BLOCK-MACHINERY. To acquire a greater degree of accuracy and uniformity, as well as celeri ty in the making of blocks, Mr Walter Taylor of Southampton took out a patent in the year 1781, to secure to himself the benefit of some improvement he had made in the construction of the sheaves ; he also shaped the shells, cut the timber, &c. by machi nery, which was put in motion by water on the river Itchin, near Southampton, where he carried on so extensive a manufactory of blocks, as to be able to contract with the Commissioners of the Navy for nearly the whole supply of blocks and blockmakers' wares required for the use of the royal navy.
Mr Dunsterville of Plymouth had also a set of machines for making the principal parts of blocks, which was wrought by horses ; his manufacture, how ever, of this article was not carried to any great ex tent ; but the blocks made by this machinery, as well as those by Mr Taylor's, were said to be of a superior quality to those constructed by hand, though still deficient in many respects.
No objection, however, would probably have Veen made to the quality of the blocks furnished by Mr Taylor, and used in the navy. It would rather ap pear that the enormous quantity consumed in the course of a long protracted war first called the at tention of the Admiralty or Navy Board to the pos .
sibility of some reduction being made in the expence of so indispensable and important an article in the naval service ; and that it was not prudent to de pend entirely on a single contractor, whom accident or misfortune might disable from fulfilling his con tract ; A fire might destroy his wood-mills, in which case it would have been difficult to procure, in all England, an adequate supply of blocks for the navy.
On these considerations, it seems to have been the intention of government to introduce, among other improvements then carrying on in Portsmouth Dock-Yard, a set of machines for making blocks, at the new wood-mills erected in that yard in 1801. About this time, the improvements which had been introduced into private concerns were gradually finding their way into the great public establish ments of the country. Still, however, an old maxim seemed to prevail, that government ought not to be its own manufacturer. This maxim, though perhaps generally just in political economy, is, we conceive, neither just nor wise when applied to those articles which are of the first necessity in the King's navy. Indeed, where the safety of so many thousand lives depends wholly, as is sometimes the case, on the strength of materials and goodness of_worknianship, it is most. desirable that the whole ship, and every
part thereof, from the pin of a sheave to the sheet anchor, should be manufactured under the immedi ate superintendence of respectable officers in she King's service.
About this time, too, Mr Brunell, an ingenious mechanist from America, had completed a working model of certain machines for constructing, by an improved method, the shells and sheaves of blocks. This model was submitted to the inspection of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, and by them referred to General Bentham, the Inspector-General of Naval Works, who represented that, as the making of blocks was one of the purposes for which a part of the force of the steam-engine, erecting at the wood-mills, was intended to be applied,, he did not hesitate to recommend the new machine, as an in vention which would enable the government to con struct its own blocks with a greater degree of cele rity and exactness than those which were then in use ; and that it appeared to be well suited for ma nufacturing blocks of every description and size, with a degree of accuracy, uniformity, and cheap. ness, far beyond any of the methods hitherto prac tised. The adoption of Mr Brunell's machinery was the consequence of this opinion.
The advantages tope expected from blocks so made were stated by Mr Brunell to consist, first, in bring ing the shape of the outside of the shell to certain determined dimensions, so that those of the same size should actually be so, and not differ from one another, either in the proportion of the mortices, or in the shape and dimensions of the outside. Second ly, in adding strength where it was by making the head and bottom more substantial, and less liable to split ; and, thirdly, in leaving the wood between the two mortices thicker, so as to admit a • • sufficient bearing for the pins ; all of which would be accomplished without requiring any dexterity on the part of the workman, but entirely by the opera tion of the machinery. The uniformity and exact ness with which they were to be made, would be at tended with another important advantage to the public—the difficulty of counterfeiting them would , act as a precaution against embezzlement. Another very considerable advantage would be derived from the employment of much waste wood in the dock yard, usually sold for little or nothing, for firewood and other purposes.