Boomtown Plant Works So US Guns Can Boom by Red Fleming 1941 poster

Description:	This poster tells how Indiana Ordnance Works is helping the war effort. The plant in Charlestown, Indiana produces smokeless black powder. The article provides a history of how smokeless powder was developed and how the plant makes it. Boomtown Plant Works So U. S. Guns Can BoomBy RED FLEMINGA $110,000,000 assembly line propels Axis-bound projectilesPROBABLY the most talked-about defense project in this region is the Indiana Ordnance Works, better known as the Charlestown Powder Plant, situated on property that once was the land grant of Gen. George Rogers Clark. In a short ten months this $110,000,000 project grew from vacant fields to a vast plant that was to change Charlestown, Ind., from a quiet little town with less than 1,000 population to a bustling boom town. Despite the importance of the plant to the nation and to this region few of us know much about gunpowder or how it is manufactured.The process for the manufacture of smokeless powder, while common knowledge, is often explained in such technical terms that the average lay person finds himself in a quagmire of technical chemical terms; HNO3, H2SO4, N2O4, and so on through the alphabet.Gunpowder, first brought into use by the Chinese, has been developed down through the years until its present manufacture entails little danger. Black powder as a propellant presented objectionable features such as smoke, residue, etc. The first nitro-cotton, which is the base of our present smokeless powder, was the result of an experiment made, in 1838. A scientist, named Pelouze, first observed the action of nitric acid upon cotton. Not until 1845 was the importance of this experiment realized as a material for an explosive. At that time, because of the unfamiliarity with chemical and physical properties of this new substance, attempts to utilize this new explosive were fraught with disaster. In Austria-Hungary, factories were destroyed and guns were damaged.English chemists, under the guidance of Sir Frederick Abel, soon began to make great strides in developing the explosive industry. A small factory for the manufacture of nitro-cotton was built at Waltham Abbey and progress here was responsible for later developments of collodion-photography and for the artificial silk industry.For blasting onlyDuring this period use of guncotton as an explosive was restricted entirely to blasting purposes. About 1886 the development of nitro-cotton as a substitute for black powder was advanced by Vicille, a French chemist. He incorporated nitro-cotton with a mixture of ether and alcohol, and rolled the resulting paste, a colloid, into thin sheets which were cut into small squares and dried. Contemporaneous with this work, Nobel developed ballistite, a powder obtained by gelatinizing a low-nitrated nitro-cotton with nitro-glycerin. Shortly after this, a modification of ballistite known as cordite was adopted as a smokeless powder. The propellent consisted of a mixture of high-nitrated guncotton gelatinized by means of acetone. In this mixture, nitre-glycerin and vaseline were incorporated.Smokeless powder is manufactured in the forms of small flakes, strips, pellets, sheets, or perforated cylindrical grains. The last mentioned form of grain is the most commonly used in the military powders manufactured in the United States. These cylindrical grains are made with diameters varying from 0.032 inch for the caliber .30 rifle to 0.947 inch for the 16-inch gun, and in corresponding lengths varying from 0.085 inch to 2,170 inches. In general the smaller caliber weapons are provided with cylindrical powders having a single perforation running lengthwise through the grain, while powders having seven perforations are used in the larger caliber weapons. Triperforated powders have been used experimentally and a rosette or so-called sliverless grain has been used to some extent; such forms of grains are resorted to only when special ballistic properties are required.Six-stage processThe different processes incident to manufacture of pyro smokeless powder such as that manufactured at the Indiana Ordnance Work involves six stages which may be summarized thusly:1. Purification and mechanical preparation of raw cotton. The cotton used in the manufacture of smokeless powder is usually linters, although other grades of raw cotton and wood pulp may be used. The charge of raw cotton is cooked under pressure with a solution of caustic soda. After removing the spent caustic liquors by washing, the cotton is treated with a solution of commercial bleaching powder. The object of boiling with soda and the bleaching treatment is to reduce the content of vegetable oil, resinous materials and other extractable substances. The cotton is run through a picking machine until it is reduced to a fluff and then continuously dried, in a large chamber which is heated by a hot air blast.2. Nitration of cotton. In this stage tlv. cotton is treated with a mixture of nitric and sulphuric acid, thus producing nitrocellulose.3. Purification of nitrocellulose from all traces of free acids and lower nitrates. This is accomplished by boiling and then wringing free from acids and drenched with water.4. Mixing of nitrocellulose with ether and alcohol and mixing to form a colloid. The colloid is then pressed which changes the mixture from a mass resembling light brown sugar to a dense, elastic, translucent brown or amber substance.5. Granulating of powder by pressing the colloid through steel dies. In this process the solid block or colloid is forced by a hydraulic press under heavy pressure through a steel die. The size and cut of the die determines the grain of the powder.6. Final process of solvent recovery, drying, and blending. In this final stage ttv ether-alcohol solvent is removed from the powder by evaporation.Now if we were in the position of occupied France or some of the Nazi-policed countries of Europe we might have to make powdr under entirely different circumstances. Under those conditions heres about how a housewife from Honey Grove, Kentucky, would make powder to blast the Axis dastards.A dash of sodaFirst she would gather up all of the lint and ravelings from paws long underwear, place in a pot and let come to a slow boil. Then add a dash of soda (about as much as youd place in the morning biscuit batter) and boil about as long as youd boil the first batch of spring turnip greens. To thoroughly dry shed place this concoction in a warm room within close range of grandmas asthmatic reactions. At this point the housewife might have trouble taking a small substance and fluffing it up to three and four times its original volume. She might have to ask paw how some of the utility magnates of the last decade took some pulp and trebled it in size overnight.For the second step just empty the contents from the car battery (sulphuric acid) into the pot and add a dash of paws wart re-mover (nitric acid) and stir slowly for a hall an hour. Next remove everything from the pot except what is left of what was the ravelings of paws long underwear. Add more water and bring to a boil until the water boils over and threatens to put out the fire. It might be advisable now to take the wad of ravelings and place in the churn. Before going through the motions that you would in making butter add about a pint of paws best sour mash, preferably that which has been run through the still at least twice. Then add some fingernail polish.When you bring it out of the churn you can resort to your cookie moulds and make it any shape desired.[photograph]Joseph Davis. Jr., expert at gauging ammunition, tests the size of a bag of powder at the Indiana Ordnance Works, Charlestown.[photograph]Pure white cotton - destined to blast the enemy - goes into the picking machine on its way to become smokeless powder.[chart]How Charlestown Makes Smokeless GunpowderMaking smokeless pwder is simple - if you know how. First, you get some cottonput it in a pot and let it come to a slow boil as you add a dash of caustic soda. Then you take the bleached cotton and give it a good rinsing with plain water. Next your cotton is dried thoroughly in a large room heated by hot air blasts.The cotton is run through a picking machine until it is reduced to just a fluff.At this step and the next, our cotton is turned into nitrocellulose by giving.... it a bath in a mixture of nitric and sulphuric acid. This is termed nitration.The nitrocellulose now is boiled, wrung out and then rinsed again to purify it.Another hot air bath. Our product keeps getting dry only to take another bath.Ether and alcohol! What a bath! It turns our product into a brown sugar massStill groggy, the mass is pressed into an elastic substance like gelatin. Now powder, it is granulated by being forced through stell dies and comes out like lengths of macaroni.Cut to proper lengths, the powder pills are sorded by size and bounced down a baffle to blend the batches perfectly.The small pellets go in cartridges and shells. Larger sizes go into silk bags at the bag loading plant at Charlestown.The shell first, the powder is next and its goodby, mama, Im off to Yokahamal pushed by contton soaked with chemicals.C.-J. CHART BY ORVILLE CARROLL[chart]Gunpowder isnt powder. Grains, shown here in actual size, are for naval and field guns, anti-aircraft and machine guns.
Origin:	1941
Contributor(s):	Fleming, Red; Carroll, Orville
Source:	http://indianamemory.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15078coll17/id/35631
Collection:	Clark County Collections
Rights:	http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Copyright:	Charlestown-Clark County Public Library provides access to these materials for educational and research purposes and makes no warranty with regard to their use for other purposes. The written permission of the copyright owners and/or holders of other rights such as publicity and/or privacy rights is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. There may be content that is protected as works for hire copyright held by the party that commissioned the original work and/or under the copyright or neighboring-rights laws of other nations. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.
Geography:	Charlestown, Clark, Indiana 38.4344911,-85.70702
Subjects:	Indiana Ordnance Works (U.S.) Hoosier Ordnance Plant Indiana Arsenal Indiana Army Ammunition Plant Explosives Industry--Indiana Gunpowder, Smokeless Ordnance manufacture Black powder manufacture Facility One ICI Americas Inc Clark County (Ind.) Charlestown (Ind.) United States. Army Ordnance and Ordnance Stores INAAP

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