Ironworks

“ 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 is, technically, an alloy of iron and carbon. The point is to have the carbon added to the iron in just the right proportion to make the kind of steel that you may happen to want.
“Bessemer—he was an Englishman, too—invented a converter to put carbon back into iron, that is, to make iron into steel.
“When it comes to telling you about steels, I can’t do that to-day; there are too many kinds.
“You may not know it, William, but you are living in the age of steel. Industry depends on iron, for almost all the tools in the world are made of steel. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When seen partially lit up by the glowing masses of white-hot iron, with only the rays of bright sunshine gleaming through the holes in the roof, and the dark, black, smoky vaults in which the cumbrous machinery was heard rumbling away in the distance—while the moving parts were dimly seen through the murky atmosphere, mixed with the sounds of escaping steam and rushes of water; with the half-naked men darting about with masses of red-hot iron and ladles full of molten cast-iron—it made a powerful impression upon the mind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ It was only after the next great advance that we found man utilizing iron for his purposes of civilization. This metal, which with us is so common, was in those days very expensive, so much so that it could be used only for purposes of war and as the gifts of kings.
But the world was traveling fast and it was not long before the iron-carbon alloy, steel, was produced. Even so, many hundreds of years elapsed before the present wonderful age was ushered in through the great inventions of Henry Bessemer and the Siemens brothers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The multifarious use of iron in our day has given its name to the age. We have got far beyond the primitive applications of that metal—every day it is supplanting some other substance, and there is no saying where the wide-spread and varied service we exact from it will stop. The invention of the steam-engine, and the improvement of manufacturing machines, would be comparatively valueless, unless we had at command a cheap and abundant supply of iron for their construction. ”

“ But iron will not take a point, an edge of steel is not produced.
{The iron does not harden, the iron edge is not durable.
v. Iron does not take an edge without being dipt in water.
Smith Ilmarinen accordingly keeps pondering in his mind
What could be procured, what could be brought
To form a toughening-fluid [4] for steel—a hardening-water for
iron.
He prepared a little ashes, he dissolved some lye,
Tried it with his tongue, tasted it with intelligence,
Expressed himself in words: "These are not food for me
As toughening-fluid for steel, as a substance for preparing iron." ”

“ So important is the relation between cast iron, wrought iron, and steel that it may be well to illustrate this by the use of a diagram due to Professor Merriman. Assume that short rods of these materials, each of the same length and one square inch in cross section, are subjected to great stretching force by the use of a testing machine. As this force increases up to the elastic limit of six thousand pounds, the cast-iron rod becomes elongated proportionally. It breaks suddenly when the stress reaches twenty thousand pounds. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ Are they sufficiently powerful to produce a useful effect with so short a motion? This I cannot say from experience; but, from the known strength of iron and steel, their power, in these dimensions, must be very great. A few more observations may occur in the course of the enlarged description we shall give of the Machine itself.
A B C are three pipes of cast iron, well turned at the end, and having conical points of iron, well steeled, let into them, so as to have no tendency to bend. a b c are three steel bars, placed in troughs, so as to be heated or cooled by water poured into the latter. ”

“ Some kinds are broken up to be used as foundation for roads; others are granulated by being run into water, and so made into cement. Over in Germany, where the ores are rich in phosphorus, they grind up the linings of the furnace to make phosphatic fertilizers for the farmers.”
“Then,” said Dr. Crandon, “the making of iron involves the use of chemistry, doesn’t it?”
“It certainly does,” answered Mr. Prescott; “from the chemical composition of ores to the finished product. We are learning a great deal just now from the chemists about steel alloys. ”

“ Iron, when first melted from its ore, has little malleability, and the vessels and other implements that are made of it in that state, by casting into moulds, are easily broken. It acquires toughness and malleability by forging, which is done by beating it when red-hot with heavy hammers, till it becomes ductile and flexible. Steel, again, is made by heating small bars of iron with charcoal, bone, and horn shavings, or other inflammable matters, by which it acquires a finer grain and more compact texture, and becomes harder, and more elastic. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A knowledge of the mixture of copper, tin, and zinc, seems to have been among the first discoveries of the metallurgist. Instruments fabricated from these alloys, recommended by the use of ages, the perfection of the art, the splendour and polish of their surfaces, not easily injured by time and weather, would not soon be superseded by the invention of simple iron, inferior in edge and polish, at all times easily injured by rust, and in the early stages of its manufacture converted with difficulty into forms that required proportion or elegance."— (Papers on Iron and Steel, 365-6.) ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”