- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 160
Ladies and Gentlemen,
re the gentleman‘s cooments that the material which states the metal the VCs are made from is just a pile of slag. Well!!
Having been to Hancock‘s the company which manufactures the VC (amongst many other items) in 1999 in Britain. Shown the safe in which the metal is contained, it is in twelve pound pieces, which quite obviously have been cut from a guns barrel. The items actually have a NATO Stores Stock Number (of the 13 digit variety) with a designation of (I think) "Metal, Manufacturing, bronzed, 12lb lumps".
When they manufacture VCs, they cut a one pound piece off, this is melted down and a casting of ten VCs is manufactured. Each rough casting is then hand finished to the highest standards by a commercial jewellry tradesman, each completed VC is unique, and its measurements and identifying marks are recorded. Not all ten casts are acceptable, and those not being up to Handcocks extremely high standards are destroyed (metal not reused).
The actual current ‘lumps‘ were tested a number of years ago, and the metalurgists concluded that the metal structure was consistant with Chinese pre-1850 manufacturing. It would appear that it was a weapon captured in the 1860 China War, whilst the original VCs were manufactured from Russian cannon, some time in the twentieth century the original stock ran out. Ancedotal evidence points to there having been some 10 or 12 Russian barrels used, but, due to flaws in the metal content a lot was disposed of.
Soldier Magazine ran a article on the subject a number of years ago, with interesting photos of the various items.
Handcocks when a VC is prepared for issue, have all of the relevent details of the items completed manufacture ie naming and the individual structure of the VC recorded.
The VC for Canada has actually been manufactured, apart from the initial manufacture proof items.
Yours,
Jock in Sydney
re the gentleman‘s cooments that the material which states the metal the VCs are made from is just a pile of slag. Well!!
Having been to Hancock‘s the company which manufactures the VC (amongst many other items) in 1999 in Britain. Shown the safe in which the metal is contained, it is in twelve pound pieces, which quite obviously have been cut from a guns barrel. The items actually have a NATO Stores Stock Number (of the 13 digit variety) with a designation of (I think) "Metal, Manufacturing, bronzed, 12lb lumps".
When they manufacture VCs, they cut a one pound piece off, this is melted down and a casting of ten VCs is manufactured. Each rough casting is then hand finished to the highest standards by a commercial jewellry tradesman, each completed VC is unique, and its measurements and identifying marks are recorded. Not all ten casts are acceptable, and those not being up to Handcocks extremely high standards are destroyed (metal not reused).
The actual current ‘lumps‘ were tested a number of years ago, and the metalurgists concluded that the metal structure was consistant with Chinese pre-1850 manufacturing. It would appear that it was a weapon captured in the 1860 China War, whilst the original VCs were manufactured from Russian cannon, some time in the twentieth century the original stock ran out. Ancedotal evidence points to there having been some 10 or 12 Russian barrels used, but, due to flaws in the metal content a lot was disposed of.
Soldier Magazine ran a article on the subject a number of years ago, with interesting photos of the various items.
Handcocks when a VC is prepared for issue, have all of the relevent details of the items completed manufacture ie naming and the individual structure of the VC recorded.
The VC for Canada has actually been manufactured, apart from the initial manufacture proof items.
Yours,
Jock in Sydney