Omaha daily bee., 1919-10-14
What Steel Workers Do

Because of the wide interest in the strike OF
steel workers the National Geographic society
has issued two bulletins on the steel industry.
The first dealt with Bessemer steel; and the
second one, based on communication to The
Society describes other production methods as
follows:
"An open-hearth furnace looks good deal
like an ordinary bake-oven; but when one
looks in through the water-cooled door, vast
difference appears. Instead of pans OF fra
grant. fat loayes Of baking bread, there is an
imposing pool of fiery liquid as bright as the
filament of high-power tungsten lamp, so
dazzling that it can be examined with safety to
the eyes only by those using colored glasses
Tinted here and there with streaks of soft blue
and dainty pink it looks like melted stick
candy.
I'm preparing battery of open-hearth fur
naces for charge finely ground dolomite is
shoveled in first This melts like glass and fills
up all cracks and crannies caused by the pow
erfu heat OF the preceding charge. Then lit
tie train rolls up before tie battery, and an
metal from the cars into ae furnaces. on
some distance is great steel tank lined with
fire brick and full of liquid pig metal
when the scrap has melted and the con-
tents of the cauldron are cooked enough; when
the impurities have been driven out and tolled
away, the fiery broth is seasoned as it were
with the proper amount of carbon, spiegel, fer
romanganese, tungsten, ferrosilicon, vanadium
or whatever is necessary to give the desired
character to the resulting steel.
Then comes the tapping of the furnace. An
electric crane lifts great lade into position,
workman jams a crowbar through clay
plugged hole at the base, and @out flows the
frenzied stream into the ladle. The Stag rises
to the top like oil on water, and overfows, con-
geaing on the outside of the ladle. Then the
the pouring PLATFORM where it in its turn is
tapped and its purified fluid run off into molds
"Great care has to be taken in handling these
ladies, for the presence of a few drops of mois
ture when the hot metal is poured into
might cause an explosion and loss of life. Just
before they receive the molten metal the ladies
are heated nearly white hot in order that the
steel or iron may not chill in them.
"As fast as they are filled the ladies are
swung out over the ingot molds and the liquid
steel is run into them and allowed to cool and
take its form. 1t is as if water were poured
into molds and set in a refrigerating machine
to freeze into blocks of ice. The only differ
ence is that the freezing point of steel is away
above the boiling point of water.
There are two other important types of
steel furnaces-the crucble furnace and the
electric furnace. In both of them the idea is to
keep all hurtful gases and other impurities out
and to regulate the addition of alloys and oxy-
gen destroyers to nicely. In crucble fur
mace the metal is placed in graphite clay pots,
covers are put over them. and the pots subject
ed to great heat Silica is gradually absorbed
out of,the clay in the pots and transformed into
silicon by coming into contact with the carbon
in the steel. The silicon in its turn absorbs the
oxygen and thus quiets the frothing, foaming
contents of the kettle.
The electric furnace acts in much the same
way. its heat being so pure that there is no me-
cessity of putting the steel in covered pots to
keep out gases and other impurities. An cleo
trio arc, established between huge electrodes
and the surface of the slag produces the heat
in such furnace. BY varying the materials
used in the formation of the Stag any impurty
can be wooed off and the glowing steel left as
spure as crystal The alloys are then mixed
with the steel and it is made fit for any use de-
sired. 1t is drawn off into ladies and poured
into ingot nolds, where it hardens. ready to be
worked up into those things that constitute
the last word in fine steel"