Ludlum Spring and Steel Company of Pompoton, N.J. began in 1854 and were excellent quality control folks bordering on the edge of insane. In 1906 they began construction on a facility in Watervliet, N.Y. with an electric furnance much like Roechling. Plumbago crucibles were used as well as short bars of either Swedish, Wallon or Styrian charcoal iron. The end product may have actually been better than Roechling and was quite cheap for the end product. At one time industrial spies were sent to work at Ludlum Spring and Steel Company(inc. in 1898 I think) and after a couple of weeks they returned to their master with a report. Ludlum Spring and Steel had the same mixture as their competitor but after 4 hours of heating they were Johnny on the spot with their very specific time table of activity.
I guess were are still pretty much at the preponderance of evidence stage but data is quickly mounting on the side of Crucible Steel Company/C.H. Halcomb Steel Works, with L.C. Smith being listed as on the Board of Directors(as previously posted by Drew) as well as President of the L.C. Smith Typewriter Company and President of the National Bank of Syracuse in 1907, as being the source of the tube steel know as Crown & Nitro. From what I can glean most of the tubes with the name Crown & Nitro steel had/have the Hunter Arms logo/trademark. So what exactly is a trademark and what interest would an entity have to have in order to advertise a particular product with a trademark?
Anyway, it seems that by 1904 or 1905 that the C.H. Halcomb Steel Works in Syracuse was deep in thought of implementing the new fangled "electric arc furnace" in their facility, with L.C. Smith doing much of the digging as well as consulting with metal minds on the American continent. L.C. Smith had to be 1 step in front of the fellas at Ludlum Spring & Steel Company. I have to dig a bit more but it seems that Dr. Paul Heroult/Herouet of France had made the hurdle in furnace technology in bringing his theory/experiment of the electric arc furnace to a commerical application. Up until say 1904 a cheap raw material had to be exposed to several processes in order to remove the impurities to arrive at a high quality end product. Or one could purchase 1st class raw material from places like Gysinte, Sweden where the Kjellin process was being utilized. As always it comes down to economics and the Heroult/Herouet process allowed the removal of inferior raw materials to get a top shelf steel. For Hunter Arms, the tube steel is pretty much home grown or local via a canal and the profit margins are dependent on just how cheap one can obtain electricity, which I'm sure was really cheap during this time as the electric coops were trying to get everyone on the hook/line. It appears, and is conjecture for now, that L.C. Smith was looking deep into the steel making processes in order for the C.H. Halcomb Steel Works to produce steel more economically and then the H.A. Hunter company was acquiring steel probably thru the L.C. Smith connection and negating the import tariff on tubes in the rough from Europe, while attempting to carve out a portion of the gun trade from importers like S,D, & G by offering a quality product at a comprable or lower price. By 1909, after the 1906 installation of the 1st elecric arc furnace in the U.S. of A., alloys like nickel and chrome vanadium were being offered by the C.H. Halcomb Company. I've read that during the same period of 1906-1909 the Hunter Arms Company offered tubes with the stamp "London Steel" and if the stamp is coupled with the "SB&Co." stamp then the two just may point back to Sanderson Brothers Steel Works. London Steel tubes as well as Special Steel tubes must have an alloy composition. Are their any L.C. Smith longarms with the stamp Crown, Nitro, Armor, Royal, Special or London Steel that also wears a Belgian tube maker's mark? Are there enough blown Hunter Arms tubes of each variety out there to obtain an analysis?
The advertising phrase "Ride a Hunter, Shoot a Smith" from circa 1895, the Hunter Arms company was marketing their trademark steel in at least 2 directions, giving insight to the fact that they were trying to make a buck in any direction.
Kind Regards,
Raimey
rse
