The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-12-28
D|RECTMETALMARKS IA NEW ERA IN CAST IRON PIPE BUSINESS American Cast Iron Pipe Company Using Iron Di-
 rect From the Furnace NEW SCHEME GIVES
 MANY ADVANTAGES Ladies of Molten Iron Are Being Hauled From Republic Furnaces
 to Foundries of Water and
 Gas Pipe Manufacturers
 

l the American Cast Iron Pipe company
 al Acipco, new era is dawning this week in the manufacture of cast iron
 pipe for water and gas mains
 Direct metal" as the process is
 called, has been dream of cast iron, ] pipe men for many years Birming-
 ham is the center of Americas cast 1 iron pipe industry and now that the
 plan at last has been put to work, the
 results may be of great consequence
 in the near future.
 Ladies holding between 17 and IS
 tons of molten iron are now being l hauled by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad company from the blast fur
 naces of the Republic Iron and Steel company at East Thomas to the plants
 of the American Cast Iron Pipe com pany at Acipco-a distance by rail of about two miles-and the iron there poured directly into the molds that
 make it into pipe.
 1 The common practice has been to
 run this into pigs at the furnace; when cold it commonly being known
 as pig iron.' Pig iron then has been
 transported to the pipe foundries, there remelted in cupolas and molded into ! pipe. The new process saves the time
 and cost of molding the pigs, the sev- eral handlings which they go through and their remelting, and in addition gives casting of better quality.
 NEW ACHIEVEMENT John F. Kent, general manager of | the pipe company, is the man who more than any other perhaps, is di- | ract1V Ocib Ia Iii ment. MT. Kent has had a long and varied experience. for many years be- ing connected with the steel industry | in the United States and Canada. He was present when the direct metal 1 plan was first tried in the steel bus | mess at the Edgar Thompson Steel | Works at Braddock, Pa, this now be- ing one of the accepted steps in mod ern steel making. This experiment at Braddock brought into prominence | Charles M. Schwab, now the famous president of Bethlehem Steel, Schwab | himself surveying a railroad in con- nection with the scheme
 Ever since my connection with the plpe business said MT. Kent yester- day, "I have dreamed of trying on cast iron pipe what at Braddock I saw tried on steel. Four years ago
 the American Cast Iron Pipe company 1 sent me to Europe to see what I could see. There I found the Germans using the direct metal process in their big | pipe foundries. It made me more de- termined than ever to try it out in o1,r
 own foundries at Birmingham. Now we are doing it, and I believe 1t is success. Time only, however. will give us sufficient experience to judge of this But if the Germans did it successfully, I don't see why ye cannot"
 
 AMBITION OF PRESIDENT Direct metal has been one of the
 ambitions of President J. R. MoWane of Aclpco Tor years T always have be- heved' he said last night, that the
 plan would work if tried under nronar conditions. However, none of us are in mood to discount the difficulties in the way. Ifsit were easy, every foundry Wlthln reach of a blast furnace would be
 using direct metal
 "The obstacles heretofare have been. first limitations of tonnage. When the metal comes from the furnace there must be sufficient capacity to use all of it promptly. Then again. a large modern blast furnace makes iron "A hours a day and in each of the 24 hours of day If you tie up with a blast furnace won
 must not only be prepared to use hot ron in the day time, but you must use it at night. Our plant which operates day and night. is now of sufficient ca paclty to take the iron from a large
 blast furnace as rapidly as may be neces- sary, provided it comes of approxima tely the correct analysis.
 And this suggests the second great diff ficulty-the mixture. Today the furnace
 may be making iron ? per cent silicon and tomorrow the silicon may be per cent. It is subject to the same variations in sulphur and it's other constituents This is the chief problem to be worked | out and the purpose of our experiments this week is to try out some plans which we have been talking about for bong time. for mixing furnace iron with re-
 melted iron in order to get proper
 mixture for pipe foundry use We do
 not know just where we are going to | land, but we are on our way.