SHAPING.--Thin metal is shaped by pressure applied by means of a screw press, the metal being placed between a die or mould and its counterpart. AUTOMATIC MACHINERY.--A number of articles produced from wire, such as pins, nails, hooks and eyes, hair pins, etc., are made completely by automatic machinery, the wire being wound off a reel at one end of the machine and transformed into the various articles as it passes along until it comes out at the other end of the machine, a finished or nearly finished article. AUTOMATIC TURNING AND SHAPING.--Gun stocks, boot lasts, tool handles and other similar articles are automatically turned. With a gun stock for example, the rough form cut from a plank is put in a lathe, above is placed a steel model or dummy of the form required to be turned, the model and the wooden blank are made to revolve at precisely the same speed, and a rotating cutter travels slowly along from one end of the blank to the other, the movement of the cutter inwards or outwards being regulated by the dummy. The wooden blank having been put in the lathes, the cutting is started, and it then goes on until finished, when the lathe stops automatically. The shaping of gun locks and many other parts of the gun is effected by causing a revolving cutter to be moved over a fixed steel model or dummy, the cutter thus shapes the blank to a fac-simile of the pattern or dummy.[50] SPINNING.--Tea pot bodies and a variety of articles in Britannia metal are “spun.” A piece of wood 4 or 5 inches in diameter is attached to the lathe head, and in this a hollow corresponding to the bottom of the tea pot is turned. A sheet of metal of a foot or so diameter is now put against the wood and pressed into the hollow by a wooden cylindrical mould with a round base which corresponds to the concavity. The disc is rotated very rapidly and the workman presses the soft metal over the mould so as to form a vessel in shape somewhat resembling a coffee cup with upright sides, the cylindrical mould is taken out and replaced by a disc of wood in two halves, held in place by a spindle from the back centre of the lathe. The metal cylinder is now gradually closed in until the opening is reduced to the required size, when the body is complete. The spindle is withdrawn and the divided disc of wood easily shakes out.