Cornish stamps

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Cornish stamps are stamp mills developed for use in the Cornish Tin mining operations around 1850.

Cornish Stamps are machines used to crush small lumps of ore into sand like material.

Constructed from heavy timber or iron lifters with iron “heads” at the bottom were raised by cams on a rotating axle, and fell on the ore and water mixture, fed into a box beneath. The heads normally weighed between 4 and 8 cwt each, and were usually arranged in sets of four, in timber frames. Small stamps were commonly powered by water wheels and larger ones by steam engines.

[edit] See also

• Mining in Cornwall
• Californian stamps - an evolution of the Cornish stamp with technical improvements