Metalworking

“ There is a great fascination, too, in standing near the furnace and watching the sparkling, hissing mass of metal being withdrawn by the crane, or seeing the heated bars removed from the oil forge and clapped quickly on the steel dies to be beaten into shape. No one can withstand the attraction of the steam-hammers; even those who have spent a lifetime in the shed like to stand and watch the stampers and forgers at work.
Forging and smithing are, without doubt, the most interesting of all crafts in the factory ”

“ Castings and Forgings.—There are two distinct ways of making the steel objects actually used in the arts, such as rails, gear wheels, guns, beams, &c., out of the molten steel made by the Bessemer, open hearth, or crucible process, or in an electric furnace. The first is by “steel founding,” i.e. casting the steel as a “steel casting” in a mould which has the exact shape of the object to be made, e.g. a gear wheel, and letting it solidify there. The second is by casting it into a large rough block called an “ingot,” and rolling or hammering this out into the desired shape. ”

“ The production of this metal by the original cause of all things, and its manufacture, are indispensable for the whole business of mankind. The blacksmith and manufacturer of iron and steel stand at the head of all other mechanics. If the productions of the former were to pass out of existence, that of the latter would inevitably become extinct and the farmer would have to abandon the cultivation of the earth, and the wheels of all the hydraulic works and manufacturing machineries whatever would cease to move. ”

“ Modern Art Metal-Work.—The term “art metal-work” is applied to those works in metal in which beauty of form or decorative effect is the first consideration, irrespective of whether the object is intended for use or is merely ornamental; and it embraces any article from a Birmingham brass bedstead to works of the highest artistic merit. The term, as definitely distinguishing one branch of metal-working from another, is objected to by many on the ground that no such prefix was required in the best periods of art, and that allied crafts continue to do without it to the present day. ”

“ Wherever there is a stream with a fall, there is the grinding-wheel at work: and in hundreds of workshops the nicer labour of the artificer is fashioning the steel into every instrument which the art of man can devise, from the scythe of the mower to the lancet of the surgeon. The machinery that made the steel has called into action the skill that makes the file-cutter. No machine can make a file. ”

“ Railways were stretching their lines into the golden regions of the West; manufacturers of farm implements were calling for steel to be fashioned into tools to reap the rich crops of the wide prairie lands; inventors were each day evolving some new use for the metal. Was it any wonder then that steel became a world necessity and that the blast furnace became a philosopher’s stone that transmuted dull ore into precious gold? ”

“ The vanner, as well as the jigger, will become an instrument of precision; and in combination with rushing appliances operated by cheap power in almost unlimited quantities it will materially assist in multiplying the world's supply of metals. This again will aid in promoting the further extension of machinery. Gold will be produced in greater abundance for what is called the machinery of commerce; and the base metals, particularly the new alloys of steel and also copper and aluminium, will be more largely produced for engineering and electrical purposes. ”

“ Then the steam-hammer shed, in which nothing but forging is done, was a flourishing place. All the wheels for the engines and waggons, together with piston rods, driving gear, axles, and cranks, were made there. These are obtained elsewhere now, some in England and Scotland, and other parts from abroad. Steel has superseded iron in a great degree, too, being harder, tougher, stronger and cheaper. The combined skill of the chemist and scientist has simplified the manufacture of it, and it is to be obtained in large quantities. ”

“ Clean-up man in the pit was my first job, which I held until I passed to third-helper on the open-hearth. Later I worked in the cast-house, became a member of the stove-gang, and at length achieved the semi-skilled job of hot-blast man on the blast-furnace. I acquired the current Anglo-Hunky language and knew speedily the grind and the camaraderie of American steel-making. In these chapters I have put down what I saw, felt, and thought as a steel-worker in 1919.
Steel is perhaps the basic industry of America. ”

“ The arrangement adopted with these is first to show the ores from each district, next the mode of smelting those ores, the metal procured, and generally the manufacture of the metal. The Iron, of course, assumes the first importance. The Pig Iron is the first state in which the metal is obtained; it is then submitted to the refining and “puddling” processes; then rolled into bars, nails, and plates, or drawn into wire; we then see it converted into steel, by various processes including Bessemer’s, and this leads us to the manufactures of Sheffield. ”

“ The unrecovered metal may be judiciously proportioned as follows:—A portion of it works itself into the wood-work of the flooring of the shops, lathes, boards, and other parts of workshop appliances; then there is the refiner’s profit—as purchases of the sweep, polishings, and other refuse of precious metal workers. Instances can be recorded in which shrewd business-men have actually taken up the floors of their workshops and recovered a vast quantity of metal which was supposed to be lost for ever ”

“ When a thick and comparatively massive shape is required, it is often easier to cast it at once. For thinner and lighter forms it is usually more convenient to treat the ingot or crude product of the furnace as mere raw material for a long series of workings under the hammer, or its patent mechanical equivalents, the rolling and pressing mills of modern mechanics. The choice is further influenced by the toughness generally characteristic of wrought metal, whereas the alloys which yield the cleanest castings are by no means universally the best in other respects. ”

“ It needs other than manual power to subdue the metals to the present wants of man, and until those modern motor powers, such as steam, compressed air, gas and electricity, and modern hydraulic machinery, were developed, automatic machine tools to any extent were not invented. So, too, the tools that are designed to operate on hard metal should themselves be of the best metal, and until modern inventors rediscovered the art of making cast steel such tools were not obtainable. ”

“ It is one of the glories of this century that metal-working tools and machinery have been invented that take the metal from its inception, mould and adapt it to man’s will in every situation with an infinite saving of time and labour, and with a perfection and uniformity of operation entirely impossible by hand. ”

“ The felling of a tree would occupy a workman a month, unless helped by the destructive action of fire. Dwellings could not be built, the soil could not be tilled, clothes could not be fashioned and made, and the hewing out of a boat was so tedious a process that the wood must have been far gone in decay before it could be launched. It was a great step in advance to discover the art of working in metals, more especially in steel, one of the few metals capable of taking a sharp edge and keeping it. ”

“ Power Presses in Metal Working.
From glass let us now turn to metals. It is their tenacity that chiefly gives them value; this tenacity is usually accompanied by a hardness which disposes us to regard nickel, for example, as of a solidity quite unyielding. But the coins in our pockets prove that under the pressure of minting machinery they are as impressible as wax. In molds and dies, each the counterpart of the other, brass, bronze, iron, steel, and tin-plate take desired forms as readily as if paste. Solid though these metals appear they yield under severe stress with a semi-fluid quality. ”

“ There can be little doubt that means will be discovered of thus producing perfect facsimiles of artists' drawings; so that, if no more than facsimile be required, the old art of cutting furrows in metal may be considered as, at this day, virtually ended. And, indeed, it is said that line engravers cannot any more get apprentices, and that a pure steel or copper plate is not likely to be again produced, when once the old living masters of the bright field shall have been all laid in their earth-furrows. ”

“ Too, the metal for valves and fittings and other more or less complicated castings for high steam, air, ammonia, water, etc., must be uniform, of close grain, strong, yet soft enough to machine easily at the extremely high speeds which modern efficient tools and methods demand. The production of the best metal for such work requires the use of properly selected materials, judicious mixing, and clever operation of the cupola furnace, that the molten metal delivered to the foundry for the pouring of the molds may be hot and fluid and of the right composition for the particular work in hand. ”

“ In the making of cheap steam and gas engines, as well as in machine work generally, rapid progress will be made when the possibilities of producing hard and smooth wearing surfaces without the need for cutting and filing rough-cast metal have been fully investigated. Many parts of machinery will be electro-deposited—like the small articles already mentioned—in aluminium or hard copper at the metallurgical works where ore is being treated for the recovery of metal, or even at the mines themselves. ”

“ Some collectors very wisely follow up their researches after new treasures by investigating the methods of their production, and they even visit modern works where similar methods, although more advanced, are going on. Very interesting indeed is it to watch the molten metal as it is mixed and poured into moulds and made into pigs. To see the great rolling mills through which the bars [48] are passed, and to watch the hammering and drawing by the steam-hammer and powerful machinery, is an education which enhances the interest there is in the possession of finished goods—old and new. ”

“ Besides two huge furnaces for smelting the raw ore, there are upwards of thirty others for the washing, puddling, and treatment of the iron in its various stages; eighty forges, two iron founderies, and one of copper; one vast hall for the construction of boilers, another for fly-wheels, and all the portions of steam-engines, and a third for locomotives; [180] besides innumerable apartments for every other species of heavy machinery, rooms for designers and magazines of models. (The spinning, and other light machinery, is manufactured at another establishment at Liege.) ”

“ THE CORPORATION’S IMPLEMENTS We live to-day in the “Age of Steel.” The metal probably plays a more important part in our civilization than any other product made by the hands of man. Our big buildings, our navies (both war and merchant) , our trains and the rails they run on, machinery of all kinds, tools for every trade—all steel. Furniture, watch springs, even wire hair for stuffing mattresses and other uses—steel again. And new uses for the metal are being discovered almost every day.
It is difficult to realize that the age of steel is hardly more than half a century old. ”

“ We have given these particulars of the advance in man’s knowledge of the metallurgy of steel and its results by way of illustration. A parallel story could be told of the metallurgy of copper and tin, and of a multitude of metals, nickel and aluminium to name but two, unknown before the nineteenth century dawned. It is in this great and growing mastery over substances, over different sorts of glass, over rocks and plasters and the like, over colours and textures, that the main triumphs of the mechanical revolution have thus far been achieved. ”

“ One naturally wonders how it is possible to mine and carry these ores to the shipping ports of Duluth, Superior, Two Harbors, Marquette, Ashland, Escanaba, etc., put them aboard ore carrying boats, transport them by steam power to Milwaukee, Chicago, Gary, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburg, Buffalo, and the many other iron centers and convert them into iron and steel at a profit. This, of course, is only possible because of the inventive genius of man. For every operation ingenious machinery has been constructed which has brought the cost of such operations to its lowest terms. ”

“ And even this labour has now been got rid of; for, by an arrangement of the gearing, the slide itself has been made self-acting, and advances with the revolution of the work in the lathe, which thus supplies the place of the workman's hand. The accuracy of the turning done by this beautiful yet simple arrangement is as mechanically perfect as work can be. The pair of steel fingers which hold the cutting tool firmly in their grasp never tire, and it moves along the metal to be cut with an accuracy and precision which the human hand, however skilled, could never equal. ”

“ The story of railroading leads naturally to that of progress in iron and steel work generally, which has been extraordinary during the century. Of inventions in this direction perhaps the most notable is the Bessemer steel-making process, which converts iron into steel by the direct addition of the necessary quantity of carbon, and has had the important result of making steel cheaper to-day than iron was not very many years ago. In iron-working machinery the progress has been very great, and in no other field has the genius of the American inventor been more conspicuously displayed. ”