earth did they manage to drill so many large diameter holes in so much armour plate in the 1860's?
I'd love to know what equipment was used to build such an iconic ship in such a short time. Do a google of USS Monitor images and see for yourself how many direct canon ball hits the monitor turret took without being penetrated!

[I.M. OUTAHEREParticipant @i-m-outahere]

Could be wrong but what they called armour plater was just soft wrought iron.

They must have had something harder as a drill bit so must have understood hardening .

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Looking through a copy of Chas A Strelinger & Co catalogue of 1895 there is a very good range of drilling machines including ones that can be run from the over head shafting but are able to be mounted directly on the work so would be the equivalent of current day magnetic base drills, would have been able to drill the plate OK and they are klisted upto MT4 socket.

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

This was written about in 1872 – along with cigar making:-
**LINK**
and an explanation of how drills were sharpened on the next page.
Wikipedia gives it as 1964
**LINK**

An interesting link about "Gun Drilling"
**LINK**

And hand powered drilling:-
**LINK**

BobH

[Brian GParticipant @briang]

If you scroll down this page **LINK** you will come to No.1 machine shop built in 1861 for the construction of HMS Achilles At that time cemented armour hadn't been introduced and the wrought iron plate could be formed, punched or drilled with heavy machinery.

See here http://www.naval-history.net/WW0Book-USN-Armour1937.htm for some information on the laminated wrought iron armour used in the American Civil War and its later replacement with steel and finally cemented armour.  D K Brown's "Warrior to Dreadnought" has a lot of content on the development of armour plate through the latter half of the 19th century, and of the tests carried out on it.

Brian

Edited By Brian G on 28/07/2017 11:52:14

[Jon GibbsParticipant @jongibbs59756]

Whitworth's self-acting drilling machine and self-acting radial drilling machine were displayed at the 1851 Exhibition and would have been more than capable of boring plate I'd have thought…

**LINK**

See figures 7 & 8.

Jon

[VicParticipant @vic]

Posted by JasonB on 28/07/2017 11:11:53:

Looking through a copy of Chas A Strelinger & Co catalogue of 1895 there is a very good range of drilling machines including ones that can be run from the over head shafting but are able to be mounted directly on the work.

Nice one Jason.

If they had these in 1861 when the Monitor was built this would be a distinct possibility. I'd love to see pictures of such machines in use.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Don't underestimate engineering in the mid-19th century, look at the Crystal Palace built in 1851. They certainly would have had big drilling machines, but they may have punched the holes. This is a hole punching machine from a London shipyard of that era.

[Brian HParticipant @brianh50089]

As an apprentice, more years ago than I care to remember, there were still jobs that needed large holes to be drilled in places that were not accessible by machine tools and these were produced by a hand ratchet driven brace that was pushed forwards by the operator chest against a shaped plate with padding on it!

Holes as large as 2" inches could be drilled in cast iron in a surprisingly short time.

Brian

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Brian Hutchings on 28/07/2017 12:53:29:

…

these were produced by a hand ratchet driven brace that was pushed forwards by the operator chest against a shaped plate with padding on it!

…

Brian

Another more powerful type of ratchet drill was called a 'John Bull'. Instead of being held by the operator, the John Bull had a stand that bolted to the work, or a bench, or to anything else solid. The stand kept good alignment and allowed mechanical pressure to be applied to the drill tip. Turning was still done manually, but the ratchet was worked with a long lever. Slow but sure, made obsolete by power tools. Before twist drills, flat drill bits were used. Sparey mentions them as being easy to make and fast cutting in 'The Amateur's Lathe'.

Drilling big holes in metal wasn't uncommon, just hard work. Long before the US Civil War, cannon were bored by horse or water power, a 32 pounder about 6" diameter and 10 feet deep in cast iron. Count Rumford (Benjamin Thompson, died 1814) came close to understanding the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat whilst in charge of drilling cannons in Germany.

Dave

[GeorgineerParticipant @georgineer]

Posted by Brian Hutchings on 28/07/2017 12:53:29:

… a hand ratchet driven brace that was pushed forwards by the operator chest against a shaped plate with padding on it!

I believe this is what my father used to refer to as a 'belly buster'.

George

[HughEParticipant @hughe]

I think there was an article in an early MEW about making one of these belly busters for renovation work on a locomotive

Hugh.

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