Ironware

“ In the manufacture of iron, for example, the presence of much phosphorus, sulphur, or silicon in the ore is liable to be very detrimental to the quality of the iron produced from it; in the manufacture of glass, the least quantity of iron in the materials will seriously injure the colour of the product; in the selection of copper for telegraph wire, if it contains the least trace of arsenic, the wire will not conduct the electricity properly. The difficulties experienced in procuring suitable materials for a manufacturing process are in some cases very great ”

“ And how many of the materials and articles which we wear, use, and have about us constantly would be in any way possible without the wealth of steel machinery and tools which are available and absolutely necessary for their production?
16The iron industry is often spoken of as the barometer of a people’s civilization. If all iron and iron products and their influence upon the world should be obliterated, it seems impossible that we could be even started on the road to civilization. ”

“ The selection of this filling rod, or wire, is all-important, for the skilful and successful iron worker uses a piece of metal that will fuse well with the parts to be repaired, at about the same temperature at which they themselves will fuse. Mild steel or Norway iron which is 90 per cent. pure is frequently used, but there are no hard and fast rules because every master mechanic has his own ideas about such 258 things, and would not take the word of any manufacturing company. ”

“ When irons are put away, turn the bottoms up. If they are put away for a long time, it is well to give them a thin coating of beeswax.
If you have ever seen any one test an iron with a wet finger to see if it is hot, you will only need the courage to try to be able to do it. Wet your finger in your mouth and strike quickly and lightly on the bottom of the iron; if it—spits, to put it elegantly, the iron is right for average ironing. Rub it on a paper or a cloth and judge from the effect whether it is clean and of the right temperature for the work you are doing. ”

“ New computer hardware, unadorned with such snares and delusions as an {operating system}, an {HLL}, or even assembler. Commonly used in the phrase `programming on the bare metal', which refers to the arduous work of {bit bashing} needed to create these basic tools for a new machine. Real bare-metal programming involves things like building boot proms and BIOS chips, implementing basic monitors used to test device drivers, and writing the assemblers that will be used to write the compiler back ends that will give the new machine a real development environment. ”

“ From the tiny specimen, made for some finical scientific experiment, to the three-inch monster that contains single wires nearly a quarter of an inch in diameter, and drags half a million pounds of ore, with the aid of powerful machinery, at the Spanish American Iron Company’s mines in Cuba, the general principle of manufacture and the mechanism used in the making are all alike. ”

“ Tinning.—Iron pots were first tinned in 1779, under Jonathan Taylor's patent. Tinning wire is one of the branches of trade rapidly going out, partly through the introduction of the galvanising process, but latterly in consequence of the invention of "screw," "ball," and other bottle stoppers. There were but five or six firms engaged in it ten years back, but the then demand for bottling-wire may be gathered from the fact that one individual, with the aid of two helpers, covered with the lighter-coloured metal about 2cwt. of slender iron wire per day. ”

“ A fertile field for the analog computer from the start was that of industrial process control. Chemical plants, petroleum refineries, power generating stations, and some manufacturing processes lend themselves to control by analog computers. ”

“ Steel has no fiber and for this reason it cannot be split as was the wrought iron bar shown in the illustration of page 92.
It will have been noticed that only small amounts of iron can be refined at one time. This, indeed, has been the unfortunate part of wrought iron manufacture, for it may readily be seen that production of any such material in lots as small as a quarter ton results in labor costs which are almost prohibitive in these days of machine-made goods. Not only is the output of a furnace small but much skill and judgment are necessary for the production of a high grade product. ”

“ While I write, iron is doubtless flowing from blast furnaces in England, Wales, and Scotland; while I write, ingots of white-hot Bessemer steel are being dealt with under the steam-hammer or in the rolling-mills; while I write, horse-shoes are being forged, and, at each moment, in one way or another, pieces of iron of every temperature could be found, from those which are as cold as the iron apparatus used by Sir James Dewar in his experiments in the liquefaction of air, up to the glittering melted steel which is poured from the tilted converter. ”

“ Steel companies, like Jones & Laughlin, use computers not only to run production mills, but also as research tools. Three 189hours of operation of a new furnace can be simulated in the computer in thirty seconds. Tracing the steel back to its ore, the computer is used again. The Bureau of Mines has used the machines for several years; they are helpful in problems ranging from open-pit operation, grades of ore, drill-core data logging, reserve calculations, and process control. ”

“ In 1854 I took out a patent for puddling iron by means of steam. Many of my readers may not know that cast-iron is converted into malleable iron by the process called puddling. The iron, while in a molten state, is violently stirred and agitated by a stiff iron rod, having its end bent like a hoe or flattened hook, by which every portion of the molten metal is exposed to the oxygen of the air, and the supercharge of carbon which the cast iron contains is thus "burnt out." ”

“ It is an ingot—many ingots—and when removed from the mould is loaded on steel cars and borne away on its journey. When in due course the ingot comes to the “blooming mill” it is fourteen inches thick each way and five feet long. Heated again, it is marched up on a steel rollway, also controlled by a “man higher up,” and into the hungry jaws of a machine that, after a series of swallowings, disgorges it at last, shrunken in sheer humility to a diameter of four inches and with a very long face—some forty-eight feet to be exact. ”

“ There are many modifications of these general rules and methods, and it may be necessary in certain cases, such as the ironing of braids stiffened with media other than gelatine or water soluble materials, to employ other methods, but they are generally peculiar to the plait used and of a purely ephemeral nature. In some factories box irons are used, heated by patent fuel, others are warmed by gas and electricity, but the general convenience of the fire-heated pad causes the old fashioned iron to retain an almost universal supremacy. ”

“ A gear can have a finite number of teeth; when we deal with electrons flowing through a wire we leave the discrete and enter the continuous world. A tiny change in voltage or current, or magnetic flux, compounded several hundred times in a complex computer, can change the final result appreciably if the errors are cumulative, that is, if they are allowed to pile up. This is what happens in the analog computer using electrical and electronic components instead of precisely machined cams and gears. ”

“ Without anyone in control of it, the machine vomited forth tacks. The supplies of iron ready to be manufactured into tacks raised themselves of their own accord; one piece after another, thrust themselves through the air, and inserted themselves in the proper machines. It was at first an uncanny thing to see. When these supplies were exhausted, iron sprouted out of the earth, the ground round the factory exuded pure iron as if it were being drawn by suction from the depths of the earth. ”

“ Substances are valuable to us according to their fineness and facility of change. Even iron is mobile in all its particles. We call it solid, but it is not. We lift our eyes from this writing and behold the tumbling surf of the great Pacific sea. Line after line of its billows are charging on the shore and tumbling in utmost confusion and roar of advancing and refluent waves. So the iron of the telephone wire. You often hold the receiver to your ear listening, not to the voice of business or friendship of men, but to the gentle hum of the rolling surf in the wire's own substance. ”

“ In cities and wherever the iron circuits were subjected to the destructive effects of atmospheric action, especially where much bituminous coal was used, oxidization shortened the life of the circuits in the pioneer telephone days, just as now happens thirty years later. The prevailing belief among the early telephone men was that iron wire would have an average life of from fifteen to twenty years. ”

“ Now they put back the right amount of carbon, and make the iron into steel.
“It’s a chemical process. When the air strikes the hot metals the oxygen unites with them, and they burst into flame. The whole process takes between fifteen and twenty minutes.”
“I am very sure,” said Dr. Crandon, “that I shouldn’t like to work here.”
“When we get to the open hearth process, which is the rival of the Bessemer,” said Mr. Prescott, “I expect that none of you will want to work there.”
“For my part,” said John Bradford, slowly, “I prefer Prescott mill.”
“So do I,” said Billy. ”

“ The employment of the lining material as a provider of suitable siliceous flux for the iron oxide, though until recently of vital importance for the practical operation of the bessemerising process, has been a necessary evil in many cases, and although it might have been a source of considerable profit under certain conditions, this function is unlikely in the future to be the consideration of greatest moment.
The vital requirements in modern converter practice are permanence of the lining and efficient means of effecting the fluxing of the iron oxide produced in the converting operation. ”

“ Crandon.
“Now,” said Mr. Prescott, “we’ll start for some more giants. Coming, Farnsworth?”
“Sorry, not to-day. Call again!”
“The steel mill comes next on my program,” said Mr. Prescott, when they went out. “I want you to see a Bessemer converter, an open hearth, and some crucibles, because that practically covers the different methods of making iron and steel.
“Here is the Bessemer converter. You see it is an iron cylinder made of wrought iron plates, and it tapers off at the top in a conical end. See. It is swinging down to be filled almost as easily as you can turn your hand over. ”

“ Little by little, for the tide of industrial activity had barely begun to rise, new uses were found for wire. In one field after another it supplanted vegetable fibre where strength and durability were essential. As the world began to feel the Nineteenth Century surge of mechanical impulse, as life developed new facets and new needs, science sought new means of meeting them, and in the quest itself grew. Producing methods advanced with the new demands of invention. Always the wire makers spun their filaments a little finer. ”

“ The iron wires of the sheathing, which completely inclose and cover the served core, are wound on by the powerful 'cable machines,' whose operation is so interesting a feature in a visit to a cable factory. The great revolving disc, seven or eight feet in diameter, is set round with iron bobbins filled with the iron sheathing wires. These bobbins are suspended on the face of the disc, so that as the disc revolves they always preserve their fixed position with respect to the earth. In this way the wires themselves are not twisted round their own axes as they are laid on the core. ”

“ Basic iron is that which is generally used in the basic process of steel manufacture. It should contain as little silicon as possible, because the silicon will attack the basic lining of the furnace; therefore the surface of the pig iron used for this purpose should, if possible, be free from sand. By the basic process of making steel, most of the phosphorus in the pig iron is removed, consequently basic iron may contain considerably more phosphorus than if it were to be used in the Bessemer process. ”

“ These inventions were the foundation of the system of patents under which barbed wire has been protected and sold. The development of the barbed wire industry would hardly have been possible without steel. Iron wire, used for fencing prior to the introduction of steel, was not suitable, seeing that iron does not possess sufficient tensile strength and lacks homogeneity, qualities which Bessemer and open-hearth steels possess in a high degree. ”

“ The suitability of any particular kind of iron for use in electrical machinery depends on the value of , and the exact determination of this ethereal coefficient thus becomes a matter of practical importance. ”

“ Formerly iron was used for telegraph wires; but it needs much more electricity to carry power or light or heat or a telegraphic message over an iron wire than one of copper. Moreover, iron will rust and will not stretch in storms like copper, and so needs renewing much oftener. Electric lighting and the telephone are everywhere, even on the summits of mountains and in mines a mile below the earth's surface. ”

“ Machines for forging and condensing the iron.—In England there are employed for the forging and drawing out of the iron, cast-iron hammers of great weight, and cylinders of different dimensions, for beating out the balls, or extending the iron into bars, as also powerful shears. These several mechanisms are moved either by a steam engine, as in Staffordshire, and in almost all the other counties of England, or by water-wheels when the localities are favourable, as in many establishments in South Wales. ”