The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-01-17
SHORT TALKS WITH THE BOYS,
I'M. Quad, in Detroit Free, Press.l

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 "How many boys have been in here this week to post themselves ?" asked of the manager of the lead pipe works the other day.
 "Not a one" he replied.
 "How many a the last month p
 "l do not remember of boy coming in here to see the process, since the works were started. eight years ago."
 And, yet, it is one of the most interest ing things in the whole range of ofmechanics and manufacturing. "Now, my boy, how is lead pipe made ~
 "Don't know"
 "Give guess"
 "Well, it's cast. Yes, of course it's cast, the same as gas-pipe."
 Is Ask your father, and see what he says. He'll probably agree with you. asked twenty different men, the other day, and such of them as didn't know :" replied that it was cast.
 Let me tell you why it isn't cast. What is called inlet-pipe, or the pipe which supplies a building with water, must stand the pressure of the water-works. Every throb of the big engine at the pumping exercises a pressure of no little force on every inlet-pipe in the whole city. Lead has not the density of iron, and this pressure, in case of lead simply allowed to cool around a core, would send the water through thousand pin-holes. We will now see how it is m ade.
 In the paint factory article told you that the corrodor received his lead in pigs" It is the same at the pipe works. A kettle, large enough to hold I8o pounds of melted lead, is bricked in as a furnace, and is provided with a strong draught to insure hot fire. Sof coal is used for fuel, and it takes only a short time for the lead to melt.
 Close by the furnace is the massive machine which makes the pipe. It is made of gun-metal, and is very massive, for it must exercise pressure of E GOO pounds. In the center of this press is a cylinder which will hold all the lead in the furnace as it runs in through spout. There is a water-well underneath the press, and it is worked by hydraulic pressure.
 To illustrate SO that you can plainly understand. Imagine baking powder can, with one end open, as the cylinder This is full of the melted lead, but in the center of it is a steel core. You can illustrate again by holding round stick in the center of the can. There are grades of pipe from one-eighth of an inch to two or three inches of core, and the press has cores of every size needed.
 When all is ready the machine starts, and you are dumb-founded to see the bottom of the cylinder slowly rising up This forces the lead up and around the core, just the way you pull on stock ing. The core makes the hollow, and the distance from the core to the sides of the cylinder determine the thickness of the pipe. The lead pipe comes up foot by foot, slowly bat continually, and as it rises above the press it is run over a large wooden wheel. You never see the pipe except in coils, and it is this wheel which cells it.
 As the pipe comes from the cylinder it is as bright and shiny as silver, and every inch of it has been subjected to a pres sure of 25 900 pounds. This pressure would fiatren six bars of the lead you buy for bullets into the thickness of one. The I8o pounds of melted lead has made I5o fee. of half-inch pipe.
 The process looks simple enough after we have seen it done, but men spent years and years before they perfected that press, and they were smart men, too. Years ago pipe was cast, but it was of no use when there was any considerable pressure to force the water through Then they rolled it solid and bored it out, but the expense and waste were too great.
 Everybody has handled the bar-lead found in hardware stores and at the gum smiths. These bars are made in this same press. The cylinder is filled just the same, but in place of a solid steel core they use one with hole in it just the shape of bar. The upward pres. sure forces the lead up through this aper- ture, and 1t keeps going over the wheel until we have 300 feet of it. It is then cut by machine to proper lengths, and these lengths are run through second machine to have the name stamped upon them, and the edges dressed up to look a bit more fancy.
 If you live in . city having water works, and the plumbing in your house is well done, the floors under every lava tory arc lined with sheet-lead to catch any drip from the basin above. The making of this is, of course, an entirely different affair. The lead is cast into blocks, say four feet square. These blocks are placed on large iron tables, and powerful rollers roll back and forth until the blocks are fiattened to thin sheets.
 In an hours time you can sec the whole process of making lead pipe, bar lead and sheet-lead, and it will be we'll spent hour. It won't be worth cent to you financially, but it will have added to 1 your knowledge and intelligence. The mind is great store-house. Whatever you learn is laid up on a shelf, as it were, and though you may not take that par ticular item down for years, the day finally comes when you want to make use of it.
 And don't you know that the world is improving SO rapidly in science and mechanics, and genius stands SO Aear the | k~aA r~fk kN A Al ~A =. .-Nl G-