Steel frame

“ Brass Frame in Repoussé
Design for the Frame
Working Out The Design
Punches can be purchased, as can the pitch bed or block. Both can be made easily, however. Several punches of different sizes and shapes will be needed. A piece of mild steel, about 3/8 in. square, can be easily worked into tools shaped as desired. A cold chisel will be needed to cut the metal to length; a file to reduce the ends to shape, and a piece of emery paper to smooth and polish the end of the tool so that it will not scar the metal. ”

“ In the Unity Building, Chicago, of seventeen storeys, the metal frame- work from basement columns to finished roof was accomplished in nine weeks. In the Fisher Building, Chicago, the entire steel skeleton above the first floor, nineteen storeys and attic, was erected in twenty-six days.
Owing to the low price of steel it is possible to make a steel column of equivalent strength cheaper than one in cast iron. ”

“ 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 Steel has superseded iron in a great degree, too, being harder, tougher, stronger and cheaper.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. ”

“ Bessemer steel has been largely used for the manufacture of rails, rod, wire, pipe, merchant bar, etc., while open-hearth steel has gone into plate, boiler tubes, structural shapes, billets for axles, etc. ”

“ 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 bending is done thus: the metal floor is perforated with thousands of holes, into which iron pegs are inserted until they form the curvature required, and the long, pliable bar of steel is pressed against them until it corresponds exactly with the line exhibited in the “scrive board,” which is always in sight of the workmen for guidance and comparison. In handling the metal the men use pitchforks, and with the prongs inserted in the holes they get purchase enough to make the bar yield; if it bends upward a hammer is used upon it. ”

“ Rolled steel products consist of steel plates, shapes, sheets, bars, and other unfinished steel products and are in turn made from ingots by means of rolling mills. The steel fabrication involved herein may also be divided into structural fabrication and plate fabrication. Fabricated structural steel products consist of building framework, bridges, transmission towers, and similar permanent structures, and are made primarily from rolled steel shapes, although plates and other rolled steel products may also be employed. ”

“ Scrap from anywhere in America; a broken casting, the size of a man's trunk, down to corroded pipe, or strips the thickness of your nail, salvaged in bales. The overhead crane gathers them all from arriving flat cars by a magnet as big as a cart wheel, and the pieces of steel leap to meet it with apparent joy, stick stoutly for a moment, and fall released into iron [Pg 32] charge-boxes. By trainloads they pass out of the stockyard and into the mill, where the track runs directly in front of the furnace-doors. There the charging-machine dumps them quickly into the belly of the furnace. ”

“ Its glare lights up the countryside for miles around, and the hissing and roaring of the molten iron, or rather of the steel groaning in its birth throes, forms a fitting accompaniment. It is a sight that once seen will never be forgotten. ”

“ Not only must the risers be large enough that the metal in them is the last to solidify but they must be built high enough above the casting that sufficient pressure is exerted on the steel entering the shrinking parts to make its entry sure. ”

“ Of the forging and the rolling of the steel a whole book might be written. It is enough now to say that of the 50,000,000 pounds of steel, every pound was made on honor. The railroad had its inspectors everywhere, but the rolling-mill men held to their formulas for perfect steel, and perfect steel was the result. A slight flaw in the metal, and possibly at some unexpected day, a great catastrophe. The safety of human life was upon the men who forged the steel, and they forged honor into every great girder, into every rod and bolt and plate. ”

“ Modern tool-steel practice has changed from that of the past, not by the use of labor-saving machinery, but by the use of scientific devices which aid and guide the skilled craftsman in producing a steel of higher quality and greater uniformity. It is upon the intelligence, experience, and skill of the individual that quality of tool steel depends.
HARDENING HIGH-SPEED STEELS We will now take up the matter of hardening high-speed steels. The most ordinary tools used are for lathes and planers. The Page 172 forging should be done at carbon-steel heat. ”

“ Here is a huge planing machine travelling to and fro over a copper bar. A crank shaft has been cut out of solid steel by boring holes close together through a thick plate, and the two sides of the plate have been broken off, leaving the rough shaft with its edges composed of a considerable number of semicircles. The shaft is slowly rotated on a lathe, and tiny clouds of smoke arise as the tool nicks off pieces of metal to reduce the shaft to a circular shape. [138] Other machines, with high-speed tool steel, are finishing gear shafts. Fly-wheels are being turned and worm shafts cut. ”

“ The top part which contains the pipe is cut off and goes back to the furnace to be remelted. It is termed “discard.”
The big steel makers themselves shape most of their steel into such finished products as rails, plates, rods, and wire. Some of it is by them reduced from the ingot into intermediate “blooms,” “billets,” “bars,” etc., and sold in this form for the manufacture of axles, drop forgings and the hundreds of products which we each day see. ”

“ Strong cast-iron boxes are bolted upon the centres of the stones, which by means of screw clamps seize firmly the horizontal iron shafts that traverse and drive them, by passing into a slit-groove in the vertical turning shaft. This groove is lined with strong plates of steel, which wear rapidly by the friction, and need to be frequently renewed. ”

“ This method of construction is more expensive than the American in first cost, but it gives a more durable and stable track. Such metal plates, or “tie-plates,” have come into considerable use also in the United States, where they are always made of rolled steel, punched with rectangular holes through which the spikes pass. They serve two principal purposes: they diminish the wear of the sleeper under the rail by providing a larger bearing surface, and they help to support the spikes and so to keep the gauge. ”

“ Often the bolts, clips, nuts, pins, devices and other fittings are of special heat-treated nickel steel which must not be heated locally for bending or for attachment. Such work seriously weakens the steel. ”

“ The term 'skeleton construction ' shall apply to all buildings wherein all external and internal loads and strains are transmitted from the top of the building to the foundations by a skeleton or framework of metal. In such metal framework the beams and girders shall be riveted to each other at their respective junction points. If pillars made of rolled iron or steel are used, their different parts shall be riveted to each other and the beams and girders resting upon them shall have riveted or bolted connexions to unite them with the pillar. ”

“ The steel is cast in lots, weighing in some cases as much as 75 tons, in enduring cast iron moulds into very large ingots, which with their initial heat are immediately rolled down by a series of powerful roll trains into their final shape with but slight wear and tear of the moulds and the machinery. But in addition to the greater cost of steel founding as compared with rolling there are two facts which limit the use of steel castings: (1) they are not so good as rolled products, because the kneading which the metal undergoes in rolling improves its quality, and closes up its cavities ”

“ But steel of cementation, however carefully made, is never quite equable in its texture. Steel possessing this latter quality is made, by fusing bars of blistered steel, in a crucible placed in a wind furnace. When the fusion has been completed, the liquid metal is cast into small bars or ingots, which are known in commerce by the name of cast steel. Cast steel is harder, more elastic, closer in texture, and capable of receiving a higher polish than common steel.
7. Steel is also made directly from cast iron, or at once from the ore. ”

“ The Rolling of Steel Plates It is manifestly impossible in the space at disposal to give in much detail the rolling of many of the better known products. Fortunately it is not necessary, for after description of the making of plate, pipe and tube, and of rod and wire, the rolling of other forms such as rails, bars, and the structural shapes, I beams, channels, angles, Z bars, etc., can well be imagined. ”

“ From the mixer the iron is taken to the converter to be turned into steel. And now we come to the most spectacular, the most impressive sight that is to be witnessed in the steel industry, the theme for the poet who may one day be born to sing the Song of Steel.
A Bessemer blow, a converter in action, is a small-sized Vesuvius in eruption, a volcano tamed and chained by man. From its great steel crater shoot forth flames to the height of perhaps 100 feet, showering sparks in every direction and creating a pyrotechnic display of unequalled splendor. ”

“ This alloy is so hard that it cannot be machined or drilled by ordinary means; it must be treated by emery or carborundum wheels. Yet it is so malleable that it can be used for rivets when headed cold. It is so tough that it may be bent and twisted at will without rupture, so that it forms railroad switches, frogs, and crossings of great durability.
High-Speed Tool Steels.
Until 1868, the steel tools used in lathes and drills, planers and so on, were limited to the moderate pace at which they remained cool enough to keep their temper. ”

“ Fabricated plate products on the other hand, consist of pressure vessels, tanks, welded pipe, and similar products made principally from rolled steel plates, although shapes and bars are also occasionally used. Both plate and structural fabricated products are made to specifications for a particular purpose; fabricated products do not include standard products made by repetitive processes in the manufacture of general steel merchandise such as wire, nails, bolts, and window frames. ”

“ A further process is the manufacture of the metal thus treated into SHEAR STEEL, by exposing a fasciculus of the blistered steel rods, with sand scattered over them for the purposes of a flux, to the heat of a wind-furnace until the whole mass becomes of a welding heat, when it is taken from the fire and drawn out under a forge-hammer,—the process of welding being repeated, after which the steel is reduced to the required sizes. ”

“ When taking heavy cuts a tool of to-day may exert as much as ten tons’ pressure against the metal it is cutting and the advent of this wonderful material for tools necessitated the building of immensely heavier and stronger lathes and other machines, which, alone, were capable of giving them power to do their work. The high-speed steels, therefore, have revolutionized metal-cutting practice and shop methods and have very largely aided efficiency. ”

“ When the carbon has been put in, the retort is closed. The molten metal absorbs the alloy, and the product is Bessemer steel. In fifteen minutes pig iron can be transformed into ingot steel. The invention made possible the use of steel in the construction of bridges, high buildings, and ships. It made this age of the world the Age of Steel. ”

“ Hence, tougher and more fibrous grades of soft steel termed “Machine” steel, are employed, meaning that the steel is especially suitable for the working parts of machines. This class of steel is of a lower grade than that known as “tool” steel. It is softer, works, both on the anvil and in the lathe, more easily, and will bear heating to a higher temperature without deteriorating. It approaches more nearly to wrought iron, and is sometimes made of so low a grade as to be scarcely distinguishable therefrom. ”

“ The workman, in executing the design upon the object in hand, places it upon the “snarling-iron” (for such the tool is called) at the part to be raised, and there holds it securely while another man strikes the piece of steel at the top of the angle, or just above where it is secured in the vice, the reaction of the steel wire then throws out the metal, in accordance with the device or pattern cut on the end of it. ”

“ The steels that will harden (we will call them “carbon tool steels”) , range ordinarily from the .60 per cent carbon variety, used for hammers, cold chisels, etc., to those containing 1.50 per cent of carbon which are selected for razors, scalpels, and other tools requiring high temper. Each one of these many grades is susceptible of a wide variety of temper in the hands of a capable man, who must select his steel and give to it the most desirable temper for the work for which the tool is designed. ”