Image from Flickr is by woowoowoo



This beautiful looking brick tower which looks like a chimney is actually a tower used to make lead shots or round pellets for guns.

The technique is very simple and was in use from about 1782 to middle of 20th century and employs the simple principle of physics that due to surface tension, falling liquid droplets take an almost round shape so as to offer minimum resistance to the air. Molten lead has a higher surface tension than water so its droplets are almost perfect spheres.

In 1782 an English plumber named William Watts saw possibility in this phenomenon and started a buckshot factory. In a lead shot factory molten lead used to be poured continuously through a pan with calibrated holes in the bottom. A mechanical rapper tapped the pan to help discharge of the molten lead. Molten lead drops falling from height formed into spheres were collected in a water trough at the bottom of the tower, thus quickly solidifying without deforming. The lead shots were then collected and shovelled on to the slightly tilted sorting tables.



Perfect spheres would roll down straight to the bottom of the table while the deformed ones would roll to the side where these were collected and re-melted. The spherical pellets were sorted for size and then transferred to a revolving drum for polishing with graphite to provide lubrication and to prevent oxidation.

The Shot Tower in Alexandra Parade, Clifton Hill was constructed circa 1882. It is about 80 metres tall with semi-circular arched window openings and decorative brick bands at regular intervals. The shaft is finely decorated around the openings and at various levels, with polychrome patterns, and is topped by a small pavilion. It remained functional till 1947. The tower is incorporated in Victorian Heritage Database.



Now a days lead pellets are made by feeding calibrated lengths of wire into hemispherical dies and stamping them into spheres.

Info Source: Wikipedia and Victorian Heritage Database.

What is amazing about this post is that I have passed this object literally hundreds of times but take it with a grain of salt......Everyone tends to look at things in their own backyard with an everyday eye and overlook the beauty that is before them.......Everytime I pass this (about once or twice a week) I will look at it with a different eye thank you CJM.