Ironwork

“ 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. ”

“ In the melting and puddling of iron, in its casting, forging, and rolling, and especially in its turning and planing, the inventions have been, perhaps, more striking than in any other operations upon metals; and the importance of the improvements thus effected in the manufacture of iron may be appreciated when we consider to how many more precious uses iron is put than any other metal. ”

“ You think, perhaps, that your iron is wonderfully useful in a pure form, but how would you like the world, if all your meadows, instead of grass, grew nothing but iron wire—if all your arable ground, instead of being made of sand and clay, were suddenly turned into flat surfaces of steel—if the whole earth, instead of its green and glowing sphere, rich with forest and flower, showed nothing but the image of the vast furnace of a ghastly engine—a globe of black, lifeless, excoriated metal? ”

“ You see that a man who works in iron must be both an artist and a smith—he must blow the forge and use the hammer. That gate in cast iron would be almost ugly. In the Swedish wrought iron, it is truly beautiful.
“The old fellows knew much more about the artistic side of iron than we do. Look at the old French locks—even a French king prided himself on his ability to make locks.
“There was a time when an apprentice to a locksmith had to make a masterpiece lock before he could become a master. It usually took him two years to do it, for he had to chase and chisel it from the solid. ”

“ There is the iron in the ore; there are the great stores of pig-iron lying ready for use; there are the vast bridges which span our rivers and straits; there are the thousands of miles of railway lines; there are the countless wheels and pieces of machinery; there are iron vessels on every ocean, and objects of every size made of iron, from the smallest nails up to hundred-ton guns. There is also at this moment, and every moment, a good deal of hot iron on the earth. ”

“ Prescott. “Heat expands iron. If we didn’t keep it cool, the screw wouldn’t be the right size when it is done.
“Cold naturally works the other way. Ever hear about the iron bridge where the parts wouldn’t quite come together, so they put ice on to do the job?” he asked, but he kept right on, without waiting for Billy to answer.
Billy saw other machines boring holes and rounding corners. It seemed as if iron could cut iron into any shape that anybody wanted. ”

“ In the next room he stopped again.
“Different kinds of iron,” he said. “Some much harder than others, like tool steel. Iron cuts iron. That’s a planing machine: automatic plane cuts any thickness.”
Billy stopped beside the mighty planer, moving over the large casting as easily as if the iron had been wood and the fierce chisel only a carpenter’s plane.
They went on a little further, then Mr. Prescott turned suddenly. “William,” he asked, “how long is an inch?” ”

“ To be mothers of iron ore (F. rust) , to be generators of "blue mouth".
The maidens stood in a dell, the "tin-breasts" lay powerless
On a little bank of land, on a narrow piece of ground.
There they made (F. built) iron, and by degrees formed steel,
Pulverised iron seeds, pounded lumps of steel.
God happens to arrive at the place where the iron seeds were.
Found the pounded bits of iron, the manufactured lumps of steel,
Carries them to the smithy of a smith — under the forge of Ilmarinen. ”

“ The toughness of malleable iron renders it applicable to purposes, where great strength is required, while its difficult fusibility, and property of softening by heat, so as to admit of forging and welding, cause it to be easily wrought.
2. Cast iron, from its cheapness, and from the facility with which its form may be changed, is made the material of numerous structures. Steel, which is the most important compound of iron, exceeds all other metals in hardness and tenacity; and hence it is particularly adapted to the fabrication of cutting instruments. ”

“ The iron, by this manipulation, is strengthened, refined, made more elastic or more resistant, and adapted to the use each artisan dreams of. If every blow should fracture it, if every furnace should burn the life out of it, if every roller should pulverize it, of what use would it be? It has that virtue, those qualities that withstand all; that draw profit from every test, and come out triumphant in the end. ”

“ These wonderful developments in the production of iron and steel were even more dependent upon the development of machinery for transporting the material and handling it in the factory than was the case with the textiles. Pig iron cannot be made without having in immediate conjunction three natural materials, iron ore, limestone and some material to produce intense heat. The iron is only found in the form of “ore,” being iron mixed with rocks, earth or other matter which must be removed in order to use the iron. ”

“ Looked underneath the forge — at the edge of the bellows.
Already the production (F. birth) of iron had taken place, the
Genus steel had appeared.
(c.)
The genesis of steel is known, the origin of iron is guessed.
Water is the eldest of the brothers, iron the youngest.
Paltry fire the middle one.
Water is the outcome of a mountain, fire's genesis is from the sky,
Iron's origin from iron-ore (F. rust) .
Fire became violent, worked itself into a fury.
Evil fire burnt much land, much land, much swamp,
Burnt sandy fields run wild, burnt sandy heaths. ”

“ Prescott. “We could sit here till to-morrow morning trying to mention things made of iron, or by means of iron, and then we should be likely to forget many of them.
“If it weren’t for iron and steel implements and tools, men would have hard work to earn a living.
“Dr. Crandon, what does it seem to you that we should lose if we were to lose iron?”
“I’ve been thinking about the arts—surgery, too. We need iron for sculpture, for music, for printing books and papers. We need iron, I should say, for art’s sake.” ”

“ Now in the series of operations, the blast-furnace, puddling and crucible processes, through which the iron passes from the state of ore to that of crucible tool steel, it is so difficult to detect just which are the conditions essential to excellence in the final product that, once a given procedure has been found to yield excellent steel, every one of its details is adhered to by the more cautious ironmasters, often with surprising conservatism. ”

“ Prescott,” said Billy, “explained to me about steel, and about forges.”
“When this country was first settled,” said Uncle John, “men had little forges to make iron, just as their wives had spinning wheels to make wool for clothes.
“When they began to make nails—they couldn’t build houses without nails—there was a forge in almost every chimney corner. Children, as well as grown people, used to make nails and tacks in the long winter evenings. People then took nails to the store to pay for things, as in the country they now take eggs.
“That old forge iron was never very pure. ”

“ The best, because most recent of the good elementary text-books on iron and steel. It is behind the times in regard to American practice, but contains a great deal of important information, clearly expressed. Covers iron ores, their physics and chemistry, construction and working of the blast furnace, foundry practice, puddling, forging, the Bessemer, open hearth and crucible processes, special steels, the testing of steel and protection from corrosion. Its sketch of the structure and heat treatment or iron and steel is very incomplete. ”

“ Prescott, “just remember three things: fuel, blast, and hammer—power, of course, behind the hammer. It’s the different variations that men have been making on those three things that have brought iron where it is to-day.
“Iron ore has so many things besides iron in it that the problem has always been how to get the impurities out.
“The old blacksmiths used to put it in the fire and hammer it; put it back in the fire and hammer again, until they worked most of the other things out. They made what is called forge iron. ”

“ Notwithstanding these early reproaches, I have lived to see the nomenclature of my youth furnish a vocabulary of terms in the art of iron-making, which is used by many of the ironmasters of the present day with freedom and effect, in communicating with each other on the subject of their respective manufactures. Prejudices seldom outlive the generation to which they belong, when opposed by a more rational system of explanation. ”

“ Wrought-iron is becoming much more largely employed for the framing of general machinery than heretofore, and it is customary in many cases to supplement a cast iron base or frame with wrought iron or steel bars. ”

“ It has been repeatedly shown above that iron not excited by a stone turns north and south; further that it has verticity, that is, special and peculiar polar distinctions, just as a loadstone, or iron which has been rubbed upon a loadstone. This indeed seemed to us at first wonderful and incredible; the metal of iron from the mine is smelted in the furnace; it runs out of the furnace, and hardens into a great mass; this mass is divided in great worksteads, and is drawn into iron bars, from which smiths again construct many instruments and necessary pieces of iron-work. ”

“ Considering the great structures built of iron, and the excessive use of iron in machinery, implements, and furniture, it is easy to realize that we are yet in this great period. Though we continue to use stone more than the ancients and more bronze for decoration and ornament than they, yet both are subordinate to the use of iron. General as the above classification is, it helps in an indefinite way to give us a central idea of progress and to mark off, somewhat indefinitely, periods of development. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the Forest of Dean and thereabouts the iron is made at this day of cinders, being the rough and offal thrown by in the Roman time; they then having only foot-blasts to melt the ironstone; but now, by the force of a great wheel that drives a pair of Bellows twenty feet long, all that iron is extracted out of the cinders which could not be forced from it by the Roman foot-blast. ”

“ We forget that, with primitive methods but fine ores and a fuel devoid of sulphur, the production of steel of fine quality is as easy a process as the manufacture of iron, in fact the only difference between the method of procuring iron and steel under these circumstances is the length of time the process is allowed to go on. The ancient founders used the finest ores, often containing 75 per cent. of iron, and, working with charcoal fuel, which was nearly pure carbon, they could produce steel as easily as iron. ”

“ If primitive man were slow to learn the use of iron it was not because this metal was scarce, for iron is everywhere. "Wherever, as we go up and down, we see a red-colored surface, or a reddish tint upon the solid substances of the earth, we see iron—the bank of red clay, the red brick, the red paint upon the house wall, the complexion of rosy youth, or my lady's ribbon. Even the rosy apple derives its tint from iron which it contains."8 But although iron is so abundant it is seldom found in its pure or natural state. ”

“ At once the founding of iron became an important art. It was not long, however, before the fact was established that by further treatment the cast iron would be transformed into wrought iron. To-day the production of cast iron in the blast-furnace is the first step in the manufacture of iron and steel. ”

“ Blacksmiths, locksmiths, tool-makers sometimes express this state by saying the iron is retting, appropriating a word applied exclusively to hemp, which is reduced to pulp and fibre by maceration. Well, the human soul, or, if you will, the threefold powers of body, heart, and intellect, under certain repeated shocks, get into such a condition as fibrous iron. ”

“ With us iron is employed in three states, of cast iron, wrought iron, and steel.
Cast iron is distinguishable, by its properties of being, in general, so hard as to resist both the hammer and the file; being extremely brittle, and for the most part, of a dark grey or blackish colour.
A great number of useful and important articles are formed of cast iron, such as grates, chimney backs, pots, boilers, pipes, and cannon shot. These are made by casting ladles full of the liquid metal into moulds that are shaped, for the purpose, in sifted sand. ”

“ But, roll and re-roll as often as we like, much cinder remains imbedded in the iron, in the form of threads and rods drawn out in the direction of rolling, and of course weakening the metal in the transverse direction.
80. Machine Puddling.—The few men who have, and are willing to exercise, the great strength and endurance which the puddler needs when he is stirring the pasty iron and balling it up, command such high wages, and with their little 500-℔ charges turn out their iron so slowly, that many ways of puddling by machinery have been tried. ”