Hello everyone,
I bought a pair of Chinese Shen Yang cuffs
On Ebay “brass cuffs” I couldn’t resist
Now IÂ’m trying to find information about them
1-the year they were produced.
2-why were they made in brass
My guess is they were produced during WWII
when steel was allocated to the war effort.
Am I close?
DennisWeb
>> Brass is definitely easier to work with, but why only in China
It may have to do with their path of industrial development.
In the US/Europe, cuff manufacture grew up in the C18 - C20, about the time that modern industry as we know it grew out of blacksmithing. The predominant cuff style, the Darby, was well suited to blacksmith production, as witnessed by the skads of them coming out of India. The more modern cuffs, like Towers and the later Peerless Pattern, required modern manufacturing techniques.
Those techniques were late in coming to China, particularly a modern steel industry. Remember the phase, under Mao, when they tried building thousands of backyard steel smelters? The project failed. But China has been founding in Bronze and Brass for millenia. They understood the process well. Moreover, it was suited to small scale production.
Their machine tool industry likewise lagged behind ours, and is only now coming into its own.
Making the Shen Yang cuffs from steel would require sophisticated modern machining techniques to create the complex shaped sideplates and bows. Peerless themselves couldn't handle it at first and subbed their production out to S&W. It would also consume steel which would have been expensive.
But the complex sideplate and bow shapes are relatively easy to cast in brass. The parts would then be second processed to add holes, ratchet teeth, etc. Again, this is a level of technology that could be set up in my garage. It is conservative of sophisticated machine tools, which would have been extremely expensive in that period.
As a bonus, casting - machining creates less scrap and that is immediately recyclable on site.
I think there were restraints made of materials other than brass. Many were wood-metal hybrids. I seem to remember the Chinese retaining the use of stocks into the C20. I remember seeing photos of Chinese prisoners confined in stocks and a gizmo called a Ciang (however you spell it). It was basically a wooden wheel stock fastened around the head and wrists. The prisoner was unable to feed himself and required outside assistance to survive.
The iron parts would have been simple blacksmith work; staples and hasps. When the wood deteriorated, the iron bits would be unlikely to be indistinguishable from gate hardware.
That's all my best guess, anyway. I may be completely wrong.
>> Maybe it was as simple as they first made it out of brass and just plain liked it.
There is probably a lot of truth to that. We are all creatures of habit. And I'm sure the Chinese hype industry is in no way inferior to our own.
"No no! You don't want to switch to steel cuffs. They rust horribly." [While muttering under his breath] "Besides, I can't manufacture steel ones in my shop."
