Can You Identify This?

[Snagglepuss]

On a recent trip to Ely, Minnesota(almost at the Canadian border) I saw this "pot/bucket" out behind a friends garage in a junk heap. I asked him the history and all he knew was that his Dad had bought several when the munitions plant in the area closed down in the seventies. They were somehow used there and were a very common piece of equipment. Munitions are firearm related so as a stretch I thought some of you may be able to help out. A search of the internet was hard because I don't even know what to call it. Thanks in advance.

What is it?

 

[Stickjockey]

Is it steel or some sort of blackened bronze/brass material?

 

[Snagglepuss]

I was told it was copper but I highly doubt it. The brazing appears to be brass/bronze. I'll steel wool the bottom and see what I find.

 

[rhubarb]

A ladle for casting 150mm bullets?

 

[hankpac]

Product (like powder, or brass shavings or other bulky granular product) is poured into the hopper side of the device, from bulk containers. Then the device is lifted, by two people, and the nozzle placed into a receptical, that would be too constricted for the bulk container, and poured carefully.
Probably not made for molten stuff, like molten brass, but more like for powder, brass shavings (into the smelter). Or even made up brass (into the loader hopper) or primers (into the loader hopper) etc.

 

[McCall911]

Hmm...near Canada...steel pot!

!

A "chamber pot" for very short, but well-endowed lumberjacks?

 

[Snagglepuss]

I knew I was going to get the chamber pot crack. Good humor. I went outside and sanded the bottom and it is definantly a brass/bronze material. A hopper loader seems to be a good use, but why the brass/bronze?

This truly is a great forum, thanks guys.

 

[sacp81170a]

Would it have to do with being less prone to generating static electricity? Just a guess, but if you were pouring powder into a hopper, static discharge would be a bad thing. Do they have anything that looks like an attachment point for a grounding strap?

 

[JesseL]

...primers (into the loader hopper) etc.

I'd hope not primers.

I believe there's a mention in Hatcher's Notebook of somebody carrying a large bucket of primers. Something tickled one of the primers and no trace was ever found of the bucket wielder.

 

[CWL]

Kinda what sacp said: non ferrous metal to prevent accidental sparking from metal-metal collision. Very important for munitions work.

 

[whitetiger7654]

Product (like powder, or brass shavings or other bulky granular product) is poured into the hopper side of the device, from bulk containers. Then the device is lifted, by two people, and the nozzle placed into a receptical, that would be too constricted for the bulk container, and poured carefully.
Probably not made for molten stuff, like molten brass, but more like for powder, brass shavings (into the smelter). Or even made up brass (into the loader hopper) or primers (into the loader hopper) etc.

I agree that makes the most sense. Just a bucket for a controlled pour from one machine to another.

 

[tydephan]

Hmm...near Canada...steel pot!

!

A "chamber pot" for very short, but well-endowed lumberjacks?

They are called slop-jars in our neck of the woods.

 

[USMC - Retired]

My guess is that it was used to pour a measured powder charge into an artillery shell such as a 105. Brass so it wont spark if bumped against steel.

 

[Jim K]

It is probably copper and was probably used to pour powder into the loading machines. Ammunition factories got powder in paperboard barrels, up to 100 pounds at a time. The powder was taken to the powder house, and poured into big bins for storage. That bucket would have been used to transfer powder from the bins to the loading machines.

The powder house would have had very thick walls and a light roof, so that if/when an explosion occurred, the blast would go up and not damage the rest of the factory. The loading machines would have been in another building, so powder was transferred in small lots from the powder house to the loading room. That way, there would never be enough powder in the loading room to destroy the expensive and hard to replace loading machines if some powder did let go.

Jim

 

[230RN]

A hopper loader seems to be a good use, but why the brass/bronze?

Someone else pointed out the sparking danger. It's the same reason they use copper and bronze tools in mines --even wrenches and screwdrivers are bronze.

The "bucket of primers" going off incident was related to his discussion of how safe primers were in their regular grooved packages, compared to when they get together in bulk.

IIRC, Hatcher related how a young man who worked in an ammunition plant in the 1920s was walking along bouncing a bucket of primers up and down as he walked, when they all went off. He did not mention that nothing was found of the young man, only that he was killed instantly.

By comparison, Hatcher describes a number of workshop fires where primers in their regular grooved containers would not go off in bulk, but only individually if at all. Somebody tell OSHA.

Although apparently OSHA is backtracking on their canister powder and primer requirements, still, the geniuises who thought up the proposed new regulations in the first place ought to have read Gen. Hatcher's experiments with burning closed cans powder on small fires.

"All in all," the General stated, "a pretty mild performance," after the cans popped open when the powder ignited.

The conclusion was that basically, modern solvents and gasoline pose a far greater danger to life and limb than propellant powders.

Hatcher, for your further interest, experimented with firing high powered rifle bullets into large cases of ammunition.

Once again, the results were pretty mild.

 

[Stickjockey]

I too was thinking of "means of transporting smaller batches of bulk items to where they're needed." I asked about the material because of the spark risk of ferrous material vs. non-ferrous. That it's made of bronze/brass would lead me to belive that it was for filling a loading hopper or maybe, as USMC-Retired pointed out, a measured charge into a large artillery round. Another possibility would be that it was used for filling powder bags for naval guns, like the 16"/50 calibre guns on the Iowa-class battlewagons.

 

[workingstiff]

I've been to Ely, those are flower planters that were used around the ammunition factory.