The Washington herald., 1908-07-12
GIANT MACHINERY
IN CHICAGO PLANT
Mighty Saws and Shears that
Sever Steel Beams.
FILL VISITOR WITH WONDER
Friction Wheels Melt Way Through
MetaT I'm Thirteen Seconds-Saw-
$4,000 Pounds and Is Operated by
One Mnn-ScissOrS that slit Iron.

have little Idea Of some OF the big ma
chimes In constant use i'm the Industrial
cities They may have gone done to the
navy yard shops with visitors and have
looked with wonder upon the machinery
there IN use; they may have seen the big
engines pumping water at the new pump
ing plant. or they may have glanced into
one Of the electrical power houses to see
the dynamos purring on a hot summer
night.
This is about the extent Of our big ma
chinery. unless one has been over TO the
Firth-Sterling works and looked over the
plant there. But while Washington has
Few OF the big things I'm the mechanical
world. 1t likes TO read about them. and
here follows what Hollis w Field. one OF
the special writer's of the Chicago Trib-
une. saw in one afternoon in that city:
Saving off a twenty-four-inch steel 'I''
beam in the time OF the old circular saws
running through a piece Of stubborn
cordwood I'm woodward and slicIng a
sheet Of two-inch steel plate twelve feet
long in the time required for kitchen
knife 70 cut a finger-length of cheese
from the slice already on the board
these are everyday wonders I'm Chicago's
age Of steel.
Signs of the Age of steel.
To the man in the Chicago downtown
street. looking up as crane swings a
great ! beam inward into ,he skeleton
framework OF a sl1yscraping building. the
imPressiveness of the age OF steel may
come. although he sees only a trifiug de-
I'd no q ha Il,
over the glare and thunders Of the Titan
mills which rolled the sixty-fout length
OF steel weighing 100 pounds 90 the lincal
loot. lie may ignore the transportation
intricacies and powers which brought
the structural steel TO the hands OF the
builders a hundred feet in air
The beam swinging out above him NAV
be no longer than twenty feet. But he
forgets the process Of shortening II may
have hundred holes an inch in dame
ter. making honeycomb OF its nanEes
above and below How were the holes
made? In the dim light Of the steel sl1ele-
ton work he marvels az the white-hot
rivet, tossed TO the workman. who
catches it, tits 10 To- place. and turns the
pneumatic riycter upon II. which. like
giant woodpeckor strikes it's hundreds Of
blows minute I'm driving the rivct home
h@ -hfAiihE FICTION.
But in comparison with these things
the shrieking, sizzling, fiery saw cutting
the steel beam 90 its sectional measure
ment by sheer. melting friction still re-
mains one Of the most spectacular Of all
the enginery which has been reducing
the huge beam 20 the requirements OF
the builders
In the huge RversOn plant az Sixteenth
uH..lrv all
may see these high-speed friction saws.
which are not saws at all. severing steel
as II IL were pine and sending out their
sawdust in whirlwinds OF sizzling. white
hot sparks Of steel
Once on a time a workman with his
hand-saw spent hours cutting through
one Of these twenty -four-inch steel
beams. Il was an improvement when 4
drilling machine was adapted 10 cutting
the steel beam by drilling a string OF
holes across IL. cutting one hole into an
other and leaving the sections with Jag.
ged ends great stride was marked
when a slow speed circular saw. with
cutting teeth ate bit by bit through such
beam in half an hour To-day II is one
OF the world wonders I'm the Ryerson
plant 90 look on while a great steel disk.
toothless, burns It's way through this
greatest beam turned from the mills i'm
thirteen seconds.
1t is smooth, clean burn through the
stcel-a burning which seems an impossi-
bility % the layman because Of the show
or Of water which drenches the whirring
shrieking disk as 1t is forced by hydraulic
pressure into the great beam. whose
molecules turn 10 white heat under the
tremendous friction.
saw Weighs $1,000 Pounds.
There IS an anomaly I'm this fftv-tv-o-
inch disk whose rim travels n rate ~
1900 feet a minute. In this age of high
speed tool steel the spectator who has
knowledge Of this new steeF is li<elv to
look on at the pyrotechnics OF the saw
ing and credit the new steel with the ac-
complishment. But the saw is Of ordi-
nary fange steel, only threc-eighths Of an
inch thick with only a rouEhened rim 10
Increase friction. Detached the great
disk might be mistaken for anything but
a saw.
II is too blunt. with it's rim thickened
beyond the three-eiEhths inch original
plate: the rim is only hacked a little by
a chisel IN order 20 roughen il. half
dozen meaningless holes drilled through
the disk in scattered places are az vari-
ance with the makeup of the old circular
20 make the eyes Of the seasoned lumber
man Of the old school bulge IN aston
ishment.
Complete the controlling mechanisms OF
the saw weigh 5000 pounds. Of which 40
900 pounds is In the carriage This car
riage. moving upon oiled grooved bear
ings, carries the saw into the metal as
the beam rests upon the feed rollers car
rying the beam from the overhead crane
which brought the 5000 pound piece OF
metal 10 the saving. 4 120-horsepower
motor drives the saw at its rim speed OF
more than five miles a minute. while n
hydraulic cylinder at 125 pounds pressure
moves the saw and it's carriage against
tte steel beam set for the saving
one man standing a few feet away al
a group Of controllers akin to that of the
trolley motorman does the saving. The
whirring disk has not stopped for an in
slant a touch here starts two lets of
water playing upon the upper portion OF
the saw, and a touch there sends the saw
carriage forward. The point Of contact
with the steel is low under the saw. and
at the first touch comes p shower OF
sparks. a shrieking penetrating protest
of metals. more sparks ut fiercer heat.
louder shrieldngs OF the saw, until as the
edge Of the disk appears through the
stee! beam II shows red-hot rim In
spite of the deluging jets Of water that
have played upon t.
one man and the machine IN thirteen
seconds have done the work of a score OF
workers using the machines that were
modern only yesterday The wet saw
has melted its way through cold steel.
Edges Of the cut beam are blued from
the resultant heat. The saw itself virtu-
ally IS unchanged and with it's rest" Pc
RODS may do service for six weeks, Yet
II is only fiange steel
In that other colossus or the Ryerson
plant however the high-speed tool steal