STEEL 897 



process, then a good result is obtained ; a fine-grained steel is produced, which draws 

 under the hammer, and hardens well. However good it may be it possesses one great 

 defect ; it is this. During its manufacture, iron is produced along with the steel, and 

 becomes so intimately mixed up with it, that it injures the otherwise good qualities of 

 the steel ; the iron becomes, as it were, interlaced throughout the mass, and thus 

 destroys its hardening quality. When any tool or instrument is made from natural 

 steel, unless it has been well refined, it will not receive a permanent cutting edge ; 

 the iron part of the mass, of course, not being hard, the tool cuts only upon the steel 

 portion ; the edge, therefore, very soon becomes destroyed. There is another defect in 

 natural steel, but it is of less importance. When too much carbon has been left, the 

 steel is raw and coarse, and it draws very imperfectly under the hammer ; the articles 

 manufactured from such steel often break in hardening ; thus it is evident, that in 

 producing this kind of steel, every care, skill, and attention is required at the hands of 

 the workman. 



The raw steel, being imperfect, is not considered so much an article of commerce 

 with the manufacturer, but it is sold to the steel-refiners, who submit it to a process of 

 welding. The raw steel-bloom is drawn into bars one or two inches wide and half an 

 inch thick, or less ; a number of these are put together and welded ; these bars are 

 then thrown into water, and they are broken in smaller pieces to examine the fracture ; 

 those bars which are equally steelified are mixed together. In manufacturing refined 

 steel, the degree of hardness is selected to suit the kind of article which it is intended 

 to make. A bar, two to three feet long, forms the top and bottom of the bundle, but 

 the inside of the packet is filled with the small pieces of selected steel. This packet is 

 then placed in a hollow fire, and carefully covered from time to time with pounded 

 clay, to form a coat over the metal, and preserve it from the oxidising influence of the 

 blast. When it is at a full welding heat it is placed under a hammer, and made as 

 sound and homogeneous as possible ; it is again cut, doubled together, and again 

 welded. For very fine articles, the refining is increased by several doublings, but this 

 is not carried at present to so great an extent as formerly, since cast steel is substituted, 

 being in many cases cheaper. 



Natural steel being expensive, many attempts were made in Westphalia to produce 

 a kind of steel by puddling pig-iron in a peculiar manner ; a patent was taken out in 

 England by Mr. Eiepe, and a considerable quantity of this steel was produced. In Mr. 

 Riepe's description of this process, he says : 



' I employ the puddling furnace in the same way as for making wrought iron. I 

 introduce a charge of about 280 Ibs. of pig-iron, and raise the temperature to redness. 

 As soon as the metal begins to fuse and trickle down in a fluid state, the damper is to 

 be partially closed in order to temper the heat. From 12 to 16 shovelsful of iron 

 cinder discharged from the rolls or squeezing machine are added, and the whole is 

 to be uniformly melted down. The mass is then to be puddled with the addition of a 

 little black oxide of manganese, common salt, and dry clay, previously ground to- 

 gether. After this mixture has acted for some minutes, the damper is to be fully 

 opened, when about forty pounds of pig-iron is to put into the furnace, near the fire- 

 bridge, upon elevated beds of cinder prepared for that purpose. When this pig-iron 

 begins to trickle down, and the mass on the bottom of the surface begins to boil and 

 throw out from the surface the well-known blue jets of flame, the said pig-iron is 

 raked into the boiling mass, and the whole is then well mixed together. The mass 

 soon begins to swell up, and the small grains begin to form in it and break through 

 the melted cinder on the surface. As soon as these grains appear, the damper is to be 

 three-quarters shut, and the process closely inspected while the mass is being puddled 

 to and fro beneath the covering layer of cinder. During the whole of this process the 

 heat should not be raised above cherry-redness, or the welding heat of shear-steel. 

 The blue jets of flame gradually disappear, while the formation of grains continues,, 

 which grains very soon begin to fuse together, so that the mass becomes waxy, and 

 has the above-mentioned cherry redness. If these precautions are not observed, the 

 mass would pass more or less into iron, and no uniform steel product could be obtained. 

 As soon as the mass is finished so far, the fire is stirred to keep the necessary heat for 

 the succeeding operation : the damper is to be entirely shut, and part of the mass is 

 collected into a ball, the remainder always being kept covered with cinder slack. This 

 ball is brought under the hammer, and then worked, into bars. The same process is con- 

 tinued until the whole is worked into bars. When I use pig-iron made from sparry 

 iron ore, or mixtures of it with other pig-iron, I add only about 20 Ibs. of the former 

 pig-iron at the later period of the process, instead of about 40 Ibs. When I employ 

 Welsh or pig-iron of that description, I throw 10 Ibs. of best plastic clay, in a dry 

 granulated state, before the beginning of the process, on the bottom of the furnace. 

 I add, at the later period of the process, about 40 Ibs. of pig-iron as before described, 

 but strew over it clay in the same proportion as just mentioned.' 



VOL. III. 3 M 



