The Calumet news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 1907-1938, 1911-01-18
THE ARDS FURNACE.
Has Just Completed Successful Treat
nent Of 1000 Tons Of Ore.

Has Just Completed Successful Treat
ment Of 1000 Tons Of Ore.
John r. Jones and his son, a. G..
Jones, Of Iron Mountain, were Mar
cuette visitors this week. The former
IL the designer OF the Ards furnace,
whose operation the past few weeks at
Iron Mountain has attracted the at
tention Of experts in metallurgy in all
parts of the country and has been OBJ
served in person by Representatives OF
several of the leading furnace inter-
ests also OF the Carnegie institute.
The furnace has just completed a run
on 1000 tons of ore from the Kloman
mine near Republic which the Jones
have leased and near which they ex-
pect 10 erect one OF their furnaces.
A. G. Jones showed a graphic ex-
hibit Of what the Ards furnace has
been doing It included samples OF the
Kloman ore that has been treated, of
the metalized or -oxigenized ore, the
product OF the treatment and Of the
pig made from this metalzed ore at
the Carnegie institute. 20 which sam
pie lot was sent This pig is SO per
cent iron. against about 80 for blast
furnace pig, and the iron is wrought
iron. Another item in the graphic ex-
hibit was a sample of the coke, one Of
the by-products of the furnace
Mr.. Jones expressed himself well
pleased with the progress of the recent
run and sanguine OF the results Of fur
Their experiments. While he was re-
luctant to talk in any great detail about
their plans. he said that they were in
receipt of several offers for an output
Of the metalized ore from furnace con-
Germs at rates that would permit Of a
satisfactory profit.
The experimentation with the Ards
furnace has been in progress at Iron
Mountain for three years past, in the
course of which an outlay of approx
mately a quarter of a million dollars
has been made. The blast furnace men
have been skeptical about the process.
but the success of the recent run has
caused them to somewhat revise their
opinions, it is said, though they are
naturally not very enthusiastic over a
process that is at so direct variance
with the existing methods of smeltine
ore.
What the Furnace Does.
Much has been written about the Ar
dis furnace, but there are compare
lively few people outside Of metallur-
gists and furnace men who have an
intelligent idea of what it accom-
plishes. A few non-technical observa-
tions in regard to IL may enlighten the
general reader somewhat on the most
important points
| The furnace itself, as it has been in
operation at Iron Mountain, is a huge
metal tube. fire brick lined. 40 feet In
/ length eight feet through. with a slope
OF one inch to the foot, and rotated
when i'm operation by electrical power
This furnace differs from the blast
| furnace principally in that it does not
smelt the iron out of the ore and dis
charge IL in the form of iron pig. Its
function is simply to metallic the ore
or de-oxygenize it. in other words tc
concentrate the iron in the ore so thai
it can be easily separated, by subse-
quent process. from the foreign ele-
ments which are incorporated with II.
The ore is not fused in the furnace
but issues from il in apparently the
same form in which it enters il. The
! fuel is mine run coal, instead of the
coke used i'm the blast furnaces. an6
the degree of heat maintained is about
] 400 as against over 5000 in the blast
furnaces The by-product of coke is
more than sufficient to smelt the met
allied ore i'm a cupola, giving 9S PEI
cent wrought iron product, it is
i claimed
There are two processes of separa-
ton practicable one magnetic, and the
other smelling in a cupola. The Jones
interests are about to make an extern
sive cupola test at Iron Mountain. An
earlier test of this character did not
give the hoped for results because OF
defects in the construction Of the cupo-
/ Ia. which have been rectified in the
stack that is now to go into opera
ton.