Forage cap

“ Generally, farm forges are not required to develop a great amount of heat. Farmers do but little welding, most of the forge work on the farm being confined to repair work such as heating brace irons, so they may be easily bent into the proper shape, or to soften metal so that holes may be punched through it easily.
Sharpening harrow teeth, drawing out plow points and horseshoeing are about the heaviest forge jobs required in a farm blacksmith shop, so that a medium size forge will answer the purpose. ”

“ It is no easy task to permit all this live stock to [Pg 98] utilize the forage which the National Forests produce, and yet do little or no harm to the young growth on which the future of the forest depends. To exclude the grazing animals altogether is impossible and undesirable, for to do so would ruin the leading industry in many portions of the West. ”

“ His forging, moreover, is not so heavy, nor is he exposed to such great heat. The forgeman’s ingot may weigh four or five tons, all blazing hot, with a porter-bar of thirty hundredweight or more attached, and though this will be suspended from the crane and he will have several mates to help him, it will yet require the whole of their powers to remove it from the furnace to the hammer and to turn it over or push it backwards and forwards to receive the ponderous blow. But if the forgeman is inferior to the smith in the matter of stature and bulk, he easily beats him in strength. ”

“ Five hundred and fifty thousand tons of iron, all shaped, are taken from the forge every day. To reach such a result it requires no less than 3,000 workmen and a motive power of 7,000 horses.
But do not be appalled at the cost of the coal, for, thanks to ingenious processes, the heat lost from the furnaces nearly suffices to run the boilers. If we remark that a power of one horse does in one hour the equivalent of a man's labor per day, we conclude that these machines (which run night and day) represent an army of 160,000 men that lends its gratuitous aid to the workmen of the forge. ”

“ The best forge for manual training and trade schools is the down draft with power driven fans, thus [8] eliminating all pipes overhead and doing away with the dust and dirt. A boy, working at this kind of a forge, can use both hands in the handling of the work being heated in the fire; this is a great advantage over the old way of turning a crank. Another good feature of the mechanical draft forge is that it teaches a boy early how to avoid over-heating or burning his iron. This is the first thing one must learn in working at forging, as one who cannot heat the metal properly cannot work it. ”

“ The dies used for some of these are massive, and a single squeeze from the ram of the hydraulic press employed bends the steel plate between the dies to shape at once. Fairly massive forgings are also produced in these presses.
Die forging in its highest developments invades the craft of the skilled smith. In shops where it is adopted entirely, the only craftsmen required are the few who have general charge of the shops. The men who attend to the machines are not smiths, but unskilled helpers. ”

“ The buildings attached to such a forge would naturally be merely temporary sheds, such as were referred to by the Earl of Richmond in 1281, when he gave leave to the monks of Jervaux to cut wood in his forest to smelt iron and to make two small sheds (logias) 'without nail, bolt, or wall,' so that if the smelters moved to another place (as these itinerant forges did when the ore or the fuel became exhausted) they should pull down the sheds and erect others. ”

“ Should it be too hard the temper may be reduced by dry grinding; when a temper not quite so hard and less liable to fly is required, it may be given by cooling the steel in grease or oil. The tools carried for this purpose must vary according to the means of conveyance. On the North Australian Expedition we had a portable forge, which remained at the main camp, but on our inland journeys with packed horses we took as many horse-shoes as were thought requisite, a small hand hammer, a pair of tongs, a few files, rasps and punches, and a supply of nails. ”

“ Like the drilling and blasting, axe work and cabin building were unfamiliar crafts, to be learned only at a round price paid in the coin of aching backs, stiffened muscles and blistered palms. Nevertheless, at the end of a toiling fortnight they had a one-room cabin roofed in, chimneyed and chinked with clay, a rude stone forge built for the drill sharpening and tempering, and a charcoal pit dug, filled and fired to provide the forge fuel. ”

“ But the blank used in die forging is generally a shapeless piece, taken without any preliminary preparation, a mere lump, a piece of bar or rod, which may be square or round irrespective of whether the ultimate forging is to be square, or round, or flat or a combination of forms. At the verge of the welding heat to which it is raised, and under the intensity of the impact of hammer blows rained rapidly on the upper die, the metal yields like lead, and flows and fills the dies. ”

“ MINING APPLIANCES AND METHODS A TEMPORARY FORGE
What prospector has not at times been troubled for the want of a forge? To steel or harden a pick or sharpen a drill is comparatively easy, but there is often a difficulty in getting a forge. Big single action bellows are sometimes bought at great expense, and some ingenious fellows have made an imitation of the blacksmith's bellows by means of sheepskins and rough boards. ”

“ The area of destruction of fougasses properly constructed with a charge of twenty or thirty pounds of powder may be assumed to be that of a circle seventy-five or eighty yards in diameter. Twenty mines would therefore serve for a mile. Several miles may be planted in a night and the assailants may be enticed, or invited out in the morning. Passes before an invading army may be mined in advance and thus if he cannot be destroyed, his progress may be so retarded by dress mines or sham mines as almost literally to dig his way. ”

“ This would increase the demand, and thence enhance the price of the straight more than any one not belonging to the craft could {97} believe. In good soil many of the crooks would be of sufficient size in twenty years to begin the supply, if properly thinned out. In a forest of larch containing many thousand loads, and which had been untouched by any builder, we have seen the greatest difficulty in procuring crooks for one small brig. It is only on very steep ground, and where the tree has been a little upset after planting, that any good crooks are found. ”

“ The steel is heated to a bright red heat, holding the steel at this heat as nearly as possible when hammering. Forging at a low heat is liable to cause the steel to burst. When the tool is forged, it is laid in a dry place on the forge to cool. When hardening, the point of the tool is brought to a white welding heat, about 2,100° Fahr., and this is noticeable by the appearance of melted borax, forming on the nose. The tool is now held in a compressed air blast, or dipped into sperm, linseed or lard oil until cool. ”

“ The forging mill which we are about to describe is one of those creations which is destined to remain for a long time yet very rare; and one which is fully able to respond, not only to all present exigencies, but also, as far as can be foreseen, to all those that may arise for a long period to come. The mill is constructed as a portion of the vast works that the Compagnie des Forges et Aciéries de la Marine own at Saint Chamond, and which embrace likewise a powerful steel works that furnishes, especially, large ingots exceeding 100 tons in weight. ”

“ So much depends upon the forging of steel that this operation must be carefully supervised. This is especially true because of the tendency to place unskilled and ignorant men as furnace-tenders and hammer men. The main points to be supervised are the slow and careful heating to the proper temperature; forging must be continued at a proper rate to the correct temperature. The bar of stock from which a forging was made may have had a fairly good structure, but if the details of the working are not carefully watched, a seamy, split article of no value may easily result. ”

“ It is his duty to hot the rivets in the forge for his mates and to perform sundry other small offices, such as fetching water from the tap in the shed, or holding a nail bag in front of the rivet head which is being cut away, in order to keep it from flying and causing injury to any of the workmen. The forges for hotting the rivets are fixtures and are supplied with air through pipes laid beneath the ground from the fan under the wall. Several boys [76] usually work from one fire, and there is often a scramble for the most advantageous position in the coals. ”

“ Steel from 1.4 to 1.5 per cent carbon should be used for tools for working chilled castings or locomotive wheel tires, lathe and planer tools, razors, or any tools required to cut hard materials. Forging should be done at a dull red heat. Welding can scarcely be accomplished with this grade of stock. Hardening should be done at a dark red heat. ”

“ Among these was a hay fork which could pick up almost half a load of hay at once and raise it to the mow.
A hay fork, at least one kind, looks like a big letter U turned upside down. The two arms are made of iron, and from their lower ends prongs come out to hold the hay from slipping off the arms.
A rope, running through a pulley is fastened to the curved part of the U, and a horse, pulling on the ground end of the rope, hoists into the air a big mass of hay.
The wagon was driven under the high barn window and from a beam overhead the hay fork was lowered. ”

“ A piece of ordinary washing line rope, or sash line rope, well resined if resin can be got—but pitch, tar, or wax will do by adding a little fine dust to prevent sticking—is used as a belt. With very rough materials a handy man can thus make a forge that will [141] answer ordinary requirements.—N.B. Do not use clay for your hearth bed unless you can get a highly aluminous clay, and can give it full time to dry before the forge fire is lit. Ordinary surface soil, not too sandy, acts well, if damped and rammed thoroughly. ”

“ In these passages companies of workmen are seen, some going to and fro, drawing heavy masses of machinery upon iron trucks; others employed in hoisting some ponderous cylinder or shaft by a crane, or stacking pigs of iron in great heaps, to be ready for the furnaces which are roaring near as if eager to devour them. And all the time there issues from the open doors of the great boiler-shops and forging-shops below, an incessant clangor, produced by the blows of the sledges upon the rivets of the boilers, or of the trip-hammers at the forges. ”

“ In addition to the work for lumbermen and for associations of various kinds, land owners in considerable variety have begun to employ Foresters. Among these are coal and coke companies, iron companies, wood pulp and paper companies which are beginning to look after their supply of timber; powder, arms, and ammunition companies, hydraulic and water companies; a great corporation engaged in the manufacture of matches; and a number of railroads, including the Delaware and Hudson, the Illinois Central, and the Pennsylvania. ”

“ The blooms from either the open-hearth or puddling process are treated similarly in what is termed the forge; this includes hammering, rolling, and shingling.
Fig. 151.—Rolling Tool Steel.
Squeezers or hammers are used for forming the bloom and expelling the inclosed slag. The bloom is then put through the largest groove of the roughing rolls and passed back through the next smaller, and so on until it is rolled down to the desired size. Figure 151 shows 14-inch rolls in use which, although somewhat similar to those employed for rolling iron, are larger and generally made with more rolls. ”

“ The oil furnaces are puffing away and spitting out their densest clouds of pitchy smoke, filling the shed, while the stamper fixes his dies and oils round, or half runs to the shears in the corner and demands his stock of iron bars to be brought forthwith. The old furnaceman, sweating from the operation of clinkering, shovels in the coal and disposes it with the ravel. The forging hammers glide up and down, clicking against the self-act, while the forger and his mates manipulate the crane and ingot, or charge in the blooms or piles. ”

“ Often cattle belonging to [57] different stockmen are grazed on adjacent areas which are not separated by natural boundaries such as rivers, ridges, or swamps. If there is no obstacle to prevent the cattle from drifting from one range into another, a drift fence is built, thus definitely separating one stockman's range from the other. Often good range would remain unused on account of lack of water altogether or on account of lack of water during the dry season only. In this case the Forest Service usually coöperates with the stockmen to provide water. ”

“ Were there but coal-mines near at hand Foix would revive, for the whole county is full of iron ore. Foix bleeds iron from its veins, but the ferruginous springs run away into the river. The stars in their courses fight against Foix; the valley of the Arget was full of nailmakers at one time—in 1835 there were forty-seven forges. Now their fires are put out: machine-made nails have killed the hand-made nails. Those made in the Barguillère, the valley of the Arget, were for horseshoes, and the makers dubbed themselves chevaliers. The extinction of the little forges has led to depopulation ”

“ These reservoirs, and the conduits which are found running all over the hill-slopes to supply them, or to turn the mill wheels, are scattered everywhere: the tanks look ugly places to tumble into.
The wages of agricultural labourers, I believe, do not exceed from 1 to 2 francs per day.
Assisting the operations of labourers of different kinds, there are horses, mules, and asses. Frequently a cart will be drawn by a combination of all the three, a small ass leading the van, followed by the larger mule, the rear being brought up by a horse yoked within the shafts of the cart. ”