Boston historical wooden gas pipes (gun-drilled logs)

Coal-gas streetlight infrastructure in 1800s cities. Logs were gun-drilled, mudded into the ground with oakum. Boston excavation work still occasionally uncovers these.

People wanted that, particularly as they got bigger cities in the 1800s, because they could use it for streetlights. Except you had to pipe the gas from the coal gas generator to the lights down the street. And the first material they used for the pipes was — anybody know? It was wood. They would take logs and gun-drill them out. What's a gun drill? Ordinarily, if you had a lathe, you'd have the drill stationary and the piece spinning. In a gun drill you spin the drill opposite to the direction you're spinning the wood or the metal. They call it a gun drill because that way you can get very straight holes. If you try to drill a long hole with a metal drill in a piece of metal like a gun barrel, it will always walk to one side, and you won't get a hole more than twelve inches deep. But if both are counter-rotating — this is an important trick — can you counter-rotate? Most people will rotate in the same direction. I spent my senior year of high school doing this in class, because I was bored, and I can do figure eights in opposite directions, but it took me a year of practice. With a gun drill, you can drill long holes.