Honoré Blanc (1736–1801) was a French gunsmith and a pioneer of the use of

interchangeable parts Interchangeable parts are parts (components) that are identical for practical purposes. They are made to specifications that ensure that they are so nearly identical that they will fit into any assembly of the same type. One such part can freely r ...

.. He was born in Avignon in 1736 and apprenticed to the gun-making trade at the age of twelve. His career spanned the decades from circa 1750 to 1801, a time period that included the reigns of

Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...

and

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

, the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

(which received military aid from Louis XVI), the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

, and the

French First Republic In the history of France, the First Republic (french: Première République), sometimes referred to in historiography as Revolutionary France, and officially the French Republic (french: République française), was founded on 21 September 1792 ...

Mass production innovation

In the middle of the eighteenth century, Honoré Blanc was inspired by the work of French artillerists led by

Jean-Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval Lieutenant General Jean-Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval (15 September 1715 – 9 May 1789) was a French artillery officer and engineer who revolutionised the French cannon, creating a new production system that allowed for lighter, more uniform ...

, who had begun pursuing interchangeability in

artillery Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during si ...

. Their

Gribeauval system The Gribeauval system (French: ''système Gribeauval'') was an artillery system introduced by Lieutenant General Jean Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval during the 18th century. This system revolutionized French cannons, with a new production syste ...

involved standardization of

cannon A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder ...

s and shells. Blanc applied these concepts to

musket A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually di ...

s, and used gauges and filing jigs to bring duplicate parts to interchangeability. The uniformity of the parts was achieved via cut-and-try methods, using jigs, gauges, and master models to guide hand filing (there was no true milling at the time, although rotary filing on lathes was not unknown). As each part was filed, it was repeatedly compared against a gauge or master model (one part declared the model for all others to compare with), and the natural ability of the eyes and hands to detect small differences, such as a slight step up or down from the master to the part, ensured sufficient interchangeability. When Blanc tried to interest fellow European craftsmen in the concept, they were unreceptive, due to a combination of skepticism as to the system viability and some amount of fear that their employment and/or status might be threatened by it if it ''did'' work. So Blanc turned to

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...

, at that time the American Ambassador to France; Jefferson quickly realized that such a system would free America from dependence on European sources for military equipment. Jefferson tried to persuade Blanc to move to America, but was not successful, so he wrote to the American Secretary of War with the idea, and when he returned to the USA he worked to fund its development. President

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...

approved of the idea, and by 1798 a contract was issued to

Eli Whitney Eli Whitney Jr. (December 8, 1765January 8, 1825) was an American inventor, widely known for inventing the cotton gin, one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution that shaped the economy of the Antebellum South. Although Whitney hi ...

for 12,000 muskets built under the new system. Blanc's work, and that of other French military officers led first by General Gribeauval and later by Major Louis de Tousard (who took his ideas with him into the newly established American military), formed the basis for the later development of interchangeable manufacture by the American military and its civilian contractors. Blanc, and interchangeable musket parts experiment, is highlighted in a multi-page footnote in ''Mémoire sur la fabrication des armes portatives de guerre'' by Gaspard Hermann Cotty (1806). There were "50 or 60" rifles and LeBlanc first developed the technique in 1777, demonstrating it just before the French Revolution. Roe (1916) mentions an unknown French inventor in whose work

took an interest circa 1785 and remembered years later as a "Mr Le Blanc".. Hounshell (1984) confirms that this inventor was Honoré Blanc.

References

Bibliography

* . '' Carl Edvard Johansson was the inventor of

gauge block Gauge blocks (also known as gage blocks, Johansson gauges, slip gauges, or Jo blocks) are a system for producing precision lengths. The individual gauge block is a metal or ceramic block that has been precision ground and lapped to a specific ...

s.'' * *

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Blanc, Honore 18th-century French engineers Firearm designers 1801 deaths 1736 births People from Avignon