One For The Think Tank

[musketman]

Could a person make a small scale shot tower that really works? :hmm:

I can see pouring lead from the roof into a mesh and dropping the balls into a bucket of water below... :haha:

You would need to figure out the geometry and the spacing of the grate's mesh, length of drop to produce a round ball in your caliber...

I suspect you could use a tower of about three feet high and a 100 mesh screen to make your own lead #6 shot, so why not something larger?

 

[robinghewitt]

You could do it commercially with a Littleton Shot Maker :thumbsup:

 

[musketman]

Now we just need to enlarge it to .75 caliber...

Cool link, thanks... :redthumb:

 

[robinghewitt]

You'd need a long drop to harden a .75

Don't suppose you could get NASA to hoist a few pounds of lead on their next shuttle mission? They could make perfect balls in zero G :thumbsup:

 

[Gordon Horn]

:what: Now if'n thet about the Height-o-Lazyness! Jest get out the ol' mold an' pour up a few. Jeepers! Next thin' ya know, sombody'll try ta come up wit sumpthin like puttin' the ball in front a the powder attached by some Brass thin-o ma-gig, and stickin' it in the wrong end o' the barell! :haha: :bull:

 

[Slowpoke]

We have a shot tower in Baltimore....

One of only a very few similar buildings left in the United States, the Phoenix Shot Tower was used to make lead shot from 1828 to 1892. Molten lead was dropped from a platform at the top of the 234' tower through a sieve and into a vat of cold water. Being constructed of one million bricks, the Shot Tower was the tallest building in the United States until the Washington Monument in Washington, DC, was completed after the Civil War.


There's also one in Philadelphia

and Virginia... this one is neat because most of it is underground...

SP

 

[bnail]

What prevents dropped lead from being teardrop shapped?

 

[musketman]

What prevents dropped lead from being teardrop shapped?

Distance, all drops will round out due to the surface tention of the drop itself...

They are only teardrop shapped if they reach the water tank or a cold brease causes them to set before the surface tention effect takes place...

 

[Bob J]

Wow, that's interesting...Thanks for posting the photos and info, Slowpoke :thanks:

 

[Gary]

So, when a new structure is built on the site of the Twin Towers, what are the chances they'll leave us one empty elevator shaft so we can make our own .72 shot?