The age-herald., 1901-01-06
THE COMBINATION
 MILL AT ENSLEY

Iron and Railroad Company at Ensley, has been arranged chiefly for the manufac ture of rails and billets, but will also be equipped for turning out sheet bars and structural shapes on a large scale. It will be located in the building forming an ex- tension to the present blooming mill build ing.
 The material that will be worked by this mill into the above mentioned finished pro- duct, is open hearth steel, prepared in the ffty-ton melting furnaces in the adjacent open hearth department The steel is poured from the melting furnaces direct into cast iron moulds, making ingots 16x20 inches, six feet in length, and weighing 60Q0 pounds each. The ingots after solidifying in the molds are run on cars under the hy- draulic stripper where they are stripped from the mods. After being stripped they are taken to the heating furnace, pits into which they are charged, to become uniformally heated. This being accom- plished the ingots are drawn from the fur mace by the electric charger and placed op a live roller table which delivers them to the bloom rolls, where they are rolled into blooms or billets of such sizes as will be necessary for the new twenty-seven inch CUI1DlIdllOH Ullll. AlpeT DelHB lO lHS proper size the bloom advances on another live roller table to large hydraulic shears where it is cut to suitable lengths. If the bloom after being cut still retains sufii- cent heat it will continue on it's way di- rectly to the twenty-seven inch mill to be worked into finished product. If too cold , to finish in one heat it is charged into the relocating furnace, erected between the shears and the new finishing mill. When sufficiently relocated the bloom is automat- ically discharged from the furnace on to the live roller table leading to the twenty seven inch mill.
 The Motive Power.
 The motive power for this mill, which is of the three-high type and consists of two sets of roughing rolls and one set of finish ing rolls, will be supplied by an engine hav- ing a steam cylinder ffty-two inches in diameter and seventy-two inch piston stroke. The engine running at eighty revo- lutions per minute, with steam pressure of 125 pounds to the square inch, will de- velop some four thousand horse power. It is of the Corliss type, and like all rolling mill engines of unusually heavy propor- tions to meet the extraordinary strains
 
 It is manufactured by the E. P. Allis Com pany of Milwaukee, Wis., an engine firm of high reputation. To get an idea or the proportions of this monstrous engine, 1t is sufficient to say that it took 250000 brick to finish its foundation, which is fourteen feet in depth, and fifty feet in length, with an average width of seventeen feet. To the engine shaft Is securely keyed heavy fly wheel twenty-two feet in diameter, weigh ing 10000 pounds. Its duty is to eliminate the heavy shocks that occur, when, during the process of rolling, the steel bars enter the passes of the rollers. It also serves to some extent to regulate the speed of the engine, under variable loads.
 The Driving Pinions.
 Between the engine and the first set of roughing rolls are located the main pinions for driving the rolls. The engine shaft Is connected by means of the leading spindle and couplings, to the middle pinfon, which mesheS with the one above and the one below, all three pinions being of the same size. The main pinions are coupled to the first set of roughing rolls by means of spindles and couplings, and the second and third sets of rolls are coupled in the same manner.
 Thus 1t will be seen that the three sets of rolls are put in motion by the middle pinion, which is In line with the engine shaft and connected with the same, as ex- plained above. It is also evident from the manner of driving that the top and bottom rolls turn in opposite directions to the mid de roll The first set of roughlng rolls is in line with the blooming mill, 45S feet dis tant, and the bloom coming direct from this latter mil or from the relocating fur nace will enter the first pass between the middle and bottom rolls. After going through this pass the live roller tables Tn front and rear of the rolls are raised by hydraulic power, the table rollers reversed and the bloom or bar is run back through the middle and top rolls, thus receiving the second reduction. After receiving six re- auctions in this set of rolls the bar is transferred to the second set of roughing rols where it is further reduced in section and shaped to suit the form of the finished rail. From the second set of roughing rolls transfer arrangement takes the bar, which Is now nearly formed into the shape of a rail, to the finishing set, where 1t ro- ceives two more reductions.
 The finished rail, the length of which Is now from ninety-four to ninety-flye feet, is conveyed on a live roller table from the finishing rolls to the saws, where it is cut into lengths while still hot There are four of these saws, spaced thirty feet six inches, all in a hne and fronting the table. The saws running at 1900 revolutions per minute are tipped over all at the same time by
 hydraulic cylinder, and 1t only requires one moments work to perform the opera tion of cutting the rail. Thus It Will De
 seen that each bloom will make three rails of the thirty-foot standard length. The Next Process.
 After being sawed the rails are run through a curving cambering machine. The object of this process as to obtain a straight cold rail. When the hot rail
 reaches this curving machine it is perfect ly straight If allowed to cool in this state the rail would bend, owing to the fact that the head of the rail, containing more metal than the fiange, will cool slower than the
 latter, with the result that the rail would curve in cooling.
 The curving machine would bend the rail in the opposite direction, causing 1t to straighten itself in cooling. After passing through the curving machine the rails are run out on a live roller table, and from there they are transferred transversely to hot bed 100 feet in length, and are left there until cold. Finally, after cooling suf- ficiently. the rails are pulled of the hot bed, three or four at a time, on to the con-