Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Dubuque Shot Tower

[click to enlarge]

Shooting into the sun again - I can't help myself!

From Wiki:

The tower was built in 1856 to provide lead shot for the military. The concept of a shot tower solved the problem of how to produce many cheap, nearly perfect lead spheres of the right size to fit in a musket. To make lead shot, molten lead was poured into the top of the tower, where it passed through a grate. The droplets that fell from the grate were of relatively uniform size, and the fall provided enough time for the liquid-metal droplet to form into a sphere before landing in the water below. The water cooled the lead to its solid state, retaining the spherical shape.

3 comments:

  1. Shot with a nice perspective! Nice shot with a tiny part of the sky appearing to be illuminated.

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  2. interesting piece of history. I'm sure OSHA shut this one down.

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  3. Great perspective! I like the small piece of burning sky behind the tower.

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