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"My father was a master mechanic; I grew up with a screwdriver in one hand and a pair of pliers in the other."
- Frank Herbert

Needle Pipe  
  A device that could project slivers of metal at near light speed.  

The electronic needle pipe was a foot-long metallic pipe with a diameter the size of a small human finger. It had a large, round metallic base, to be operated with two hands.

It projected a very small stream of electrons, which carried with them a tiny, sharp-pointed fragment of metal, like a needle. But when it struck it solidified.

There was a range finder for aiming, and a device for curving the electronic stream, so that the beam could be sent around almost any degree of curvature.

Technovelgy from Beyond the Stars, by Ray Cummings.
Published by Ace in 1928
Additional resources -

David Gerrold, in his War Against the Chtorr novels of the 1980's, wrote about something very similar to this. It was a gun that sprayed (I think electromagnetically) thousands of stainless steel needles per minute. See AMD Needle Rifle from A Matter for Men (1983) by David Gerrold.

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  More Ideas and Technology from Beyond the Stars
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