The age-herald., 1899-11-05

The moulds are 1sx2ox72 inches and waii make an ingot weighing about six thousand pounds. the molds themselves being of about the same weight. The cars eontain- ing the ingots and moulds will be run from the furnace building to the hydraulic strip per- the mOulds stripped off and placed up- on other cars standing on parallel track and from thence the ingot5 will be carried to the heating furnace, and, while still hot passed through the heating furnace fiue, which acts as pre-heating furnace. After having passed through this fiue while still on the ears, which are protected from the heat by means of a pan at the bottom of the fue kept full of water, the ingots rive in front of the heating furnace proper and by very large and powerful electric machine are charged into the furnace for final heating before rolling. This furnace is located at the end of the mill building and the ingots are conveyed by tables, oper- ated by electric motors, to the forty-four inch blooming mill This mill is designed for a large range of work and the 1Sx20 in- got is reduced to a variety of sizes of slabs, blooms and billets down to a four-inch bil- let. Running the entire length of the mill building is a thrty-ton electric travelling crane. The mill is driven by pair of D. P. Allis reversing engines. thry-six by for ty-eight inch cylinders. The blooming mill tables are operated by Crane reversing en- zines There is located in the lower end
  for shearng heavy slabs, the same being conveyed to this shear by tables run by electric motors Four inch bilets will pass through this shear to smaller power shear where they will be cut to the requir- ed length and conveyed by machinery eith- CT to the rod mill heating furnaces or to the shipping yard. The boilers, ten in num- Der, are of the Cahan vertical water tube type of three hundred and fifty horse pow CT each The steam pressure will 129 nAc f,, t1,ol aNttfI1 1iv,O fzif boilers are the hydraulic pumps and ac- cumulator. The hydraulic system will car ny pressure of six hundred pounds to the square inch. The furnaces are tipped oy large hydraulic cylinders, one at each end of the furnace, and hydraulic power Is used at the ingot stripper and three-cylinder shear. Other less important devices are operated by water. The electric power plant is very complete with two 225 K. w. gen orators, directly connected to two twenty by thirty Buckeye engines. The rail mill will be located in continuation or the present blooming mill building. This mill is also designed to roll billets smaller than four inch down to inch and one-elghtn square. The machine shop and foundry are located about half way between the Ensley furnaces and the steel works. Both are equipped with electric travelling cranes and full complement of tools, and appliances. Two "Whiting" cupolas Will be erected in the foundry building in the course of a few weeks and the company will be able to make its own ingot moulds, stools and ordinary castings
 All the raw materials for this plant will be furnished by the Tennessee Cioal, Iron and Railroad company, and practically all can be delivered without the payment or any freight. coal and pig iron being the largest factors. The ore, limestone and dolomite will come from nearby mines and quarries, the only importing being of mag nestle, preferable material to dolomite for making the initial bottoms Of the open hearth furnaces; dolomite will be used Tor repairing the bottoms or hearths.
 The Process
 There are four established processes. or methods of making steel, namely, the Acid Bessemer, Basic Bessemer, and the Acid Open Hearth and Basic Open Hearth dn each case the word ''acid" signifying an acid or silica lining in the furnace or con- verter and the word ''basic" that basic ma terial is used. The Basic Open Hearth is the only process that can be used in the south, owing to the composition of our raw materials, but fortunately the product; IS better than that turned out by any other processes and Is fast superceding all other kinds of steel in every direction. The basic Bessemer requires iron higher in phos- phorus than the Birmingham district irons and the acid Bessemer and acid open hearth lower. The latter two processes do not deal with the phosphorus in the iron so that tn1S 1ngfedlent must De SullicleutiS low to start with as whatever goes into the converter or furnace comes out in the steel. Not so with the basic open hearth. The phosphorus can practically all be elimi- mated and as a consequence the product is of much higher grade. Low phosphorus iron Is scarce and expensive, and as re- suit the usefulness of the Acid Bessemer and Acid Open Hearth is daily diminishing. On the other hand the Basic Open Hearth is developing at an astonishing rate. The four processes are practically identical as far as principal and chemical conditions are concerned. In the case of the Acid Bessemer, which up to recently has been the dominant factor in the manufacture of steel, converter is used and the metal purified by the means of blowing ar through it, while with the Basic open Hearth, a regenerative furnace, with the bottom made of basic refractories is emr ployed and the metal purified by adding ore and limestone, the former as an oXi- dizing agent the latter to form siag as a receptacle for the impurities as they leave the metal In both cases (and in all cases) the purifying agent is oxygen, in the form CT oxygen in the air and in the latter oxy- gen in the ore.
 The Bessemer converter being acid lined, and there being practically no slag, the charac acter of the iron used must be such as not to require the elimination of phos- phorns but simply the removal of the 1n- gradients carbon and silicon. The limit or phosphorus in Bessemer iron IS now .io per cent. The iron, however. frequentiy runs lower than this, and will probably average not over .0s per cent. This limit was formerly .12 per cent, but or late years has been reduced to 10 Der cent. The percentage of manganese in Bessemer iron will average about 5 per cent, practi- cally all of which Is lost in blowing the "heat," and sufficient Is added Tn the shape of lerro-managanese, or spiegle in the converter or iadle to bring the percentage of mangan- ese in the finished steel up to about 45 per cent. Open hearth steel should carry approximately the same amount of man. ganese and it is obtained in identically the same manfer, i. e., by adding to the metal either in the furnace or the lade. In the basic open hearth process, the lining of the furnace being of basic material and basic slag being carried high phosphorus iron can be used, the range being from nothing