Powder can image.

Buck Conner1 · Sep 1, 2019

Subject: Powder Can Image.

This can brings back memories of this company: From 1802 to 1921, Eleutherian Mills was a gunpowder mill site used for the manufacture of explosives by the DuPont family business, which was founded by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. The name also refers to the house on the hill above the mills, which was the first DuPont family home in America.

Here's a little history: The company gets into scientific instruments, medical equipment, heat transfer products, building products, and magnetic tape. DuPont spends $100 million to launch 41 new products in the coming decades. Company also moves into molecular biology and pharmaceuticals. 1969 - Astronauts on Apollo II mission walk on the moon. They wear protective suits that have 20 layers containing materials made by DuPont. The company buys Endo Laboratories, makers of Coumadin anticoagulant. 1971 - The company quits manufacturing black powder and dynamite. It also abandons Corfam, its artificial leather product called "DuPont's $100 million Edsel" by the New York Times.

__________________________________________

In the 1950's my father was a foreman for Bell of Pennsylvania (telephone company). He gets a call on Saturday morning around 4 AM he wakes me up so I can ride along with him to Wilmington DE to the DuPont building. There had been an explosion in the plastic division and cut communications (phone service). Two of his crews were on site when we got there. There was plastic on everything - looked like a cave with plastic having run down and dripped every where. This explosion crippled all functions of DuPont including the black powder and dynamite divisions, talk about a mess that even effected the military. :roll:

:slaps:

mark1945 · Sep 2, 2019

I have one of those cans also.

Buck Conner1 · Sep 2, 2019

.

Back in the 1990's these old powder cans were bringing top dollar, today they are worth half or less of the 90's prices.

We see this in other antique items do to the kids today look at the old stuff and have no interest. I deal with several antique shops and restorations shops and hear this all the time. I asked my daughter if she really wanted our treasurers, got a NO .... thanks for the support kid.

mark1945 · Sep 2, 2019

Buck we are becoming a use it and discard it society . Not a good thing but dont see anyway to stop it.

Buck Conner1 · Sep 3, 2019

mark1945 said:
Buck we are becoming a use it and discard it society . Not a good thing but dont see anyway to stop it.

.
Isn't that the truth. What we throw away those with nothing could survive on North Americans discarded goods. Sad for everyone and Mother Earth. :no:

Hanshi · Sep 3, 2019

The first can of powder I had was like the one pictured. I can also remember beer cans having a screw cap and a cone shaped top.

Buck Conner1 · Sep 3, 2019

Hanshi said:
The first can of powder I had was like the one pictured. I can also remember beer cans having a screw cap and a cone shaped top.

OLD FART ..... :lol!:

Hanshi · Sep 4, 2019

Buck Conner said:
Hanshi said:

The first can of powder I had was like the one pictured. I can also remember beer cans having a screw cap and a cone shaped top.

Click to expand...

OLD FART ..... :lol!:

Ain't it just a kick in the head to know tons more about the real world than these snot-nose college grads? With history (and not the PC crap that changes? constantly) not truly being taught any longer in HS or college, we are probably the last generation that knows where we've come from and where we're going. If fact, you can't know where you're going until you know very well where you've been. OLD FART, that's me in a nutshell. Oh, well, it beats the alternative. :Questuon: :Red tup: :joker:

Buck Conner1 · Sep 5, 2019

.
Isn't that the truth, what is this country doing with the education? I was told by a neighbor kid in his early 20's that our history (North American) is old world baloney and not fitting for today generations ..... :roll:

:x :evil:

Marty1 · Sep 5, 2019

Couldn't help notice " Lee, Mass." on the photo. Is there any story Buck' behind that picture :?:

Buck Conner1 · Sep 6, 2019

.

This was the location where the DuPont family purchased land for an expansion of their manufacturing of black powder and dynamite. Located on the Brandywine River (for water power to run the powder plant) near Wilmington DE. Closed in 1971 - company quits manufacturing black powder and dynamite. The large piece of ground becomes part of the famous DuPont Gardens (a beautiful place to visit. $$$$ expensive has no limits with their show places).

Marty1 · Sep 7, 2019

If the photo is in DE then why is Lee, Mass. written? :scratch:

Buck Conner1 · Sep 7, 2019

.
From what I have read and was told the "Lee, Mass" marking was a common way for writers to ID their work and photo's for there newsprint.

I would think more than likely that was the paper the person wrote for out of Berkshire, MASS.
What was done in 1905 is hard to say now. :cheers:

Buck Conner1 · Sep 7, 2019

<h3 class="post-content">.</h3><h3 class="post-content">Here's more history on DuPont.</h3>
1803-1921 - Largest U.S. maker of explosive black powder, a once-important and now-obsolete 19th-century technology.

Founded by Eleuthère Irénéé du Pont (1771-1834), the Brandywine River Mills became the largest maker of explosive black powder in the United States. That success resulted directly from the firm's pioneering use of gunpowder processing machinery driven by water wheels and water turbines. Divided into separate buildings to promote safety, its rolling, graining, and glazing mills produced black powder in a range of grades for military, sporting, hunting, construction, mining, and other applications.

From age 16 to 20, Eleuthère Irénéé du Pont had assisted Antoine Lavoisier, chief of the French gunpowder works at Essone (and founder of modern chemistry). After the du Pont family immigrated to the United States from France in 1800. Du Pont immediately put his expertise to work, upon seeing the power quality of American gunpowder used for hunting guns and pistols.

in 1802 he sited and began building the mill along the Brandywine River near Wilmington. In 1803 the mill refined its first saltpeter, and du Pont notified family-friend President Thomas Jefferson and soon received Army contracts for refining saltpeter, followed by substantial orders for gunpowder. Brandywine River Powder Mills produced its first gunpowder in 1803.

DuPont Powder Mill, Hagley Museum, on Brandywine River. Photo source: loc.gov (Library of Congress)

The Brandywine complex, with its various stages of production housed in separate buildings—stamping mills, rolling mills, grain mills, glaze mills, machine shops, power house, etc.—were built by machinists and millwrights, the precursors of mechanical engineers. Horse-drawn narrow-gage railways provided in-process transport between facilities. In later years, steam engines drove conveyor belts that moved materials along the production lines. The mechanical operations—rotating wheels, turbines, vessels and vats, distillation and combustion processes, etc.—are examples of fledgling mechanical engineering principles. Du Pont instituted management practices that established safety practices and ensured high-quality production. The largest powder mills of the time, these mills were unique in that they refined the raw material and made everything they used, making gunpowder to any specification.

Improvements and expansions were made by successive generations of du Ponts including Alfred Victor (1798-1856) and Henry (1838-1926). Lammot du Pont (1831-1884), however, was trained as an engineer and made several significant developments both to the mechanical process and to the chemistry in mid-19th century. Lammot du Pont improved black powder, which forced other mechanical changes in the process and lead the company into the new field of high explosives. In 1857 Lammot patented "B" blasting powder—also known as soda powder—which used inexpensive Peruvian and Chilean sodium nitrate and made DuPont a major force in the blasting powder industry. The B blasting powder greatly improved the expansion economics (not appropriate for military or sporting uses). Lammot built new plants for the production of smokeless gunpowder and dynamite.

Started as a large-scale, sophisticated manufactory, Brandywine maintained operations for 119 years. The Brandywine River Powder Mills performed shell loading and some smokeless nitrations during World War I. They were the most sophisticated producers of black power until their close in 1921. This is an obsolete technology today. Aside from one operating powder mill, the Hagley Museum owns the only virtually complete set of process equipment in North America.

The Eleutherian Mills–Hagley Foundation was formed in the 1950s, with the Hagley Museum and Library formed in 1957.

texsam1949 · Sep 25, 2019

Well I guess I should show my old can of Dupont here too !

Powder can image.

Help Support Modern Muzzleloading Forum:

Buck Conner1

Well-Known Member

mark1945

Well-Known Member

Buck Conner1

Well-Known Member

mark1945

Well-Known Member

Buck Conner1

Well-Known Member

Hanshi

Well-Known Member

Buck Conner1

Well-Known Member

Hanshi

Well-Known Member

Buck Conner1

Well-Known Member

Marty1

Well-Known Member

Buck Conner1

Well-Known Member

Marty1

Well-Known Member

Buck Conner1

Well-Known Member

Buck Conner1

Well-Known Member

texsam1949

Active Member

Latest posts

Powder can image.

Help Support Modern Muzzleloading Forum:

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Active Member

Join the conversation!

Join today and get all the highlights of this community direct to your inbox. It's FREE!