page_title: Fitzroy Iron Works
section_title: Puddling, shingling and rolling operations (1868)
hierarchical_section_title: Fitzroy Iron Works / History / Fitzroy Iron Works Company (1859–1869) / Puddling, shingling and rolling operations (1868)
caption_attribution_description: English: Taken from https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/63514409 "Represents the tilt hammer at work, and a man in the foreground wheeling a heated . pile of puddled bars from the mill furnace to the rolls." "The puddled balls are successively taken to the tilt hammer, by which the cinder or impurity is squeezed out, and hammered to a convenient shape for passing through the rolls, which draw them out into long flat bars called puddled bars. "
context_page_description: The Fitzroy Iron Works at Mittagong, New South Wales, was the first commercial iron smelting works in Australia. It first operated in 1848.
  From 1848 to around 1910, various owners and lessees attempted to achieve profitable operation but ultimately none succeeded. More than once, new managers repeated more or less the same mistakes made by earlier ones. Over the second half of the 19th century, the name 'Fitzroy Iron Works' became almost synonymous with lost opportunities, repeated failure, lost capital, misplaced trust, and general misfortune.
  The Fitzroy Iron Works was—several times—a commercial failure, but it played a part in laying the foundations of the later success of the Australian iron and steel industry, and it was important in the growth of the township of Mittagong.
  Relics of the old iron-works were discovered during excavations for redevelopment of its site, during 2004, have been preserved and are on display. There are also some remnants and a commemorative cairn at the adjacent site of its former blast furnace.
context_section_description: The process of 'puddling' involved melting—inside a reverberatory furnace—the pig-iron made by the blast furnace, stirring the molten iron—manually, using an iron rod—so as to expose the molten iron to air passing over its surface—and, by this means, lowering its carbon content. In 1868, there were four puddling furnaces; two were in use, one under repair and another used for a heating furnace.
  This description of the puddling process applies to the engraving of the puddling furnace:
  
  "This engraving represents the furnace in which the first process for the convertion [sic] of cast into wrought iron takes place, and is technically termed puddling, the molten metal being stirred about, or puddled, by which means the particles are brought into contact with the air, this being the agent by which the requisite chemical changes are brought about. The fusion of the cast iron is effected by the flame passing over it, the fuel being thrown into a separate chamber. The stirring or puddling is accompanied by a frizzling sound, and after a certain time the iron arrives at a pasty condition, and is said to have "come to nature." It is then rolled into balls, one of which is represented in the engraving as being lifted out of the furnace." 
   The 'balls', when removed from the furnace, weighed from 80 to 100 pounds each, a convenient size to handle.
  This description from 1868, gives detail of the tilt hammer operation, known as shingling.
  
  "The hammer to which the ball is taken is a ponderous tilt hammer, worked by a camb [sic] falling with a weight of about a ton, and capable of giving from seventy to eighty blows a minute. Here the " ball " is shingled, the fiery mass being beaten by the falling blows in every direction as it is turned deftly from side to side, and from end to end, by the workman or shingler, until all the refuse and cinder is squeezed and driven out of it, running from it at first in small fiery streams, and afterwards draining out more slowly, and ultimately falling off in heavy flakes. After the balls have undergone this process they acquire the name of "blooms."  "
   The "bloom'' of wrought iron created by shingling at the tilt hammer was then passed through the rolls to create 'puddled bars'. This description of the shingling process applies to the engraving of the tilt hammer.
  " the tilt hammer at work, and a man in the foreground wheeling a heated pile of puddled bars from the mill furnace to the rolls."
  "The puddled balls are successively taken to the tilt hammer, by which the cinder or impurity is squeezed out, and hammered to a convenient shape for passing through the rolls, which draw them out into long flat bars called puddled bars."
  This description describes the final rolling operation, in which the 'puddled bars' or are cut into smaller lengths, reheated and rolled to form the final product.
  The puddled bars "when cold are cut up into suitable lengths by the shears, piled into oblong blocks, and put into a second furnace, similar in construction to the puddling furnace, called the mill furnace, in which they are brought to a welding heat. The heated piles are then carried to the rolls on a small iron truck and rolled out into merchant bars, &c, the-size and form being regulated by the grooves in the rolls."
  This description of the rolling process below applies to the engraving of the rolling mill; cut-up 'puddled bars' were rolled into merchant bar, whereas 'slabs' were rolled into plate.
  
  "Shews the operation of rolling, the same pile into two stages, viz., on the right hand of, the engraving the pile is represented when it is being passed through the first pair or roughing rolls, and on the left hand when it is leaving the second pair or finishing rolls. Different sets of rolls are required for different forms of finished iron, and they are changed accordingly, the form and size of the piles being also regulated to suit the different kind of rolls. In the left hand corner at the foot of the roll standards are two slabs, which is one of the forms into which puddled iron is rolled to produce boiler and
caption: Fitzroy Iron Works - Tilt Hammer c.1868, Unknown Artist  (Engraving published in Illustrated Sydney News, Thu. 18 Feb. 1869, Page 5)[103]
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