The Iron Age 1914-06-11: Vol 93 Iss 24

PUVHUOAUOOUEEOEEOUEETEEL @; Yee, > . ) m \ ~~ | EOD WAT a FE i; b, IN Pe \ |e *OPEELECUOUUREREEEEEREGUUUUOUDUOOUUREREREDEEEEADO OEE OEEtERS Established 1855 New York, June 11, 1914 Vol. 93: No. 2 + Improving the Operation of Core Ovens How a Rearrangement with Draft Fa Eliminated Faulty Baking and Increased Oven Capacity Above That of Core Roon f — the plant of the Cadillac Motor Car Con t the right in Fig. 2 a pal Detroit, Mich., there is a battery of nin tion of the tir f the o pit When the core ens, consisting of seven car ovens and tw Vind was fT t thwest, the pre ire the drav vens as shown in Fig. 1. Originally thes« front of the ove would di the fire bac] that oven re fired with coke from two natural draft t came it the fire « r. al eit w furnaces under the back ends of the ovens, the tically impossible to bake re index firing being done from a firing pit outside of the tions foundry building. Six of the ovens were connected In order to overcome these difficulties two far to one firebox and three to another. were installed. The first. or smaller fan. is a direct A great deal of trouble was experienced in oper- driven unit, and may be seen through the window ating the battery on account of the fact that the at the left of Fig. 2. The small fan supplies air for a _________ deietcieecsiics Fig. 1 Front of Core Ovens at Cadillac I two ovens nearest the firebox were always the hot- the combustion of the coke. The larger fan di test and the end ovens the coldest. This was par- charges through the curved pipe in Fig. 2 and serves ticularly true of the drawer oven in the set of six to exhaust the gases from the ovens. The pipe at ovens fired from one firebox. Another trouble was the left which supplies the blast for the fire is ar that the front of the ovens was always very hot ranged to create a slight pressure in the firing pit and { wer back corner cold, so that cores were By having the fire door closed and the ashpit door burned at one end and not thoroughly dried at the open, the pressure in the firing pit supplies the fire Other end of the ovens. with forced draft and the amount of air supplied 7 vens were connected with a 22-in. stack determines the amount of coke burned. This slight about ft. high. The base of this stack is shown pressure forces the air through the flues into the 1451 1452 Blast and Exhaust Pipes for Forced Draft oven so that by controlling the dampers in the flues the amount of heat admitted to each core oven can be regulated. The exhaust fan is not used when the weather conditions are right to create a good draft in the stack, but when the weather conditions are not suit- able, the exhaust fan is employed and is found to make the ovens independent of the weather. Pro- vision has also been made for blowing in an auxil- iary supply of air behind the firebox to temper the air in the flues. At the time the above described installation was put in the ovens were equipped with pyrometers, this installation being shown in Fig. 3. There is an electric thermo-couple at the back of each oven which is connected by wires to the numbered switches shown on the switchboard. At the right there is a wall type indicator which shows the tem- perature in whatever oven it is coupled to at the time. The oven tender keeps a record of the tem- peratures, taking observations at approximately 20 min. intervals. He also records the time of placing cores in the ovens and the type of cores in each oven, In the office some 700 ft. away there is a record- ing thermometer, which, by means of a suitable KEEP Switches and Indicator for atures Reading Over Temper- THE IRON AGE Jun 1914 series of switches, can be coupled to any ovens, so that the superintendent can se: perature in any oven from the office, « the recording instrument coupled on t: which he wishes to watch. The temperature controlling installati, of Wilson-Maeulen rods and one of th Maeulen wall type pyrometers at the ov recording instrument in the superintende: The forced draft arrangements were put H. M. Lane Company, Detroit, Mich., in ; with the Lane system of oven control. The capacity of the core room since th were made has never, it is stated, been suf tax the capacity of the ovens, and it is beli: the ovens will bake at least 50 per cent. m than they would under the old arrangeme most important point emphasized is that t! are now uniformly baked so that there from burned or underbaked cores. Large Testing Transformers for Japan Two testing transformers, having a normal : tinuous rating of 360,000 volts and 500,000 volt for short periods, were recently built by the West. inghouse Electric & Mfg. Company, East Pitts- Two Testing Transformers Recently Shipped to Japan. The Are Normally Rated at 360,000 Volts and Can Supp) 500,000 Volts for Short Periods burgh, Pa., and shipped to Japan. They are to bi used by the Inawashiro Hydroelectric Power Com- pany and one will be installed in the generating station on the Nippashi River at the outlet of Lak Inawashiro and the other in the receiving su station at Tokio about 145 miles away. The power company will use these transformers for testing ™ insulation resistance of transmission lines and t apparatus in the stations. The transformers measure 19 ft. from the bas to the top of the terminals and the tanks conta!! the transformers proper are cylinders 9 ft. Die and 9 ft. in diameter. One high-tension ter of each transformer is grounded to the cor* case and the other is brought out as shown accompanying engraving. By connecting the ' cases of the transformers in series, it is poss! to develop a potential of 1,000,000 volts betwee the two high-tension terminals. aT Structural Steel in Machine Design The Possibilities of the Manufacturer's Making Use of Rolled Shapes and the Fabricator’s Rounding Out His Business os G & .e manufacture of industrial machinery a thy development is the rapidly growing use ‘dinary rolled struct:ral shapes for frames, and braces, or stiffeners, to meet a great of service. Combinations of structural in be formed to meet almost any require- tside the range of solid castings or forgings. even these are being encroached upon, as the now common rolling of press machine for Annealing Oven, Formed Entirely, Except from Structural Channels, Bars and Brac printing press sections. It is not, however, essary or desirable, as a rule, to use any other han standard shapes and sizes, such as can be ught freely in the open market. The reasons for s are obvious. They include: Material can be ordered in lots as small or as is desired. 2—Neither supply nor delivery is dependent the facilities of isolated plants. A stock is lly always on hand within easy shipping and the desired quantity can be quickl [he quality is uniformly the same, as mill keep this at a certain standard. The strength of each section and the stresses t will sustain have been definitely calculated, there is no necessity for the guess-work allowance usual in the case of castings. The work of fabricating, assembling and rts is reduced to certain definitely accepted which the manufacturer can take advan- n planning his own shop efficiency. Not only can the material be purchased in market, but contracts for its fabrication ide on the basis of a given lot or for the \RMING OUT THE FABRICATION WORK the average manufacturing plant to install g tools of its own, or in other words, to what is practically a structural shop works, is not ordinarily the part of wis- ; the operations are limited and require ew simple appliances. Tools which are r any great variety of fabricating or for ime of seasonal work could probably not month by month throughout the year; TUPPER and to let the work out to a plant making a spe- cialty of fabricating structural shapes is in most cases a decided economy. The latter also enables advantage to be taken, from year to year, of re ductions in cost brought about by improvements in the equipment and methods of the regular struc tural plants; whereas the manufacturer attempting to do his own fabricating would hesitate to scrap any apparatus or increase his investment for that department for the sake of a proportional saving. SOME POSSIBLE USES OF ROLLED STEEI On the other hand, for simple operations on parts to be duplicated over and over, even in sev eral different sizes, a few tools may suffice. If these can be kept in use sufficiently continuous to warrant their first cost, amortization, upkeep, operation, and share of the overhead burden, it will pay to in stall them. An example of this kind the manu facture of steel foundry flasks, which are formed from strips of flat steel plates bent round, square or as hexagons and lap-riveted or welded. A_ similar and equally simple use is made of angles to form rolled steel flange rings for high pressure air, steam or hydraulic systems, water jacket heads, etc. These, of course, are welded at the ends. In considering how he can apply this idea to hi own line, the manufacturer of equ pment has only 0 look around him and draw suggestions from what others have done. For example, the writer re cently saw plans for a new, light t pe of field tractor, the frame of which was formed entirely from standard structural shapes \ box car loader examined proved to consist largely of standard beams, channels, and plates cut to shape. The transformer frames adopted as standard by a large electrical company have been put together trom channels, angles, etc., and so on Each such case suggests others where similar methods of design can be carried out to advantage. Not only will it profit the manufacturer to seek them out but structural bricating plants will also find it well worth while to make similar investigations on their own ac- count, with a view to securing contract work, as fillers, from those who are likely to be interested Mills and jobbers will, of course, pront correspond ngly from the increase in material ordered A prize competition ope! oO employees of member of the Society for Electrical Deve opment 1 announced The society offers these prizes, alues of 3200 to 310 the best story, articie or report on an} ubject pe taining to commercial electricity The competitior ses September 1. Particulars may be obtained by addressing the competition editor of the ociety, 29 West Thirty-ninth street, New York Cit The G. H. Williams Company, Cleveland, Ohio, ha taken a contract from the Canadian-Stewart Company, New York, for a 30-ton 8 frame boat derrick and a eontract from the New York Dredging Corporation for a 3-vard heavy dredging bucket and a 30-ton 8 frame ~ *s Results of Applied Scientific Management’ The System Which Helped to Make it Possible to Turn Out Finished Articles at Desired Times—Transporting Materials BY GEORGE DE A. BABCOCKt The classifying of product, another movement started at the outset, had a marked effect upon our works’ effort. Previously our manufacturing orders called for miscellaneous parts or assemblies, and the assembly order contained a specification of the parts which were to be used in that assembly. Parts orders were written independently of the requisi- tion for material. No date was specified for the part to be due in finished stores. The orders were written in quantities of 25, 50, 75 and 100, and in general it did not matter whether the small or large, except in the case of automatic and screw machine work or punch press work, when an order for the full quantity for the season was usually written. part was THE WAY ASSEMBLIES USED TO BE MADE These orders were not appor- tioned to the material ledgers, and therefore it was a case of the most persuasive foreman getting from stores the material for his parts. He could draw from stores on requisition at any time that he could find some material, and unless he had a shortage could finish his order at any time he saw fit. He had a schedule for parts to guide him. This consist- ed merely of a schedule of the month’s production for the dif ferent types of cars, but set back as many months as our progress clerk assumed the works would jy» need and still deliver them safely B into the finished stores room in time for the issue to assemble. We had but few small sub-assemblies. The single group issues for one of our large assemblies might require as high as a quarter of the variety of parts in the finished stores. After the assembly order was issued it given to the finished stores keeper, who was sup- posed to deliver the materials to assembly against that order as rapidly as possible. When first parts of a lot were delivered to the assembly floor the as- semblers started to put them together, and from that time on chasers tried to force the parts which were lacking through the shops on the remaining operations, and in and out of the finished stores room to the assembly floor. It was a merry chase. One result of this was that operation set-ups varied from 1 to 100 pieces and on the same part might vary in this complete scale. With an average of ten operations on different drawing numbers or parts to each machine, and with the preparation time of the machines uncertain, confusion resulted by interference of orders from the different short- age chasers. Very high costs were thus created. was *Second installment of a paper, which is to be printed ij these columns, substantially in full, presented to the National Metal Trades Association, Worcester, Mass., April 22 +Production manager, H. H Franklir Mfg. Company, nufacturer of the Franklir tomobile, Svracuse. N , Truck, Which Stands in a Pit Reached by We produced cars, however, for a great m: under these conditions, and still believ: represented a relatively high order of wor ciency in the automobile industry of the ti) gineering changes were frequent, the den the buying public were uncertain, and then it to us to be the only way of solving the probk Now we can see how it could have bee: in a very much better way even with the fu : plication of a variety of models and many changes When we began the classification of our produ ved ‘ 4 ig. 1—The Hand Truck Has Lifted the Tote Box from the Platform of a St Incline Shown at the Le elimination of this confusion and trouble also be- gan. Through the findings by the classification o! this product, our whole scheme of control of work has come about. SCHEME OF CLASSIFICATION OF PRODUCTS The scheme of classification is briefly this: Th first two parts made which can be fastened together as a part of the finished structure are fastened to- gether and turned into finished stores. This unit and other parts and fastenings are issued fro! stores, are assembled into a larger group and then turned back into stores. This continues throughout In this classification we discover that in the new car, where our lot sizes have been adopted to t! standard as used at present, we must make requisition of our first piece 200 working days ahead of the time that the car can be finished. It's important, therefore, that we not only check by as- sembling the condition of our product, but that the lot sizes of assemblies be proportioned economical as well as lot sizes of parts. The flow of the different parts into the sub-sec- tions, into sections, divisions, groups, and fi! shed product, are charted, and with detail parts entere¢ with symbols constitute the parts analysis ur product. 1454 1914 THE IRON AGE 1455 part we determine the mechanical oper- igh which it must go. This is also true blies. We study the size and form of to use, also whether patterns, dies or e prepared, and, in fact, all that we can luct in its last detail from the stand- factory effort upon it. The time ele- very important factor in this analysis, ount of certainty of delivery and of material and labor investment. The the product furnishes the ground work ir control rests. \NALYSIS OF THE PRODUCT DISCOVERED the first analysis of our product we found f one of the greatest troubles that we enced, i. e., our inability to attain a sched- emed perfectly possible. Thirty-nine parts le car were the cause of this, and the tw ne parts in this list were two of the cheap- put into our car, the cylinder flange and nsporting Materials Between Floors, the Ele\ Stopped to Bring the Truck Platform Level t valve. All of our effort on product anal- was well repaid by this one discovery. were made for these parts and the time the first effort on the first part and the he completed car was greatly reduced. liscussion of the uniform schedule will her very important result attained after that has to do with the investment of istrations accompanying the paper are is of our accomplishment over the peri- No values are shown other than by the omparison, but the plottings have been such a manner that a study of the should anticipate any discussion. ESTING DETAIL IN MOVING MATERIALS we show the method of moving mate- ind floors. Concrete pits are sunk in d properly guarded. An electric trans- uck runs into the pit to bring its plat- th the floor. The truck man lifts the the shop floor with a power hand ins the load upon the electric truck; he raws the hand truck, runs the electric t to the new destination, where it either nother pit on the ground floor or to an elevator, Fig. 2, if for the upper floors. The load is handled from the elevator much as if the elevator were a pit. The electric truck runs in with its side to the sill. The elevator is oper: ted to raise the ruck to the particular floor level on which the load is to be delivered. The load is then removed to the floor with a power hand truck, and the elevator lowers the electric truck to the ground floor and re- + leases it. The elevator man returns at his first op portunity and delivers the load to its proper place In connection with the bagged materials spoken of and the adoption of a universal size for a partic ular part lot, the economical results of handling ma terials, as mentioned previously, were obtained. In addition to this, the labor of the movemen has been very much lightened, and one man can delivet a thousand pounds from stores to any place in the works with greater rapidity and ease than he could carry a pail of water over the same path. The lack of fatigue of the moveman allows a high rate of travel throughout the day. Where before moveme! would ignore a pile of heavy ma terial until they were forced t carry it, now they take whatever: comes as it comes. he continued Shipments of Long Rods In the recent installation of a: electric crane at the plant of the Bayonne Bolt & Nut Company, Bayonne, N. J., there is an illustra tion of the manner in which one problem of handling material wa solved. The company receive quantities of bar stock iron, rods about 20 ft. in length, and ranging in diameter from a ipward This raw material comes in go! la cars on the company’s privat switches. The unloading and stacking of the rods by hand was a slow pro ess. The rods had to be ifted, one or a few at a time, from the cars and carried to various part with the Elect of the yard. From the flexible and ract “9 yielding nature of the material the placing of a shipment was nece sarily slow and of course expensive. In seeking a better way to do the work an electri crane and magnet naturally suggested themselves, but with the rods lying loosely in the bottom of the car a hoisting magnet could not pick up a clean load. Some rods would hang and swing. To obviate this, the ex pedient of having the consigners wire the rods togethe in bundles of approximately a dozen, the size varying with the diameter, was adopted With the rods i: bundles the profitable use of an electric crane and a magnet became feasible and the apparatus wa stalled by the Shaw Electric Crane (¢ ompan} With the bar stock in bundles the magnet makes clean lift, not merely of one bundle, but of bundl to its lifting capacity. They are raised out of the and piled practically at one operatior With the crane and magnet the company can now accomplish in a few minutes, work which ur der the old method took a gang of freight handlers hours to do. There is besides the saving in labor, a gain in the speed of handling rav material. The use of the crane allows also the pling of rods to a greate!l hight than would ha‘ e pee er nomically possible DY hand worl The Toledo Boiler & Tar k ( ompany, Toledo. Oh Oo. has filed a bankruptcy petition in the United State court in that city. The liabilities are placed at $35,594 Ar appraise ment will be nec ary to detern ine the assets. . ob ee he Saat eS any é ~ -—@ The Bethlehem Steel Company’s Tofo Mines Extent and Character of the Chilean Iron Ore Deposits and Plans for Their Development— First Cargo Reached Philadelphia This Week (With Supplement) Work is going forward steadily in preparation for a large scale of operations at the Bethlehem Steel Company’s Tofo iron mines in Coquimbo Province, Chile. Previous references in these col- umns were in an article of January 23, 1913, an- nouncing the acquisition of the Tofo mines by the Bethlehem Steel Company; extracts in The Iron Age of February 13, 1913, from a paper by Charles Vattier read at the October, 1912, meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute at Leeds, England; also some account of the efforts to develop an iron in- dustry in Chile given in Charles M. Pepper’s spe- cial letter published in The Iron Age of January 1, 1914, The Tofo mines are of particular interest to the iron trade of the United States because the plans on foot look toward an ultimate production of no less than 1,500,000 tons of ore a year, and also because of the long haul of the ore, the Bethlehem Steel Company’s works being about 4500 miles from the mines. At present two other notable American devel- opments are in progress in Chile; these are the Braden copper mines and the Chuqucamata mines of the Chile Copper Company, both of which are Guggenheim enterprises. The location of all three of these interesting projects is given on the small map of Chile reproduced herewith. TOFO IRON MINES KNOWN FOR 25 YEARS The Bethlehem Steel Company’s Tofo mines were brought to notice by Charles Vattier as early as 1888. About 1905 Mr. Vattier secured options on the whole group of mines, which were trans- ferred by him to a French company—the Sociedad Altos Hornos de Corral—which planned fo use the ores in connection with a blast furnace at Corral in southern Chile. The mines were leased from the French company by the Bethlehem Steel Company in 1912. Their location is about four miles from the coast of Chile, near the small bay of Cruz Grande. This bay is located near the Bay of Totor- allillo, which was once quite important, on account of a copper smelter being located there. The smelter depended for its ores upon La Higuera. This was formerly an important copper mining dis- trict about four miles southeast of the Bethlehem Steel Company’s Tofo property. Some of the La Higuera mines are still active. The Tofo iron deposit is found on the tops of two hills, which are separated by a slight depres- sion or saddle. The general features are shown in Fig. 1 of the accompanying views, this one being taken from the land side in the direction of La Higuera. The approximate lower iimit of the solid ore is shown by a dotted line, everything above this line being solid iron ore of high quality. The anal- yses from over two hundred samples taken from above this line have averaged as follows: Tron ' HS. per cent Manganese 0.20 percent Sulphur ca ; 0.015 per cent. Phosphorus. ats 9.057 per cent. BOE ie ab ee ‘ cea eee 1.50 per cent. This is a higher grade ore than any mined in the United States at present; it is also of higher grade than the famous Swedish ore whic! shipped into the United States at the rat: ne; half a million tons a year for the past { r five years. If such ore now exists in the United Stay in any quantity it is probably in some of | li. fornia and Utah deposits, which are very simjjgr geologically and chemically to the Tofo or TWO ORE BODIES At the time of the first examination of th: erty by the Bethlehem Steel Company’s engineer: in 1912 practically no prospecting had been doy and there was some doubt as to the actual « rence, there being nothing to prove absolutely that it was not a superficial “skin” of ore over ar core. Reasoning from other occurrences, it was considered safe to assume a certain depth, some. what proportional to the superficial extent, whic! could be closely determined, as there is no vex tation. Subsequent exploration has shown that this assumption is well founded, and that there considerably more ore than was computed at t time of the first examination. In a general way there are two ore bodies ver nearly connected in the saddle between the tw hills. The deposit in the South hill has a diameter of about 1000 ft., or roughly an area of 18 acres The top of this hill is 785 m. above sea level, and at present ore is known to occur at an elevation of 62 , so that the known vertical hight of ore is 165 n or 550 ft. The deposit in the North hill is somewhat sim- ilar, and has not shown as great a vertical hight ore, but with the loose or float ore, with which it surrounded, it will contain at least one-half as mi ore as the South hill. The general character of the deposit is show in the various views in the accompanying Supple ment. A large amount of the float ore, which |: especially abundant on the east side of the deposit, is shown in Fig. 2. It can be seen that instead mine the Bethlehem Steel Company’s Tofo prop- erty is essentially an iron ore quarry. Conditions are ideal for cheap open-cut mining, and the or though hard and dense, will be quarried by steam shovels after it is broken up by blasting. There's no overburden, and it will be many years before the deposit is worked sufficiently low to make necessary to remove any of the adjacent rock. AERIAL CONVEYOR SYSTEM ror The hight of the main deposit being about 2»! ft. above sea level, it is natural that the French com pany should have constructed an aerial cablowsy © t convey to the coast the limited amount of ore w"! was necessary for supplying its furnaces at ‘ orra In the fall of 1912 the company reconstructed t tramway to give a nominal capacity of 800 to» per day, and also reconstructed a cantilever !o: a ng bridge at the bay. The stockpile and loading ! = ig are shown in accompanying views. A number cargoes have been loaded from this bridge, and * * found to work satisfactorily, except that the loa¢ " is rather slow for American practice. > = provement in the way of substituting a rubber instead of the buckets now used, will soon be ™ 1456 t s 66 pu as -ers, J 1?¢é > PAs PITTSBURGH, AVd AAGNVAD ZNA)D NI LNIOd DONIGVO'T AHL LV AGNV ‘A'TIHO “LOIALSIG ONINIW OHOL AHL NI SMAIA } \ } a3 3 11d Yooys auo put Apiig e810 84) Autmoys ‘Ave apuwvsafy ZA 8 Aep Apnolo Ajjeuoideoxs uBR uo UeHR) WNW “AVE @puBbsary znap ye sApwq e141 jyUuUsBe14 €I6t JO Buyadg ul [IH WINS AveU BING VARIA Sies0quw]—s¢ Valporaisp+~ T+ ~ A , ¥Sqntiago tr Rantag val BRADEN” } MINES | V7 / Talca t of Chile to the Right hand portion is south of map on left Bethlehem Steel Company, and in the mean construction of a steel dock, of the type on Lake Superior, will be undertaken, as al announced, the contract having been taken United States Steel Products Company. An railroad will also be built which will haul the re from Tofo to Cruz Grande. GEOLOGY OF THE TOFO DEPOSIT gically the Tofo deposit has no parallel in stern United States or in the Lake Superior [It does not exist in lenticular pods in d rocks, as in the case of the New Jersey York magnetites, nor as the regular res of Alabama; nor yet as concentrations sedimentary “iron formation” as in the Superior region. As far as present data goes, s to be a “contact” type of deposit, similar f those in the western part of the United The deposit in Iron Springs, Utah, has nts of similarity to Tofo. At Tofo. the ore-bearing rock is an andesite, ifter its intrusion deposited the ore it had ned “in solution” while the rock was in a tate. Upon cooling, the ore, mainly in the magnetite, was isolated instead of remain- ‘seminated, thus forming simply a ferru- k. This isolation was apparently caused ther components of the molten magma being tain extent used up in forming new associa- th the “contact rocks.” ofo ore seems to be a mixture of magnetite itite. Some samples are intensely hard and exceedingly magnetic, while a near- may be typical hematite, with entire ab- magnetism. The chemical differences Yew oncerned with the phosphorus content, s respect conditions are very good. three grades of ore: bessemer, with phosphorus content above ent. er, with phosphorus 0.068 per cent. Thus content between THE IRON 1457 cy AGE Low phosphorus, with phosphorus below 0.020 per cent. Fortunately these grades occur separately and can be mined separately without the least difficulty. The tonnage of each grade is about the same, there ' being approximately about one-third of each. The “1 commercial importance of the separation of grades will be thoroughly appreciated by miners and sellers bs f iron ore. | SEVEN CARGOES A YEAR PER VESSEL In order to provide for the transportation of the lofo ore, long-term freighting contracts have been entered into with Swedish and Norwegian owners, which provide for the construction of a fleet of 17,000-ton d.w. steamers, especially designed for the ore trade by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation’s naval architects. These will be approxi mately 520 ft. in length, 65 ft. beam, and capable of transporting approximately 15,000 tons of ore, be ing designed along lines which will be particular] vessels eee t . F adapted for prompt loading and discharging To insure a regular supply of Chilean ore at the furnaces at South Bethlehem, these vessels will a return to Chile in ballast, and for this purposs extra large water ballast compartments have been provided to insure the necessary buoyant li calculated that by returning to loading port in bal last each steamer will be able to deliver seven car goes per year, or, say, one hundred thousand tons By the time the first of these large ore steamers is ready to load at Cruz Grande, which it is ex pected will be some time the early part of 1917, work will have been completed on the steel hopper dock referred to above. It will be capable of load ; ing 15,000 tons of ore per day, with a storage capa citv of from 30.000 to 35.000 tons. or two cargoes. rm FIRST CARGO REACHES PHILADELPHIA Prior to the completion of the new steel hopper pier, the ore, as at present, will be loaded into 2 steamers under the cantilever bridge, which’ is capable of loading at the rate of 2000 tons per day * After the substitution of rubber belt convevors for ' - ws. |p ' —.W 74 SI v4 “5 SJ} W =} W =} } ;s.V 5 Sut | is { a + pA } ‘ W a 74 SE. 4 i 7 - s ; ta 7 } ‘ : * 7 = | 4 » : a } NE 70 \N.E.3 (8.0 ' ‘ w Sy ‘ W W A I = | 7|70 N.W.l W 6| 70 1\W 8 | 72 3.W 74| 74 NW , 71 76 SW \ \ Ps 6 71| 4 NW 5S wi t average me J . 4 ‘ F ‘ r 4 4 4 * FE 1458 THE IRON AGE June i!, 19}4 the buckets now used, it is expected that a 6000- ton steamer will be loaded in 12 hours. To provide for the transportation of this ore prior to the time of completion of the new steel pier and the fleet of large ore carriers, the Bethlehem Company has entered into freighting contracts with European owners for the carriage of approximately 750,000 tons in the next two years, to be delivered in the United States. Prior to the opening of the Panama Canal, and which, according to all indications, will be in the latter part of this year, all ore shipped from the Tofo mines will, of course, proceed via the Magellan Straits. The steamer Epsom, the first to deliver Chilean ore in the United States, arrived at Phila- delphia Sunday, June 7, after having completed a voyage of approximately 8600 miles. It cleared from Cruz Grande on April 22 and was thus 46 days on the way. CLIMATIC CONDITIONS One who writes from full knowledge of the cli- matic and other conditions in the Tofo district says: “The climate and general features of this part of Chile are very generally misunderstood by Amer- icans. Nine out of ten persist in calling Chile a tropical country, also an unhealthy country. It is not generally known that Chile has as many cli- mates as the United States, but it is to be remem- bered that the north and south extent of Chile is from 18 deg. south latitude to 56 deg. south, or over 2500 miles. Thus, if the southern end of Chile were placed over the southern end of Florida, the northern end would reach as far north as South- ampton Island on the north side of Hudson Bay, in the latitude of Iceland. Therefore, one can readily see how difficult it is to answer the question, “What is the climate of Chile?’ When one considers that the climate also depends on altitude, irrespective of latitude, and that Chile has elevations varying from sea level to 18,000 ft., it can easily be seen that he needs a definitely stated location to give any opinion of value on the climate. “In the immediate vicinity of Tofo weather con- ditions are ideal, except that rains are few and far between. Tofo is located just between the arid belt, which reaches from Coquimbo to Peru, and the semi-arid belt, extending from Coquimbo a consid- erable distance southward. A rain at Tofo is of rare occurrence, but fogs are frequent, and help to supply the moisture that supports a very scanty vegetation of cactus and scrub brush. In the val- leys irrigation produces excellent results, and at Serena cultivation is very extensive, and most ex- cellent fruits and grains of all kinds are produced.” There is appended a weather record for the month of January, 1914, which shows the charac- ter of the climate at Cruz Grande. At Tofo mines temperatures would range five degrees to ten de- grees lower, due to the 2000 ft. altitude. As Jan- uary is one of the summer months, it will be seen that no one would suffer from excessive heat when the temperature ranges from 60 deg. to 80 deg. Fahr. The temperatures do not differ greatly from the above in the winter months, a freezing temper- ature at Tofo being extremely rare. PEOPLE AND GOVERN MENT The authority quoted above says of the Chilean people and government: “As much misinformation regarding the people and general conditions in Chile seems to exist among Americans as exists regarding climate. There are many Americans who believe there is a considerable negro element all along the west coast. This is true in Colombia and Peru, but it is not at all true in Chile. The entire population i; either Spanish or Indian, or a mixture of with a very noticeable number of English mans who have long resided in Chile and Chileans. Immigration from southern Ey never taken place to any extent, and imn from Spain has generally failed, becaus: greater opportunities offered in Argentine “Another common error is to confuse bility of the government in Chile with tha countries in the northern part of South A As a matter of fact, Chile and Argentine | joyed a stability of government entirely by any other American republic except « WY The last revolution in Chile occurred in 1884, thirt, years ago, and to-day life and property rights ar as secure in Chile as in any country in the world People will be found in the United States who dila: on the dangers to life in Chile from violence, but jy the opinion of the writer life there is safer t our large American cities. “Agriculturally southern Chile is far advance: and the productions go far to make the countr self-contained as far as foodstuffs are concerned The most delicious native canned fruits and veg etables are cheap and plentiful. There are whole- sale grocery houses in Coquimbo and La Serena that carry stocks entirely comparable in variety and ex- cellence with those of any wholesale house in Amer- ican cities of 50,000 inhabitants. Valparaiso is on of the greatest outfitting points in South America and anything from a toothpick to a steam roller can be purchased there.” ep Molybdenum and Corrosion of Steel In a paper presented before the Iron and Steel Inst tute at its London meeting, May 7 and 8, J. Newitor Friend and C. W. Marshall gave details of exper ments to determine the influence of molybdenum vy the corrodibility of steel. The steels were all t turned and cut into cylinders 1.4 cm. in diameter a! 4.0 cm. in hight and weighed approximately 40 gran each. The results are summarized as follows: 1. Molybdenum up to 4 per cent. does not appear t exert any marked influence on the corrodibility steel when exposed to tap water, salt solution and dilute sulphuric acid (0.05 per cent.). 2. The results of exposure to 0.5 per cent. sulphur acid are almost identical with the mean corrosi factors obtained by the exposure of the steels to t! other corroding factors, tap water, salt water, dilut sulphuric acid and alternate wet and dry tests. This is interesting because it so frequently happens that t! solubility of steels in the stronger solutions of sulphur acid gives entirely unique results, which are quit untrustworthy guides as to the behavior of the met towards neutral corroding agencies. 3. The greatest variation in the corrosive factors ' exhibited in the wet and dry tests, the resistance of th steels greatly increasing with the percentage of carbo The molybdenum, on the other hand, tends to increas the corrosion very markedly. It is difficult to say wha' conclusions are to be arrived at from this, but if, as ™ writers believe, the wet and dry tests correspond mos' closely to the conditions under which steel ordinar corrodes in practice, it is clear that, from the corrosi0! point of view, molybdenum is an undesirable constitu- ent of steel if present to a greater extent than per cent. The autumn meeting of the Iron and Steel Institut’ will be held in Paris, September 17 to 19. The se sions will be in the hall of the Comité des Forges Visits will be made to places of interest in Paris 2"° vicinity, including the works of the Compagnie Metaux. After the meeting a visit will be made ' Nancy, and Monday and Tuesday, September 2! nd will be spent at the principal iron mines and me’ lurgical works of French Lorraine. 1914 THE IRON AGE 1459 CTRIC ROLLING MILLS* - Statement of Advantages of the Electric Drive in Steel Mills BY WILFRED SYKES+t country we have, altogether, 160 instal- electric motor main roll drives, totaling ‘onstant rating. In Germany, where ice only one-half as much steel as in this hey have 700 electric installations totaling p., which would indicate that the Germans yzed conditions more carefully, and are | in their convictions that the electric he proper thing or they are more extrav- the use of their money. However, the it with half the production the Germans times the electric mill drives installed in portant item to be considered in any indus- is the financial condition of the company. many cases, operating economy is not primary importance. When the remodel- old plant is taken in hand it is evident f very little importance whether you save ent. of the power bill or 60 per cent., so he capital outlay required for this saving wn. Usually the first cost is emphasized, iratively few industrial concerns have such f money that the initial outlay can be dis- as long as the use is justified by the re- omplished. Usually it is a case of doing the can with a certain amount of money. After has been spent the problem is to show the it build machines appreciably more effi- we did 15 or 20 years ago, but we do cheaper and in certain respects having naracteristics. However, except in special ey do not give better results than the old An important exception is, of course, nd crane motor. ) ACCOUNTS OF MOTORS IN OPERATION inspection of a steam plant is not cus- whereas, with electrical installations they ntinually inspected to insure continuity of Recently in looking over the records of an lv driven sheet mill, the small amounts of lue to the equipment was surprising, and did not amount to more than one-fifth of ‘mills steam driven. When it is considered ‘ approximately 40 men were working on the the loss, due to delays, can be readily appre- yet, in making comparisons between electric drives such figures are usually neglected. n for this is that it is almost impossible reliable data on such points, and usually nstalling a new plant cannot form a men- e of the difference between the two sys- they are usually acquainted with only one >case. If it were possible to collect such mills in actual operation, the large mon- due to delays, could be capitalized. iintenance of electrical machines is neces- The parts that wear out or are most image have a small unit cost, and if the repairs were large it would mean that es were out of operation so long that it be considered practical. This is not the team engines, due to their larger number dress made before the Association of Iron and tngineers, Pittsburgh, May 2 : Electric & Mfg. Company, Pittsburgh of working and wearing parts, and consequently after a machine is a few years old the constant re- newal of parts is necessary. Maintenance is a growing charge with steam plants, due to the great number of wearing parts. This is not the case with electric drives. With steam engines the steam consumption is influenced by the skillfulness of the operator, whic! is not the case with electric motors. With steam engines in steel mills we have to depend upon the estimate of steam distribution, which very often widely differs from the facts. A few of our plants have investigated their steam distribution and prob- ably can make some accurate estimates, but in the majority of cases it is nothing more than a guess. The use of steam meters helps to clear up this point, but unfortunately their natural characteristics are such that with light loads they are not particularly accurate, consequently there may be quite a large amount of steam flowing during a day when the mill is idle, passing through leaky valves, which the steam meter gives very little indication of. In spite of the investigations that have been carried out in various plants and allowing for con densation, it is almost invariably found that quite a considerable amount of steam cannot be accounted for. This is sometimes as high as 20 per cent. and is undoubtedly due to leakages and condensation not allowed for. BRIEF OF THE DISCUSSION H. C. Siebert, steam engineer, Carnegie Steel Company, Duquesne, Pa.: The proportion of work done in one case by a twin tandem reversing engine working non-condensing on a blooming mill was as follows: 55 per cent. i.h.p. available at rolls, 18 per cent. used in acceleration and 27 per cent. used in friction; steam consumption, 48 lb. per h.p. hr Another engine of the same type: 62.5 per cent useful, 15 per cent. acceleration and 22.5 per cent. friction; another, 47 per cent. useful, 35 per cent. acceleration and 18 per cent. friction. Another sim- ple engine 20 years old: 75 per cent useful, 16 per cent. acceleration and 18 per cent. friction. Mr. Lock, general manager, Apollo Steel Com- pany: We use about 200 kw. hr. per ton of sheets produced. This includes power for lights and aux- iliaries. About the best that a steam driven plant can do is 900 lb. of coal per ton of sheets produced. At least this is the best I have seen to date. Where the electric driven mill is superior to the steam driven mill is in the uniform speed at which the mill is driven. There is practically no variation in the speed of the motor. I do not know of a steam driven mill that does not experience trouble from this source. We have a 1400-h.p. motor driv ing six mills and the average peak is 1050 to 1100 h.p. R. A. McGregor, power sales manager, Henry L. Doherty Company: I can cite one instance where it is claimed that a plant was turning out sheets at $1.15 per ton cost of power and their yearly output was 50,000 tons of sheet and the coal bill was $58,- 000, so you see the coal bill alone was $1.16 per ton. Brent Wiley, engineer, Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Company: I think the total power cost, with coal at $1.50 per ton, will be represented by consid- ering the coal cost as 40 to 45 per cent., and if coal is taken at $2 a ton the coal cost will represent from 50 to 55 per cent. of the total power cost. E. H. Haslem, manager, McIntosh Hemphill Company, Pittsburgh: Mr. Locke is getting noth- ing from his motors that he could not get from steam engines; he is simply comparing new motors to old engines. I can only suggest that conditions dt Aiean-crendaaeile - gerne eo 4- ~~ ee mae we mt Ed aw es Se ES EEE 1460 THE IRON AGE Jun be alike before comparisons are made between THE MAGNET IN THE FO motors and engines. I am sure steam engines will : roll just as good sheets as motors. There are cases : : where the motor drive is the best, and in such cases Shaking Out Large Castings by Mea where I am called in consultation I unhesitatingl) Lifting Magnet recommend motors, but there is still a big field for ica or” p The Ohio Steel Foundry Company, | steam engines. : Charles Fitzgerald, Jr., assistant steam engineer, ** making a rather inveresting use Of a | eon ade ee tanee ae s ing magnet. It is used for shaking c: Carnegie Steel Company: If an engine is properly ; , ‘ of the flasks and also for handling the hot designed it will not stall any more likely than a , all t } ua in a S F ; f yy + » chaka ‘ > eles yr cle motor. The same thing applies to slowing down trom the shake out heap to the cleaning The amount of steam can be cut down just as well as the current for the electric motor. Steam can be measured just as well and nearly as correctly as the electric current. It is my opinion that central station power will not appeal to any one with blast furnace gas to burn. Mr. Sykes: To take up the question of fly wheel capacity. The electric man, for his own protection has made a great many more investigations than the steam man, and the motor flywheel is usually more nearly the right size than is the steam engine fly- wheel. Lake Iron Ore Shipments in May The amount of iron ore brought down the Lakes from the Lake Superior region in May amounted to 3,852,063 tons as compared with 7,284,212 tons in May, 1913. The table below gives the May and season shipments by ports and the corresponding figures for 1913, all in gross tons: June To Jun E § 955,187 495,917 M 87 7,04 121,8 4 1941 341,76 rulutl ,939,848 734,09( 2,100,220 (34,090 , 30,000-Lb. Crank Disk Ready to Be Lift Tw Harbors O87 SE 636,71 1.532.939 692,496 aa GE SLOG ORS S2eseee In one of the illustrations the magnet is han- an ar dling a vanadium steel locomotive frame weighing The decrease of 3,432,149 tons for May, 191 i, is a 9300 lb. These frames are among the heaviest ever ee eae na oe, ee — or made and 28 were supplied to the Lima Locomotive May, 1913. The Duluth percentage to June 1 was 17.81 ; ; : : arg ae Saal this year against 25.77 last year, while the Great North- ( orporation for use on the 14 locomotives whi h ar ern dock at Superior shipped 40.57 per cent. of the total, being built for the Delaware, Lackawanna & West- against 27.52 to June 1, 1913. ern Railroad. In the other illustration, the magnet A Vanadium Steel Locomotive Frame Casting Weighing 93 00 Lb. Being Handled by a 63-In. Lifting Mag 1914 THE IRON AGE 1461 a crank disk, weighing 30,000 lb. These furnished the Hooven, Owens, Rentschler for use in connection with the five 6000- ation steam and gas engines which are for the power plant of the Ford Motor any. These engines, the first of which trated in The Iron Age, October 9. 1913, d to be the most powerful internal com- gines in the world and have four doubk x 72 in. cylinders set two in tandem o1 rane employed for handling the magnet al one, which was built by the Toled Crane Company and is equipped for a 1% cu. yd. grab bucket as well agnet. as a An Improved Electrical Monorail System ent development of the Shaw Electri mpany, 119 West Fortieth street, New is a fixed-tongue track switch for use overhead monorail system, employed \ Typical Two-Motor Monorail Hoist ntra-factory transportation. The main advantage of the switch is that it does not have to be set for the lesired direction of travel and consequently there is neither delay nor expenditure of effort for this pur- pose. The operator in the cab selects his route and the trolleys run through the track switches in all éctions without stopping. In the very nature o! h there are no open ends of the track to be ted, so that it is impossible for the trolley to through and fall to the ground. switch has two slots through which one e passes, one when the trucks run through switch and the other when the trelley is the spur track. In either case it is | that the truck wheels run over the gaps, heelbase of the truck is so proportioned rence to the slots that three wheels always e runway flanges and the wheels bridge such an angle that the break is only in which the leading truck is steered a track is shown in the accompanying drawing which is plan view right-hand switc! When the operator reaches the switch and desires to run off on the spur track, the horizontal roller T,, 7 located in the front portion of the leading track, 1s raised by the steering lever in the cage and engages ae ed ae ZE= ITS I ° } T \I _ S \ ‘ + he curved flange B on the underside of the central tongue of the switch. In this way the leading truck is swiveled and diverted on to the spur track and it is pointed out that no steering operation is necessary to return from the spur to the main track nor to run through the track switch in either direction on the main line. To prevent the trolley from splitting the switch the trailing truck is made to follow through the leading one by the use of an adjustable set screw in the side of the rear truck This screw limits the angle that can be made be tween the center lines of the front and rear trucks to that of the angle of the switch and as the lead