Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1895-07-03
WIRE MAKING.
An Important Industry in the
United States.
THE ENORMOUS QUANTITY USED

THE ENORMOUS QUANTITY USED.
Utilizing Barbed-Wire Fences for Tele-
phone Lines-Stronger and Lighter
Than Manila Rope.
OF the many great and important in
dustries of the United States that OF
making wire takes place in the fore
most rank. The manufacture of differ
ent sizes and kinds of wire has grown
to wonderful proportions within a
comparatively few years. This is due
in a great degree to the numerous uses
to which wire is at present being put
and further to the fact that it has
almost supplanted MANILA rope, when
made into cables for hosting and stay
ing purposes. The rigging of vessels at
present is almost entirely composed OF
wire cables. as they are stronger and
much smaller sizes can be used, so that
they are considerably lighter than
MANILA rope of the same strength.
Another use which has made an almost
inexhaustible demand for certain kinds
of wire is fencing. Probably nine
tenths of all the fencing put up today
outside of towns and cities is made of
barbed wire, and it has recently been
announced that farmers throughout
the west are utilizing the fences for
telephone lines, making either an
overhead or underground connection
across highways. AS these telephone
lines are reported to be a success there
will be still another incentive to the
erection of this kind of fencing.
While wire is being so commonly
and extensively used there exists among
large class of people very mistaken
idea of the way in which it is made.
Nearly every one knows that wire is
"drawn," but just what this drawing
consists of they have not the slightest
conception. 1t is the general belief
that the wire is heated to red or
white heat, and while it is soft pulled
out until it is Of the desired size,
which is mistaken notion.
To designate the different sizes of
wire numbers or guages, as they are
called, are used to indicate the frac-
tions of an inch, the largest size being
represented by 1000" and about the
smallest by "31." Wire is drawn to
even smaller sizes than this, but it is
not common. The wire represented by
1000" is three-eights of an inch thick,
and the wire represented by"31" is one
one hundredth Of an inch thick. The
numbers between 900 and 81 represent
the different fractions of an inch be
tween three-eights of an inch and one
hundredth of an inch in certain fixed
ratio. A No. 900 wire is in reality a
three. ghts inch round bar of iron, SO
that as matter of fact wire below No.
gauge is seldom if ever referred to.
1t is matter of regret that at the
present time there are several differ
emily arranged gauges for measuring
wire, SO that No. 10 or IL wire in
one gauge would not indicate wire
of exactly the same diameter in the
same numbers of a different gauge.
The gauge most extensively used at the
present time is known as the Stubs
English Birmingham wire gauge"
but it cannot be considered the stand
ard any more than several other gauges.
which are all more or less extensively
used. In ordering wire, therefore. to
insure getting exactly the size wanted
it is necessary not only to specify the
number but also the special gauge you
are figuring on. 1t would greatly
simplify matters if all the wire manu-
facturers in the United States would
agree to adopt one standard wire gauge.
There was time when the common
sizes of wire were made of iron, but
with the present demand for cheap
prices that time has passed, and while
some manufacturers are still making
iron wire they are exceptions. The
lower grades are now being made
from Bessemer steel and the best
grades from crucible steel. A great
many persons have a preference for
iron wire, believing it to be superior
to steel, and the manufacturers and
dealers are very accommodating, and
will bill them either iron or steel wire
as they may order it, but if the buyers
happened to be around at the time
shipment was made they would notice
that it all came from the same pile,
regardless of whether it was billed as
iron or steel wire.
The steel or iron from which the
wire is made is delivered to the wire
mills in billets four inches square and
about three feet long. These billets
are heated in furnace to white heat
and are then put through several trains
of rolls and rolled out in exactly the
same way in which bar of iron is
made. After the metal comes through
the finishing pass of the last train of
rolls it is from three.eighs to one
quarter of an inch in diameter depend
ing ON the size of wire it is desired to
make. One of these billets of steel.