Photograph from Prest-o-lite Company 

 THE OXY-ACETYLENE TORCH WELDS AND CUTS ALL 

 METALS WITH EQUAL FACILITY 



It is proving an important factor in rebuilding tools and ma- 

 chinery at a time when every pound of steel and iron is precious 

 to the nation. As the hair of the dog is good for the bite, so the 

 heat of the oxy-acetylene torch is good for its burn. When the 

 officers in command of the interned German ships realized that 

 their vessels were to be taken over by the United States Govern- 

 ment, great sections of the cylinders were cut out with the power- 

 ful acetylene torch, in the expectation that the machinery would 

 thus be hopelessly damaged. But Yankee ingenuity has employed 

 this same torch, which develops more than six thousand degrees 

 of heat, to weld the damaged parts, making them as strong as 

 new. Precious months of time, hundreds of thousands of dollars, 

 and thousands of tons of shipping have thus been saved to 

 America. 



drawn off into large cavities in sand, 

 called "sows," and then conducted to 

 smaller ones, called "pigs," where it is 

 allowed to cool and harden. In others it 

 is drawn off into metallic molds. An ad- 

 vance over these two methods is the ma- 

 chine caster. Here it is drawn off into 

 huge ladles, some of them holding more 

 than a carload of metal, and mixed like 

 milk in a homogenizer. Then it is drawn 

 off into molds mounted on an endless 



belt, which runs through 

 water that cools the pigs 

 as they pass. From the 

 water they pass on to the 

 pulley around which the 

 belt turns and are 

 dropped into the waiting 

 railroad car, no man's 

 hand touching the iron 

 from the time it leaves 

 its place in the ore bed 

 until it is in the freight 

 car ready for its ride to 

 the steel mill. 



In some cases, where 

 pennies in the matter of 

 unit costs are carefully 

 counted, the furnace and 

 the steel mill are in the 

 same plant, and the pig 

 iron is delivered in its 

 molten condition directly 

 to the steel-maker. But 

 though it may never be- 

 come pig, it is always 

 known as pig just the 

 same. 



We have now followed 

 in bold outline, and with- 

 out too much attention 

 to. detail or to variations, 

 the story of the iron in- 

 dustry from the imbed- 

 ded ore and the unmined 

 coal down to the last 

 stage of pig-iron produc- 

 tion. Up to this point all 

 things steel have a com- 

 mon history. Pig iron 

 is the common denomi- 

 nator of every fraction 

 of the steel industry. Up 

 to this point the great 

 200-ton casting for a 

 powerful electric dynamo 

 and the tiny hair-spring 

 for the highest grade watch, the power- 

 ful 16-inch gun that weighs as much as 

 a locomotive and the microscopic screw 

 with threads that elude the human vision, 

 the death-dealing shell and the peaceful 

 plow, all come the same road. Ore 

 bought of the land-owner at 25 cents a 

 ton is worth $7,000,000 a ton as fine 

 watch springs. 



But once out of the blast furnace pig 

 iron comes to the parting of the ways. 



146 



