and hemp. The mould was of two widths: the front compartment for the stone ball had a diameter of thirty inches, with a smaller after-chamber to take the powder. An enormous casting pit had to be excavated and the fired clay core was placed in it with the muzzle face down. An outer cylindrical clay casing ‘like a scabbard’ was fashioned to fit over this and held in position, leaving space between the two clay moulds to receive the molten metal. The whole thing was packed about tightly with ‘iron and timbers, earth and stones, built up from outside’ to support the huge weight of the bronze. At the last moment wet sand would be drizzled around the mould and the whole thing covered over again, leaving just a hole through which the molten metal could be poured. Meanwhile Orban constructed two brick-lined furnaces faced with fired clay inside and out and reinforced with large stones – sufficient to withstanda temperature of 1,000 degrees centigrade – and surrounded on the outside by a mountain of charcoal ‘so deep that it hid the furnaces, apart from their mouths’.
The operation of a medieval foundry was fraught with danger. A visit by the later Ottoman traveller, Evliya Chelebi, to a gun factory catches the note of fear and risk surrounding the process:
On the day when cannon are to be cast, the masters, foremen and founders, together with the Grand Master of the Artillery, the Chief Overseer, Imam, Muezzin and timekeeper, all assemble and to the cries of ‘Allah! Allah!’, the wood is thrown into the furnaces. After these have been heated for twenty-four hours, the founders and stokers strip naked, wearing nothing but their slippers, an odd kind of cap which leaves nothing but their eyes visible, and thick sleeves to protect the arms; for, after the fire has been alight in the furnaces twenty-four hours, no person can approach on account of the heat, save he be attired in the above manner. Whoever wishes to see a good picture of the fires of Hell should witness this sight.
When the furnace was judged to have reached the correct temperature the foundry workers started to throw copper into the crucible along with scrap bronze probably salvaged, by a bitter irony for Christians, from church bells. The work was incredibly dangerous – the difficulty of hurling the metal piece by piece into the bubbling cauldron and of skimming dross off the surface with metal ladles, the noxious fumes given off by the tin alloys, the risk that if the scrap metal were wet, the water would vaporize, rupturing the furnace and wiping out all close by – these hazards hedged the operation about with superstitious dread. According to Evliya, when the time came to throw in the tin:
the Vezirs, the Mufti and Sheikhs are summoned; only forty persons, besides the personnel of the foundry, are admitted all told. The rest of the attendants are shut out, because the metal, when in fusion, will not suffer to be looked at by evil eyes. The masters then desire the Vezirs and sheikhs who are seated on sofas at a great distance to repeat unceasingly the words ‘There is no power and strength save in Allah!’ Thereupon the master-workmen with wooden shovels throw several hundredweight of tin into the sea of molten brass, and the head-founder says to the Grand Vizier, Vezirs and Sheikhs: ‘Throw some gold and silver coins into the brazen sea as alms, in the name of the True Faith!’ Poles as long as the yard of ships are used for mixing the gold and silver with the metal and are replaced as fast as consumed.
For three days and nights the lit charcoal was superheated by the action of bellows continuously operated by teams of foundry workers until the keen eye of the master founder judged the metal to be the right tone of molten red. It was another critical moment, the culminationof weeks of work, involving fine judgement: ‘The time limit having expired … the head-founder and master-workmen, attired in their clumsy felt dresses,
The operation of a medieval foundry was fraught with danger. A visit by the later Ottoman traveller, Evliya Chelebi, to a gun factory catches the note of fear and risk surrounding the process:
On the day when cannon are to be cast, the masters, foremen and founders, together with the Grand Master of the Artillery, the Chief Overseer, Imam, Muezzin and timekeeper, all assemble and to the cries of ‘Allah! Allah!’, the wood is thrown into the furnaces. After these have been heated for twenty-four hours, the founders and stokers strip naked, wearing nothing but their slippers, an odd kind of cap which leaves nothing but their eyes visible, and thick sleeves to protect the arms; for, after the fire has been alight in the furnaces twenty-four hours, no person can approach on account of the heat, save he be attired in the above manner. Whoever wishes to see a good picture of the fires of Hell should witness this sight.
When the furnace was judged to have reached the correct temperature the foundry workers started to throw copper into the crucible along with scrap bronze probably salvaged, by a bitter irony for Christians, from church bells. The work was incredibly dangerous – the difficulty of hurling the metal piece by piece into the bubbling cauldron and of skimming dross off the surface with metal ladles, the noxious fumes given off by the tin alloys, the risk that if the scrap metal were wet, the water would vaporize, rupturing the furnace and wiping out all close by – these hazards hedged the operation about with superstitious dread. According to Evliya, when the time came to throw in the tin:
the Vezirs, the Mufti and Sheikhs are summoned; only forty persons, besides the personnel of the foundry, are admitted all told. The rest of the attendants are shut out, because the metal, when in fusion, will not suffer to be looked at by evil eyes. The masters then desire the Vezirs and sheikhs who are seated on sofas at a great distance to repeat unceasingly the words ‘There is no power and strength save in Allah!’ Thereupon the master-workmen with wooden shovels throw several hundredweight of tin into the sea of molten brass, and the head-founder says to the Grand Vizier, Vezirs and Sheikhs: ‘Throw some gold and silver coins into the brazen sea as alms, in the name of the True Faith!’ Poles as long as the yard of ships are used for mixing the gold and silver with the metal and are replaced as fast as consumed.
For three days and nights the lit charcoal was superheated by the action of bellows continuously operated by teams of foundry workers until the keen eye of the master founder judged the metal to be the right tone of molten red. It was another critical moment, the culminationof weeks of work, involving fine judgement: ‘The time limit having expired … the head-founder and master-workmen, attired in their clumsy felt dresses,
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