Omaha daily bee., 1882-11-23

REVOLT rION IN lkON
A Process IN the Manufacture of Iron
Which VIII Dispense With
Pudding.

bNtNAthG
Iit'eburg Special pi patch to The Chicago Tri.
bune.
A movement is ON foot in Wheeling
to utterly revolutionizs the iron mon
ufacturing business of that city and OF
the whole country. The enterprise of
the iron and nail manufacturers there
is to do entirely away with pudding,
p%uddlerE, and, of course, puddlers'
strikes. A syndicate was formed in
Wheeling, the scene IF the recent
troublesome strike, to carry out this
idea. They have held a series of star
chamber sessions, the result of which
has been the sending OF one of Wheel
ing's most prominent mill-managers,
Frank j. Hearne, to this city to ar.
range the pfeliminaries for putting the
plan in operation. The gentleman
was interviewed yegtsrday, and, after
some persuasion. ne gave the append
ed information.
To do away with pudding. tho only
method to be pursued by the syndi-
cate is to use q low grade of open
hearth or Bessemer steel in making
nails. This movement has been
started by the nail manufacturers of
Wheeling, and my object in being in
this city is to further their plain. ]
have had numerous blows of soft steel
made at the Bessemer steel works at
Braddock's and each blow accurately
analysed. This soft steel has been
made into nail plate and quietly
slipped into the Wheeling mills, and
cut into nails, without the nailers
being able to discover the difference
between it and common nail iron. Our
reason for doing this was to see
whether steel would make nails. The
results of u experiments have been
entirely satisfactory, and we are now
satisfied that we can make nails out of
soft steel cheaper and of a better
quality for their weight than it was
possible to do with the best puddled
iron. We calculate in Wheeling that
we make about ~one.geventh of the
nails made in the United States,
Over 5000 puddlers are employed in
pudding the iron which we cut into
nails. These will all be thrown out
of employment unless they see fit to
work at some other branch of labor.
l am in this city now placing contracts
where they may be concluded at any
time most suitable to the Wheeling
syndicate, for all of the necessary
equipments to be found in q frat class
Bessemer works. This ia no small
affair. The syndicate have an unlim-
tied command of money, and will
break ground in January for the new
works. 1t will have a capacity to
start with 500, 600 tons per year of
low carbon steel. This output the
syndicate will divide up into c~onsign-
ments, according to the capacity of the
different nail. mills represented in the
syndicate, and each will get it's allot-
ment of 30 many carloads of steel
nail.plate per day from the Bessemer
mill. The principal mills in the
Wheeling district are connected with
the new enterprise. Such firms as
the Wheeling Iron & Nail company,
Lauehiin Iron q Nail works, Martins
Ferry, Riverside Iron company, Bel
mont, La Belle, Belleaire, Benwood,
Standard, and Etna Iron works are
interested in the new project to put
the negative upon the possibility of
puddlers' strikes in the future. The
site chosen for the works ia near the
Benwood mills, on the side next to
the Riverside furnace. That point
Is convenient to the works of the
firms which l have already named to
you, and i'd only about two miles from
the center of Wheeling. The ship.
ping facilities at that point are unex-
selled by any location in the vicinity
The Benwood mills are the terminus
of the Baltimore & Ohio; the Pltts.
burg, Cincinnati q st. Louis runs
close to them, and the Wheeling,
Parkersburg & Charleston from Char.
lesion has the right of way TO the
Riverside furnace. Besides all these
facilities, two other roads-one a
branch OF the Baltimore d Ohio from
the centre OF Ohio, and a n~eSly-pro.
posed road from Pittsburg reach
the spot. these roads all have
branches to the different mills which
will use the BcsBemer product, and
cars loaded with nail plate could be
showed into them daily. During the
recent strike the irOn-men told the
puddlers in convention that the time
was coming when they would no
longer DO KINGS Of the forge, and in
fact taat they will liye to sec
" M -
tradition and puddlers unknown 10
the fsce of The earth, The same idea
was advanced before the tariff com,
mission, and some asserted upon thai
occasion that there was no purpose
for which iron is now used but thai
in the next five years would be sup
piled by q low grade of Bessemer O
open. hearth steel. Mr.. AinswOrth,
OF the Pittsburg Steel Casting com