OXYHYDRIC PROCESS OF CUTTING 



METALS 1 



TORCHES AND MACHINES THAT CUT STEEL 

 BY E. F. LAKE 



IT is seldom that the American Machinist has the privi- 

 lege of publishing such a striking addition to machine-shop 

 methods as the one which supplies the subject of this 

 article. When we say that Fig. 1 represents a piece of 

 9-inch chrome-nickel steel armor plate which has been cut 

 to a circular outline by the removal of the waste piece 

 shown in the left foreground, and that this has been done 

 at the rate of a linear foot of cut in 2 1 / 4 minutes, we think 

 we are saying enough to indicate that here is something 

 new in the machine shop. 



Fig. 2 shows the work in progress with the pyrotechnic 

 display that accompanies it. Further on in this article 

 additional examples of the work done will be shown which 

 are less striking than the one which forms the subject of 

 the first two pictures only because of the smaller sizes of 

 material acted upon. In some respects notably the form 

 of the cut made in some of the examples these latter cases 

 are, indeed, more striking than the ones shown in Figs. 1 

 and 2. 



The remarkable results are obtained by an apparatus 

 which is a development from one patented in 1901 by the 

 Cologne-Meusen Mining Company for opening plugged 

 blast furnace tap holes and now in considerable use in this 

 country, where it has cut tap holes through 4 feet or more 

 of solid metal, and with a reduction of time from days to 

 as many hours. That apparatus, like this, makes use of 



1 Abstract of an article published in the American Machinist, 

 1909. 



72 



