The Iron Age 1921-10-27: Vol 108 Iss 17

ESTABLISHED 1855 THE IRON AGE New York, October 27, 1921 VOL. 108: No. 17 Features of Electric Tool Steel Practice Standardized Shop Practice Necessary Large Ingots Recommended—Top Pouring Preferred for Tool Steel—Skilled Operators Abundant —______—_—— BY W. J. AND S. STUART GREEN* - N the article “Electric Furnace Tool Steel Quali- ties,” published in THE IRON AGE Sept. 15, the writers dealt almost entirely with the proper selec- tion of melting stock, the necessity of mixture design- ing and the standardization of melting practice. It carefully showed the way to “mixtures with a charac- ter,” and, we believe for the first time in print, defi- nitely outlined the grades of electric carbon tool steel. The necessity for establishing these grades has long been felt in the trade, competing as it does so closely with the crucible, which latter has had firmly defined qualities or grades from its early history. This is indeed an essential and, sooner or later, standard grading must be accomplished, if the trade is to be adequately cared for. It is apparent to all that there is a distinct demand for steels of the same analysis at at least three different prices, the quality being largely determined by the degree of severity the particular steel is desired to meet. The writers are aware that in some plants this demand has been appreciated and catered to with very considerable success, but there has not been a general standardization of electric fur- nace grades, and our paper was intended to outline the *Pittsburgh. 50 os ——= —— — a | 917 1918 1919 1920 1061 course which in our opinion was best suited to aecom- plish such a purpose. Subsequent events indicate a general agreement with the foregoing and with the principles outlined for satisfactorily meeting the de- mand. Standardized Shop Practice While well-designed mixtures, suitable melting stock and certain well-defined principles of melting practice are the foundation of “steels with a reputation,” it is only in conjunction with carefully thought-out shop practice that the full benefit of these can be reaped; indeed, it may be wholly undone by negligence in such important matters as properly designed ingot molds, casting temperatures, etc. Unfortunately these fea- tures of shop practice are not so amenable to standard- ization as are the subjects before discussed; each shop will have different, even widely different, types of ingots to make, different grades of steels with their altered problems, and, of course, the very shops them- selves will offer varied facilities for handling, casting, ete. It has been the experience of the writers that even the shops of the same company vary considerably in meeting those conditions peculiar to their particular plant. Some shops cast almost entirely slab ingots catering to a tool steel sheet trade and have, therefore, only such ingots to cast; others have only small ingots to make, due to lack of blooming mill or hammer ca- pacity to take care of larger ingots; or, what is worse Charts at the Left Show the Relative Increase of Electric ind Crucible Steel Ingots (Upper) and Castings (Lower) Over a Period of Years. The larger chart represents graphi cally the growth of the total electric steel output as com pared with the crucible over the same period ee ee ees ape (AO A tee A ~ . ~ - pdr tqremnaayivecianmiatanemnenmmnEn-« ng ore pte « -€ Ni et nee nes Bi . . mn ape ae ee 1062 “ in our opinion, is the shop that is called on to make anything from 400 to 4000-lb. ingots, their particular plant being equipped to handle any general-sized ingot. This latter condition has fallen to our lot as well as the foregoing conditions and we have therefore personal experience of the widely different problems offered. Size of Ingots We have said that shop practice is not as amenable to standardization as is furnace practice, varying as it does with each different shop; but we do say em- phatically that it is of the first importance that each individual shop should definitely and positively stand- ardize its own practice. It is not our opinion that the practice of casting 4000-lb. ingots one heat and 400-lb. ingots the next is sound, for we have not found the way to economically accomplish this; it is either a hardship or a picnic for the pit crews, depending on whether you are casting 25 ingots to the heat or four. It destroys shop organization, which is the keynote of economy, it necessitates awkward casting pits, hot-top furnaces, etc., and sometimes expensive handling appa- ratus, but, above all, it is a labor waster. We repeat, standardize your shop within fairly narrow limits as to size and type of ingots to be cast. A shop with one, or two at the most, of sizes of ingots to make has a tremendous advantage over the shop that is doing a jobbing trade casting perhaps 57 varieties. Pit changes, mold changes, the handling and assembling of molds not only costs considerable money, but ties considerable money up in equipment and, lastly, largely tends to produce slovenly pit practice and so undo those virtues so carefully sought after at the furnaces. The ideal shop must be a specialized shop, casting not more than three sizes of ingots and these not widely different, such as 4000 is to 600 lb., but rather as 600 is to 800 lb., or 3500 is to 4000 Ib. It is definitely our opinion that after having care- fully weighed the questions as to what should be the standard ingot or ingots and having finally accepted them, they should be absolutely adhered to. Orders calling for sizes not within that range should be obtained from cogging the nearest suitable ingot, not by casting ingots to suit that casual purpose. The writers have had experience with order clerks who would have cast 30 different sizes of ingots, some with- out any real purpose and the balance without sufficient purpose to warrant departures from a carefully de- cided standard ingot. This casual trade would be very expensive indeed were it allowed to change and derange valuable shop organization. Growth of Electric Steel Output A glance at the accompanying graphs, drawn from figures taken from the American Iron and Steel Insti- tute statistics, make clear the very important position the electric furnace has secured in the tool steel mar- ket. Its economic value and the excellence of its product have been causes of its gratifying position. It will be noted how far it has outstripped its natural competitor the crucible, and there are no signs of its relinquishing its hold, but rather signs are not wanting that it will take in the near future an even bigger share of the world’s high-grade tonnage. Already it has badly crippled the crucible, many houses heretofore entirely «rucible are now largely and in some cases entirely electric. Apart from this deflection of trade, it has also a field peculiarly its own and one that has by a coinci- dence grown with it, that is, the automobile trade. The automobile world has tried and accepted for almost general use electric steel and, to reach this point, the electric furnace has had to pass through a severe experimental stage as to general furnace design, equipment and operation, but it has now settled down THE IRON AGE October 27, 1921 to a largely accepted standard and, while further mod; fications and improvements will undoubtedly arise as to details of equipment, etc., it seems to us that th basic principles and design will undergo no furthe radical change. Disadvantages of Experimenting We therefore would counsel strongly against con tinual experimenting and the carrying out of sho; tests to determine this and that, which we have observed so frequently in many plants. We have seen a shop superintendent so distracted by the various investiga- tions and tests as to be left absolutely no time for th« proper operation of the plant and its executive and metallurgical problems. Graphite versus carbon elec trodes, various regulators, roof heights, electrode spac ing, refractories of new and untried virtues, holders of many types, bottom materials of several kinds, etc., ete., are all questions that we resolutely decline to permit to interfere with our operation of the shop and its resultant production. We have found it well to place the onus on the other fellow, that is to say, re- quiring sufficient evidence from the company making the new commodity warranting a change and not our- selves obtaining same by costly trial, costly rather in the disturbance of routine and organization it car- ries with it than the actual cost of materials. We are not opposed to development or new things if they have anything to offer, but we are opposed, in the absence of a special fund and staff to investigate, to the trial of all commodities that are offered. As we see it, attention should be concentrated on the production of quality steel with the means avail- able, being slow to carry on test campaigns, for when anything really good comes along it is soon general property and can then be adopted when it has won its spurs. The metallurgical departments of the various universities might be better fitted for such develop- ment, and when run on lines anything like the applied science department at Sheffield, the Pittsburgh of Eng- land, they will be; for this branch of that university has at all times been able and willing to focus its resources on any problems of the steel trade submitted to it, to the lasting good of that fine old city of steel, thanks to Dr. J. O. Arnold, the pioneer and organizer, who held the chair of metallurgy for many years. In closing this thought, let us say, concentrate on shop organization and steady production rather than have the shop in a furore by various investigations, and adopt new things only when they have demonstrated their efficacy in a very definite manner elsewhere. Skilled and Other Operators In reaching the remarkably satisfactory position in the industry before described, the electric furnace has also had to pass through a trying period in so far as skilled operators are concerned. It was started largely by electricians, who later called in steel makers when they got out of their depth, and unfortunately these steel makers had, of course, no experience with the white fuel to guide them. The year 1911 found the industry, therefore, with a limited and to a certain extent struggling personnel manning the electric fur- naces. Men were made melters with six months’ experi- ence in the steel game, coal miners, farmers and almost every conceivable trade furnishing recruits. Youth was largely pressed into service, owing to its ability to adapt itself readily, and, by reason of its faculty to accept responsibility lightly, a responsibility that would have daunted an older man. This branch of the in- dustry was, therefore, in the hands, to a large extent, of youth, with its drawback of immature knowledge. However, 10 years has had a softening action on this problem and we have now the stabilizing influence Sree 7, oe ee gis i bi MLNS. October 27, 1921 of men of more mature years and experience. We have to-day a body of men easily equal, and prob- ably in some cases superior, to that of any other melt- ing branch of the industry. The crews of 10 years ago, with their necessarily limited experience, made possible the efficient crews of to-day but they also left some little prejudice to live down, for it must be ad- mitted that their early product was erratic as to quality, sometimes hardly equalling open-hearth work. Happily time has alleviated this situation, and the electric furnace industry stands firmly on its own feet unchallenged as the equal of the crucible. The full equality, both as to excellence of product and operating personnel, the electric furnace shares with the crucible, but it possesses also superior eco- nomic values in the direction of utilization of fuel energy, much lower labor costs, etc. These are attrac- tive indeed to the trade and are resulting in many new and repeat installations, while no new crucible installation comes to our mind. Electric steel is speci- fied in repeat orders now, quite as much as ever the ‘rucible product was, and the prejudice of steel con- sumers, where there was any, has completely disap- peared, for never did steel of any class enjoy a more open market. Large Ingots Recommended An important feature of electric furnace operation, still further adding to its desirability, is the casting f fairly large ingots for everyday work as dealt with is follows: The writers favor the casting of ingots f as large a size as can be conveniently handled by the mills available. In well-made electric steel little is to be feared from segregation, which might be advanced as an argument against casting fairly large tool steel ingots, careful investigation having confirmed this; in general tool steel, a 3000-lb. ingot has not proven too large. Casting this type of ingot provides minimum ingot surface, with its attendant advantages, permits careful temperature control practically equal in all ingots as against casting 24 ingots in which case the first four may be too hot with the heat cool toward the end, at the same time causing a wide variation in temperature from the first to the last ingot. It also permits well-regulated central pouring speeds and ade- quate feeding, provides beneficial work on the ingot when being cogged or bloomed, say to a 4-in. billet. Blooming has proven very satisfactory when performed on a quality mill under quality conditions, not, of course, on a rail blooming mill with its attendant roll- ragging, heavy drafts, etc.; in fact, this work on a 3000-lb. ingot down to a 4-in. billet has proved a very excellent process, at least equalling the hammer cogging which a 6-in. crucible ingot would get. Of course, this blooming has to be done in a tool steel fashion with tool steel heating, and unless these conditions are avail- able, it had best not be attempted, as no advantages could be hoped for. However, these conditions are possible, as the writers know from personal experience, and form, where found, a very valuable asset in the production of sound economic steel. Casting this size ingot reduces to an appreciable degree mold cost and pit The ingot should, of course, be a big-end-up type used with an efficient sink head, preferably of the loam variety, and should give a yield of not less than 80 per cent in blooms. The ability to handle large ingots is not, however, very general among the average tool steel houses, who have nothing like the tonnage that is needed to profit- ably employ a blooming mill. It seems to us, however, that those shops having a fairly large plate mill, in some cases with electric reversing drive, could install a set of cogging rolls and the necessary manipulators without interfering with the original function of the labor cost. THE IRON AGE 1063 mill and so enjoy the very large advantages of casting fairly large ingots in the melting shop. In this event the mill would bloom one or two days a week as re- quired, and so would very nicely fill out, as is often required on tool steel plate mills, which, by the way, are already equipped for tool steel heating. Bottom Versus Top Casting The electric furnace is sometimes called on for bot- tom cast work, but unless there are very urgent ana important reasons, the writers would favor top cast- ing. Bottom casting high carbon or alloy work, such as the electric furnace generally makes, carries with it certain drawbacks which are not easily offset. We argue that top casting through a tun dish or pouring pot makes for the best work in general tool steel. This system of pouring takes up all ladle swing, eliminates undue ladle pressure, insures central stream, elimi- nates that amount of slag that comes through the nozzle and lends absolute control over pouring speeds, inasmuch as pots of varying size nozzles are employed as the temperature of the heat may dictate. The foregoing remarks as to casting practice have in certain cases to be modified as in the case of high- speed steel, in which latter case no advantages would accrue from casting so large an ingot, but for general work the above will serve very well indeed, and has proved to possess distinct advantages over the practice of casting small work. Summary of Status of the Electric Furnace Summing up the status of the electric furnace of to-day, so far as tool steel production therein is con- cerned, it is wonderful to view in retrospect the rapid strides made by this youngest of existing methods of steel making, for already there is not a quality or class made in the crucible which this process has not dupli- cated, with the exception perhaps of combined iron and steel lumps, a trade not cultivated in this country for some reason, but which has a very respectable tonnage made in Sheffield. Not that this trade cannot be de- veloped through the electric furnace; the writers have no doubt that it will be, at all events in Sheffield, but this apart for it is negligible here. Excepting this and no other, the electric furnace has already traversed the entire field ever covered commercially by the crucible, way back to the days when railroad tires were made therein, and, of course, anterior to the introduction of Bessemer or open-hearth steels. In addition to this it is making the most of the new steels that have come into vogue in the recent years and it has come to stay. It is safe to say it can be relied upon to handle any others that evolution in such matters may render necessary. Meanwhile the old crucible, alive and well since 1740, is passing, dying maybe of senile decay; it has already far and away surpassed in longevity any other process of steel manufacture save the cemen- tation process. As is well known, or may be now forgotten, the Bessemer at its advent was thought by many to seri- ously threaten the crucible process; the most it ever did, however, was to make some inroads into its third- grade steel but it failed ignominously to reach the quality part of it represented by its first and second grades, while the open-hearth process, following close upon its heels, found its limits practically the same in competition therewith. The crucible successfully stood the brunt of both these for more than half a century, but it has at last in the electric furnace found a foe- man worthy of its steel. The arrival of the electric furnace was very much emphasized by the necessities of the late war for it was during that period it dem- onstrated its all-round possibilities as a melting me- dium; we use the term melting medium advisedly, for the electric furnace is not in itself a steel maker, as A ret 0 Re item nt lta A ‘ : : a * ge ea = ee ae bas ee re er eee ~ Re me ee anaes mage - RIE BREE ER SR pe a eee len RI, i Pol a crt oneal bate eal ao od oe ee pen ements Pee La | Saal ee % 1064 THE some people imagine, and should not be regarded as such, for the personal and human factor obtains and controls in its successful operation, far more than is at present realized; but as progress continues this will be recognized and appreciated as the most vital adjunct to the practice. INDUSTRIAL SAVINGS SCHEME Automatic Stamp Selling Device Installed in Cleveland Factories Sales of savings stamps through slot machines as a means to encourage thrift among employees has been inaugurated by several Cleveland manufacturers in the metal working field. The promoter of this plan of savings is the Cleveland Trust Co., which conducts it through its thrift extension department, and which nat. urally benefits by reason of the increased number of depositors and the increase in deposits in its savings department. The slot machines, known as automatic receiving tellers, are provided with two 25c. slots, a 5c. and a THE CLEVELAND TRUST CO. mucus a, & This “Automatic Receiving Teller’? Issues Savy- ings Stamps in Return for Coins Inserted 10c. slot. They deliver stamps in those denominations, when a coin is placed in the proper slide and the latter is pushed in. Previously the bank had placed the ma- chines in a number of Cleveland schools, with slots for pennies as well as for the larger coins, and the plan worked out so satisfactorily that it was decided to ex- tend the installation of the slot machines to industrial plants. About the size of postage stamps, the stamps are numbered, and the machines are so arranged that, should a counterfeit coin be used, the person who passed it can be identified when the stamp is turned in for redemption. The stamps are pasted in thrift stamp folders sim- ilar to the war savings stamp folders issued by the Government during the war. When one dollar or more in stamps has accumulated in the folder, the owner takes it to the bank, gets credit for the amount in his savings deposit book, and draws 4 per cent interest on the deposit. The slot machines are taken care of by the bank, which collects the coins every two weeks. Above the machine is a frame holding a poster bear- ing a picture of some historical event, that occurred IRON AGE October 27, 192 The term crucible steel will always remain a des nation of quality, and deservedly so, and it remai for the electric furnace to build on such, as it is w able, in the hands of competent management, and ca) further its good work to a point even beyond th reached by any melting process. during the same week of a past year as the week t! poster is displayed. The poster also bears an app) priate thrift message. Machines are placed in convenient locations in th plants, either near the pay windows, in the cafeteria or near the factory entrances. They were supplied bh the Banking Machinery Corporation, Saginaw, Mic! Among the factories in which the machines are i: stalled are thé two plants of the National Acme Co. and the two plants of the Cleveland Hardware Co. I) one plant the deposits in the machine have averaged $44.71 per week for the period of nine weeks since i was installed. This is regarded as highly satisfactory, considering present limited plant operations. Lubricating Roll Spindle Couplings BY M. E. DUGGAN* The accompanying sketch shows a coupling for a 20 x 48-in. roll equipped with a grease lubricating sys- tem of the writer’s design. Grease is put into the grease cups at points a, b, c and d and feeds to the driving contact surfaces through opening, as at e and f. The grease cup has a cover flush with the periphery of the coupling and is securely fastened in place with a spring lock washer, which also makes it proof against outward leakage of the grease. A coupling with spindle installed in a workmanlike manner and with a little attention to the lubrication will stay in service ten times as long as if run dry in the old way. Thirty-five years ago, at a time when the writer was employed at the old Bridgeport rolling mills, Grease Feed Holes -e-f Grease Ci up. + Cast--... & /ron J Cover MENS “ff - / { 8 Spring{ = . £ Washer | z > | (Roll End and Spindle s \ \ = , = ; & €~ Four Grease Cups with Flush Fastened Covers Are Used for Lubricating the Couplings of Mill Rolls a thick heavy grease lubricant was used and was ap- plied with a shovel. It has been proved that grease sufficient to cover the machine, floor and the operator can be applied with a shingle, and this is the way the lubrication is done in some mills to-day. About a year ago the writer introduced the new design for driving what is known as baby rolls. The first pairs installed remained in service 86 days of 22 hr. each under con- tinuous operation, as compared with one, two or three days with the old or original system. _ *Foreman pattern maker, American Brass Rolling Mills, Kenosha, Wis. Some years ago, O. Barth claimed to have improved the mechanical properties of aluminum by the addition of cerium, used in percentages up to 11. The further investigations of Josef Schulte, also conducted at the technical high school, Aachen (Metall und Erz), only partly confirm Barth’s observations. Schulte found the elongation of aluminum was raised to 34 per cent by the addition of 0.20 per cent of cerium; the tensile strength was not increased, and larger additions of cerium were almost useless. a Leaves from a Steel Melter’s Notebook—1 An Experience in the Making of Hollow Ingots for Seamless Pipe—Effervescing and “Killed” Steel in an Acid Furnace BY HENRY D. HIBBARD two business men came into my office and engaged me to ‘start them making hollow steel ingots for the manufacture of seamless pipe. They had a plant designed and built for the purpose but in other hands it had never. succeeded in making any merchantable product. Nevertheless they had raised a little more money to make another trial. They also engaged a rolling mill man of wide experience and I hired two furnacemen to help me. We ordered a few cars of pig iron and scrap steel. The plant was in the neighboring State of Ohio. I found a good steel frame building with two bays, one for steel-making and the other for the rolling mill and small machine shop, each served by a 10-ton traveling crane driven by a square shaft, as it was before the introduction of electric cranes. There was a small office building as well, with a little adjoining room to serve as a laboratory, in which were some chemicals and apparatus. The steel-making plant ‘comprised a 5-ton acid open-hearth furnace with a circular hearth and horizontal regenerators—not a good form. The trouble with such a type comes chiefly from the insufficient difference in level between the regenerators and the hearth. This should be con- siderable, say 12 ft. in a 5-ton furnace, so that the column of heated and rarefied air rising through the regenerators flows by its lightness into the hearth, tending to maintain there a plenum or slight outward pressure of the furnace gases, which a good-working furnace always has. By the proper use of the chimney draft through adjustment of the chimney damper this plenum is kept under control, so that the furnace does not “blow” too much through the cracks between the doors and their jambs. ; When the hearth is not high enough above the air entrance to the regenerators the air moves to the hearth too sluggishly, and cold air is liable to flow into the furnace through cracks in the brickwork and around the doors. Such cold air cools the laboratory of the furnace, lowering its melting efficiency and wasting the iron of the charge by undue oxidation, giving a low ingot yield. The circular hearth, while cheap to construct, is too wide at the middle section of the furnace, so that parts of the charge lie too far away from the flame and melt only after the central portions have done so. Nevertheless the furnace worked well enough to melt one heat per day. O NE day when I was a free lance, some 30 years ago, Advantages of Natural Gas The fuel was natural gas from a well on the com- pany’s property, a mighty fine thing in every way. Melters who have never used natural gas for melting steel will perhaps not appreciate the advantages from its use. No gas-makers to annoy one by their laxity. A full supply of high grade fuel with ample pressure on tap, and controlled by simple valves, always on hand. Natural gas has a heating power of about 1000 B.t.u. per cu. ft., compared with 125 to 175 units for producer gas and producer gas having 175 units is exceptionally fine. With natural gas one man on a turn can heat up a furnace to the point where bottom is to be made or repaired. The flame may be made white and soft, which it should be, or thin and cutting, which it should not be, by regulating the quantities and relative proportions of gas and air. It is under complete control. Having such fuel helped greatly to make up for the shortcomings of the furnace design and we made our daily heat in an average of about 7% hrs. per heat from beginning of charging to tapping. A few heats of steel, ten in all, had been made previously, a large part of which was in the form of heavy pit scrap and ladle skulls piled up at the far end of the melting shop, a little being in the form of hollow ingots, none of which had been successfully rolled. Looking over these ingots, I saw that they had been made of effervescing or “rimming in” steel, which is the kind that evolves gas (probably CO) freely during solidification in the molds, causing the metal to “churn” and throwing up in the air two or three feet a myriad of small sparks. Ingots made by this method always contain gas holes, but when the steel has been properly treated in the melting fur- nace the gas holes will be so deep-seated as not to give trouble or injure the quality of the steel for most purposes. Before leaving home on this work I had formed the opinion that killed steel would be better for the purpose, but nevertheless decided to try first one heat of effervescing steel to see what sort of ingots it would make, not being satisfied with the results I saw of previous efforts. Killed steel always tends to settle and form a pipe during solidification, but in small, thin cylindrical ingots such as these the pipe, which is a ring cavity around the top, is small and not deep, so that the ordinary crop to give a square clean and is likely to remove it all. Before starting I crawled through the flues and interior of the furance to see what repairs if any were needed and particularly if the valves and checkers were all right. The slight repairs needed were quickly made and we started to get the furnace hot. There were two helpers, good men, who had worked on the furnace during the previous run, so with those I brought with me I had a good furnace crew. There was a good ladleman, too, who was also an iron molder. Cylindrical Ingot Molds With Cores The ingot molds were cast iron cylinders for ingots about 8 in. in diameter by 3 ft. 8 in. long, with cores 5% in. in diameter, giving ingot walls about 1% in. thick and ingots weighing about 140 lb. each. The cores were of a patented collapsible type but the patented features were of doubtful value. They were made of core sand built up on and supported by a perforated pipe barrel. This pipe barrel was slit on one side its whole length and was sprung open or outward before the core was made by collars on a central shaft which bore against projections on the inside of the slit pipe. After the mold was filled with steel and partly solidified, the central shaft (which supported the core) was driven down about an inch, by striking with a hammer on its projecting upper end, which carried its collars out of engagement with 1065 = p RET Ee whee atte eae chee 2 Bon DD AM Annee one oan ORY pm caper md 8 mitt va. a ee ee <% ee 1066 the projections on the slit pipe barrel, allowing it to collapse. It was patented about 1890. Low carbon steel was manifestly the suitable grade for pipe and comprised all that I made. Hav- ing brought the furnace up to a melting temperature, I charged 1000 lb. of pig iron to melt out some of the metal which had remained in the furnace from the previous run. This was tapped out and the bottom re- paired with sand, the taphole being opened occasion- ally to drain the furnace of molten material and to keep the sand plug in the hole from setting too hard. I then made a heat (No. 11) of effervescing steel without any undue circumstances. Condition: for Effervescing Steel Effervescing steel, made on acid bottom as this was, demands quite different furnace that intended to be killed and solid, and high carbon steels. treatment from as for castings It must have a proper “boil” in the furnace in order to boil or effervesce correctly in the molds, and to insure that action the slag must contain enough free oxide of iron to supply oxygen to oxidize the carbon at the right rate, for the boil (so-called) is chiefly or almost wholly the escape of carbonic oxide (C O) gas bubbles from the bath. That gas is the product of oxidizing the carbon in the metal by oxide of iron. To insure the proper boil, the temperature of the bath must not be too high and the slag must not be all glassy, but must be black and partly crystalline when in a small cake one quarter of an inch thick poured on the iron floor. If the total carbon in the charge is such that the residual carbon after the charge is melted is more than but near that desired in the finished steel, the slag and rate of boiling may be correct when the proper casting temperature has been reached. If, however, the car- bon content is much too high when the charge is melted and the charge must be held in the furnace to permit the excess of carbon to be oxidized, for which purpose ore, preferably in lumps, is added to the bath, there is danger, first, that the metal may become hotter than the proper casting temperature, and second, that the slag may become too silicious and glassy by accretions of silica from the furnace bottom, so that it will have too little free oxide of iron to act on the carbon. The boil is then too quiet and gas holes too near the surface of the ingot. In this heat I provided for a small excess of carbon to be oxidized after melting, used therefore but little ore, and got a good action in the furnace and molds. The charges were made up of from 2300 to 2800 lb. of low phosphorus pig iron, with steel scrap to make up 11,000 lb. which was about the capacity of the furnace. In my first heat, No. 11, 100 lb. of ferromanganese was charged in the furnace at the end, which added 0.72 per cent of metallic managanese. This heat was of a grade suitable for boiler plate and it was cast cleanly into the molds. My employers were delighted and all who had been there during the previous run said that it was the best heat that had been made there, though none of them were qualified to express an opinion on such a matter. The point they could see, however, was that the steel was all in the molds with no slopping, pit scrap or large ladle skull. To me, however, the heat demonstrated that such was not the thing for the purpose. The ingots were bottom cast, a group of six standing on a bottom plate around a central runner. The metal flowed to mold through brick runners located in channels in the bottom plate in the usual manner in bottom casting. Many of the ingots cracked or split lengthwise in the molds, in spite of the collapsible cores, due in part probably to the rela- tively quick contraction of the steel because of its steel each THE IRON AGE October 27, 1921 higher freezing point than that of killed steel such as we made later. The cores needed further study an: experimentation. We melted only in the day time, th: furnace being kept hot over night by one of th helpers. Killed Steel The next heat I made dead steel and to that end worked it out more cleanly in the furnace as killed steel should be treated. In making killed steel in a: acid furnace the boil cannot be too gentle at the end nor the slag too acid and vitreous. These conditions insure that the rate of oxidation is low and the work for the gas solvents in preventing gas holes moderate and well within their power. The charge must be held in the furuace without ore additions, to allow th metal and slag to complete their inter-actions and clean themselves of oxides and gases to a proper de- gree. To this heat, No. 12, I added 4 lb. of aluminum or 13 oz. per ton for the 5-ton heat, equal to about 0.04 per cent of aluminum, probably more than was needed. The metal was perfectly killed and laid dead in the molds. The ingots were nice and smooth. Nevertheless, some of the ingots cracked, but those which did not rolled well. All subsequent heats were killed either by the addition of silicon metal o1 aluminum or both. Modern ferrosilicon was not then known, the best we had being ferrosilicon made in the blast furnace containing from 14 to 16 per cent of silicon. The next heat, No. 13, was held while waiting for aluminum to be brought and got too hot (although some pig iron was added to keep up the carbon con- tent) and did not roll well. Heat No. 14 rolled per- fectly. It had 4% lb. of aluminum and 90 lb. of ferromanganese at the end. This heat gave mer- chantable thick-walled pipe and was the first shipped on order. From this on the steel rolled well as a rule. Use of Silicon and Aluminum We had no chemist, but in the laboratory I found all the requisites for determining carbon and manga- nese by color and made determinations of those ele- ments. Carbons ran from 0.15 to 0.23 per cent and the manganese from 0.45 to 0.60 per cent. One heat, No. 17, was killed with silicon alone and the ingots were not as clean and smooth on the surface as those killed with aluminum alone. They rolled well never- theless. Probably a mixture of the two gas solvents, silicon and aluminum, would be best and cheapest, an ideal composition for the steel being: carbon, 0.16 to 0.18; manganese, 0.50 to 0.60; silicon 0.15 to 0.20 per cent, with 0.02 per cent of aluminum added in the ladle, the sulphur and phosphorus to be as low as called for by the particular service for which the steel is to be used. Steel, te 4» good and solid with this composition, should have no ore added after the carbon has fallen to 0.25 or 0.30 per cent according to the activity of the “boil,” which indicates the proportion of free oxide of iron in the slag. After ore additions have ceased the bath should be well “worked out” by holding it in the furnace until the excess of carbon has_ been eliminated, during which time the slag will take more silica from the bottom and become consequently more vitreous with less oxidizing power, as the silicate of iron formed will not freely oxidize carbon. Care must be exercised at this stage lest the charge should be- come too hot, to prevent which less gas and air should be supplied to the furnace and the chimney damper be proportionately closed. A little residual manganese, 0.01 or 0.02 per cent, is desirable in the metal before the final additions, as evidence that the bath has not been over-oxidized. All the final additions except the alminum were October 27, 1921 made to the charge in the furnace, which is advisable when high quality of product is wanted. Such a course affords time in which the chemical reactions ire completed and the resulting silicates and sulphides (sonims) may separate from the metal and join the slag as fully as may be. The alminum, being used merely as a gas solvent, does not require time for such purposes and should be added to the steel after t has left the furnace; that is, in the ladle or molds. Projectile Pipe The order we had was for pipe or what amounted o hollow forgings of about 4 in. outside diameter, with walls % in. thick. It was to form the bodies x projectiles for field artillery, the nose and breech pieces to be attached by electric welding. This now seems an odd way to accomplish such a purpose but at that time cast steel projectiles had not been fully de- veloped in this country and forged ones were not thought to be needed. It was before face hardened olid steel armor plate had been invented. As nothing had ever been shipped out from the vorks, there was no organization for attending to it, I volunteered for the work. With the laboring gang I weighed up and loaded carloads of 24,000 Ib. and made out the bills of lading myself. The office man made out the invoices. As we had but a scant supply of melting stock it was desirable that the pile of pit and ladle scrap on hand be made available for use. Accordingly with the aboring crew I broke up a large part of it into pieces could charge by hand into the steel furnace. A ball weighing about a ton had been provided by our predecessors but never used. With the traveling crane we lifted this ball in order to drop it and made fair progress, using the scrap in our charges. Some of the pieces were too massive to be broken by such a fall of such a ball, but may have been made usable later through the agency of a more powerful drop. The rolling mill was quite unique and had been in- vented, designed and built for the particular purpose of rolling seamless pipe from hollow ingots. It was of the continuous type, with two sets of rolls, each set consisting of five pairs of rolls set tandem, with the driving mechanism between the two sets. A long strong rod carrying five balls, one to stand in the pass between each pair of rolls, was passed through the heated hollow ingot when it was in position in front of the first pass. The ingot was then passed through the five pairs of rolls in a few seconds, being com- pressed at each pass between the ball and rolls. Thinner pipe called for a second or even third heating and rolling, so that it was easier and cheaper per pound to make thick than thin-walled pipe, quite opposite to the case with welded pipe. The rolled pipe were cut off to multiple lengths of that required for making one projectile and were then weighed up and shipped. Cast Iron Heat in a Steel Furnace One day during this engagement I melted a cast iron heat for making some iron castings which were needed about the plant. This was a new undertaking for me and I had never heard of melting iron for castings in a steel furnace. Ordinarily I would not have advised it, as thé conditions in a steel furnace are as a rule so much more oxidizing than those of the cupola which, as is well known, is the furnace ised for melting iron for nearly all castings made. Still, having natural gas and not needing a high temperature to melt the iron, a soft flame only slightly oxidizing could be maintained, and I faced the job without much apprehension of trouble. The iron at hand was rather higher in silicon than that desired in the castings, which was about 1.50 per cent. That al- THE IRON AGE 1067 lowed for some waste of silicon, which was sure to take place. In fact, the great danger I feared was that the silicon might be so far oxidized to silica as to make’ the iron white when cast, which of course would have made the castings unmachinable and worthless. This fear proved groundless. The charge was readily melted, of course, but then it looked so dark through my melter’s glasses that its appearance gave no adequate idea of the temperature. I took numerous tests, however, with the steel test ladle, pouring them into the ordinary steel test mold and the length of time they took to solidify gave me a fair idea as to when the temperature was about right. The charge was tapped out into the regular steel ladle and the iron run from the ladle to the molds through the nozzle in its bottom as in teeming a heat of steel. The re- sults were good; the castings poured cleanly, and proved to be of nice, soft gray iron which was easily machined. As soon as we made some good salable pipe, the word went out and the directors and stockholders came swarming in from all points of the compass. They had nearly reached the point of considering their investments in the venture as worthless and they found encouragement in looking at and gloating over a pile of good-looking merchantable pipe. They, per- haps naturally, wanted me to stay and continue the work which they considered successfully inaugurated; but I had already made other plans for the future and all I could do was to get a capable man I knew and instruct him in the work as I had conceived its re- quirements, after six weeks stay. In this engagement the work that fell to me em- braced that of foreman, melter, chemist, shipper, drop runner and labor boss, a variety of effort rarely found in one place, perhaps never in these times where the large plants afford little opportunity for any one youngster to learn all parts of the shop practice, to say nothing of the whole business. German Aluminum Making Capacity At the recent annual general meeting of the German Metallographical Society, Dr. R. Sterner-Rainer gave an interesting account of the development of the Ger- man aluminum industry. While the only works in operation in Germany prior to the war was the Rhein- felden works in Baden with an annual capacity of 800 tons, the exigencies of the war rendered the establish- ment of a number of additional works imperative. These works are located at Rummelsburg (near Ber- lin), Horrem (Cologne), Bitterfeld, Grevenbroich; there is also the Lauta works at Hoyerswerda (in the Lower Lausitz) and the Steeg works at Goisern. The Inn works at Mihldorf are in the course of construction but will not be in operation until a few years hence. The Rummelsburg and Horrem plants, being largely in the nature of war emergency measures, have mean- while been closed down so that production, aside from the Rheinfelden works, is restricted to the Bitterfeld, Grevenbroich and Lauta plants, the former producing 4000 tons annually while the output capacity of the last named two plants is 14,000 tons each. It is inter- esting to know that all works established during the war are supplied with current from lignite-fired power centrales, with the sole exception of the Inn works, for which a hydro-electric scheme has been projected. Regarding the future aspects of the German alumi- num producing industry, Dr. Sterner-Rainer holds that the outlook is rather obscure in view of the more fav- orable position of. foreign industries, particularly in regard to the supply of raw material. In the discussion the urgent need for a radical change in present obso- lete production methods was elaborated upon. The Russell & Erwin Mfg. Co., American Hardware Corporation, New Britain, Conn., is operating on an 8-hr. per day, five days per week schedule, contrasted with eight hours, four days, heretofore. 1068 Chamfering Machine for Cold Punched Nuts An improved design of nut chamfering machine, which is being built in two sizes, is offered by the William H. Haskell Mfg. Co., Pawtucket, R. I. These machines are equally adapted for flattening operations within their capacity. The No. 2 machine is for cham- fering cold punched square and hexagon nuts from %-in. to 1%-in. bolt. The No. 3 machine will chamfer nuts from 1 in. up to and including 2 in. bolt diameter. Speed of operation is fifty nuts per minute on the No. 2 machine and 25 nuts per minute on the No. 3 machine. A No. 1 machine, when completed, will chamfer nuts from 4-in. up to and including %-in. bolt diameter. Nuts Fed into the Angle Chute at Left Are Placed by the Feed on the Die, Where They Are Chamfered and 50 Per Minute Finger Ejected at the Rate of The machine body is made up of three castings, the main upright and two eccentric shaft caps, each being fastened to the main upright by four large studs made of a special steel. The eccentric shaft is a hammered steel forging of ample proportions, accurately ma- chined and scraped into hammered and bored babbitted bearings. Gears are all machine molded, the pinion gears be- ing made from gun iron. The large gear has three keyways and is fitted with a special size slip key, which can be drawn out from time to time and driven back into the next keyway, thus distributing the strain of chamfering to a different place on large gear teeth. The balance wheel is a friction slip wheel, a notable feature in this type of machine, which eliminates break- downs and sometimes serious accidents. The balance wheel shaft is of ample proportions, of spindle steel, and runs in bushed and babbited bearings. The semi-automatic feed is very simple in design, and should a nut which is about to be carried to the chamfering die become caugth in the nut slide, the feed will stop until the next stroke of the: eccentric shaft. The box type plunger is of large proportions and holds the socket or top tool by means of a steel clamp. The top tool is adjusted by a tool steel taper wedge, which projects out in the center of the plunger at front of machine. THE IRON AGE October 27, 192 In operation, nuts are placed in an angle chu shown at front of machine, from which the feed fin, takes them one at a time at every revolution of eccentric shaft, and places them on the hardened st: die, where in turn they are chamfered and ejected, s! ing into a truck or receptacle. So simple is the eration that a boy is usually capable of operating t machine. Employment in September WASHINGTON, Oct. 24.—Further increase in the nu: ber of workmen engaged in the iron and steel indust reflected in August for the first time since the depr sion started last fall, was made in September, accord ing to the monthly report of the Bureau of Labor Sta tistics. The gain in September was 2492 workers wh: compared with August, as here tabulated. The payro however, showed a decline of 5.4 per cent in Septembe When compared with September of last year, the d: crease in the number of workmen amounted to 42 px cent. The following table shows the changes in the numbe: of employees and in wages paid in the iron and stee! automobile and car-building industries: Number Half Average of Estab- Month Pay Iron and Steel lishments Men Payroll Envelope August, 1921 ... cw 28 103,688 $4,353,663 $41.99 September, 1921 106 106,690 4,131,241 38 September, 1920.. 106 183,873 14,288,398 77 Automobiles August, 1921 . . 53 98,050 3,214,712 #32 September, 1921... ca 98,445 3,084,932 *31 September, 1920 << 141,518 4,778,078 $33.77 Car Building and Repairing August, 1921..... ; 65 47,140 2,871,704 60.92 September, 1921 : 64 48,868 2,858,063 58.49 September, 1920... “~ 64 75,199 5,336,288 70.96 *Weekly. Cost of Living Slowly Falling Figures compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Washington, for 32 leading cities, includng all of the 12 cities of over 500,000 population, show the cost of living in September to be 1.7 per cent lower than in May, 1921, and 18.1 per cent lower than in June, 1920. The cost in September is placed at 77.3 per cent above 1913, while in June, 1920, the excess over 1913 was 116.5 per cent. The present excess is the same as in June, 1919, when costs were steadily rising. Furniture and furnishings, 124.7 per cent above 1913, continue to be the furthest out of line. Shortage of housing