The San Francisco call., 1897-03-14
Forging the Immense
Rudder-Frame Of the /
Cruiser Wisconsin

@F@.HE largest forging ever made on the
ARg Pacific Coast and probably in the
rYA5A United States is now being made at
the Pacific Rolling Mills plant, out on the
Potrero The casting is to be the rudder
frame for Uncle Sans new cruiser, the
Wisconsin, which is being puilt by the
Union Iron Works.
The rudder frame when completed will
weigh about $4,000 pounds. 1t will be
twenty feet long and will be nineteen feet
in breadth. its manufacture will require
two months labor of twenty-four men,
the consumption of hundreds OF tons
OF coal, and will utilize the force of some
of the most powerful machinery in the
Wes..
The scene of this forging is most pic
Iuresque, especially at night when one
could, without much stretch of the lmagi-
nation, liken it to "Dante's Inferno"
Th enormous blast furnace belches forth
flames, from ten to twenty feet in length.
through white-hot bricks, the men move
hither and thitner from darkness into
light and from light into darkness, and
their grimy faces and sinewy forms are
brought into strong relief; they shout and
yell as the huge mass of metal is swung
into place, and the whole scene reminds
one of the Hades pictures by Dante.
Much romanticism might be woven
about the scene, but in modern realism
that is waved aside, and one considers the
seeming demons moving in and out OF
that circle of flame and glowing iron only
as simple laborers, earning their 81 or So
day; and that the shouting is Incidental
10 the moving of such large body and
made necessary by the multitudinous
noises with which it is surrounded, and
realizes that the principal actors in the
scene are so Injured to the work, and that
it to them is as prosaic and devoid OF in
terest as driving a cart is TO a teamster or
running a trolley-car is to moiorman.
To one who has never visited manufac-
tories where bulk is the principal feature
the spectacle of an enormous mass of
white-hot metal, swung about and ham
mered into shape with as much ease as
mother would rock her babys cradle, is
most interesting. The scene of the forg
ing OF the rudder-frame for the Wisconsin
is about the center of the large buildin gs
and furnaces of the rolling mills. All
about him the visitor to the mill hears
noises of different characters, betokening
the many phases of work engaged in in
this great beehive OF industry.
The noises are bewildering to the visitor
and make him start and jump in anticipa-
lion of some disaster. Near him q small
steam hammer is throwing thirty tons of
force into rod that is cutting through
mass OF red-hot iron. Above him roll the
carts that are carrying coal to feed the
furnaces in the different departments of
the mills. Just beyond him a stream OF
molten steel. accom- panied by shower of
sparks that envelope the dimly seen forms,
indicate that 'pour" for castings is 60
ing on. They hear fuslllade as of a
thousand frecrackers, and turn of the
head reveals an enormous ingot going
through the mills TO become one of the
great steel beams which make the frame
work of The CALL building. Over all one
hears the escape OF steam, the whirring of
the machinery and the incessant hammer
ing OF a hundred forges.
The first thing that attracts ones atten-
tion is the furnace belching forth its
flames through a wall of white hot bricks.
From the center of this wall projects
great nondescript mass which, on exam
inatiop, proves to be portion of the forg-
ing attached to the ''porter- bar" The
latter is covered with every conceivable
shape of iron and steel that can be used as
a counterba lance-old tires, wheels, spi-
rails, ingots and anything that can be fast
ened or hung to this great shaft to make
it balance-have been attached to It,
Around these shapes are clamped handle
bars of steel. projecting out like the spokes
of a wheel, and used for turning the forg-
ing when it is under the hammer. Where
the forging joins the porter bar" an
eight-inch chain holds it in position. The
chain encircles a six-foot wheel above,
which hangs from gigantic crane that is
capable of sustaining a weight OF fifty
tons.
To the left is the steam hammer, forty
feet high, weighing hundreds of tons and
having 14,000-pound steel point capable
OF striking 70-ton blow. 1t is worked by
steam from top and bottom. The hamm er
itself is a marvel, it being the largest of
its kind west of Pittsburg. After taking