Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1902-08-06


half stock of the paper-makers. This
pulp is bleached, and after passing
through a machine called "beater,"
which COMPLETES the pulping process,
it is sent to the paper machine to be
made into fine linen paper.
The "old iron" which forms half the
burden OF the ragman's song is the
basis of a business whose output is
valued annually in millions of dollars.
Every piece of old iron, wrought or
cast, rusty or clean, can be utilized
The old cast iron is sent to foundries
and pudding furnaces, the old
wrought iron, bars, sheets and plates,
is sent TO the rolling mills. Cast iron
sent to foundries is remelted with pig
iron, and begins a new life OF useful
ness under new forms and shapes.
The wrought iron goes to the scrap
piles in rolling mill yards There it is
sorted and cut to convenient lengths,
then made up into box" piles or fag-
gots. heated to white heat i'll fur.
naces and run through the rolls, which
first weld the pieces of iron into a
solid billet and then reduce the billets
TO bars.
A profitable business has been found
in the redrawing of old iron pipe and
boiler tubes Most of this waste ma
terial is thickly covered with rust
when it arrives at the factory, and
the rust is removed by the simple pro-
cess of heating the old pipe TO a cherry
red and plunging it into water. The
sudden contraction loosens the rust
scales and the pipe is sent TO the
heating furnace clean and bright, A
good welding heat prepares the pipe
for the redrawing process. This con-
sists in pulling the white hot pipe
through die, which not only reduces
its diameter but makes it solid. 1t
is heated again and drawn through
smaller die, and the process is con-
tinued until the pipe is down to the
required diameter. Then the new pipe
is Strengthened and is ready for the
market.
Steel rails which have been ham,
mered and hattened by the huge driv-
ers of locomotives are heated and re-
rolled through the finishing passes of
a rail mill. This process, of course,
reduces the size OF the rail, but it
renews the life of the rail at COM
paratively slight expense. Old steel
rails and the sawed off ends OF new
steel rails are made into bars, harrow
teeth, plow beams, tire, spring steel
and other forms and shapes used by
makers of agricultural implements,
wagons and carriages. ..s ,i.S.,, :,:s',
The rails are cut by huge power
shears into convenient lengths and
heated in furnace. For making plow
beams the pieces of rail are passed
through rolls. which reshape the head
and fange TO the required shape, If
it is desired to make bars the pieces
OF rail first pass through the Sitting
rolls, which slit the rail into three
Dieces-the head, web and flange. The
head is worked down into squares,
rounds and other rorms of bars; the
web is rolled down to harrow tooth
steel, baby carriage spring steel, light
rounds and spoke steel; the fange is
rolled into fats and spring steel. Thou
sands of tons of old BesSemer steel
rail have been transformed into mer-
chant steel and agricultural shapes.
In the copper district of Montana,
scrap iron, n waste material, and the
water, which might be called waste
material, from a copper mine, are
brought together to save the copper,
which is carried off in the water Some
years ago some iron tools We're left
for a time in the stream of water
which flowed from one of the large
copper mines. A miner passing saw
that the iron had disappeared and that
copper had taken its place.
Being a clever man, he made some
experiments, and soon satisfied him
self that there was Il fortune in the
water which had been running away
unheeded ever since the mine was
opened. He bought scrap iron and tin
cans and placed them in tanks into
which he ran the water from the mine,
and in time the iron, by chemical ac-
ton, caught" the copper which was
afterward refined.
Railroad companies, large manu-
facturers and the captains of indus
try are ever on the lookout for ways
and methods to turn waste material
into useful by-products. Fortunes are
hidden in garbage boxes and millions
of dollars are waiting to be dug out
of the scrap piles.-AIalcolm McDow-
ell, i'll Chicago Record Herald.