form. In puddling establishments, these bars are troublesome, and occasion loss of iron, such as that wasted in heating the bars; this heating is generally done in the fire grate of the puddling furnace, and not unfrequently in the back of the flue. In well-conducted establishments, this iron is rolled directly from the blooms in the roughing rollers, in which a couple of grooves are expressly made for that purpose. The puddlers are required to make their own rods. The disadvantages connected with this system gave rise to many attempts to shingle with tongs; but these were attended with little success at the T hammer. At the steam hammer, tongs may be used without difficulty; the hammer is perfectly in the power of the hammerman. At the T hammer, this is the main difficulty to be overcome.

g. The faces of hammers and anvils are of various shapes; but the principle on which they are constructed is, that they should be more or less broad, according to the width of the hammer. Too small a face cuts the iron too much, and a very broad face works too slowly. In small hammers, the face varies from one and a half to four inches in width; and the face of the T or steam hammer should be at least five inches broad. The anvil and hammer face of a steam or T hammer is almost a square plate, twenty inches in length, and sixteen in width. For shingling, this would be too large; therefore, a face an inch in height is raised in the middle of the plate, and runs across the plate in a direction opposite to the workman. In addition to this, a second face is raised on the half of the anvil, running at right angles to the first. This serves for stretching or drawing. Fig. 100 shows the arrangement for shin

Fig. 100.

Hammer faces to a T hammer.

gling blooms. The cross face b is generally extended to both sides when the machine iron is forged.

Many manufacturers prefer hammers to other means of forging iron. Experience does not establish the wisdom of this preference. Good iron is good everywhere, and under all circumstances; and the hammer does not make it better. Nevertheless, the hammer has one advantage. Inferior workmen dread it, because it breaks badly worked iron more readily than any other machine. In the charcoal forge, it smashes raw iron; and in the puddling works it crumbles those balls which have been carelessly put together. Honest workmen, who do their duty, and work their iron well, are not afraid of it; nor is their iron, compressed by any method, inferior to that shingled by the hammer. The quality of the iron is determined in the forge; and neither the hammer nor the rollers have any essential influence upon it.

II. Squeezers.

a. Squeezers, or machines which condense a ball by pressure, have been employed, and, in most instances, have fulfilled the design of their construction. From experiments made, it is evident that good squeezers work as well as the best hammers. No difference in the quality of the iron subjected to the action of either is perceptible. In preference to other forms, we present a drawing of a New England lever squeezer, which is of simple construction. Fig. 101 exFig. 101.

d

Squeezer.

hibits it in vertical section. This machine is cheap and durable, and will squeeze 100 tons of iron per week. The illustration so

clearly represents the whole machine, that a specific description of it is unnecessary. The bed plate a is cast in one piece; it is six. feet long, fifteen inches wide, and twelve inches high. The whole is screwed down on a solid foundation of stone, brick, or timber; the first is preferable. 6 is the movable part, which makes from eighty to ninety motions per minute. The motion is imparted by the crank c, which in turn is driven by means of a strap and pulley by the elementary power. The diameter of the flywheel is from three to four feet. The anvil d is about two feet in length, and from twelve to fourteen inches in width; it is a movable plate, at least three inches thick, which, if injured, can be exchanged for another. The face of the working part of the lever exactly fits the anvil, and consists of plates attached by means of screws. It is desirable to have all these face plates in small parts of eight or ten inches in width. By this means, they are secured against breaking by expansion and contraction. The whole machine, including the crank and everything, is made of cast iron, and will weigh four or five tons.

For the compression of puddled balls, these squeezers are, as we have stated, quite as serviceable as the best T hammer, or any other hammer. But for the reduction of charcoal iron, they have either not been tried, or they are insufficient. If the former, we would advise the experiment, confident that no difficulty will occur, provided the machine is sufficiently strong to resist the reaction of the hard and cold bloom. Charcoal iron is generally harder than puddled iron, and a stronger machine, therefore, is required to compress it. Still, there is no doubt that the squeezer will answer excellently, so far as the shingling of blooms is concerned. Whether it is applicable to the drawing of bars is a question which experiment alone can decide. Should its adaptation be proved, and should the squeezer supplant the hammers of the charcoal forge, we believe that it would be the most useful improvement which could be added to the machines for forging iron. The imperfection of the lever squeezer is its liability to wear out at the fulcrum, and in the brass boxes of the crank shaft and connecting rod. The motion of the outer points of the working part seldom extends beyond four inches, and frequently less. If a separate place for upsetting the blooms. is made at the face, but little stroke is needed; but if no such offset is appended, a higher lift is necessary.

b. One of the most useful machines-labor-saving machines— with which we are acquainted, is Burden's rotary squeezer. This is an American invention. It includes the fundamental, distinctive

element of a perfect machine, that is, rotary motion. Experience has proved this to be a highly useful squeezer, and it is now in a fair way of supplanting all those machines by which puddled balls are condensed into blooms. Many of the Eastern manufacturers. employ it, and at the Western mills it appears to be quite a favorite. At Pittsburg, it is found in almost every establishment. Fig. 102 Fig. 102.

Rotary squeezer.

exhibits it in vertical, and Fig. 103 in horizontal, section. The whole apparatus is of cast iron, and very strong and heavy, which,

Fig. 103.

Ground-plan of the rotary squeezer.

as a matter of course, is indispensable. Our illustrations are designed simply to convey a general idea of the machine. As the

machine is patented, those only can use it who obtain permission from the inventor. The stationary part of the apparatus is marked a, a, a; this consists chiefly of a cast iron cloak, which incloses the movable parts b, b, b. An excentric space between the two main parts is thus left, in which the ball is formed into a bloom. The ball is inserted at c, moves round, and appears at d, a wellformed bloom. A few seconds are sufficient to accomplish this condensation. When the machine first appeared, a doubt was entertained whether it could duly accomplish the upsetting, that is, squeeze the bloom lengthwise; but no difficulty appears to exist where the balls are, as nearly as possible, of equal size. Besides, the top e is movable, sliding up and down; but this motion is very slight.

At the double puddling furnace, this squeezer at once enables us to overcome a serious difficulty, namely, the loss of time and iron occasioned by the slower work of the T hammer and the lever squeezer. If the roughing rollers are in such condition as to draw as fast as the squeezer forms blooms, a few minutes are sufficient to work off a heat of 800 pounds. This is one great advantage. The other advantages are that two workmen less are needed, and a great deal of repair and frequent disturbances obviated. In the working of the iron, hammers are unnecessary, because they do not improve it directly. Well-worked iron, put directly into the rough rollers, without shingling, is not in the least degree inferior to that shingled by the T hammer. Hammers are but imperfect machines, the remains of an elementary knowledge of engineering; and the sooner they are superseded by better implements of workmanship, the better.

III. Roughing Rollers.

The shingled blooms are conveyed directly from the squeezer or hammer to the rollers, commonly called rough rollers. In some parts of Europe, no hammers or squeezers are employed; but the balls are taken directly from the puddling furnace to the rollers, which have large grooves, and in the first and second groove projecting ribs, for catching. In this country, no such rollers are used. We do not find any difference in the quality of the iron, whether shingled or put through the rollers directly from the furnaces, except that arising from the inability of the latter to effect the compression of the bloom lengthwise; this causes a waste of iron in the reheating furnace, because the rough bars are never so sound at the edges and the ends as those made from shingled or squeezed blooms. For this