The Iron Age 1920-04-22: Vol 105 Iss 17

TH! ESTABLISHED 1855 IRON AGE New York, April 22, 1920 VOL. 105: No. 17 Fields for Investigating Waste Elimination When By-Products Cease to Exist— What Has Been Attempted in Coke Oven and Blast Furnace Operation BY A. THAU® eral has been the cause of a reduction of prices for their main products in order to meet keen com- petition, and to be able to hold a foot on the market many works, if not most, have been compelled not only to adopt the most efficient labor saving methods but also to compensate for a lower selling price by obtain- ng all possible by-products. With this state of affairs the by-product has ceased to be the source of a huge revenue without investment and there are numerous works which without their revenue being supplemented by a substantial income from their by-product plants would financially be unable to exist. Once such a stage has been reached—and we are approaching it rapidly almost everywhere—then the by-products have ceased to be by-products, their plants are part and parcel of the works and as a source of revenue in supporting the works they are fully qualified products. Pecans efficiency of industrial plants in gen- Pig Iron as By-Product of Blast Furnace I visited some time ago a modernly equipped one unit blast furnace plant in Germany making foundry pig iron and inquiring as to the financial results I was informed that they were doing very well, but com- pelled to sell the iron at a loss. This answer was first a paradox to me but on further investigation I was told that they made their profits—and good ones at that—mainly from the slag which, depending upon its composition, was in attached plants converted into cement, bricks or slag wool. A further revenue to the blast furnace rested also with the credit it derived supplying with its surplus gas an adjacent ‘olling mill. Surely slag and gas cannot be classed as by-prod- icts in this not by any means isolated case, and if a distinction between product and by-product must be made, one would in this case certainly be justified in giving the pig iron the name of by-product. Of course, a blast furnace plant is not put down to produce slag; the iron must always be of primary importance in the working, but on the other hand of paramount impor- tance is the assurance of a reasonable revenue which the plant must give. If it cannot be assured without the aid of other products, then we would not do them justice in calling them or treating them as by-products. But it is certainly not my intention—as it may ap- pear—to spill ink over the word by in this combina- tion, for it doesn’t matter how we call the products as long as they are obtained at a profit and increase the from : *Superintendent of the coke works and chemical plants of the Oxelésunds Iron Works, Oxelésund, Sweden. revenue of the works. What I am really driving at is that in the first place—when a plant is laid out or worked—they must not be treated and considered as by-products, but must be of quite equal importance to the other products for which the plant is actually laid out. As a matter of fact in some processes the main product and the by-product are not only considered of equal importance but have even exchanged places. Cases from Industrial Chemistry Field It serves as a useful lesson to be reminded of the first soda manufacturing process by Leblanc in France from common salt. It was greatly hampered by the unwelcome hydrochloric acid, the formation of which be avoided and it was equally difficult to dis- pose of it. The value of the great discovery was not realized in France at the time when politics were of primary importance absorbing every other interest, and Leblane was allowed to die in the poorhouse. The process was greatly developed in England, where the chlorine gas was considered an absolute waste and allowed to escape in the air. It became gradually such a nuisance and so detrimental to health that the alkali act of 1863 had to be passed to put a stop to it, com- pelling the soda manufacturers to condense the chlor- ine gas, allowing only a maximum of 5 per cent to escape into the air as permissible waste. Soon after the demand for the by-products, hydrochloric acid and chloride of calcium, exceeded that of the soda, which became then of secondary importance, so that for a time the picture was reversed and plants were put down, first of all to produce hydrochloric acid and cal- cium Chloride. A more recent example is also of interest. The chemical works of F. Bayer in Germany produced an intermediate compound in the manufacture of dyes called acetaniline. In the manufacture of this com- pound a residue was precipitated which could in the first place not even be called a by-product and was stored as waste in old paraffin casks in the yard of the works, gradually approaching a bulk of 20 tons while no use could apparently be found for it. At that time a young chemist came to spend his university vacation at the works’ laboratories and in answer to his inquiry for some research work was requested to transfer the aforementioned waste product into some- thing useful if possible. After a few weeks of intense work the goal was reached and one of the now widely applied compounds in medicine had been discovered, which was soon put on a manufacturing basis, namely, the effective antipyretic, the acetyl salicylic acid, which could not 1155 -_ ——-, “As aban te py abe rr eRe ea Ie YE AR MR ee Tape, oc. 1a RR ee), hak 9 ae . : ACC A I EE AE te ke RR I te cnet: IETS Aire permanant Snr aren eee A I = Sid ae ape seers renee 0 SSID tee 9 AED OE EOE es | ORO t= eterno = 7 Rae eo tnee maton a Se ower re aed ae Fe arr " ee cd 1156 THE IRON AGE under trade names like aspirin and others has found its way in the households and dispensaries almost over the whole world. A more striking example of the value of apparent waste and by-products could hardly be found. How Coke Oven By-Product Recovery Began The development of the by-product recovery in all kinds of industry formerly made very slow progress; nearly everybody used to consider the by-product plants as an experiment with unassured returns. The by- product coke oven builders in Germany some 30 years ago used to overcome this prejudice in a very effective way, and it is due to their methods that the by-product coke oven replaced the non-by-product ovens entirely on the European continent many years ago, and thus enabled the technical and scientific development which was naturally to follow. They induced the coke producer to allow them to build free of charge a by-product plant in connection with the new coke ovens, and allow them to treat the gases for the recovery of the by-products for a period on the average of 12 years. The builders handed the plant over free of charge to the coke producer after the stated time had elapsed. Such contracts left no risk to the coke producer and to these methods the early development of by-product coking must solely be attributed. Since then the coke producer has learned that there were no risks and that by the present of a 12 years old by-product plant, after the best times of the ovens are over, he is somewhat out of pocket, while the build- ers had done very well indeed. Such builders are unable nowadays to place contracts on such terms, as much as they would like to, though they would, I pre- sume, agree to reduce the above-mentioned time to re- cover the by-products on their own account by nearly half if not more. Still in recent years benzol plants have been built on this basis in England and Belgium and the builder takes the benzol products and runs the plant for a period of generally four years. A benzol plant with its few moving parts should, of course, be as good as new after four years running, but I maintain that if it pays the builders—and they come generally very well out of it—to run the plant for four years, it would certainly pay the producer to do so, even if he had to borrow the money to invest in the plant. Benzol to Be No Longer a By-Product My objection against the word by-product rests with the fact that it is often too much regarded and treated as such. Who, for instance, has not experienced that a coking plant is put down with provisions to recover tar and ammonia only. Suggestions as to the building of a benzol plant were negatived and ruled out by the fact that the benzol prices were too low at the time, its recovery did not pay and the addition of a benzol plant could be made later on at any time. Then sud- denly benzol prices increased and a benzol plant would be ordered in a hurry, but in the meantime an amount of money had been lost by leaving the benzol in the gas all that time which would have paid for the plant over and over again. During the war every coking plant as well as large gas works on the European Conti- nent and in England were compelled by the respective governments to put down benzol plants, and it paid them very well after disregarding this source of income for many years before. When the building of a coking plant is contemplated it must be kept in mind that this plant has to produce coke, tar, ammonia, benzol and gas; they must in proper proportion be taken as all of equal value. The same applies to a new blast furnace plant. As the iron market is taken into consideration so should proper provision be made to utilize the slag and the April 22, 192) gas in some economic way, as difficult a problem as + may look at first. And, remember, one should rec: all the products first of all when the whole plant is n. because then the best return is obtained, a fact whi of course does not speak against providing old plan: for additional recovery and so bringing them up date and in a better state of being able to compete. Then there is the heat wasted in the slag of bla furnaces and in steel works and the oven heat render useless by quenching the coke leaving the ovens. Fy use is made in large plants now of the heat of the ligui iron, which is not allowed to cool before it is converte into a finished product. The present coal shortag: has given a new impetus to investigate these he sources and put them to useful account. Heat of Discharged Coke for Steam Making On the European Continent a company has bee: formed, subsidized from the large electrical firm Siemens, to develop the practical use of this “waste’ heat. The idea is to bring the hot coke or the liquid slag in contact with water jacketed receptacles in whic} the jacketed space is occupied by water at so high a pressure that the formation of steam is prevented. After the water has taken up all the recoverable heat, it is transferred through a pressure reducing valve into a boiler in which the pressure is so much lower com pared with that of the jacket, that the heat of the wate: will be liberated in the form of steam. This original proposal has, however, been super- seded by a perhaps less efficient but safer method, since in a case of leakage the pressure in the jacket would be reduced, causing the formation of steam and by the heat of the slag or the coke, the water jacket would be overheated on the part holding steam instead of water and a serious explosion would probably be the result. Thus it is proposed now to fill the jacket of the re- ceptacle with a liquid of high boiling point, such as, for instance, anthracene oil (having a boiling point of 350 deg. C. = 662 deg. Fahr.) and circulate the oil through a heat exchanging coil or element placed in an adjacent boiler and so convert the heat first of all into steam. Though these trials have hardly got over the preliminary stages yet, it should be an inducement to test similar promising ideas with a view of eliminating the last waste from the works. Putting Incandescent Coke into Blast Furnace A frequent suggestion has been to push the coke into an insulated iron receptacle of oven shape, to hoist it up the blast furnace and empty the hot coke into th bell. It has also been proposed to arrange the cok: ovens like the spokes of a wheel around the top of the blast furnace and push the coke directly into the bell. The heat economy thus obtained would benefit the blas' furnace, but the vital question is whether the blast fur nace would really benefit by it, or whether its top would get too hot thereby, and so the apparent gain turn out as a loss after all. Except this last proposal all engineers and i! ventors who tried to tackle this problem—myself no! excluded—are working in the same direction, that is, by converting the heat of the coke into steam in a chamber with water jacket, before the coke is finally quenched. It would of course be much easier and sim- pler to use the steam developed by the application of the quenching water direct and there are no technical difficulties in the way of doing so, as far as the recov- ery goes, and numerous trials have been made in this direction, but it has been repeatedly proved that th: steam accumulated by these means is so contaminated with very fine particles of coke dust, sulphuric and sul- phurous acid that the turbine blades could not with- stand a mechanical emery-like grinding and a chemical! etching action at the same time, even for a comparative- \ pril a 1920 very short period. The trials in this direction have ved altogether unsuccessful. A Coke Quenching Machine A coke quenching machine has been put on the mar- t in England by Wellington of London recently, be- the first of its kind with a water jacketed oven aped receptacle and steam collector on top, which I nsider workable. It is driven by a steam engine, fed om the generated steam and thus self propelling. The ngine can be coupled with a dynamo and use up the irplus steam by converting it into electricity, which by trolley collectors and overhead wires is fed into the dis- tribution system. However, with bringing out such .rrangements, though they may appear workable, the roblem is not solved by any means. All arrangements so far suggested to recover the eat from coke before or while quenching have this 4 n common that they cause such a loss of time that the treatment of the coke appears to be quite of no, or at its best, secondary importance. That it is futile to recover the heat and at the same time hamper the work of a whole coke oven battery need hardly be explained, and ; t will be understood that the radiation of the heat By hrough a boiler plate must be expected to take up Eis nuch more time than the transmission to the directly ipplied water while quenching, which takes place in- stantaneously. In recovering steam indirectly from oke not only is a certain time taken up for the trans- nission of the heat, but the coke cannot be cooled alto- ether within a reasonable time without the direct ap- lication of water, so that the work and time required es for quenching must be counted on top of the preliminary Fs ‘ombined cooling and heat recovery process, quite apart Bx from the labor which supervision, steam and water con- Ps ection may involve. It naturally follows that much Es has to be tried and experimented yet in this field until ES the chain of products can be closed, thereby eliminating ill waste. Utilizing Fully the Gas Power In the recovery of power as a by-product there is nearly always a discrepancy between supply and demand it different hours, days and seasons. Take, for instance, . blast furnace or a coke oven plant supplying surplus ras to a rolling mill or to a large central power station. leaving Sundays and holidays as well as unforeseen re stoppages out of consideration, it would be difficult to ompensate for the reduced consumption even during meal times by providing sufficient storage room for the ras Toe What naturally suggests itself as the most adapta- le compensator in this connection is an electric ac- umulator, but with the little progress that has really een made in the construction of electric accumulators, t would require such huge proportions and such an normous capital that together with its upkeep it could 't be expected to yield a satisfactory return and a city ‘f very large gas holders would economically as well as racticably be preferable and efficient by storing the ower in form of gas instead of electricity. The firm mentioned proposes to keep within limits ‘n even load on power stations and compensate for the inconsumed power by leading the current into similar water tanks of the special design mentioned, by means f electrodes and storing the surplus energy in the form f heat which by reducing the pressure can be converted nto steam to drive power generating steam turbines * soon as the load exceeds the available power obtain- le from the regular gas supply. How far this pro- osal has been put to the practical test and with what results, I have not so far been able to ascertain. Similar conditions, as stated above, exist in a power tation in the south of Germany driven by water tur- bines which during a number of hours on weekdays are loaded to their utmost capacity. As soon as the load THE TRON AGE 1167 slacks off considerably, large centrifugal pumps are started which supply water to a high level storage tank from which it is taken during the hours of need as a supplementary water supply to the turbines. The ef- ficiency is, however, low, and if I have been correctly informed, not much over 30 per cent. Though I pre- sume that the efficiency of the aforementioned arrange- ment to store surplus power in the form of heat will not be much higher, it must still be considered better than waste with no efficiency at all, if the upkeep and the capital outlay of the arrangement do not prove to be prohibitively high. Utilizing Carbon Dioxide from Chimneys Before concluding my remarks about waste of re- coverable revenue on modern plants, I must draw at- tention to a source of waste which terming it as such sounds somewhat paradoxical and has_ generally escaped notice. I mean the carbon dioxide leaving our chimney stacks. Every engineer who has got the faintest idea of combustion is alive to the fact that his efforts must be directed to obtain as high a percentage of carbon dioxide in the flue gases as possible. So as a sign of perfect combustion, it is not altogether waste to let it pass to the chimney. Everybody knows that CO, is absorbed by the microscopically small pores with which every green leaf in vegetable life is pro- vided and that by the chlorophyll, the green substance of the plants, it is converted into starch and other plant foods. It happened in Germany that the owners of a large iron works got tired of being compelled to pay to the surrounding farms annually substantial sums as com- pensation on the ground that the gases escaping the chimney stacks of the works decreased the fertility of the land. Based upon the above-mentioned fact that CO, is actually plant food and certainly does not do harm to growing vegetation, the gases from a blast stove chimney were circulated through a large greenhouse and later on extensive trials were carried out in con- ducting these gases over open planted fields. There it was plainly proved that the gases did not only do no harm whatever to vegetable life, but that in compari- son to other equally planted fields the growth of the vegetation was considerably accelerated by the effect of the CO: These trials have been continued and the gases rich in carbon dioxide have been rapidly taken up as a fertilizer by suitable arrangements. In passing a refuse heap or any other source of waste on the works, one should keep in mind the his- tory of the Leblanc process and of the acety] salicylic acid manufacture. Naturally, many works owners or leaders are not easily induced to spend capital over trials and investigations of doubtful result, which even with success may not only benefit the individual works which accomplished their introduction as a use- ful product at perhaps tremendous costs, but may also eventually become common property. To ask private enterprise to spend money over processes by which in all probability also his competitors would benefit at very little expense to themselves, seems at the first sight to be an Utopian idea. But if one considers that one has probably not a machine, an apparatus, an ar- rangement of some kind in the works for which in its origination or perfection somebody, mostly unknown or forgotten to us had to pay, even if not so heavily as Leblanc, then the idea to follow up any suggestion with even a small prospect of personal success to cut out waste will cease to be a Utopia to the open mind. There is a great probability of a general strike at the plant of the Canadian Vickers, Ltd., Montreal, Que. Some time ago the men presented a demand for 90 cents an hour, which the company refused, offering 80 cents. The men have now presented a final demand for 85 cents, and failing the granting of this a strike will be called. SE LH ROA A eA PN IM a a een ane LAR AOE REL AD: a Ne om pm nsinen woe aore ren Atlan engyestnseapreenapaneypatereeees ee ee aaa OAS AS NTR sae « es rare patponenwaseiore if | ~ B => z 1}58 THE IRON AGE OPPOSE PROFITS TAX Business Men Want Change in Revenue Laws— Meeting Held in Chicago Federal revenue laws and, particularly the excess profits tax, are responsible in large measure for the present period of high prices, in the opinion of business leaders who attended the meeting of the National In- dustrial Conference Board at the Blackstone Hotel, Chicago, on April 15 and 16. To the end that some- thing constructive and sound may be done to remedy the situation, a committee of 16 members was organ- ized which, with the assistance of a staff of tax ex- perts, will study the problem carefully before making its recommendations. In a strict sense, the committee is not an Industrial Conference Board body. In fact, it contains a majority of members representing out- side interests and will be enlarged if other branches of industry choose to co-operate in the work under- taken. The committee is working under the auspices of the Conference Board, merely because it preferred to operate through the machinery of an established organization. Its aim, however, is to make its study of nation-wide scope and representative of the views of all business interests. Some of the members are James A. Emery, counsel, National Association of Manufacturers, Washington; Fayette R. Plumb, president, Fayette R. Plumb, Inc., Philadelphia; Wilson Compton, secretary, Lumber Manufacturers’ Association, Chicago; Harry H. Smith, Mid-Continent Gas and Oil Association, Tulsa, Okla.; Fred W. Lehmann, Jr., Western Petroleum Refiners’ Association, Kansas City; C. B. Heinemann, repre- senting the live stock interests, Chicago; Paul Armi- tage, American Mining Congress, New York; Rush Butler, representing the coal mining operators, Wash- ington; R. C. Allen, Cleveland, for the iron and steel industry; L. F. Loree, president, the Delaware & Hud- son Railroad, for the railroads and public utilities. April 22, 19? Mr. Emery, in discussing the excess profits tax a; the Chicago meeting, stated that taxes should be based on money spent and not on money saved. The exces profits tax, he said, was not only an expensive method of obtaining revenue, but discriminated against }\ nesses involving great risk. Some new method of tax ation, such as a sales tax, should be substituted. Judge Zoeller, tax attorney, the General Elect) Co., defended the profits tax as preferable to other plans proposed. The tax, he said, is based on capital invested, a feature which would be ignored by a sales tax. Whereas the profits tax is designed to exact trib ute according to ability to pay, this would not be the ‘ase with the sales tax, which would apply on like commodities regardless of the profit made. The latter, in his opinion, would result in even higher prices than obtain under the present system. He proposed the abolition of the surtax on individual incomes and the retention of the excess profits tax. In general discus sion this plan was attacked on the grounds that would prove discriminatory against corporations unless applied to partnerships and personal enterprises, which would prove impracticable. Prof. Carl Plaehn, University of California, dis cussed the excess profits tax from an academic point of view, pointing out both good and bad features. He stated that the abolition of the tax would not remove the causes of unrest in this country. The Government, he said, had to get revenue from somewhere, and if not through the profits tax, through some other agency. The meeting of the National Industrial Conference Board was the first to be held at Chicago, in fact, the first to be held outside of New York and Boston. It was called in the Middle West for the purpose of giving business men in that section an idea of the nature of the organization and the scope of its work. Represen- tative men from Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Cleve- land, Milwaukee, and other cities were present. The attendance was 125. All sessions, except the one deal- ing with taxation, were closed to the public. Industrial Exhibition at Brooklyn The third annual industrial exhibition at Brooklyn, N. Y., held in the Twenty-third Regiment Armory, April 10 to 17, surpassed the preceding exhibitions in both the number of exhibitors and in the attendance. The list of exhibitors has grown from 35 in 1918 to 180 at this third event. There were 309 booths, said to be the largest number ever planned on the armory floor. Monday was featured for the Metal Trades Industries Exchange, the principal address being delivered by H. H. Doehler, president Doehler Die Casting Co., Brook- lyn, N. Y., and president of the Brooklyn Metal In- dustries Exchange. F. H. Moses, president Adriance Machine Works, Brooklyn, was chairman of this ses- sion and had as associates James Skinner, E. W. Bliss Co., Brooklyn, and Herman Oswald, V. & O. Press Co., Glendale, L. I. Mr. Doehler in his speech explained a plan now being formulated whereby Brooklyn would be exploited through the medium of its industrial exhibits. Those exhibits with machines in operation proved centers of attraction. E. W. Bliss Co., Brooklyn, dis- played an automatic can body machine, double seamer and gang slitter, all in operation; Adriance Machine Works, Brooklyn, exhibited a staggered feed press and a bottling and crowning machine; Eastern Tube & Tool Co., Brooklyn, had drill chucks in operation on a Sipp machine; Ludlum Steel Co., New York, showed a ma- chine boring square holes with drills made from Ludlum steel, and also exhibited tool steels of various brands; Potdevin Machine Co., Brooklyn, had a gum- ming machine in operation; V. & O. Press Co., Glen- dale, L. I, displayed a line of presses in operation; Wahlstrom Tool Co., Second Avenue, Brooklyn, exhib- ited automatic drill chucks and tapping attachments and showed these in use on a Sipp four-spindle drill press; Surface Combustion Co., 366 Girard Avenue, New York, had working an impact type burner with refractory bed illustrating the radiant heat principle, an oven type furnace for heat treating and hardening, and a forge for rod end heating or for drop forgings. Other exhibitors, with the products displayed, included: Acme Foundry Co., Brooklyn, castings in gray iron and semi-steel; Beach-Russ Co., New York, vacuum pumps and pressure blowers; T. R. Brawley, 85 Adams Street, Brooklyn felt washers, gaskets and other felt products; Brooklyn Fir Brick Works, 88 Van Dyke Street, Brooklyn, fire brick; Bur & Houston, 84 Calyer Street, gray-iron castings; H. W. Cot ton, Ine., Thirty-fifth Street, Brooklyn, bench lathes; Christo- pher Cunningham Co., 437 Greenpoint Avenue, Brooklyn. steam boilers and pumps; M. T. Davidson Pump Co., 4 Keap Street, Brooklyn, boiler feeds, vacuum pumps and ma- rine ash ejectors; De Haven Mfg. Co., 50 Columbia Heights Brooklyn, box straps, clutch nails, flexible pail hoops and shipping department specialties; Doehler Die Casting ©o. Brooklyn, die castings, brass, aluminum, zinc, tin and lead Fairbanks, Morse Co., New York, Anderson vertical tap- ping machine, small lighting plants for 40 lights, portable diaphragm power pump and Anderson die forming machine Forbes Tubular Products Corporation, 85 Fulton Street. Brooklyn, tubular products; Fortuna Machine Co., New York, skiving machines; Foster Pump Works, 36 Bridge Street, Brooklyn, motor driven rotary pumps, air compressors of hand and motor driven type and an ammonia pump Fulton Foundry & Machine Co., 21 Furman Street, Brookly! sensitive tapping machines. General Electric Co., motors; R. Hamilton & Sons, Inc.. 56 Water Street, Brooklyn, brass, bronze and aluminum cast- ings; Hay-Budden Mfg. Co., 254 North Henry Street, anvils Improved Appliance Co., 413 Kent Avenue, Brooklyn, brazins table, multi-tube burners, tank furnace, fan motor blowers. soft metal furnace, and rivet forge; J. D. Johnson Co., Inc Brooklyn, plumbing supplies and fittings; Abbe Engineerins Co., 220 Broadway, New York, pebble mills, laboratory mills and rotary cutters; Oldham New York Saw Works, Inc., 112 Twenty-sixth Street, Brooklyn, 72-in. saw, smaller saws and band saws; Thomas Paulson & Sons, Inc., 97 Second Avenue, Brooklyn, brass, bronze and aluminum castings the Peelle Co., Stewart Avenue and Harrison Place, Brook- lyn, elevator fire doors; Taylor & Co., 680 Morgan Avenue. gray-iron castings; Walworth Mfg. Co., 19 Cliff Street. Brooklyn, valves, fittings and pipe tools; J. H. Williams Co.. Brooklyn, drop forgings and drop forged tools; Irving Iron Works Co., Long Island City, N. Y., subway gratings. \pril 22, 1920 THE IRON AGE 1159 Rolling Sheet Brass Procedure in the Plant of the Bridgeport Brass Co. Illustrated BY OTIS ALLEN KENYON T the present time the process of rolling brass is the only one which remains practically as much in the hands of the expert operator as : ’ i it did many years ago. Of course, the process of k, rolling in a modern mill is more systematically FB planned and executed nowadays than in former ; times. Nevertheless, the quality of the product is ; very largely dependent upon the skill and ability of the man who operates the rolls, and the only way ‘q that a uniform product can be assured is by rigid E inspection and careful control through the labora- FY tory. Fs: In following the rolling processes through the ‘ pz mill and judging the quality of the product at each ; Kifth of a series of six articles. The fourth having to do oe naking seamless brass tubes appeared in the issue of Step, the microscope is probably the most valuable | 16 he p nti ‘over cin Oo brass were . ; . in? P ; te i ? oS or rae "19° ~ pale gy oot March 2 Inspection tool, as the crystals indicate at once to thor is engineer of Ray D. Lillibridge, Inc., New York. an expert the success or failure of the rolling opera- eZ (jates to the (ast a Bars Are Cut Off 5 in the Alligator : Shear ind the Se Cross Section Noted for Quality of Metal After the Trimmed jars Are Passed Through the Breaking Down Rolls, They are Put Through the { Straightening Rolls Like Those at | the Right zi : : ; i M os t To Remove Surface ; Imperfections the : Straightened Bars 5k Go Through Hig! : Speed Milling Ma % chines, a Process Superseding For- mer Mechanical Scraping —-. THE IRON AGE April 22, 192 has been performed. The operation of tal count is shown in the photograph head of this article. Bridgeport Brass Co.’s plant brass for is cast in long flat slabs known as bars. bars are delivered from the electric casting to the rolling mill, where the gate is cut off ll] shear. The man shown at the left the shear is an expert in judging e metal by the character of the cut. He examines cut-off part to determine whether the gate has npletely eliminated or not and to pass upon ‘ i ae he rt The trimmed bars are next inserted into a pair of break-down rolls to start the process of mechan ically working the material. After breaking dow: they are passed through a series of straighteni! rolls. The straightened bars are then passe‘ through high speed milling machines which remové the surface impurities and imperfections. This operation is also shown among the cuts. Former): the surface impurities were removed by a process of scraping, mechanical fingers being rapidly recip- rocated over the surface of the bar, digging int it like a set of finger nails on every other stroke The milled bars are then passed through the secot 22. 1920 THE IRON AGE 1161 ing-down process, after which the actual roll- other end—the carrier being coupled to the out- egins. going charge. One illustration shows the annealed since mechanical working of brass and copper charge in the foreground and the fresh charge in- ns the metal, it is necessary to anneal the bars ide of the furnace. The difference in the surface rious stages of the om“ eo = in appearance of the annealed and unannealed metal oul aces as shown. charges. jouble-end furnaces as wn e ¢ ges 5, apparent. eet metal are mounted on long steel plates ; y 4 are provided with rings on each end to per- — temperature of these furnaces is accurately upling together, like cars in a train. The ‘ontrolled by electric pyrometers, facilities being Jed metal is drawn out of the furnace by a provided for reading the temperature at both ends and as the charge is drawn out of one end and in the middle of each furnace. Indicating py- furnace, a new charge is drawn in from the rometers are provided for guidance of the furnace- men and recording pyrometers are provided for fur- nishing records of the heating conditions at all times, and also for the guidance of operation of the furnaces. Some years ago the Bridgeport Brass Co. orig- inated and patented the method of using tandem rolls in the production of sheet brass, the rolls being so operated that a definite amount of tension is established in the metal between them. Such a set of rolls is shown in operation. The company recognized the necessity of using highly skilled and experienced men on the most im- portant operations of rolling and has in its employ a number of rollers that have been with the company for more than 30 years. For instance, the roller shown in the view of the tandem rolls has been with the company 38 years, and the one shown in the view of rolling sheet brass has been with the com- pany for 47 years. A great deal of the sheet brass produced in this mill is used iz the manufacturifg department of the company where various drawn and stamped products are manufactured. Sheet Brass is Con- verted in Part at the Bridgeport Brass Works into Various Articles of Commerce by ¥ Means of Punch Presses Ca ae tee ES sleep ct i eR eR, a ents eee et at RE ta = wen 1 Lt ni ene tines te tap ea S hg her eR a be tiene a —— cae yey 7 t ‘ 11€2 Another Large Plate Bending Roll Here is a plate bending roll made for the Lasker Iron Works, boiler maker and steel plate engineer, Chicago, by Wickes Brothers, Saginaw, Mich. It might well have been included in the article and ac- ompanying table entitled, “Size Comparison of New Bending Rolls,” in THE IRON AGE of April 8. The following data give an idea as to size: Distance be- tween housings, 32 ft. 2% in.; diameter of top roll, 0 ft.: weight of top roll, 50 tons; maximum thick- ness of plate which can be bent, 1 in.; diameter of the ylinder into which the plate can be bent, 6 ft.; maxi- length of rolls, including what is called a counter- ft. After the complete cylinder has been ade from the flat plate, the housings can be dropped mum balance, 42 THE IRON AGE April 22, 19» Metallurgical Engineers; Fred J. Miller, pres American Society of Mechanical Engineers; Ca}, Townley, president American Institute of Electr Engineers. Engineering Advertisers’ Association Oppo: Advertising Tax Bill The bill proposed by C. J. Thompson, representat in Congress, to tax advertising, was discussed at len; by the members of the Engineering Advertisers’ As ciation at its monthly meeting at the Great North Hotel, Chicago, on April 13, and it was unanimou agreed to enter a vigorous protest against this p posed legislation as being unsound and unfair to by ness. It was argued that the passing of such a 4 Plate Bending Roll of cylinder removed. The roll was forged from the ingot by the American Bridge Co. at its Gary plant. The total weight of the machine is 140 tons. nad the French Mission Coming WASHINGTON, April 19.—A French naval ordnance ind artillery mission, consisting of seven of the most minent ordnance engineers of the French navy, is due to arrive in New York on May 3. The mission will spend three weeks in the United States visiting various ordnance establishments of the Army and Navy, and plants which are manufacturing ordnance material. The head of the mission is Engineer General First Class Charbonnier, Inspector General of Naval Artillery of France. He is considered the leading ord- nance authority in France. The mission will sail May ) 27 on the steamer Rochambeau for France. ndustrial Engineers Meet in Chicago The governing boards of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, the American Society of Me- chanical Engineers and the American Institute of Elec- trical Engineers met in Chicago on April 19 and 20 at the invitation of the Western Society of Engineers to consider the working out of a simple and compre- hensive relationship between the national associations and the western body. On the evening of April 19 a dinner was held at Hotel La Salle, presided over by A. Stuart Baldwin, vice-president [Illinois Central Railroad and past president of the Western Society. Those scheduled to speak were Arthur P. Davis, presi- dent, American Society of Civil Engineers; Herbert Hoover, president American Institute of Mining and the Lasker Iron Works, Chicago, and a Plate Which It Has Bent would tend to curtail the advertising of some manu facturers, which would cause more or less depressio! in business, and as the crying need of the hour is fo! more production, and more production, and STILI MORE PRODUCTION, it would be most unwise to in- terfere with business now by passing the proposed tax bil. The members cf the Engineering Advertisers’ Association represent about 100 of the leading manu facturers of engineering products in the Middle West Making Large Plant Additions The Canonsburg Steel & Iron Works, Canonsburg, Pa., maker of iron and steel sheets, is making some large additions to its plant. These include one 28 x 48-in., and one 28 x 44-in. hot mills and one 28 x 48-in roughing mill, also an additional 25-ton electric crane being furnished by Pawling & Harnischfeger, Milwau kee. The hot mills are being built by the Standard En gineering Co., Ellwood City, Pa., which is also furnish ing two 156-in. squaring shears, motor driven, and on¢ motor-driven roll lathe. Two steam doublers are being furnished by Hyde Park Foundry & Machine Co., Hyde Park, Pa., and the Fort Pitt Bridge Works, Pittsburgh, has the contract for all the furnace castings. Contracts for the sheet and pair furnaces have not yet bee! placed, but likely will be in the next two weeks. T! company is also adding two Babcock & Wilcox wate! tube boilers of 400 hp. each. The motive power to used will be a Hamilton & Corliss engine which company already has. The gearing is being furnished by the Mesta Machine Co., Pittsburgh. The Fort Pitt Bridge Works also has the contract for a new stee building to cover the two new mills and also four mills in the present plant, an old building to be dismantled This company will likely buy other equipment soo! thé Development of ShopCommittees in America Misunderstandings of Labor and Capital—The Whitley Council in England Not Suitable for This Country, but Has Influence on This Side BY CHARLES NORRIS MILLS ~ HOP committees are passing the period of apprenticeship. Although unheralded and unsung at birth and in the early stages of infancy, within five years they have sprung into a sturdy exist- ence. To-day the shop committee is the slogan of the hour. Coincident with the development of the shop committee is the spread of “industrial democracy.” fact, “industrial democracy” is rapidly becoming a catch-phrase, in not only our industrial rela- uships, but also in our social and political life. The function of the shop committee is not yet clearly recognized by the general public. Capital nd labor, too, have often misinterpreted the purpose of the shop committee. While many large cor- rations have sincerely tried, by investigation and research, to meet fairly the needs which call forth the existence of the shop committee, other employers have thought of the shop committee as a “cure ‘for all kinds of industrial troubles. Thoughtlessly and selfishly, they have presented shop com- mittee systems which by the very nature and spirit of their induction are doomed to failure. There has also been much misunderstanding from the side of labor. Where the shop committee has tended to increase the prestige and strength of the trade union, union leaders have co-operated with the shop committee. On the other hand, where the introduction of the shop committee has resulted in a weakened union influence, there has been much suspicion. “Industrial democracy,” too, has been looked upon by many union leaders simply as some new scheme to camouflage the helpless wage-earner—a worthy successor of benevolent despotism and paternalistic welfare schemes. [It is high time for us, representing the much-abused iblic, not simply to sit on the sidelines as silent pectators but to ask ourselves in a truly dispassion- ate, scientific attitude of mind just what these catch words mean; whether they are successors of the war slogans like “Food Will Win the War” or “Buy a Bond to Kill the Kaiser,” or whether underlying these terms there is substantial bone and sinew for industrial re- onstruction. If the public is really to share in the nterpretation of the industrial crisis, real shop repre- sentation and real industrial democracy must be under- stood, In any such research, we are confronted by the arge variety of shop committee plans which flood the ndustrial market of to-day. We have not the time or the patience to discriminate between all the chaff and the wheat in such plans, but we can confine our- elves to a discussion on broad general grounds. Definitions Many people regard industrial democracy as a set- tled state of future blessedness where there shall be » industrial quarreling, no strikes, no lockouts, no dustrial guerrilla warfare. They look upon industrial democracy somewhat as the early Christians looked for an actual manifest kingdom of heaven upon the earth. They regard it as something basic, static, an institu- tion, a settled state. We are not prophets, we cannot tell what the form ndustrialism will be 50 or 100 years from now any nore than we can know what the form of our political rovernment will be in 2020 A.D. But we can assert that industrial democracy will not be revealed so much some actual institution or form, but rather in an titude toward certain forms of industrial government. industrial democracy” is not an express state to be ‘ked forward to, but rather an expression or attitude ‘ mind. It represents vision—a certain perspective vard industrial problems both present and future. inherently, it is broad, liberal, untrammeled. Literally, ‘ attacks the powerhouse of an industrial autocracy ch says that some things: wages, hours, conditions ' work, ete, are too “sacred” to be discussed. It ns the channels of expression. Being, therefore, an tude of mind, we can make no set definition of ‘ustrial democracy. In the limits of this discussion we are particularly nterested in shop representation, and in industrial f democracy only so far as it relates to shop representa- tion. Industrial democracy being considered as a broad, open, sympathetic attitude of mind toward.-in- dustry and its attendant problems, we find that shop representation is simply one of its manifold forms of expression. Industrial democracy may be termed the mother, shop representation the handmaid. It is the most significant and patent expression in form we have to-day of the outworkings of the spirit of industrial democracy. Shop representation or shop committee plans ex- press industrial democracy in presenting some internal plan of government in each individual plant by the means of which employees, individually and collec- tively, may have a direct and authoritative voice in the formulation of such policies as directly affect their physical, moral, social, and economic welfare. Reasons for Growth and Development in America The rise of shop committees in America is due to a variety of causes, which may be summarized as follows: 1. A state of mind has been developed by the Great War which declares that since the world has been made safe for democracy, democracy must be made safe for the world—democracy in every relationship of life. The war has turned the spotlight on the closed life of autocratic industrialism and so has brought about the recognition of the right of labor to exercise self-deter- mination in matters which directly concern the wage- earner. Just as our fathers declared that there should be “no taxation without representation,” so labor de- clares to-day no absolute control without representa- tion. As the Journal of Commerce, New York (Dec. 10, 1918) declares, “The old standards of the industrial Bourbons are out of date and cannot be maintained or enforced.” So, whether we turn to seething Russia with her shifting schemes of Sovietism, or to tired England with her Whitley Council plan, we find the same spirit; the re-emergence of the individual man and the assertion of his fundamental rights, political, social, economic in the expression of democratic prin- ciples. Shop committee development is simply the out- pouring of this spirit in industry—that every wage- earner should have representation in matters which directly concern his industrial life. J. D. Rockefeller, Jr., in his Atlantic City address, sounds a warning to those “who refuse to reorganize 1163 ~— Rs Ye Geis BE BY oe ape oo ee etic * Rs ee PER ENT eoRge e+ ee Ai a . ve Sa Sho a acy — weit a ME Tsar ne a a ire ert este) ep yes me i - f ? ns oer oe 1164 their industrial households in the light of the modern spirit, for upon them will rest the responsibility for such radical and drastic measures as may be forced upon industry if the highest interests of all are not shortly considered and dealt with in a spirit of fair- ness. 2. The fear of the syndicalist doctrine and methods has forced many employers to seek a haven of refuge in the shop committee plan. As Cyrus McCormick, Jr., said at the N. A. E. M. convention at Cleveland, “Employers are seeking to head this off (syndicalism) and provide a saner method by which legitimate de- sires of the workmen for self-expression can be granted without at the same time completely destroying our present industrial fabric.” 3. Beyond the mere inherent right for individual expression in the affairs of industry there is also the moral right which goes far beyond any theoretical democratic right. It says to the world that the days of benevolent despotism are over, that paternalistic welfare schemes and profit-sharing plans to buy off loyalty are things of the past, that conditions of work cannot be superimposed, but rather there must be con- ference, expression, discussion. The days of the Fred- erick the Greats, the Machiavellis, and the William the Seconds are over in industry as well as in political life. This moral right has its foundations in the growing opinion that if capital with monetary investment can control, surely labor with life investment ought to share that control. “Investment in industry is recognized as affording a right to share in corporate control. Capi- tal and management are so entitled, why not labor? The investment of capital is an investment in the nature of substances and material, the investment of labor is an investment in the nature of skill and life. The one is material, the other is human investment. Both, however, are investments, and of the two, the one involving life is the more precious.”—(W. L. Mac- kenzie King. Industry and Humanity, Chap. 10.) 4. The shop committees movement has had phe- nomenal growth because business has found that it pays. It pays in dollars and cents, in the cutting down of strikes, in reducing obvious industrial cancers. But it also pays in producing something that money can never buy: co-operation, respect, perspective, of the other fellow’s point of view, constructive leadership, the spirit of service. It pays because it places absolute worth on those essential, intangible elements which our present day industrial relationship so sadly needs. Shop Committees and the Whitley Council System The Whitley Council reports have done much to in- fluence the growth and development of American shop committees. They are extremely valuable in pointing out the basic principles on which shop representation rests, such as the statement that “means for securing for the people a greater share in and responsibility for the determination and observance of the conditions under which their work is carried on is necessary in order to secure the better utilization of the practical knowledge and experience of the work people.” Some of the less informed public, having read the Whitley Council plans, have been led to think that if they could be adopted wholesale throughout the length and breadth of American industry, a way to industrial peace would be assured. But these people fail to dis- cern great fundamental differences which underlie the conditions of British and American industry. They do not appreciate the difference in the atmosphere in the two countries. So while we may agree in the prin- ciples of the Whitley Councils and gain much inspira- tion from them, we c