NEWPORT (UK) - Northrop Grumman's Newport News shipyard can melt things down as well as build things up.
Northrop Grumman said Monday that it used its foundry to melt more than 1,200 guns and knives either seized by Newport News police or turned in during a weapons buy-back program.
Shipyard volunteers dismantled the weapons and loaded them on Saturday into an induction furnace used for making steel castings for Navy aircraft carriers and submarines. The furnace, which gets as hot as 2,800 degrees, melted the weapons in eight hours.
Workers poured the molten metal into molds that will be used to cast a propeller for a replica of the Civil War ironclad ship USS Monitor on display at The Mariners' Museum.
