2-969-784 - /Heritage Images

Manufacture of Bayonets, 1856. 'The present war having caused an unusual demand for weapons...The Honourable Board of Ordnance therefore gladly availed themselves of the mechanical skill of Manchester and the surrounding towns to make up for the deficiency in the supply of bayonets...The partially-formed bayonet is...heated, and laid on the lower die of the stamping machine...The stamper, or the part that gives the requisite blow for shaping the socket of the bayonet, is made of a block of cast iron, weighing four or five cwt., in the lower surface of which is a recess corresponding to the recess in the die. This stamper is raised by machinery, and when it has attained sufficient altitude it...drops on the partially-formed bayonet, thereby imparting to it the exact shape of the recesses in the die and stamper'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.