Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1864-09-12


some most ingenious machines, is not at
all complicated. The iron, brought to the
yards IN pigs, is first puddled to extract all
the impurities left by the melting prooess
| This consists in placing the iron in q fur
mace where it is brought to a liquid state,
and there repeatedly stirred and worked
with long iron ladle till the most Of the
impurities have found their way to the top,
and have been removed. The mass is
then allowed to cool, and during the cool
ing is worked by the ladle or poker into
Jumps, which are taken while yet red hot
to the machines in which the pudding is
completed. These can be best understood
by supposing an immense pair of shears,
with one side stationary and the other
working upon 1.-THE blades of the shears
being not of sharp steel, but of heavy,
broad, fiat masses of iron, so arranged that
the lump or half molten iron, when brought
from the pudding furnace and placed
npon the platform formed by the lower
half of these great shears, will be COM
pressed repeatedly and with the greatest
force by the upper half The mass of iron
is turned in every direction under the enor-
nous pressure Of the upper arm of the
machine, till all the remaining dag and
other impurities are forced out and the
mass formed into suitable shape to be
rolled out into bars. The pressure to
which it is subjected is so great that, as
the outer layer of the iron is gradually
cooled and forms hard crust, the crust is
broken, and streams of the molten metal
pour through the cracks and down the
sides of the cooling mass,
"These pudding and rolling processes
are, to one unaccustomed to seeing the
working of iron, the most interesting parts
of the manufacture. The works are run
through the entire night, and this is the
tage. The huge buildings, with roof and
rafters half lighted by the lurid glare Of
huge masses of molten iron, the workmen
with faces now in darkness and now hush-
ed by the sudden and CHASTITY light of the
opened furnaces, and the weird and vary
ing light upon the neighboring trees and
houses, presents a scene of strange inter-
est which..nightly attracts groups of gazers.
"The iron, after pudding, is again heat
ed in a furnace and taken to the rolling
machines, where, by being passed through
a succession of rollers each smaller than
the preceding, it is reduced to bars of the
size suitable, to be at once made into shoes.
"Besides the iron which is thus pre-.
pared for use in the establishment, great
quantities, designed for the market, are
puddled and rolled into bars of about the
thickness of a mans arm.
"The iron prepared for the manufacture
of horseshoes is next cut into lengths, and
the making the grooves and punching the
nail holes is done upon the straight bars
before they are made into horseshoe shape.
The punching machines, of which seven or
eight are used, punch the holes in a shoe
at two blows, and one machine, tended by
a boy, is able to trim off by single stroke
of knife, the rough edges lett by the
punches. -..... ....r..
"The bars thus prepared are taken to the
horseshoe machines, of which there are
six now in operation. In these they are
placed upon an iron table, upon which is
fixed core or dill projecting above the Sur
face of the table, and having its edge so
made as exactly to fit tie inner edge of a
horseshoe. An arm in the shape of U
is then driven forward and forces the bar to
bend around the core into the exact shape
of a shoe. A steam trip hammer then gives
the shoe number of heavy blows, between
which jet of water is driven by the ma
chinerY upon the shoe, and the forging is
complete and the shoes ready to be packed
and sent to market. Tn ese machines re-
quire the attention of only two or three
men each, and the shoes are turned out at
the rate of eight a minute. 1t is intended
to erect, as soon as possible six additional
horseshoe machines, and when that addi-
ton is completed the works will be capa-
BILE of turning out about twenty tons of
shoes in a day. About half that amount is
now made.
"This manufacture of horse-shoes by ma
chiuery has grown up within very few
years. Seven or eight years ago, when the
manufacture. was first commenced, it was
considered doubtful experiment. 1t was
hardly thought that shoes could be made
by machinery capable of enduring as hard
service as those made by hand. But the
experiment has succeeded beyond the ex-
pectations of the original movers, and the
establishment has grown in that time to it's
present enormous proportions, with con-
slant demand for it's manufactures beyond
it's ability to fill" d.