Steel, a manual for steel-users

STEEL:

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS.

BY

WILLIAM METCALF.

FIRST EDITION.
FOURTH THOUSAND.

NEW YORK:

JOHN WILEY & SONS.
LONDON : CHAPMAN & HALL, LIMITED.

1905

Copyright, 1896,

BY

WILLIAM METCALP.

ROBERT DRUMMONb ELflCTROTYPER AND PRINTER. NEW YORK.

INTEODUCTION.

TWENTY-SEVEN years of active practice in the manufact-
ure of steel brought the author in daily contact with ques-
tions involving the manipulation of steel, its properties, and
the results of any operations to which it was subjected.

Blacksmiths, edge-tool makers, die-makers, machine-
builders, and engineers were continually asking questions
whose answers involved study and experiment.

During these years the Bessemer and the open-hearth
processes were developed from infancy to their present
enormous stature; and the shadows of these young giants,
ever menacing to the expensive and fragile crucible, kept
one in a constant state of watching, anxiety, and more
study.

The literature of steel has grown with the art; its books
are no longer to be counted on the fingers, they are to be
weighed in tons.

Then why write another ?

Because there seems to be one little gap. Metallurgists
and scientists have worked and are still working; they have
given to the world much information for which the world
should be thankful.

Engineers have experimented and tested, as they never
did before, and thousands of tables and results are re-

iii

IV INTRODUCTION.

corded, providing coming engineers with a mine of inval-
uable wealth. Steel-workers and temperers have written
much that is of great practical value.

Still the questions come, and they are almost always
those involving an intimate acquaintance with the proper-
ties of steel, which is only to be gained by contact with both
manufacturers and users. In this little manual the effort
is made to fill this gap and to give to all steel-users a sys-
tematic, condensed statement of facts that could not be ob-
tained otherwise, except by travelling through miles of
literature, and possibly not then. There are no tables, and
no exact data; such would be merely a re-compilation of
work already done by abler minds.

It is a record of experiences, and so it may seem to be
dogmatic; the author believes its statements to be true —
they are true as far as his knowledge goes; others can
verify them by trial.

If the statements made prove to be of value to others,
then the author will feel that he has done well to record
them; if not, there is probably nothing said that is likely
to result in any harm*

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

PAGfl

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF STEEL, AND METHODS OF MANU-
FACTURE.— Cemented or Converted Steel. Blister, German,
Shear, Double-shear. Crucible-steel, Bessemer, Open-
hearth 1

CHAPTER II.

APPLICATIONS AND USES OF THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF
STEEL.— Crucible, Open-hearth, Bessemer 14

CHAPTER III.
ALLOY STEELS AND THEIR USES. — Self -hardening, Manganese,

Nickel, Silicon, Aluminum , 27

CHAPTER IV.

CARBON. — General Properties and Uses. Modes of Introducing
It in Steel. Carbon Tempers, How Determined. The Car-
bon-line. Effects of Carbon, in Low Steel, in High Steel. Im-
portance of Attention to Composition 87

CHAPTER V.

GENERAL PROPERTIES OF STEEL.— Four Conditions : Solid,
Plastic, Granular, Liquid. Effects of Heat. Size of Grain.
Recalescence, Magnetism. Effects of Cooling, Hardening,
Softening, Checking. Effects of Forging or Rolling, Hot
or Cold. Condensing, Hammer- refining, Bursting. Ranges
of Tenacity, etc. Natural Bar, Annealed Bar, Hardened Bar,

etc , , 52

y

VI CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VI.

PAGE

HEATING. — For Forging; Hardening; Overheating; Burning; Re-
storing; Welding 77

CHAPTER VII.
ANNEALING 84

CHAPTER VIII.

HARDENING AND TEMPERING. — Size of Grain; Refining at Recal-
escence; Specific-gravity Tests; Temper Colors; How to Break
Work; a Word for the Workman 96

CHAPTER IX.

EFFECTS OF GRINDING.— Glaze, Skin, Decarbonized Skin,
Cracked Surfaces, Pickling 123

CHAPTER X.

IMPURITIES AND THEIR EFFECTS. — Cold-short, Red-short, Hot-
short, Irregularities, Segregation, Oxides, etc., Wild Heats,
Porosity. Removing Last Fractions of Hurtful Elements.
Andrews Broken Rail and Propeller-shaft 129

CHAPTER XI.

THEORIES OF HARDENING.— Combined, Graphitic, Dissolved,
Cement, Hardening and Non-hardening Carbon. Carbides.
Allotropic Forms of Iron a, /?.,etc. Iron as an Igneous Rock
or as a Liquid 146

CHAPTER XII.

INSPECTION. — Ingots, Bars, Finished Work. Tempers and Sound-
ness of Ingots. Seams, Pipes, Laps, Burns, Stars 151

CHAPTER XIII.

SPECIFICATIONS. — Physical, Chemical, and of Soundness and
Freedom from Scratches, Sharp Re-entrant Angles, etc 154

CHAPTER XIV.
HUMBUGS 161

CHAPTER XV.
CONCLUSIONS . , 164

GLOSSARY.
DEFINITIONS OF SHOP TERMS USED... . 167

STEEL :
A MANUAL FOR STEEL USERS.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF STEEL AND OP
MODES OF ITS MANUFACTURE.

STEEL may be grouped under four general heads, each
receiving its name from the mode of its manufacture; the
general properties of the diiferent kinds are the same,
modified to some extent by the differences in the operations
of making them; these differences are so slight, however,
that after having mentioned them the discussion of
various qualities and properties in the following pages will
be general, and the facts given will apply to all kinds of
steel, exceptions being pointed out when they occur.

The first general division of steel is cemented or con-
verted steel, known to the trade as blister-steel, German,
shear, and double-shear steel.

This is probably the oldest of all known kinds of steel,
as there is no record of the beginning of its manufacture.
This steel is based upon the fact that when iron not satu-
rated with carbon is packed in carbon, with all air excluded,

2 STEEL :

and subjected to a high temperature, — any temperature
above a low red heat, — carbon will be absorbed by the iron
converting it into steel, the steel being harder or milder,
containing more or less carbon, determined by the tempera-
ture and the time of contact.

Experience and careful experiment have shown that at
a bright orange heat carbon will penetrate iron at the rate
of about one eighth of an inch in twenty-four hours. This
applies to complete saturation, above 100 carbon; liquid
steel will absorb carbon with great rapidity, becoming
saturated in a few minutes, if enough carbon be added to
cause saturation.

MANUFACTURE OF BLISTER-STEEL.

Bars of wrought iron are packed in layers, each bar sur-
rounded by charcoal, and the whole hermetically sealed in a
fire-brick vessel luted on top with clay; heat is then applied
until the whole is brought up to a bright orange color, and
this heat is maintained as evenly as possible until the whole
mass of iron is penetrated by carbon; usually bars about
three quarters of an inch thick are used, and the heat is
required to be maintained for three days, the carbon,
entering from both sides, requiring, three days to travel
three eighths of an inch to the centre of the bar. If the
furnace be running hot, the conversion may be complete
in two days, or less. The furnace is then cooled and the bars
are removed; they are found to be covered with numerous
blisters, giving the steel its name.

The bars of tough wrought iron are found to be con-
verted into highly crystalline, brittle steel. When blister-
steel is heated and rolled directly into finished bars, it is
known commercially as

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 3

GERMAN STEEL.

When blister-steel is heated to a high heat, welded
under a hammer, and then finished under a hammer either
at the same heat or after a slight re-heating, it is known as

SHEAR-STEEL, OR SINGLE-SHEAR.

When single-shear steel is broken into shorter lengths,
piled, heated to a welding heat and hammered, and then
hammered to a finish either at that heat or after a slight
re-heating, it is known as

DOUBLE-SHEAR STEEL.

Seebohm gives another definition of single-shear, and
double-shear; probably both are correct, being different
shop designations.

Until within the last century the above steels were the
only kinds known in commerce. There was a little steel
made in India by a melting process, known as Wootz. It
amounted to nothing in the commerce of the world, and is
mentioned because it is the oldest of known melting
processes.

Although converted steel is so old, and so few years ago
was the only available kind of steel in the world, nothing
more need be said of it here, as it has been almost super-
seded by cast steel, superior in quality and cheaper in cost,
except in crucible-steel.

Inquiring readers will find in Percy, and many other
works, such full and detailed accounts of the manufacture
of these steels that it would be a waste of space and time
to reprint them here, as they are of no more commercial
importance.

4 STEEL:

In the last century Daniel Huntsman, of England, a
maker of clocks, found great difficulty in getting reliable,
durable, and uniform springs to run his clocks. It oc-
curred to him that he might produce a better and more uni-
form article by fusing blister-steel in a crucible. He tried
the experiment, and after the usual troubles of a pioneer
he succeeded, and produced the article he required. This
founded and established the great Crucible-cast-steel in-
dustry, whose benefits to the arts are almost incalculable;
and none of the great inventions of the latter half of this
nineteenth century have produced anything equal in quality
to the finer grades of crucible-steel.

CRUCIBLE-CAST STEEL

is the second of the four general kinds of steel mentioned
in the beginning of this chapter.

Although Huntsman succeeded so well that he is clearly
entitled to the credit of having invented the crucible proc-
ess, he met with many difficulties, from porosity of his
ingots mainly; this trouble was corrected largely by Heath
by the use of black oxide of manganese. Heath attempted
to keep his process secret, but it was stolen from him, and
he spent the rest of a troubled life in trying to get some
compensation from the pilferers of his process. An inter-
esting and pathetic account of his troubles will be found
in Percy.

Heath's invention was not complete, and it was finished
by the elder Mushet, who introduced in addition to the
oxide of manganese a small quantity of ferro-manganese, an
alloy of iron and manganese; and it was now possible, with
care and skill, to make a quality of steel which for uni-

A MANUAL FOE STEEL-USEES. 5

formity, strength, and general utility has never been
equalled.

Crucible-steel was produced then by charging into a
crucible broken blister-steel, a small quantity of oxide of
manganese, and of f erro-manganese, or Spiegel-eisen, cover-
ing the crucible with a cap, and melting the contents in a
coke-furnace, a simple furnace where the crucible was
placed on a stand of refractory material, surrounded by
coke, and fired until melted thoroughly.

The first crucibles used, and those still used largely in
Sheffield, were made of fire-clay; a better, larger, and more
durable crucible, used in the United States exclusively,
and in Europe to some extent, is made of plumbago,
cemented by enough of fire-clay to make it strong and
tough. As the demands for steel increased and varied it
was found that the carbon could be varied by mixing
wrought iron and blister-bar, and so a great variety of
tempers was produced, from steel containing not more than
0.10$ of carbon up to steel containing 1.50$ to 2$ of
carbon, and even higher in special cases.

It TV as soon found that the amount of carbon in steel
could be determined by examining the fractures of cold
ingots; the fracture due to a certain quantity of carbon is
so distinct and so unchanging for that quantity that, once
known, it cannot be mistaken for any other. The ingot is
so sensitive to the quantity of carbon present that differ-
ences of .05$ may be observed, and in everyday practice
the skilled inspector will select fifteen different tempers of
ingots in steels ranging from about 50 carbon to 150 car-
bon, the mean difference in carbon from one temper to
another being only .07$. And this is no guess-work; — no
chemical color determination will approach it in accuracy,

6 STEEL:

and such work can only be checked by careful analysis by
combustion.

This is the steel-maker's greatest stronghold, as it is pos-
sible by this means for a careful, skilful man to furnish to
a consumer, year after year, hundreds or thousands of tons
of steel, not one piece of which shall vary in carbon more
than .05$ above or below the mean for that temper.

The word " temper " used here refers to the quantity of
carbon contained in the steel, it is the steel-maker's word;
the question, What temper is it? answered, No. 3, No. 6,
or any other designation, means a fixed, definite quantity
of carbon.

When a steel-user hardens a piece of steel, and then lets
down the temper by gentle- heating, and he is asked, What
temper is it ? ' he will answer straw, light brown, brown,
pigeon-wing, light blue, or blue, as the case may be, and he
means a fixed, definite degree of softening of the hardened
steel.

It is an unfortunate multiple meaning of a very com-
mon word, yet the uses have become so fixed that it seems
to be impossible to change them, although they sometimes
cause serious confusion.

The quantity of carbon contained in steel, and indeed of
all ingredients, as a rule, is designated in one hundredths
of one per cent; thus ten (.10) carbon means ten one hun-
dredths of one per cent; nineteen (.19) carbon means nine-
teen one hundredths of one per cent; one hundred and
thirty-five (1.35) carbon means one hundred and thirty-
five one hundredths of one per cent, and so on. So also
for contents of silicon, sulphur, phosphorus, manganese
and other usual ingredients.

This enumeration will be used in this work, and care

A MANUAL FOB STEEL-USEKS. 7

will be taken to use the word " temper" in such a way as
not to cause confusion.

It has been stated that crucible-cast steel is made from
ten carbon up to two hundred carbon, and that its content
of carbon can be determined by the eye, from fifty carbon
upwards, by examining the fracture of the ingots. The
limitation from fifty carbon upwards is not intended to
mean that ingots containing less than fifty carbon have no
distinctive structures due to the quantity of carbon; they
have such distinctive structures, and the difficulty in ob-
serving them is merely physical.

Ingots containing fifty carbon are so tough that they
can only be fractured by being nicked with a set deeply,
and then broken off; below about fifty carbon the ingots
are so tough that it is almost impossible to break open a
large enough fracture to enable the inspector to determine
accurately the quantity of carbon present; therefore it is
usual in these milder steels, when accuracy is required,
to resort to quick color analyses to determine the quan-
tity of carbon present. Color analyses below fifty carbon
may be fairly accurate, above fifty carbon they are worth-

As the properties and reliability of crucible-steel be-
came better known the demand increased, and the re-
quirements varied and were met by skilful manufacturers,
until, by the year 1860, ingots were produced weighing
many tons by pouring the contents of many crucibles into
one mould; in this way the more urgent demands were
met, but the material was very expensive and the risks in
manufacturing were great. About this time, stimulated
by the desire of enlightened governments to increase their
powers of destruction in war by the use of heavy guns of

8 STEEL:

greater power than could be obtained by the use of cast
iron, and for heavier ship-armor to be used in defence,
Mr. Bessemer, of England, now Sir Henry Bessemer, rea-
soned that if melted cast iron was reduced to wrought
iron by puddling, or boiling, by the mere oxidation, or
burning out, of the excess of carbon and silicon from
the cast iron, that the same cast iron might be reduced to
steel in large masses by blowing air through a molten mass
in a close vessel, retaining enough heat to keep the mass
molten so that the resulting steel could be poured into
ingots as large as might be desired. At about the same
time, or a little earlier, Mr. Kelly, of the United States,
devised and patented the same method. Both of these
gentlemen demonstrated the potencies of their invention,
and neither brought it to a successful issue.

To persistent and intelligent iron -masters of Sweden
must be given the credit of bringing the process of Besse-
mer to a commercial success, and so they gave to the
world pneumatic or Bessemer steel, the latter name hold-
ing, properly, as a just tribute to the inventor, and this
inaugurated the third general division :

BESSEMEE STEEL.

Bessemer steel is made by pouring into a bottle-shaped
vessel lined with refractory material a mass of molten
cast iron, and then blowing air through the iron until the
carbon and silicon are burned out. The gases and flame
resulting escape from the mouth of the vessel.

The combustion of carbon and silicon produce a tem-
perature sufficient to keep the mass thoroughly melted, so

A MANUAL FOE STEEL-USERS. 9

that the steel may be poured into moulds making ingots of
any desired size.

In the beginning, and for many years, the lining of the
vessel was of silicious or acid material, and it was found
that all of the phosphorus and sulphur contained in the
cast iron remained in the resulting steel, so that it was
necessary to have no more of these elements in the cast
iron than was allowable in the steel. The higher limit for
phosphorus was fixed at ten points (.10$), and that is the
recognized limit the world over. When Bessemer pig is
quoted, or sold and bought, it means always a cast iron
containing not more than ten phosphorus.

In regard to sulphur, it was found that if too much
were present the material would be red-short, so that it
could not be worked conveniently in the rolls or under the
hammer, and that when the amount of sulphur present
was not enough to produce red-shortness it was not suffi-
cient to hurt the steel.

As red-short material is costly and troublesome to the
manufacturer, it was not found necessary to fix any limit
for sulphur, because the makers could be depended upon
to keep it within working limits.

Later investigations prove this to be a fallacy, as much
as ten or even more sulphur has been found in broken
rails and shafts, the steel having made workable by a per-
centage of manganese. (See the results of Andrews's in-
vestigation given in Chap. X.)

During the operation of blowing Bessemer steel the
flame issuing from the vessel is indicative of the elimina-
tion of the elements, and it is found that while the com-
bustion is partially simultaneous the silicon is all removed
before the carbon, and the characteristic white flame

10 STEEL:

towards the end of the blow is known as the carbon flame;
when the carbon is burned out, this flame drops suddenly
and the operator knows that the blow is completed. Any
subsequent blowing would result in burning iron only.
During the blow the steel is charged heavily with oxygen,
and if this were left in the steel it would be rotten, red-
short, and worthless, This oxygen is removed largely by
the addition of a predetermined quantity of ferro-man-
ganese, usually melted previously and then poured into the
steel.

The manganese takes up the greater part of the oxygen,
leaving the steel free from red shortness and easily
worked.

The fact that the phosphorus of the iron remained in
the steel notwithstanding the active combustion and
high temperature led to the dictum that at high temper-
atures phosphorus could not be eliminated from iron.
This conclusion was credited because in some of the so-
called direct processes of making iron where the tempera*
ture was never high enough to melt steel all, or nearly all,
of the phosphorus was removed from the iron.

For many years steel-makers the world over worked
upon this basis, and devoted themselves to procuring for
their work iron containing not more than ten (.10) phos-
phorus, now universally known and quoted as Bessemer
iron.

Two young English chemists, Sidney Gilchrist Thomas
and Percy 0. G-ilchrist, being careful thinkers, concluded
that the question was one of chemistry and not one of
temperature; accordingly they set to work to obtain a basic
lining for the vessel and to produce a basic slag from the
blow which should retain in it the phosphorus of the

A MANUAL FOB STEEL-USEH8. 11

iron. After the usual routine of experiment, and against the
doublings of the experienced, they succeeded, and produced
a steel practically free from phosphorus. For the practi-
cal working of their process it was found better, or neces-
sary, to use iron low in silicon and high in phosphorus,
using the phosphorus as a fuel to produce the high tem-
perature that is necessary instead of the silicon of the
acid process. In the acid process it is found necessary to
have high silicon— two per cent or more — to produce the
temperature necessary to keep the steel liquid; in the
Thomas- Gilchrist process phosphorus takes the place of
silicon for this purpose.

In this way the basic Bessemer process was worked out
and became prominent.

The basic Bessemer process is of great value to England
and to the continent of Europe by enabling manufacturers
to use their native ores, which are usually too high in phos-
phorus for the acid process, so that before this invention
nearly all of the ores for making Bessemer steel were im-
ported from Sweden, Spain, and Africa.

The basic process has found little development in the
United States, because the great abundance of pure ore
keeps the acid process the cheaper, except in one or two
special localities. Where the basic process is profitable in
the United States, it is worked successfully.

At about the time that Bessemer made his invention
William Siemens, afterward Sir William, invented the well-
known regenerative gas-furnace. A Frenchman named
Martin utilized this furnace to melt steel in bulk in the
hearth of the furnace, developing what was known for
some years as Siemens-Martin steel, or open-hearth steel;
the latter name has prevailed, and open-hearth steel is

12 STEEL:

the fourth of the general kinds of steel mentioned in the
beginning of this chapter.

At first open-hearth steel was made upon a specially
prepared sand bottom, by first melting a bath of cast iron
and then adding wrought iron to the bath until by the ad-
ditions of wrought iron and the action of the flame the
carbon and silicon of the cast iron were reduced until the
whole became a mass of molten steel. Sometimes iron ore
is used instead of wrought iron as the reducing agent; this
is called the pig and ore process. Now in general prac-
tice wrought iron, steel scrap, and iron ore are used, some-
times alone and sometimes together, as economy or special
requirements make it convenient.

It was found as in the Bessemer, so in the open -hearth,
the sulphur and the phosphorus of the charge remained
in the steel, making it necessary to see that in the charge
there was no more of these elements than the steel would
bear.

This is known now as the acid open-hearth process.

After the success of the basic Bessemer process Was as-
sured the same principle was tried in the open-hearth;
a basic bottom of dolomite or of magnesite was substituted
for the acid sand bottom, and care was taken to secure a
basic slag in the bath.

Success was greater than in the Bessemer; phosphorus
was eliminated and a better article in every way was made
by this process, now used extensively over the whole civil-
ized world.

This is the oasic open-hearth process.

Neither the basic Bessemer process nor the basic open-
hearth removed sulphur, so that this element must still be

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 13

kept low in the original charge, until some way shall be
found for its sure and economical elimination.

The four general divisions, then, are:

Converted or Cemented Steel.

Crucible-cast Steel.

Bessemer •] , >- Cast Steel.
( Basic )

Open-hearth \ ^Cl I Cast Steel.
( Basic )

Little or nothing more will be said of the first kind, as it
has been so thoroughly superseded by the cast steels.
After a statement of the most patent applications and uses
of the different cast steels the discussions which follow
will apply to -all, because practically they are all governed
by the same general laws.

14 STEEL:

IL

APPLICATIONS AND USES OF THE DIFFER-
ENT KINDS OF STEEL.

WHERE exact uniformity of composition is not a neces-
sity, and where welding is required, cemented or converted
steel may be preferred to cast steel, because the converted
bar retains the occluded layers of slag which give to
wrought iron its peculiar welding properties, and for this
reason blister- or shear-steel may be welded more easily and
surely than cast steel. For tires, composite dies, and many
compound articles this steel will do very well, and it may
be worked with good results by almost any smith of ordi-
nary skill; however, owing to the more uniform structure
and the greater durability of the cast steels, they have, even
for these purposes, almost entirely displaced the more
easily worked, but less durable, cemented steels.

CRUCIBLE-CAST STEEL.

For all purposes crucible-steel has proved to be superior
to all others; it is well known to all experienced and ob-
serving workers in steel that, given an equal composition,
crucible is stronger and more reliable in every way than
any of the other kinds of steel.

This may read like a mere dictum, and it might be asked
properly, What are the proofs ? .

The proofs are wanting for two reasons : first, because

A MANUAL FOB STEEL-USERS. 15

crucible-steel is so expensive that except for gun parts,
armor, and such uses where expense could be ignored, cru-
cible-steel never came into extensive use for structural
purposes; second, that while thousands upon thousands of
tests of the cheaper steels are recorded and available to
engineers very few of such tests have been made on cru-
cible-steel, simply because it has not been used for struc-
tural purposes.

On the other hand, intelligent makers of crucible-steel
have for self-preservation made careful study of the rela-
tive properties .of the different steels in order that they
might know what to expect from the cheaper processes.
In this way they have surrendered boiler-steel, spring-steel,
machinery-steel, battering-tool steel, cheap die-steel, and
many smaller applications; not because they could not pro-
duce a better article, but because the cheaper steels met the
requirements of consumers satisfactorily, and therefore they
could not be expected to pay a higher price for an article
whose superiority was not a necessity in their requirements.

Still this stated superiority is proven best by the fact
that many careful consumers who have special reasons for
studying durability as against first cost adhere to the
higher priced crucible-steel for such uses as, for instance,
parts of mining- and quarrying-drills, high-speed spindles,
in cotton-mills, and in expensive lathes and machines of
that kind.

This sort of testimony should be more conclusive than
that of interested steel-makers, because these men pay
their own money for the higher priced material, and be-
cause men who are most careful of the quality of their
produce and of their reputation are the most clear-
headed and most sensible men of their class; they have

16 STEEL:

the best business and the greatest success. Such men are
not fools; they may be depended upon to try everything of
promise with the greatest care, and to use only that thing
which pays them best. In fact such men do use the
cheaper steels freely wherever they can do so safely.

A good car-spring, carriage-spring, or wagon-spring is
made from Bessemer or open-hearth steel, a spring that
will wear out the car or carriage; it would be stupid then
to buy more expensive steel for such purposes, for even if
crucible-steel would wear out two cars or two wagons the
owner never expects to take the springs out of an old
wagon to put them under a new one.

On the other hand, the watch-spring maker or the clock-
spring maker will find a great advantage in using the
very best crucible-steel that can be made.

A sledge, a maul, or a hammer can be made of such ex-
cellent quality from properly selected Bessemer or open-
hearth steel that it would be foolish for makers of such
tools to continue to buy crucible-steel, even though they
knew it to be superior, for lower first cost in such cases
outweighs superiority that cannot be shown for. a number
of years.

Locomotive-boilers, crank-pins, slide-rods, connecting-
rods, and springs can be made of such good quality of
Bessemer or open-hearth steel that, like the " one-horse
shay," the whole machine will wear out at the same time
practically, and that a good long time; there would be no
reason in this case for using crucible-steel for one or more
of these parts, although twenty-five years ago it was by
means of crucible-steel that engineers learned to use steel
for these purposes.

A good cam for an ordinary machine, such as a shear or

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USEBS. 17

punch, may be made of Bessemer or 'open-hearth steel
where greater strength and endurance are required than
can be had in cast iron; on the other hand, makers of cams
for delicately adjusted high-speed machines where intricacy
and accuracy are necessary will touch nothing but the
vary best crucible-steel of fine-tool quality for their work.
It is of no use to suggest the greater cheapness of the
other steels; they have tried them thoroughly, and they
know that in their case the highest priced is the cheapest.
This superiority of crucible-steel has been doubted, be-
cause the claim appeared to rest solely upon the statements
of steel-makers, and not to have any scientific basis; there
is, however, a scientific basis for the fact. Given three
samples of steel of say the following composition :

Crucible, Open-hearth. Bessemer.

Carbon 1.00 1.00 1.00

Silicon 10 .10 .10

Phosphorus .05 .05 .05

Sulphur 02 .02 .02

Copper, arsenic, etc traces

Why should there be any difference in the strength of
the three? In mere tensile strength in an untempered
bar the difference might not be very great, although all
experienced persons would expect the crucible to show the
highest; but it is not necessary to make the claim, because
we have not enough tests of crucible-steel to enable us to
establish a mean, and one or two tests are insufficient to
establish a rule in any case.

There have been made, however, hundreds of tests of
hardened and tempered samples by the most expert per-
sons, with one invariable result: the crucible-steel is in-

18 STEEL:

comparably finer -and stronger than the others, and the
open-hearth is almost invariably stronger and finer than
the Bessemer.

Unfortunately for the argument these tests cannot be
recorded so as to be intelligible to the non-expert, because
we cannot tabulate the result of the touch of the expert
hand or the observation of the experienced eye.

For a time it was popular to call these differences
mysteries, and so let them pass; this, however, was not
satisfactory,- and the question was studied carefully for the
physical reasons which must exist.

Much thought led to the conclusion that the reason lay
with the three elements oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen;
they are known to exist in greater or less quantity in all
:ron and steel.

It is known that the presence of oxygen beyond certain
small limits produces red-shortness and general weakness;
it is probably a much more hurtful element than phospho-
rus or sulphur, but no quantitative method for its deter-
mination has been worked out ; there is an effort now
being made to develop' a simple and expeditious oxygen
determination, and it is to be hoped that it will be success-
ful.

In the crucible no more oxygen, hydrogen, or nitrogen
can get into the steel than is contained in the material
charged and in the atmosphere of the crucible, or than
may penetrate the walls of the crucible during melting.
In the open hearth the process is an oxidizing one, and
besides the charge is swept continuously by hot flames
containing all of these elements.

In the Bessemer process the conditions are worse still,

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 19

as these elements are all blown through the whole mass of
the steel.

We know the effect of oxygen and how to eliminate it
practically.

Percy gives the effects of nitrogen as causing hardness
and extreme brittleness, and giving to iron or steel a brassy
lustre. Such a brassy lustre may be seen frequently in
open-hearth or Bessemer steel, and occasionally in crucible-
steel. When seen in crucible-steel it is known to be due
to the fact that the cap of the crucible became displaced,
exposing the contents to the direct action of the flame.
Of the effect of hydrogen we know less; there is no reason
apparent why it may not be as potent as the others.

Ammonia in sufficient quantity to be detected by the
nose has often been observed in open-hearth and Bessemer
steel.

To settle the nitrogen question Prof. John W. Lang-
ley developed some years ago a very delicate and accurate
process for the determination of nitrogen even in minute
quantities; the process was tedious and expensive, so that
it was not adapted for daily use; it involved the careful
elimination of nitrogen from all of the reagents to be used,
requiring several days' work, in each case to prepare for
only a few nitrogen determinations.

By this process it was found, in every one of many trials,
that crucible -steel contained the least amount of nitrogen,
open-hearth steel "the next greater quantity, and Bessemer
steel the greatest amount. He found no exceptions to this.
For many years great efforts had been made both in
Europe and in the United States to make by the Bessemer
of the open-hearth process a cheap melting-product to

20 STEEL:

be used in the crucible instead of the expensive irons which
so far. have proved to be necessary to give the best results.

There appeared to be no difficulty in making a material
as pure chemically, or purer, than the most famous irons
in the world, and this material was urged upon the cruci-
ble-steel makers. Careful tests of such material failed to
produce the required article ; in fact it was demonstrated
over and over again that an inferior wrought iron would
produce a stronger steel than this very pure steel melting-
material, and crucible-steel makers were compelled to
adhere to the more costly irons to produce their finer
grades.

Prof. Langley determined the nitrogen in a given quan-
tity of open-hearth and Bessemer steel; this same material
was then melted in a crucible, and it was found that the
resulting ingots contained nearly as much nitrogen as the
original charge. The quantity was reduced slightly; still
•'this steel contained more nitrogen than any other sample
of crucible-steel that he had tested. The physical test of
this trial steel showed the usual weakness of the Bessemer
or open-hearth steel, as compared to crucible-steel.

The next step was to try to get rid of nitrogen by the
use of some affinity, as oxygen is removed by manganese.
Boron and titanium seemed to be the most feasible
elements; boron appeared to offer less chance of success,
and titanium was selected. A ferro-titanium containing
six per cent of titanium was imported from Europe at
some expense. As the most careful and exacting analyses of
this material failed to reveal a trace of titanium, it was not

After many futile efforts Langley succeeded, by means of

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 21

electric heat, in reducing rntile and producing a small
quantity of an alloy of iron and titanium. A trial of this
alloy, although not conclusive, led to the belief that such an
alloy could be used successfully to eliminate nitrogen; but
as its cost, about two dollars a pound, was prohibitory of
any commercial use, the subject was not pursued farther.

Although we know these elements only as gases, there is
no reason to suppose that their atoms may not be as potent,
when added to steel, as atoms of carbon, silicon, phosphorus,
or any other substance.

Such are the facts for crucible-steel as far as they are
known; it is vastly more expensive than any other kind of
steel, yet for the present it holds its own unique and valua-
ble place in the arts.

For all tools requiring a fine edge for cutting purposes,
such as lathe-tools, drills, taps, reamers, milling cutters,
axes, razors, pocket-knives, needles, graving- tools, etc.; for
fine dies where sharp outline and great endurance are
required; for fine springs and fine machinery parts and
fine files and saws, and for a hundred similar uses, crucible-
cast steel still stands pre-eminent, and must remain so
until some genius shall remove from the cheaper steels the
elements that unfit them for these purposes.

As stated before, crucible-steel is divided into fifteen or
more different tempers, ranging in carbon from .50 to 1.50.
Each of these tempers has its specific uses, and a few will
be pointed out in a general way.

.50 to .60 carbon is best adapted for hot work and for
battering-tools.

.60 to .70 carbon for hot work, battering-tools, and tools of
dull edge.

22 STEEL:

.70 to .80 carbon for battering-tools, cold-sets, and some
forms of reamers and taps.

.80 to .90 carbon for cold-sets, hand-chisels, drills, taps,
reamers., and dies.

.90 to 1.00 carbon for chisels, drills, dies, axes, knives, and
many similar purposes.

1.00 to 1.10 carbon for axes, hatchets, knives, large lathe-
tools, and many kinds of dies and drills if care be used in
tempering them.

1.10 to 1.50 carbon for lathe-tools, graving-tools, scribers,
scrapers, little drills, and many similar purposes.

The best all-around tool -steel is found between .90 and
1.10 carbon; steel that can be adapted safely and success-
fully to more uses than any other temper.

At somewhere from .90 to 1.00 carbon, iron appears to be
saturated with carbon, giving the highest efficiency in tools
and the highest results in the testing-machine except for
compressive strains. More will be said upon this point in
treating of the carbon-line.

Much more could be said about the uses for the different
tempers of steel; it would be easy to write out in great
detail the exact carbon which experience has shown to be
best adapted to any one of hundreds of different uses, but
it would only be confusing and misleading to a great
many people.

It is within the experience of every steel-maker that
men are just as variable as steel, and the successful steel-
maker must familiarize himself with the personal equations
of his patrons. One man on the sunny side of a street may
be making an excellent kind of' tool from a certain grade
and temper of steel, and be perfectly happy and prosperous
in its use. His competitor on the shady side of the street

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 23

may fail in trying to use the same steel for the same pur-
pose and condemn it utterly.

The know it all agent will condemn the latter man with
an intimation that his ears are too long, and so lose his
trade. The tactful agent will supply him with steel a
temper higher or a temper lower, until he hits upon the
right one, and so will retain both men on his list; and
both men will turn out equally good products.

Few men know their own personal equations, and the
best way for a steel-user to do is to tell the steel-maker
what he wants to accomplish, and put upon him the re-
sponsibility of selecting the best temper.

It costs no more to make and to provide one temper
than another; therefore the one inducement of the steel-
maker is to give his patron that which is best adapted to
his use. This plan puts all of the responsibility upon the
steel-maker, just where it ought to be, because he should
know more about the adaptability of his steel than any
other person.

BESSEMER STEEL.

Bessemer steel is probably the cheapest of all grades of
steel; that is to say, it can be made so rapidly, so continu-
ously, and in such enormous quantities that a greater
output per dollar invested can be made than by either of
the other processes. Again, the work is controlled and
operated by machinery to a much greater extent than in
the other processes; therefore the cost of labor per ton of
product both for skilled and unskilled labor is less than in
the crucible or the open-hearth method.

This being the case, it might be inferred that the result
would be the eventual driving out of all other steels by
this, the cheapest. This would be the inevitable result

24 STEEL:

if Bessemer steel were as well adapted to all purposes as
either of the other kinds of steel; there are limitations
which prevent this.

The source of heat in the Bessemer process is in the
combustion of the elements of the charge, there is no ex-
traneous source of heat; therefore, if the heat be too cold,
there is no way to remedy it unless it be by the addition
of ferro-silicon and more blowing; if it be too hot, it may
be allowed to stand a few minutes to cool. Still in either
case the remedy is somewhat doubtful. This limitation
must not be taken as being fatal to good work, for in skil-
ful hands such cases are rare, and the product is generally
fully up to the standard of good work.

As there is no known sure way of stopping the blow at
a given point in the operation to produce a steel of re-
quired carbon, it is usual to blow clear down, that is, to
burn out all of the carbon practically and then to re- car-
bonize by the addition of spiegel-eisen or ferro-manganese.
It is necessary, also, to add the manganese in one of these
forms to remove, the oxygen introduced during the blow;
this must be done quickly, and all accomplished before
the metal becomes too cold for pouring into ingots.

So little time for reactions is available that it is doubtful
if the material is ever quite as homogeneous as it can be
made by either of the other processes.

Notwithstanding these limitations, which are not men-
tioned to throw doubt upon the process, but merely to in-
form readers fully so as to enable them to judge rightly as
to what may be expected, enormous quantities of good,
reliable Bessemer steel are made to meet many require-
ments.

For good, serviceable, cheap rails Bessemer steel stands

A MANUAL FOR STKEL-USEBS. 25

pre-eminent, and if it found no other use it would be diffi-
cult to overestimate the benefit to the world of this one
great success,

Bessemer steel is used largely for a great number of pur-
poses, Bessemer billets being now as regular an article of
commerce as pig iron.

For wire for all ordinary purposes; for skelp to be
worked into butt-welded and lap-welded tubing; for wire
nails, shafting, machinery-steel, tank-plates, and for many
other uses, Bessemer steel has absorbed the markets almost
entirely.

For common cutlery, files, shovels, picks, battering-tools,
and many such uses it contests the market with open-
hearth steel; and while many engineers now specify that
their structural shapes, plates, beams, angles, etc., must be
of open-hearth steel, there are many eminent engineers
who see no need for this discrimination, they being satis-
fied that if their requirements are met the process by
which they are met is a matter of indifference.

OPEN-HEARTH STEEL.

As in the Bessemer process, so in the open-hearth, car-
bon and silicon are burned out, phosphorus is removed on
the basic hearth, and the sulphur of the charge remains in
the steel. During the operation oxygen and nitrogen are
absorbed by the steel, although not quite so largely as in
the Bessemer process, so that practically the chemical limi-
tations are the same in each.

The open-hearth reductions are much slower than in the
Bessemer, each heat requiring from five to eight hours for
its completion; the furnace must be operated by a skilled
man of good judgment, so that more time and more skilled

26 STEEL:

labor per ton of product are required than in the Bessemer,
and the making of an equal quality as cheaply in the open-
hearth is problematical. The open-hearth has extraneous
sources of heat at the command and under the control of
the operator, and there need be no cold heats, and no too
hot heats.

The time for reactions is much longer, and for this
reason they ought to be more complete, and they are so in
good hands; yet it is a fact that, as the operation is a quiet
one compared to the Bessemer, and not nearly so powerful
and energetic, a careless or unskilful operator may pro-
duce in the open hearth an uneven result that is quite as
bad as anything that can be brought out of a Bessemer
converter. The process that eliminates the human factor
has not yet been invented.

For fine boiler-plates, armor-plates, and gun parts open-
hearth steel has won its place as completely as has the
crucible for fine-tool steel or the Bessemer for rails.

For all intermediate products there is- a continued race
and keen competition, so that it is impossible to draw any
hard and fast line between the products of the three proc-
esses where they approach each other; the only clear dis-
tinctions are at the other extremes.

Owing to the power to hold and manipulate a heat in
the open-hearth it is safe to say that it is superior to the
Bessemer in the manufacture of steel castings; and owing
to its much greater cheapness it is difficult for the crucible
to compete with it at all in this branch of manufacture.

In conclusion of this chapter it is safe to say that in
good hands these processes are ail good, and each has its
own special function to perform.

A MANUAL FOB STEEL-USERS. 2?

III.

ALLOY STEELS AND THEIR USES.

IN addition to the four general kinds of steel treated of
in the last chapter there are a number of steels in the
market which contain other metals, and which may be
termed properly alloy steels, to distinguish them from
carbon steel, or the regular steels of world-wide use which
depend upon the quantity of carbon present for their
properties. The most generally known of the alloy steels
is the so-called Self-Hardening steel.

Self-hardening steel is so called because when it is
heated to the right temperature, — about a medium orange
color, — and is then allowed to cool in the air, it becomes
very hard. This steel is so easily strained that it is im-
possible, as a rule, to quench it in water without cracking
it. It may be -quenched in a blast of air without crack-
ing, and so be made much harder than if it be allowed to
cool more slowly in a quiet atmosphere. If it be quenched
in oil or water, it will become excessively hard, much
harder than when quenched, in air, and it will almost in-
variably be cracked, or if it be not cracked it will be so
excessively brittle as to be of little use.

Self-hardened steel is so hard in what may be called its
natural condition, that is, in ordinary bars, that it cannot
be machined, drilled, planed, or turned in a lathe.

By keeping it in an annealing-furnace at about bright

28 STEEL:

orange heat for about twenty-four to thirty-six hours, and
then covering it with hot sand or ashes in the furnace,
and allowing about the same time for it to cool, it may
be annealed pretty thoroughly so that it may bo machined
readily.

When annealed in this way and formed into cutters of
irregular shape, or dies, it has been found so far not to be
economical or well adapted to such work, so that up to the
present time annealing is more of a scientific than a useful
fact.

Self-hardened steel has the useful property of retaining
its hardness when heated almost to redness; therefore it
may be used as a lathe or similar cutter upon hard work,
such as cutting cast iron and other metals, at a much
higher speed than is possible with ordinary steel, which
would be softened by the heat generated by the high speed.
This property makes self-hardened steel very useful and
economical for many purposes.

Self -hardened steel is an alloy of iron, carbon, tungsten,
and manganese, and some brands contain chromium in
addition to these, and it is claimed, and probably truly,
that the chromium improves the quality of the steel.

It was supposed for a long time that tungsten was the
hardener that gave to self -hardened steel its peculiar prop-
erties. By means of an open hearth, steel was produced
containing about 3$ tungsten and little carbon and man-
ganese. This steel worked like any mild steel, except that
it was hot-short and difficult to forge. It was not hard
and had no hardening properties: that is, it did not harden
in the ordinary sense when quenched in water. The addi-
tion of carbon to this steel, keeping the manganese low,
produced a steel very difficult to work, which would harden

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 29

like ordinary steel when quenched, and which had no
self -harden ing properties whatever. The addition of 2%f0
to 3$ of manganese to this steel produced self -hardening
steel having the usual properties.

Manganese, then, is the metal that gives the self-harden-
ing property, and this might have been anticipated by
considering the properties of Had field's manganese steel,
which, when it contains above 7$ manganese, cannot be
annealed so that it can be machined or drawn into wire.
From this it might be inferred that tungsten is not a nec-
essary constituent of self -hardened steel; that it performs
an important function will be shown presently. Tests of
the iron-tungsten alloy low in carbon gave only a small
increase in strength above ordinary low cast steel contain-
ing little carbon; it was difficult and troublesome to work,
and more expensive than the common steels, so that its
production presented no advantages. When carbonized, it
was fine-grained and could be made exceedingly hard; it
was brittle, and compared to very ordinary cast steel com-
paratively worthless.

In self-hardened steel tungsten is the mordant that
holds the carbon in solution and enables the steel to retain
its hardness at comparatively high temperatures. That it
does hold the carbon in solution may be proved in a mo-
ment by a beautiful test, first observed by Prof. John W.
Langley.

When a piece of carbon steel is pressed against a rapidly
running emery wheel, there is given off a shower of brill-
iant sparks which flash out in innumerable white, tiny
stars of great beauty; it is accepted that this brilliancy is
due to the explosive combustion of particles of carbon.

When a steel containing as much as three per cent of

30 STEEL:

tungsten is pressed against the wheel, the entire absence of
these brilliant flashes is at once noticeable, and if there be
an occasional little flash it only serves to emphasize the
absence of the myriads.

Instead there is an emission of a comparatively small
number of dull particles, and there is clinging to the
wheel closely a heavy band of a deep, rich red color.
This red streak is distinctive of the presence of tungsten.

By testing various pieces it was soon observed that dif-
ferent quantities of tungsten gave different sizes of red
streaks; as tungsten decreased the width of the band di-
minished and the number and brilliancy of carbon sparks
increased. As little as .10 tungsten will show a fine red
line amidst a brilliant display of sparks, and it soon be-
came possible to determine so closely by the streak the
quantity of tungsten present that the ordinary analyses
for tungsten became unnecessary, except in occasional
important cases where analysis was used merely to confirm
the testimony of the wheel.

Self-hardening steel, then, is a steel which, owing to
the presence of manganese and tungsten, hardens when
quenched in quiet air, and which retains its hardness
almost up to a red heat.

It may be forged between the temperatures from orange
to bright orange; it cannot be worked safely outside of
this range. The more quickly it is quenched the harder
it will be; and it may be annealed so that it can be ma-
chined readily. Therefore it is not self -hardening; it
simply has all of the properties of carbon steel modified
profoundly by tungsten and manganese. If a piece of
this steel will not harden sufficiently by cooling in the air
quietly, that difficulty may be remedied by cooling it in

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 31

an air-blast; if quenching in an air-blast will not give
sufficient hardness, the steel had better be rejected, for
quenching in oil or water means almost certain destruction.

As stated before, the range of temperature in which self-
hardened steel can be forged safely is much smaller than
for a high-carbon steel; it is harder at this heat than car-
bon steel and not so plastic, so that it requires more care
and more heats in working it to tool-shapes.

This steel is so sensitive that it often occurs in redress-
ing it that it will crumble at a heat that was all right in
the first working. This difficulty may be remedied by
first cutting off the shattered part with a sharp tool, — it
must be cut hot, — then heating the piece up to nearly a
lemon color, heating it through without soaking it in the
fire, and then allowing it to cool slowly in a warm, dry
place. After this treatment the steel may be heated and
worked as at first. This treatment does not anneal the
steel soft, because the heat is not continued long. enough,
and the cooling is not sufficiently slow; it does relieve the
strains in the steel, so that it is plastic and malleable.

This treatment is good in any high steel which has be-
come refractory from previous working.

Self-hardened steel is not as strong in the hardened con-
dition as good high-carbon steel; it has not been used suc-
cessfully for cutting chilled cast iron, for instance. If
made hard enough to cut a chill, it is so brittle that the
cutting-edge will crumble instead of cutting; if the temper
be let down enough to stop the crumbling, the steel will be
softer than the chill, and the edge will curl up instead of
cutting.

Owing to the retention of hardness at a higher temper-
ature than carbon steel will bear this steel is capable of

32 STEEL:

doing a great amount of work at high speed, so that for
much lathe- work it is cheap at almost any price.

Owing to its brittle, friable nature its use is limited to
the simpler forms of tools, and to a narrower range of work
than is possible with carbon steel.

CHROME STEEL.

An alloy of chromium with carbon steel has been before
the public for many years, and greater claims have been
made for it than experience seems to justify. Chrome teel
is fine-grained and very hard in the hardened state, and it
will do a large amount of work at the first dressing; upon
redressing it deteriorates much more rapidly than carbon
steel and becomes inferior; it is believed that this is due
to a rapid oxidation of the chromium.

It is claimed for it that it will endure much higher heats
without injury than carbon steels of the same temper. In-
tending purchasers will do well to satisfy themselves upon
these points before investing too heavily.

SILICON STEEL.

Steel containing two to three per cent of silicon was put
upon the markets, and great claims were made for it.

It is exceedingly fine-grained and hardens very hard; it
is brittle, much more liable to crack in hardening than
ordinary steel, and it is not nearly so strong as carbon steel.

It is made cheaply enough as far as melting goes, but it
may not be melted dead, and therefore sound, because long-
continued high heat will destroy it; therefore the ingots
are more honeycombed than well -melted carbon-steel in-
gots. The steel will not bear what is known as a welding-
heat in steel- working; it is hot -short; for this reason the

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 33

bars are more seamy than is usual in carbon steeL Added
to this the hot-shortness makes it so difficult to work that
the labor cost is high. Altogether, then, silicon steel is
expensive, and it presents no extra good qualities in
compensation.

MANGANESE STEEL.

The glassy hardness, brittleness, and friability of ferro-
manganese and of spiegel-eisen are well known; these are
products of the blast-furnace, and the manganese ranges all
the way from say 10$ up to 80$.

Steel containing from 1$ to 3$ of manganese is about as
brittle and almost as unworkable as spiegel-eisen, and a fair
deduction would be that manganese above very small limits
will not form any useful alloy with iron. Many a general
law of nature has been based upon much more meagre data
and has been announced with a great nourish of trumpets;
such discoveries are usually heard of no more after the first
blare has died away.

K. A. Hadfield, of Sheffield, England, is an inquirer who
wants to know, and who is willing to travel the whole road
in order to find out. Hadfield discovered that an alloy of
iron and manganese containing from 7$ to 20$ of man-
ganese was a compound possessing many remarkable prop-
erties. This alloy is now known as manganese steel.

Manganese steel is both hard and tough to a degree not
found in any other metal or alloy.

It is so hard and strong that it cannot be machined with
the best of tools made of the finest steel. Castings made
of it may be battered into all sorts of shapes as completely
as if they were made of the mildest dead-soft steel; still
they are too hard to be machined.

34 STEEL:

The ordinary hardening process toughens this steel in-
stead of hardening it to brittleness.

This steel is non-magnetic, and this property alone would
give it exceedingly great valut if the steel could only be
worked into the required shapes.

Up to this time all attempts to anneal this steel have
failed, and this persistent hardness is the best proof that
manganese is the real hardener in self-hardened steel. So
far carbon and manganese have not* been separated in this
steel or in any other. Persistent attempts have been made
to produce manganese steel low in carbon, but all have been
failures, because any operation that burned out the carbon
took the manganese with it. The hope was that a non-
magnetic alloy might be produced that would be soft
enough to work. This may yet be accomplished, and if it
should be another great step in the arts will have been
taken.

Hard, tough, strong, nonmagnetic — what great things
may not come out of this when it has been worked out
finally ?

Since this was written carbonless manganese has been
produced which is claimed to contain 98$ + of manganese
and no carbon, but at present it is sold at $1 per pound.
If it can be produced more cheaply, it may lead to a work-
able non-magnetic alloy of iron and manganese which
may prove to be of great value to electricians and to
watchmakers.

The uses of manganese steel are large and growing, and
it must be regarded as having an established and a promi-
nent place.

It has been stated that in self-hardened steel and in
manganese steel manganese is the hardener; it should be

A MANUAL FOB STEEL-USERS. 35

borne in mind that carbon is always present, that it is the
one great hardener, but its hardening property in the
absence of manganese depends directly upon rapidity of
cooling. By rapid cooling steel containing carbon is made
harder than glass, and by slow cooling it may be made
softer and more ductile than ordinary wrought iron.

Self-hardened steel may be annealed so that it can be
machined, but it is by no means as soft and ductile as well-
annealed carbon steel. Manganese steel has not been an-
nealed at all; it cannot be annealed by any of the well-
known annealing processes; some new way of doing it
must be discovered. Therefore it is proper to say that
the peculiar hardening properties of these two steels are
due to manganese.

NICKEL STEEL.

The addition of a few per cent of nickel to mild steel
adds greatly to its strength — so much so that nickel steel
is now world-renowned as used in armor-plate for navy
vessels, and for great guns. Recent reports from the ord-
nance bureaus indicate that it will also be of great use in
the barrels of small arms, by means of which they may be
made lighter, and still of sufficient strength. Nickel is so
expensive and it adds so much to the cost of steel that its
use for ordinary structural purposes, bridges, etc., has not
been found to be economical.

Some years ago careful experiments were made with
nickel alloy in a fine grade of high-carbon tool-steel to
find out whether such steel would be improved as much as
are the mild steels.

In such case the expense would not count, for if the

36 STEEL:

best steel can be made better there are many users who
would gladly pay a higher price for a better service.

The results were not encouraging. The high-carbon
nickel steel was not as strong as the same quality of
steel without nickel; the mixture seemed to be imperfect,
containing little dark specks, supposed to be carbon
thrown into the graphitic state. The steel did not refine
as well and was not as strong as the carbon steel.

All of this applies to high-carbon tool-steel, hardened
and tempered; no tests were made of the steel unhardened,
for they would have been of no practical use.

ALUMINUM STEEL.

When a heat of steel is boiling violently, is wild, and
unfit to be poured, the addition of a minute quantity of
aluminum will have the effect of quieting it quickly.
Half an ounce to an ounce of aluminum to a ton of steel
will be enough usually, and for this purpose aluminum
has become useful to steel-makers. If a little too much
aluminum be added, the ingots will pipe from end to end;
therefore the use of aluminum is restricted to small quan-
tities. Experiments have shown that a considerable per-
centage of aluminum adds no good properties to steel;
therefore aluminum steel so called may be treated later
under a different heading.

A MANUAL FOE STEEL-USEES. 37

CAKBON.

OP all of the abundant elements of nature carbon is
presented in the greatest variety of forms, and admits of
the greatest number of useful applications.

In the form of the diamond it is the hardest of sub-
stances, and is the base used in determining the compara-
tive hardness of all others.

In the form of graphite it is soft and smooth, and is one
of the best and most durable of lubricants.

In the form of soot it is probably the softest of solids.

In the form of coal it is the one great and abundant
fuel of the world, while as graphite again it is one of the
best of refractory materials.

Hard, soft, highly combustible, almost infusible, refrac-
tory, it lends itself to the greatest variety of useful appli-
cations. To the iron- and steel-maker or worker it is
simply indispensable; as charcoal or coke it is the fuel of
the smelter; as gas, either carbon monoxide or as a hydro-
carbon, it is the cheapest and most manageable fuel for
melting and for all operations requiring heat.

As graphite, plumbago, mixed with a little fire-clay as a
binder, it is the best material for crucibles in which to
melt metals; as soot it forms the best coating for moulds
into which metals are to be cast.

Durable beyond almost any other substance, it would

38 STEEL:

make the very best paint for metal structures if there were
any known way to make it adhere.

CARBON IN IRON.

Carbon may be introduced hito iron in any quantity
from a few hundredths of one per cent as usually found in
wrought iron, and in what is known as dead-soft steel, up
to about four per cent as found in cast iron. By the addi-
tion of manganese as high as six or seven per cent of car-
bon has been introduced into iron. Carbon does not form
a true alloy with iron, neither does it form any stable
chemical compound. Its condition in iron seems to be as
variable as it is in nature, and sometimes it has been sup-
posed to be as capricious as it is variable. It is hoped that
the reader of these pages will find that there is no caprice
about it, that its action is governed by as sure laws as any
in nature, and that certain results may be predicated, upon
any treatment to which it is subjected.

The theories of its actions are as numerous and variable
as are the actions themselves, and they will be treated in a
separate chapter, this chapter being confined to a state-
ment of known facts.

As stated in Chap. I, carbon may be introduced into
iron by heating carbon and iron in contact when air is ex-
cluded; an J, conversely, carbon is burned out of cast iron
by the Bessemer and open-hearth processes to reduce the
cast iron to cast steel.

In the crucible any quantity of carbon may be obtained
in steel by melting a mixture of high blister-steel and
wrought iron, or cast iron and wrought iron, or by charg-
ing with wrought iron the necessary quantity of coke or

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 39

charcoal. When using plumbago crucibles, the iron takes
up some carbon from the crucible; also -the spiegel-eisen
or ferro -manganese used adds some carbon; and for these
two sources of carbon the melter allows when he decides
upon the quantity of charcoal needed.

Kesults from crucible-melting are not strictly uniform;
even if every charge were weighed in a chemical balance
accurately the product would not be uniform, because one
crucible gives off more carbon than another; in one cru-
cible a little more charcoal may be burned and escape as
gas than in another; and most variable of all, unless the
charcoal has been dried thoroughly, is the quantity of
moisture in the charcoal. One charge of charcoal may be
dry, and the next may contain as much as twenty-five per
cent of moisture; obviously equal weights in such a case
would not give equal quantities of carbon to the steel.

In crucible- steel this is no disadvantage; a skilful mixer
will get from 75$ to 90$ of his ingots of the desired tem-
per; the other ingots will all be in demand for other uses,
and as he can separate them all with absolute certainty by
ocular inspection, as described before, he labors under no
fear of bad results.

In the Bessemer process it is usual to burn out all of the
carbon and then to add the required amount in the spiegel;
for structural steels and for rails this method is satisfac-
tory. For high steel — from fifty to a hundred or more car-
bon— the spiegel method does not answer so well, because it
increases the quantity of manganese to too great an
amount; higher carbon is then sometimes put in by the
addition of a given quantity of pure pig iron previously
melted, or by putting coke in the ladle, but this is very
uncertain on account of the tendency of the coke to

40 STEEL:

float, and be dissipated as a gas instead of entering the
steel.

The Darby method is to place in the way of the stream
of steel as it is poured from the vessel to the ladle a
refractory-lined, funnel-shaped vessel filled with finely
divided, but not powdered, coke. As the stream rushes
through the coke it absorbs carbon with great rapidity, and
it is asserted that the currents and eddies formed in the
ladle by the rush of the stream cause an even distribution
of carbon. That carbon will be taken up in this way is
certain; that a required amount, evenly distributed, can be
obtained is not so certain.

In the acid open-hearth as in the Bessemer process for
milder steels it is usual to burn the carbon out almost en-
tirely, and then to add the desired amount with the spiegel.
Higher carbon may be obtained by the addition of pure
pig iron, or by using carbon bricks pasted together with
tar and weighted with iron turnings; these bricks may be
pushed under the surface in different parts of the bath,
and in this way the carbon can be distributed pretty
evenly. In good practice now the melt is stopped at the
carbon desired with great success, thus saving time and
expense. In the basic open-hearth the melter, by the use
of a little care and good judgment, stops his melt at the
required carbon, and so avoids any additional operations,
unless his charge is excessively high in phosphorus and
his steel is to be very low in the same ; in that case he may
have to melt clear down and re-carbonize.

Steel of 130 carbon with phosphorus <.05 may be
made on the basic hearth from a charge containing 10 to
12 phosphorus without melting below 130 carbon,

If high-carbon Bessemer steel is no* uniform, it te not tf

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 41

be wondered at, but as a matter of fact it is usually found
to be fairly uniform, sufficiently so to work well.

If open-hearth steel of high carbon is not uniform, it is
clearly because the maker would not take a little trouble
to have it so.

Assuming that for convenience cast steel is graded for
carbon content by even tens, and that the different tempers
are separated half-way between the tens, we have:

Carbon.

.10 including from .05 to .15

.20 " " .16 " .25

.30 " " .26 " .35

.40 " « .36 " .45

.50 « « .46 « .55

.60 « « .56 " .65

.70 « « .66 « .75

.80 « " .76 " .85

.90 « « .86 " .95

1.00 « " .96 " 1.05

1.10 « " 1.06 " 1.15

1.20 « « 1.16 " 1.25

1.30 « " 1.26 " 1.35

1.40 " " 1.36 " 1.45

1.50 « « 1.46 " 1.55

This covers the usual commercial range from what is
known as dead-soft steel up to a high, lathe-temper steel.

Higher steels are used sometimes, even up to 225 carbon,
but they are so exceptional that it is not worth while to
con ti nue the list above 150.

This list allows a variation of .05 carbon above and below

42 STEEL:

the datum of each temper; some margin must be had of
course, and this is sufficient in the hands of a careful
steel-maker; it is found in practice to be satisfactory to
the user. Even in the highest lathe-steel where the strains
from hardening are the greatest, because the change in
volume due to a degree of temperature is the greatest, a
variation of three or four points above and below the mean
does not make enough difference in the results to throw a
skilful temperer off from his desired conditions.

On the other hand, a difference of a full temper will
throw the most skilful worker off from the track, and so
that much variation is not allowable. For instance, if a
man be working 130 carbon, and he should receive a lot
of steel of 120 carbon, he would get his work too soft in
following his regular methods; then if he doubted himself,
as he would be apt to do, and raised his heat to correct his
supposed aberration, he would get his work too hard, coarse-
grained, and brittle; if he tried to correct this by draw-
ing to a lower temper color, his tools would be too soft.
Again, if he received a lot of steel of 140 carbon and pro-
ceeded in his regular way, he would get a lot of cracked
tools. So that in either case the result would be confusion.
It is probable that in almost any case either 120 or 140
carbon would make a thoroughly good tool if the temperer
knew what he was working with and adapted his heats to
the carbon. But he does not know of the variation, and
even if he did he would say, very rightly, that he did not
propose to make daily changes in his methods to suit the
convenience or the carelessness of the steel-maker.

It must not be understood, however, that this narrow
range for each temper limits the capacity of the steel; it
merely gives the limit for regi^ar easy working.

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 43

To illustrate : A good lathe-tool may be made of 100-car-
bon steel, arid of 150 carbon; but no worker could use
these tempers indiscriminately, nor even alternately,
although he knew which was which, because he could not
change all of his heats say every five minutes and turn out
satisfactory work. A spring of given size, and to carry a
given load, may be made equally good of 60-carbon steel
or of 140 carbon, and such work is done frequently in
shops that are attached to steel- works; but the spring-
maker must be told beforehand what he is to work with,
and he must be given enough of one kind of steel to
make say a day's work, so that he can go along regularly.
The springs will be good, but the one containing 140 carbon
will have the highest elasticity and the most life, although
both will have the same modulus of elasticity. The spring-
maker who buys his steel will not submit to any such varia-
tions, and he ought not to be asked to do it, because one
temper of steel costs no more than another, 'and the select-
ing out and separating the tempers is only a matter of a
little care.

Is it practicable to keep steel uniform in carbon within
such narrow limits ?

In crucible-steel practice it is very easy to do so. All in-
gots of 60 carbon upwards up to four or four and one
half inches square may be broken completely off at the top,
and then the clean fracture will indicate the quantity of
carbon invariably, and after the ingot has been glanced at
and marked properly it is as easy to put it on its proper
pile as to put it on any other. In a good light a compe-
tent inspector will mark thirty or forty ingots per minute
and do it correctly; it is as easy to the trained eye as it is
to read a printed page.

44 STEEL:

This inspection is so important that it shonld never be
neglected. It is not costly, much less than a dollar a
ton.

With larger ingots only a piece can be broken off from
the edge, but if the topper does his work properly, enough
can be taken off to show the temper clearly. Large ingots
containing the contents of a number of crucibles are liable
to unevenness of temper from having uneven mixtures in
the pots'and from bad teeming into the moulds; this can be
detected usually in the ingot inspection, and if not it can
be found later during another inspection. Such variations
are often called segregations. This question of segregation
will be discussed in a future chapter.

In the Bessemer and the open-hearth practice ocular
inspection of ingots to determine carbon is not used.

Enough examinations have been made to show that the
fractures, although differing from those of crucible-steel,
are quite as characteristic, and ocular inspection could be
used. The ingots are large usually and to handle and top
them would be expensive; but the heats are also large, —
from five tons up to thirty tons in one heat, — and as they
are supposed to be homogeneous, one chemical carbon
analysis is enough for each heat.

Below 50 carbon a quick color analysis is accurate enough;
above 50 carbon combustion should be used, for in high
carbons the color test in the best hands is only the wildest
guess-work.

The ten-point range of carbon is far more difficult to
attain in high-carbon open-hearth practice than in the
crucible. In one case where the limit fixed in a specifica-
tion was 90 to 110 "carbon, two full tempers, one of the
most skilful and successful concerns in the world failed to

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 45

meet the specification in twenty-ton and thirty-ton fur-
naces.

It was supposed at first that the trouble came from using
different heats, and large lots of billets were sent out with
the heat number stamped on each billet. The same varia-
tions were found in every heat, the carbon ranging from
80 to 120. The specification was met without any trouble
in five-ton furnace.

This illustration should not lead to the conclusion that
practically uniform steel cannot be obtained ; there is little
doubt that if the 30-ton heats had been stirred thoroughly
in the furnace the required limits would have been obtained.

Neither is it to be understood that the same variation
would occur in mild steel under 30 carbon. A call for 20
carbon would not result in steel ranging from below 10 to
above 30, — such a result would show gross carelessness on
the part of the melter, — the variation would go by per-
centage; thus the variation in the high steel is from 15$
below to 15$ above the mean of 100, or even as much as
20$.

If 20-carbon steel be required, a variation of 20$ would
give a range from 16 to 24 carbon, or well within the
limits of one temper.

This matter will be considered farther under the head
of Segregation.

The appropriate applications of the different tempers of
steel have been stated in a general way, with the advice
that for all tool purposes it is better to leave the selection
of the temper to the steel-maker; also in structural work
it may prove to be better to leave the question of temper,
or carbon content, to the steel-maker, who should know

46 STEEL .*

how to meet any specification that is within the capacity
of steel. On the other hand, every engineer should know
what is attainable, and an effort to give this information in
more definite form will be made in later chapters. A gen-
eral view will now be taken of what may be called the
carbon-line.

Let the horizontal line represent iron, the inclined line
iron plus carbon, and the verticals physical properties. '

We do not know the physical properties of pure iron.
Assuming them to be- uniform, let the vertical at .05 repre-
sent the tensile, torsional, transverse, or compressional
strength of steel of 5 carbon; then for every increment of
carbon up to 90 to 100 there will be an increase of strength
to resist any of these strains, increasing in such regular
amounts as to make the resulting carbon-line practically
straight, as shown in the sketch. Above 100 carbon these
resistances will all decrease, except resistance to compression.

So far as it is known, compressive strength increases
slightly with the carbon, until cast iron is fairly reached;
then the presence of silicon, and the fact that we are deal
ing with a casting instead of forged or rolled metal, causes
a rapid fall in all resistances until the strength is below
that of 5-carbon steel.

With increase of carbon there is a reduction of ductility,
so that the extension of length and reduction of area

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 47

decrease as the strength increases. In every case the engi-
neer must decide how little ductility he can do with safely
in securing the ultimate strength or the elastic limit he
may require.

The highest strength and the greatest ductility cannot
be had together; they are inverse functions one of the
other.

If the exact resistances due to carbon were known along
the whole line, it would be of great value to give them here
but nearly all of the thousands of tests published are in-
fluenced by the quantities of silicon, phosphorus, sulphur,
manganese, or oxides present, and an effort to determine
the effects of the carbon-line exactly would be hazardous.

Kirkaldy's tests of Fagersta steel, published in 1876,
furnish a valuable guide in this direction.

Webster's experiments on the effects of the different
elements, phosphorus, manganese, etc., are interesting and
valuable, but he has not yet tested a complete carbon-line
with no other variables.

It has been stated time and again by experienced steel-
makers that the best steel, the most reliable under all cir-
cumstances, is that which comes nearest to pure iron and
carbon.

Some intelligent steel-makers, and engineers cast doubts
upon this statement, and assert that because phosphorus
up to a certain limit, or manganese, or silicon, or in fact
it maybe said almost any element, added to dead-soft steel
will give an increase of strength, therefore the presence
of one or more of these elements is not only not harmful,
but beneficial.

As a matter of fact, however, every one of these elements
is harmful, either in producing cold-shortness, or red-short-

48 STEEL:

ness, or brittleness, and not one of them will add any good
quality to steel that may not be obtained better by the use
of carbon. Given a uniform minimum content of these
impurities, the carbon-line may be depended upon to fur-
nish any desirable quality that is obtainable in steel; and
it is certain, always sure, that that steel which is the near-
est to pure carbon and iron will endure the most punish-
ment with the least harm.

That is to say, that such a steel when overheated a little,
or overworked, or subjected to any of the irregularities that
are inevitable in shop practice, will suffer less permanent
harm than a steel of equal strength where there is less car-
bon and the additional strength is given by any other
known substance.

It is difficult to show this from testing-machine data,
indeed it is doubtful if any such data exist, but experience
in the steel-works, in the bridge- and machine-shops, and
in the field proves it to be true. For further discussion of
this question see Chap. X.

The effects of a small difference in phosphorus or in
silicon contents are shown plainly and unmistakably in
high-carbon steel, and not so plainly in low-carbon steel ;
but as there is no known hard and fast line that divides
low steel, medium steel, and high steel, so there is no
marked difference in their properties. The same rules
hold all along the line, the same laws govern all of the way
through.

There is no set of properties peculiar to low steel and
another set peculiar to high steel ; the same laws govern
all, and differences are those of degree and not of law.

Given three samples of steel of the following composi-
tions:

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 49

No. 1. No. 2. No. 3.

Silicon 02 .20 .02

Phosphorus 01 .01 .02

Sulphur 005 .005 .005

Manganese 100 .100 .100

Carbon 1.100 1.100 1.100

A skilful worker, not knowing the composition of any,
will pick them out invariably by tempering them and test-
ing them with a hand-hammer and by inspecting the frac-
tures.

He will pronounce No. 1 to be the best and the strongest
in every way; No. 2 to be not quite as strong as No. 1, and
more liable to crack from a little variation in heat ; No. 3
to be not so strong as No. 1, and that it will not come
quite as fine as either of the others, and, like No. 2, it will
not stand as much variation in heat as No. 1.

Give a ton of each to a skilful axe-maker, from which he
will make one thousand axes of each, and he will be sure
to report No. 1 all right; No. 2 good steel, more loss from
cracked axes than in No. 1.

No. 3 good steel, some inclination to crack; it will not
refine as well as No. 1 and is not as strong.

This is no guess-work, nor is it a fancy case; it is simple
fact, borne out by long experience.

Give a skilful die-maker one hundred blocks of each to
be made into dies. He will not break one of No. 1 in
hardening them; he will probably break five to ten of No.
2; and if he breaks none of No. 3 — a doubtful case — he
will find in use that No. 1 will do from twice to twenty
times as much work as either of the others. If he is mak-
ing expensive dies, — many dies cost hundreds of dollars

50 STEEL :

each for the engraving, — he will think No. 1 cheap at
25 cents a pound, and either of the others dear at 15 cents
a pound.

In such steel, then, the absence of a few points of silicon,
or of a point or two of phosphorus, is worth easily 10 cents
a pound.

Now let the carbon in these three steels be reduced to 10,
making them the mildest structural steel. The differences
to be found in the testing-machine in tensile strength,
elastic limit, extension, and reduction of area will be
almost or altogether nothing; in forging, flanging, punch-
ing, etc., under ordinary conditions differences would not be
observable; therefore there would be no practical difference
in value. But let the silicon be raised to 30 or the phos-
phorus to 10, — the Bessemer limit, — or let both be raised
together, and both the testing-machine and shop practice
would show a marked difference.

This shows that in the absence of carbon the action of
these elements is sluggish as compared to their effects in
the presence of high carbon, or in the low-carbon steels
their effects are not so observable. That their influence is
there, there can be no doubt, but if it be not enough to
endanger the material it is not worth while to take it into
account.

Is it safe and wise, then, for steel-users to ignore composi-
tion?

Users of tool-steel may do so safely, because the smallest
variations will manifest themselves so unmistakably that
they give immediate warning, and the steel-maker must
keep his product up to a rigid standard of excellence or
lose his character and his trade. Many of the ablest users
of structural steel take a similar ground, and say, We

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 51

have nothing to do with method or composition if the
material meets our tests.

It is believed that if these men knew how easy it is for a
skilful worker to doctor temporarily an off heat by a little
manipulation, and how dangerous the same may become
by a little off practice in the field, they would be convinced
that some limits should be put upon composition, espe-
cially if they could realize that a reasonable specification
would add nothing to cost, as competition would take care
of that.

The reader is referred again to Chap. X on impurities.

52 STEEL:

V.

GENERAL PROPEETIES OF STEEL.

STEEL is very sensitive to heat. In general it may be stated
that, starting with cold steel, every degree of heat added
causes a change in size and in structure, until the limit is
reached where disintegration begins. The changes are not
continuous ; there are one or two breaks in the line, notably
at the point where we have what is called recalescence ; this
is a marked phenomenon and it will be considered later.

The effects of heat are permanent, so that it is a fact
that every variation of temperature which is marked enough
to be visible to the naked eye will leave a structure, due to
that variation, when the steel is cold, which will be observ-
able by the naked eye, and such structure, when not
influenced by external force, such as by hammering or
rolling, is as invariable and certain as is the structure of an
ingot due to the quantity of carbon present.

This property furnishes what may be called the steel-
maker's and the steel-user's thermometer. By its means
the steel-maker can discover every irregularity in heating
that may have been perpetrated by the operatives; so also
the steel-user can decide whether the steel furnished him
has been heated and worked uniformly and properly, and
later he can tell whether those who have shaped this steel
to its final forms have done their work properly. A
thorough knowledge of this property is essential to a steel-

A MANUAL FOE STEEL-USERS. 53

maker; until he possesses it he is not fit to conduct his
business. It is of great importance to the steel-user, and
every engineer should try to acquire a knowledge of it in
order that he may not be fooled by the carelessness or ras-
cality of those who have preceded him. The steel-maker
acquires this knowledge by daily contact with the facts;
the engineer does not have it forced upon him in this way,
but he should seek opportunities of observation, which will
be abundant in his earlier practice when he is sent upon
inspection duty. Like the structure of ingots, this heat-
structure cannot be illustrated on paper, and an attempt to
do so would be misleading; attempts at description will be
made in the hope that by their means the engineer will
have a pretty good idea what to look for, and to know when
his suspicions should be aroused.

In addition to the ocular observations mentioned it has
been shown by specific-gravity determinations, and by
delicate electrical tests through small ranges of tempera-
ature, that steel is as truly thermometrical as mercury.

Steel passes through or into four general conditions due
to heat. First, in the cold state, it is a crystalline solid of
no uniform structure, for its structure is influenced by
every element that enters into it, and by every irregularity
of heat to which it has been subjected.

Good steel may be described as having a bluish -gray
color, uniform grain as seen by the naked eye, and little
lustre. But it should have some lustre and a silky appear-
ance. When it is right, a steel-worker will say it is " sappy,"
and that name, absurd as it may sound when applied to a
metal, really expresses an appearance, and implies an ex-
cellence that it would bo hard to find a better word for.
If the structure be dull and sandy-looking, the steel- worker

54 STEEL:

will say it is " dry," and that term is as suggestive and ap-
propriate as the word " sappy."

If the fracture be granular with bright, flashing lustre,
the steel worker will say it is "fiery," and again his term
is expressive and proper.

It is perfectly safe to say that steel of a " sappy " ap-
pearance is good steel; but in order to know what it is it
must be learned by observation, it cannot be described in
exact terms.

It is equally certain that a " dry " fracture indicates a
mean steel, a steel inherently mean, — too much phosphorus,
or silicon, or oxides, or all combined, — and such a steel is
incurable.

A " fiery " fracture indicates too much heat. It may be
found in the best steel and in the poorest; it may be cor-
rected by simply heating to a proper temperature. It
shows that some one needs to be reprimanded for careless
work.

If now an inquirer will take a piece of good steel of
" sappy " fracture, and of " dry" steel of dull, sandy frac-
ture of the same carbon, and will heat them say first to
dark orange, then to bright orange, dark lemon, and so on,
and examine the fractures after each heating, he will
find a " fiery" fracture in the " dry " steel at a heat much
below that which is necessary to make the " sappy " steel
"fiery." This is one proof that good steel will endure
more punishment than poor steel.

Cold steel is not plastic in the common acceptance of
the word ; strictly speaking it has some plasticity, as shown
in the extension noted in pulling it; this is its measure of
ductility.

Also it may be drawn cold to fine wire of only a few

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USEKS. 55

thousandths of an inch in diameter, and it has been rolled
cold to one five thousandth of an inch thick. But this
work must be done with great care; the steel soon becomes
brittle, and a little overdrawing or overrolling will crush
the grain and ruin the steel; therefore the work must be
done a little at a time, and be followed by a careful anneal-
ing.

To reduce a No. 5 wire rod to .005 inch diameter will re-
quire with high steel suitable for hair-springs about four-
teen annealings.

A skilful hammerman will take a piece of mild cold
steel, and by means of light, rapid blows he will heat it up
to a bright lemon heat without fracturing it; then he will
have it thoroughly plastic and malleable.

This has no practical commercial value; it is a beautiful
scientific experiment exhibiting high manual skill, and
showing that there is no hard and fast line between non-
plasticity and plasticity.

The first condition, then, is cold steel, not plastic, not
malleable.

When steel is heated, it begins to show color at about
700° to 800° F.; the first color is known as dark cherry
red, or, better, orange red ; above this color it turns to a
distinct, rather dark, or medium orange color; this is the
heat of recalescence, a good forging-heat, and the best an-
nealing- and quenching-heat. At this heat and above it
good steel is truly plastic and malleable; a roller or
hammerman will say, " It works like wax," and so it
does.

This is the second or plastic condition.

Heated above this plastic condition to a bright lemon in
high steel, or to a creamy, almost scintillating, heat in mild

56 STEEL:

steel, steel will go to pieces under the hammer or in the
rolls; the workman will probably say it is burned, but it
is not burned necessarily; it is simply heated up to the
third or granular condition; it is the beginning of disin-
tegration and the end of plasticity.

This granular condition is important in several ways.
It is made use of in Sweden, and has been demonstrated
in the United States, to determine the quantity of carbon
in steel. An intelligent blacksmith is given a set of rods
of predetermined carbon, ranging from 100 carbon to
zero, or through any range that may be necessary; each
rod is marked to indicate its carbon. He takes the rods
one by one and heats them until they scintillate, well up
into the granular condition, then lays them on his anvil
and hammers them, observing carefully the color at which
each one becomes plastic as it cools slowly. After a little
practice he is given rods that are not marked, and by
treating them in the same way he will give them their
proper numbers, rarely missing the carbon by as much as
10 points, or one temper.

It is a beautiful and useful illustration of the effect of
carbon. The rule is, the higher the carbon the lower the
granulating-point; or, as is well known, high steel will
melt at a lower temperature than low steel.

This shows that every temper of steel has its disintegra-
tion temperature where it passes from plastic to granular,
as fixed as its fusion-point or its point of recalescence.

Steel passes from the granular condition to the liquid or
fourth form.

There is little of interest in the liquid condition of steel
to any but the steel-maker; what there is to be said will be
mentioned later.

A MANUAL FOE STEEL-USERS. 57

Steel in cooling from the liquid passes through the
granular and the plastic conditions to the cold state.

The granular lorm is of special interest to the steel-
maker for the reason that in this condition the steel has
more of adhesion than cohesion; it will stick to anything it
touches, and so cannot be made to flow. This is the cause
of " bears/' " stickers," and many of the troubles of the
melter. Therefore steel must be put into the moulds while
it is still molten, and moulds should be well smoked or
lime-washed to prevent stickers. This condition is of
great interest to engineers, because the failure to roll or
shape molten steel by pouring it directly between the
rolls is doubtless due to this adhesive, non-cohesive condi-
tion.

To produce sheets, bars, and all sorts of shapes from
molten steel direct, without the expense of making, hand-
ling, and re-heating ingots, is an enticing idea which has
occupied the minds and efforts of many able mechanics
and engineers.

If steel passed directly from the liquid to the plastic
condition as glass does, hammers and rolls would soon be
replaced by dies at a great saving of cost and labor. It is
no wonder that such a desirable end has led to many per-
sistent and costly efforts, but until some way can be de-
vised to eliminate this granular form in cooling it would
seem that all such efforts must end in failure.

As steel cools down through the plastic condition the
cooling is not continuous; there are two or three points
where it is arrested for a time, and at one notable point
the cooling is not only arrested, but after a few moments of
stop the operation is reversed, the steel becomes visibly
hotter, and then the cooling goes on regularly; there may

58 STEEL :

be other slight pauses, but they are of little importance
compared to this one, which is known as the point of re-
calescence. There are many theories of the cause of this
recalescence ; the ablest scientists are still working at it;
and until some definite conclusion is reached it is not
worth while to write pages of discussion which may be
found fully stated and illustrated over and over again in
the various technical journals, and transactions of different
engineering societies.

There are some properties of steel of great interest which
seem to cluster around this recalescence-point; they will
be noted as they are reached.

We have seen that there is a marked, definite structure
of the grain of ingots due to every quantity of carbon, and
also that there is a fixed limit of malleability for every
quantity of carbon. It is known also that the recalescence-
point shifts slightly with a change of carbon, and that it
is much more marked and brighter in high-carbon steel
than in low.

There are no other sure indications of the quantity of
carbon present. As soon as an ingot is heated up to
orange color, or the recalescent-point, it loses its distinc-
tive structure and its fracture no longer furnishes a sure
guide.

If three ingots of say, 20, 80, and 120 carbon respec-
tively be heated to orange and then cooled slowly, their
fractures will be so different as to enable an expert to
place them properly in their order of carbon, and to classify
them as mild, hard, and harder; beyond that he could not
go; if he attempted to give them their temper numbers, he
would be likely to miss by four or five numbers either
way, and a correct mark would be only a lucky guess.

A MANUAL FOR STEEC-USERS. 59

Hammering and rolling heated steel affect the grain or
structure profoundly; a high steel may be worked so that
the grain will look mild,.and a mild steel maybe so worked
that the grain will look hard. It is common to .see a bar
of steel with a fine grain at one end and a coarse grain at
the other, and this state of things often frightens a con-
sumer, who imagines that he has received a very irregular,
tine ven article, and he is as often astonished when it is
shown to him that at the same proper heat the two ends
will refine and harden equally well, and be exactly alike.
In such a bar one end has been finished a little hotter than
the other, and the grain is due to the. heat in each case.
This uneven heating may have been incidental or careless;
with skilful workers it is rare.

One end might have been finished so cold as to crush
the grain, and the other end so hot as to cause incipient
disintegration, but a competent inspector would discover
either condition at once and reject the bar.

There is, then, a specific structure due to temperature; it
is modified by carbon and by treatment under the ham-
mer or in the rolls. If a bar of steel be heated up to the
highest plastic limit, just so that it will not fall to pieces,
and then cooled slowly without disturbance, and a frac-
ture be taken, it will be found to be coarse and with an
exceedingly brilliant lustre. Now let it be heated again to
a bright lemon color, but still plastic, and cooled as before;
it will be found to be coarse, with bright lustre, but neither
so coarse nor so bright as the first piece. Then let it be
treated in this way to lemon color, light orange, medium
orange, dark orange, and orange red; as the heats go
down the grain will be finer and the lustre will be less,
until at about medium orange the lustre will be absent.

60 STEEL :

If any number of bars of even composition be heated in
this way, the fractures will all be alike for each tem-
perature.

If a series of bars of the different full tempers, about
seven in all, be treated in this way, the structures due to a
given temperature will all be similar, but there will be no
two exactly alike, because high steel is. much more pro-
foundly affected by heat than low steel.

Seven tempers are mentioned here, because that is the
number of full tempers in common use. Steel is graded
out into fifteen tempers ordinarily by the interpolation of
half numbers; this is easy and sure in the ingot inspection.
In the above experiment the differences due to carbon are
not quite so delicate, and the work is hampered in the
heating by the personal equation, so that the use of seven
full tempers is refinement enough. There is a difference
due to every separable quantity of carbon, which could be
shown if all of the operations of the experiment were
exact.

If when a bar is broken cold the fracture is uneven,
with coarse grain in one part and fine grain in another,
it shows that there has been uneven heating. If one side
has large grain and the other side is fine, the bar has been
a great deal hotter on the side having coarse grain than on
the other: the heater has let the bar lie in the furnace
with one side exposed to a hot flame and the other pro-
tected from the flame in some way; he has neglected to
turn the bar over and heat it evenly.

If the outside of the bar is fine and the centre is coarse,
the bar has been very hot all through and has been finished
by light blows of the hammer or by light passes in the
rolls; it has been worked superficially and not thoroughly.

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 61

If the outside of the bar is coarse and the centre is fine,
the steel lias been heated on the surface too hot and too
quickly; it has not had time to get hot through, and it
has had too little work in the finishing.

If the grain is dark, with the appearance of a rather
heavy india-ink tint, the steel has been finished too cold,
and it will be found to be brittle.

If the grain is very dark, especially about the middle,
looking almost black, then it has been finished altogether
too cold: the grain is disintegrated, and the bar is fit 'only
for the scrap-heap.

A bar of this kind containing enough carbon to harden
will harden thoroughly, and often appear to be sound and
fine, but it is not sound and will not do good work ; if it
be brought up to a proper heat and forged to a point, it
will almost certainly burst, showing that the integrity of
the steel has heen destroyed.

If a bar, or plate, or beam shows cracks on the surface
or at the corners, with rough, torn surfaces, the steel has
either been superficially burned or it is red-short. In
either case it should be rejected, for the cracks, although
small, will provide starting-points for ultimate fractures,
whether it be tool-steel that is to be hardened, or struc-
tural steel that is to be strained without hardening. If
the steel is to be machined, so that all of the cracks can be
cut out, then in machinery-steel the removal of these sur-
face defects might leave the finished piece sufficiently
sound and good. If, however the steel is to be hardened,
and the defects should be due to red-shortness, the piece
would almost certainly break in the hardening; and if it
were not red-short, then unless the cracks were cut away
entirely, if the least trace of the crack is there, although

62 STEEL:

it may not be visible, that trace will be sufficient to start a
crack when the piece is hardened.

EFFECTS OF COOLING.

Increase of heat causes increase of softness up to the
liquid condition.

Decrease of heat — cooling — increases hardness up to the
hardness of glass.

As an invariable rule the rate of cooling fixes the degree
of hardness to be had in the cold piece within the limits of
obtainable hardness or softness.

Slow cooling retains softness, so that when annealing is
to be done the slower the cooling the better. Cooling is
always a hardening process, but when it is carried on slowly
more softness, will be retained than when th.e cooling is
quick.

Rapid cooling produces hardness, and the more nearly
instantaneous it is the greater the hardness will be. This
property of hardening is of such extreme importance that
it will be treated fully in a separate chapter.

There is an apparent exception to this rule shown in the
operation called water-annealing. It is common, when
work is hurried, to heat a piece of steel carefully and uni-
formly up to the first color, that is, until it just begins to
show color, and then to quench it in water.

This is called water-annealing; and many believe that
because a piece so treated is left softer than it was before
treatment, the water-cooling had something to do with
it. The fact is that hammering and rolling are hardening
processes. When the increment of heat due to the work is

A MANUAL FOB STEEL-USERS. 63

less than the decrement of heat due to radiation, the com-
pacting of the grain increases hardness.

This process leaves the piece harder than .does the
quenching in water-annealing; the decrease in hardness
due to water-annealing is the difference between the effects
of the two operations. Let two pieces of the same bar be
heated exactly the same for water-annealing; let one be
quenched in water, and the other be allowed to cool in the
air in a dry place. Then the superior softness of the air-
cooled piece will show that the so-called water-annealing
furnishes no exception to the rule.

There is one extremely important matter connected with
cooling that should be noted carefully.

It is a common practice among steel-workers when they
get a part of a piece of steel too hot to partially quench
that part, and then go on with their heating; or if they are
in a hurry to get out a big day's work, or if the weather is
hot, and a pile of red-hot bars is uncomfortable, to dash
water over the pile and hurry the cooling.

This practice means checks in the steel, hundreds of
them.

A bar breaks and has this appearance. The dark spot is

the check; it .did not show in the bar, no inspector could
see it, but it broke the bar. Any one can prove this to his
own satisfaction in a few minutes. Take a bar of convenient
size, about one inch by one eighth ; heat it carefully to an

64 STEEL:

even medium orange color and quench it completely; then
snip it with a hand-hammer over the edge of an anvil,
snipping away until satisfied that it is sound steel. There
are no checks.

Now heat a similar length of the same bar in the same
way, and pass it through the stream from the bosh-pipe, or
submerge it for a moment in the bosh, not long enough to
produce more than the slightest trace of a change in the
color; then put it back in the fire and bring it gently to
the uniform color used before, and quench it completely.
Now when it is snipped over the anvil it will show numer-
ous checks, dozens of them.

In this experiment the complete submersion for a mo-
ment may not produce checks at every trial, because the
complete submersion permits practically uniform cooling,
which if continued to complete cooling would be simply
the ordinary hardening process. Still it will produce checks
in the majority of cases, indicating that starting the changes,
strains, or whatever they are of the quenching process and
then stopping them suddenly while the steel is in the
plastic condition does cause disintegration, so that the
operation is dangerous and should not be tolerated. Pass-
ing the hot steel through a stream of water or dashing
water over it must cause different rates of cooling, and
necessarily produce local strains resulting in checks. These
latter ways of injuring, therefore, rarely fail to produce the
ruinous checks.

If this positive destruction is produced in this way, in
steel containing enough carbon to harden it is clear that
similar, although not so pronounced, results will be produced
in the mildest steels when they are treated in the same
manner.

A MAHUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 65

The rule, then, should be: Never allow water to come in
contact with hot steel, and never allow hot steel to be la.d
down upon a damp floor.

Even the spray from water which is run upon roll-necks
may cause these checks in steel that is passing through the
rolls, so that it is better to put up a guard to deflect such
water away from the body of the roll.

A hammerman may sweep a bar with a damp broom to
cause the vapor to explode with violence when the ham-
mer comes down, and so tear away all rough scale and pro-
duce a beautiful finish. A careful, skilful man may be
permitted to do this, but as surely as he gets his broom
too wet, so that drops of water will fall on the steel and
whirl around in the spheroidal condition, just so surely will
he check the steel.

The best way is to have the broom not wet enough to
drip, and then to strike it up against the top die when it is
ready to descend; sufficient moisture will be caught upon
the die to cause a loud explosion when it strikes the hot
steel; it is a violent explosion and will drive off every par-
ticle of detachable scale, leaving as beautiful a surface as
that which is peculiar to Russia sheet iron.

It is common in rolling tires to run jets of water over the
tire to break up the scale and produce a clean surface.
Tire-makers assert that experience shows that the water
does no harm. There are two reasons for this if it be true :
first, the steel is of medium carbon and more inert than
high steel, and it has been hammered and compacted
before rolling; second, the tires are usually turned, and
this would cut away any little checks that might occur on
the surface.

The magnetic properties of steel are well known. Soft

66 STEEL:

steel, like soft wrought iron, cannot be magnetized perma-
nently; higher carbon steel will retain magnetism a long
time, and hardened steel will retain it still longer. Hard-
ened-steel magnets are the most permanent.

The permanency and the efficiency of a magnet increase
with the quantity of carbon up to about 85 carbon; steel
of higher carbon than this will not make magnets of so
good permanency. The efficiency of a magnet of 85 carbon
is increased largely by the addition of a little tungsten; a
little less than .05$ is sufficient.

It has been shown that tungsten has the property of
retaining the hardness of steel up to a relatively high tem-
perature; this additional power of retaining magnetism
may indicate a close relation between the conditions set ap
by magnetism and by hardening.

It has been stated that maximum physical properties,
except as to compression, are found at from 90 to 100
carbon; now we find maximum magnetic properties in the
same region. Prof, Arnold has found by microscopic tests
the same point of saturation ; he fixes it at 89 carbon and
deduces from it an unstable carbide .of Fe240.

The magnetic maximum was found by magnet-makers
by actual use in large numbers of magnets. Prof. J. W.
Langley found the same maximum, in a series of careful
and delicate experiments undertaken to determine the best
composition and the best treatment for the production of
permanent magnets. Magnetism is affected by tempera-
ture, and it is found that steel becomes non-magnetic at or
about the point of recalescence. This is important to elec-
tricians, as it marks the limit of temperature that is availa-
ble to them. It is of interest to the scientists, as it is
another indication of the importance of the changes that

A MANUAL FOB STEEL-USERS. 67

take place at this temperature. Later, recalescence will be
found to be an equally important point to the steel- worker,
especially to the temperer

It has been stated that if a bar of steel be heated to any
visible temperature and then be cooled without disturbance
there will be a resulting grain or structure that is due to
the highest temperature to which the bar was subjected.
As a rule the highest temperature leaves a grain that
appears to the eye to be the largest, or coarsest, whether
the microscope shows it to be composed of larger crystals
or not.

Let the following squares represent the apparent sizes of
the grains:

13 DO DO H

1. The natural bar, untreated

2. Grain due to dark orange or orange red.

3. " " " medium orange

4. " " " bright orange

5. " " " dark lemon

6. " " " medium lemon

7. « " " bright lemon

8. " " " very bright lemon, or creamy.

These designations are used because steel in cooling down,
or in heating up, runs through a series of yellow tints, not
reds. It is common to see the expression " glowing white "
applied to steel that is not even melted, when as a matter
of fact melted wrought iron is not quite white. An occa-
sional heat of steel may be seen that could fairly be called
white, and then the melter knows that it is altogether too
hot, and that he must cool the steel or make bad ingots.

68 STEEL:

"Glowing white," like "cherry red," will do for ordinary
talk, but not for accurate description, although "cherry
red " comes nearer to describing the dying color than
"glowing white" comes to describing the highest heat.

An arc light may be "glowing white/' and sunlight is
" glowing white," and when either light falls upon melted
steel it shows how far the steel is from being " glowing
white."

Referring to the squares: If a bar that has been heated
to No. 8 be re-heated to No. 2 and be kept at that color a
few minutes to allow the steel to arrange itself, in other
words, to provide for lag, andihen be cooled, it will be found
to have grain No. 2. Sometimes in performing this experi-
ment the fracture will be interspersed with brilliant spots
as if it were set with gems; this shows that not quite
enough time was allowed for lag. Another trial with a
little more time will bring it to a complete No. 2 fracture.
If now it be heated to No. 4, or 5, or 6 in the same way,
it will be found to have when cold the grain due to No. 4,
or 5, or 6 temperature.

This may be repeated any number of times, and the
changes may be rung on all of the numbers, until the dis-
integrating effect of numerous heatings begins to destroy
the steel. This property of registering temperature, this
steel thermometer, is of great value, and it will be referred
to frequently.

EFFECTS OF MECHANICAL WORK.

When an ingot is heated and then hammered, rolled, or
pressed hot, its density will be increased, as well as its
strength when cold under all strains.

If it be hammered carefully, with heavy blows at first,

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 69

and with lighter and quicker blows at the last, the grain
will become very close and fine; it is called "hammer-
refined."

When down to the so-called cherry red, orange red,
great care is needed, and when black begins to show
through the red much caution must be used; any heavy
blows will crush the grain and produce the dark or black
color mentioned before.

Fine-tool makers attach great importance to this hammer-
refining; some of the most expert will not have a rolled bar
if a well-hammered one can be had. At first thought this
would seem to be a mere notion, but the testimony in favor
of hammering is so universal among those who know their
business that it would seem as if it must be based upon
some reason. If it have any scientific basis of fact, it is
that the shocks or vibrations of the hammer keep the
carbon in more intimate union with the iron, whether it be
combination or solution, than either rolling or pressing
will do. After considering the phenomena of hardening,
tempering, annealing, etc., it may be concluded that there
is something in this. It is easy to laugh at and to deride
shop prejudices, and there are enough of them that deserve
ridicule; again, there are some that will not down, and they
compel the scientist to hunt for explanations. But after
all, ridicule is dangerous; it is possible that a careful com-
parison of some of the laws laid down by the highest
scientists would tend to excite the risibles. If the hand-
worker sometimes flounders in the mud, the scientist is
sometimes enveloped and groping in mist.

Hot-rolling produces results similar to those of hot-ham-
mering; it makes the grain finer, increases density, and
adds to the strength.

70 STEEL:

The same precautions are needed in rolling as in ham-
mering. Heavy passes with rapid reduction may be used to
advantage while the steel is hot and thoroughly plastic; as
the heat falls the passes should be lighter to avoid crush-
ing the grain.

Overrolling, like too much hammering, may be more
injurious than too little work; a coarse, irregular structure
due to too little work may be rectified and made fine and
even by annealing, while if the grain be crushed by over-
work the damage cannot be cured by annealing; the an-
nealed grain may appear to be all right, but on testing, the
strength will be found impaired.

By care and light passes steel may be rolled safely down
to a black heat and be made elastic and springy. It is
common to roll spring-steel in this way so that it may be
formed into a spring and have all of the properties of a
tempered spring without going through the onerations of
hardening and tempering. This is often desirable for
spring-makers, as it saves them considerable expense ; but
it is hazardous work, because it is so difficult to heat every
piece exactly to the same temperature, and secure every
time the same number of passes and the same pressure in
each. The best roller will get some pieces too hard and
brittle, and some too soft and ductile. A careful steel-
maker will shun such work.

Cold-hammering, cold-rolling, and cold-drawing reduce
specific gravity and increase tensile, transverse, compres-
sive, and torsional strength. They increase hardness and
brittleness, reducing ductility. The hardness due to cold-
working is different from that due to hot-work or quench-
ing ; the latter operations produce great elasticity as well
as hardness.

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 71

The hardness due to cold-working might be described as
harshness; the steel is not truly springy; of course it will
bend farther without permanent set than an annealed
piece, but it never has the true spring elasticity. If it be
worked far enough to be really springy, it will bear the
same relation 'to a hot-worked spring that a piece of cross-
grained, brashy oak bears to a piece of well-seasoned,
straight-grained hickory.

The hammering of round sections between flat dies tends
to burst the bars in the centre; great care must be used
to avoid this, and the most ski-lful and careful hammermen
will often turn out bursted bars. The bursts do not show
on the surface; the bars are true to size, round, smooth, and
sound on the outside. The safest plan is to hammer in a
V-die, or in rounded swedges.

Kadial rolling will produce the same results, and it is on
this principle that the celebrated Mansmann tubes are
made. The explanation seems to be simple, as the follow-
ing exaggerated sketches will show :

No. 1 has been struck ; it is then turned up to position
No. 2 and knocked into shape No. 3. The rapid hammer-
ing of a bar, turning it a little at a time, must burst it if
the blows are heavy enough to deform the whole section.
Heavy radial rolling produces the same results.

The concluding pages of this chapter will be devoted to
a few examples showing by tests the effects of heat and
work upon specific gravity, tensile strength, elasticity, and

STEEL :

ductility; they are not to be taken as fixing exact limits in
any case; they are given merely to illustrate the truth of
the general properties stated, and to show the wide ranges
of strength that are attainable by varying carbon and
work.

TABLE I.

Crucible

Ingot Numbers.

Steel.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Otrbon

.302

.490

.529

.649

.801

.841

.867

.871

.955

1.005

1.058

1.079

Silicon.

.019

.034

.043

.039

.O'.'J)

.03!)

.057

.053

.059

.088

.120

.039

Phosphorus .

.04?

.005

.047

.030

.035

.024

.014

,024

.070

.034

.064

.044

Sulphur

.018

.016

.018

.012

.016

.010

.018

.012

.016

.012

.006

.004

Sp.gr. ingots.

7.855

7.836

7.841

7.829

7.838

7.824

7.819

7.818

7.813

7.807

7.803

7.805

Sp. gr. bars,

burned, 1 . .

7.818

7.791

7.789

7.752

7.744

7.690

2..

... .

7.814

7.811

7.784

7.755

7.749

7.741

3..

7.823

7.830

7.780

7.758

7.755

7.769

4..

7.8','fi

7.849

7.808

7.773

7.789

7.798

5

7 881

7.806

7 819

7.790

7.812

7 811

cold 6

7.844

7 824

7 829

7 825

7 826

7 825

Diff 6-1

025

.034

040

.073

.082

.135

Mean diff . I

071

of carbon f

The twelve ingots treated here were first selected by oc-
ular inspection for carbons; the carbons were then de-
termined by combustion analyses.

It will be seen that the inspection was correct, and that
the mean difference in carbon between consecutive num-
bers is .007. Between Nos. 7 and 8 there is a difference of
only .004 ; when the analyst discovered this, he asked for a
reinspection, not giving any reason for his request. The
inspectors made new fractures, examined the ingots care-
fully in good light, and reported that they erred the first
time, that both ingots belonged in the same temper num-
ber, but that if there were any difference No. 8 was the
harder. It is not claimed that a difference of .004 is
really observable.

The contents of silicon, phosphorus, and sulphur show
clearly that the controlling element is carbon. This ex-

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 73

periment has been repeated a number of times, and always
with the same result, showing that there is no uncertainty
in this method of separating tempers.

Parts of these ingots were reduced to f-inch round bars.
The specific gravities of the ingots were taken, showing
generally a reduction of sp. gr. for an increase of carbon.
No. 3 and 5 are anomalous; an explanation of this could
doubtless have been found if a careful investigation had
been made, but there was no re-examination.

The sp. gr. No. 6 are of the f-inch bars as they came
from the rolls; they are all heavier than the ingots except
No. 4, and they are of nearly uniform sp. gr. ; this is due
doubtless to the fact that the higher carbon steels are so
much harder than the low-carbon steels that it required
much more work to reduce them to the bars, and as hot-
working increases density, the densities of the higher car-
bons were increased more than those of the lower.

The bars were nicked six times at intervals of about f
inch and then heated so that the ends were scintillating,
ready to pass into the granular condition, and the heat was
so regulated as to have each piece less hot than the piece
next nearer to the end, the last piece, No. 6, being black
and as nearly cold as possible.

It is manifest that this operation is subject to the error
of accidentally getting No. 2, for instance, hotter than No.
1, and so on, so that perfect regularity is not to be ex-
pected; to obtain a true rule of expansion it would be
necessary to make hundreds of such experiments and use
the mean of all.

It will be noticed that No. 4 is abnormal in the ingot
series, and that the No. 6 piece of No. 4 is abnormal in be-
ing lighter than the ingot; probably this No. 6 of No. 4

74

was hot when it was intended to be cold. Also No. 2 of
ingot No. 3 is lighter than its No. 1, showing another
irregularity in heating.

Taking the whole list of No. 1 pieces, they are all lighter
than their respective No. 6 pieces; the differences of sp.
gr. 6-1 are progressive, being only .025 for the No. 3 ingot
and .135 for the No. 12 ingot. This shows clearly that ex-
pansion due to a given difference in temperature is much
greater in high steel than in low steel.

This clears away the mystery of the so-called treachery of
high steel, its tendency to crack when hardened. There
is no treachery about it; it is very sensitive to temperature,
and it must be treated accordingly.

A few examples will now be given to show the changes
of tensile strength, ductility, etc., that may be had by
differences of carbon, and by differences of treatment, an-
nealing, hardening, and tempering.

TABLE II.

Character of
Steel.

0. H.

Cru-
cible
Sheet

0. H.

0. H.

0. H.

Cruci-
bleEye-
bar,

2" x I".

Cruci-

bleEye-
bar.
2" x I".

Cruci-
ble Eye-
bar,
2"xl .

Cru-
cible
H-in.
Drawn
Wire.

Carbon |
Silicon

.09 to
.12
.008
.007
.026
.055

46800
30900
in 2
in. 41*

75.85*

silky
^cup

.435

.014
.050
.023
.204

73142

in'l
in. 42*

62.3*

.50

.025
.016
.028
.325

84220
63560

25*
29.91*

.60

.70

.96
.156

1.35

1.40

1.15

<.02
<.02
trace
<.30

141500
92420

2*
2.42*

broke
in
grip

Phosphorus.. .
Sulphur
Manganese ...
Tensile str'gth,
Ibs. per sq.in.
Elastic limit. . .

Elongation. ..-j
Reduction of J

.008

.015

24

108800
71500

14.5*
13.55*

117400
69980

11.5*

8.59*

124800
65000

4.75*

100733
85078

.5*

117710
69850
7.28 at
2.85 in 2^

13.03*

area I
Fracture

broke
in neck
slight
flaw,
fine
grain

broke
in head
close
grain

O. H. is the abbreviation for open hearth.

Second column is mean of 24 analyses and 24 tests of boiler-sheets.

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS.
TABLE III.

75

Cold-drawn Wire, J^-inch Diam.

Tensile
Strength,
Ibs. per
sq. in.

Elastic
Limit,
Ibs. per
sq. in.

Elongation.

Reduc-
tion of
Area,
per ct.

In 3
in.

Per

cent.

Cold-drawn, broke in grip

141,500
138,400
98,410

248,700

92,400
114.700
68,110

152,800

.06
.18
.30

.25

2.00
6.00
10.00

8.33

2.42
12.45
11.69

19.7

Same bar drawn black

" " annealed .

" " hardened and then drawn
black .

Analysis of this bar is given in Table II in the last
column.

A test of -J-inch wire to show effect of cold-drawing,
tempering, annealing, and hardening and tempering.
Four pieces were cut from the same bar. It is probable
that the first piece would have given a little higher tensile
if it had not broken in the grip; it was clamped too tight.
The second piece was heated until it passed through all of
the temper colors and turned black, technically called
" drawing black," or drawing out all of the temper. It is
not quite annealing; the idea was to find the effect of
temper-drawing upon a cold-hardened drawn wire.

The effect of this operation was to lower the ultimate
and raise the elastic strength, increasing also the ductility.

The third piece was heated carefully to the recalescence-
point, and cooled slowly, thus annealing it completely, and
giving the normal strength of a bar of this composition.

The fourth piece was heated to recalescence and
quenched, hardening and refining it thoroughly; it was
then tempered through all of the colors until it turned
black; the result shows the enormous potencies there are
in the hardening and tempering operations.

The cases given in Table II were selected indiscrimi-
nately, so as to show better the effect of carbon, as we here

76 STEEL :

have tests of ordinary test-bars, boiler-sheet, small eye-
bars, and drawn wire.

The 96-carbon eye-bar and the 115-carbon |-inch wire
are the nearest to the 100-carbon saturation limit men-
tioned before, and they show the highest strength. The
96-carbon eye-bar had a slight flaw in the fracture, which
doubtless caused it to break below its real strength.

The 135-carbon eye-bar broke in the head in a way to
indicate that there was some local strain there, due to
forging.

These examples are not given as establishing any gen-
eral law; they are illustrations of what all experience
shows to be the fact, that the strength of steel is affected
profoundly by the quantity of carbon present, and also
by heat and by mechanical work. From 46,800 Ibs. to
248,700 Ibs. tensile strength per square icch is an enor-
mous range, and these figures probably represent pretty
closely the ultimate limits at present attainable.

An inspection of the analyses makes it clear that the
other elements present in addition to carbon were not there
in sufficient quantity or variety to have had much effect
upon the results.

A MANUAL FOB STEEL- USERS. 77

VL

HEATING FOR FORGING; FOR HARDENING;
FOR WELDING.

BURNING, OVERHEATING, RESTORING.

FROM what has been said already about the effects of
heat it follows without further argument that heating is
one of the most important, or perhaps more properly the
most important of all, of the operations to which steel has
to be subjected.

The first and vital thing to be borne in mind is that all
heating should be uniform throughout the mass. It has
been shown that heat affects the grain, the structure, as
surely as it moves the mercury-column, and such being
the case it is plain that as perfect uniformity as it is pos-
sible to attain is the first essential for all heating, no matter
what the ultimate object may be.

In heating for forging the limit lies between the point
of recalescence, the beginning of true plasticity, and the
granular condition, the end of plasticity; these tempera-
tures lie between dark or medium orange for all steels and
medium or light lemon on the upper limit, depending on
the carbon content, or lower if it be an alloy steel.

If there is much work to be done upon a piece of steel,
it is well to heat at first to as high a temperature as is safe,
and then to forge or work heavily at the higher heat,

78 STEEL :

reducing the blows or passes as the piece is reduced and
the temperature falls. Although this high heating will
raise the grain of the steel, the heavy working will bring it
back to a fine, compact structure.

If little work is to be done, then it is better to heat as
low as may be safe, and allow the work to be done without
letting the heat down below orange red, so that the steel
may not be crushed in the grain.

Below orange red, the so-called " dark cherry," steel
should not be forged, except that in forging for fine tools
it is well to give many light and rapid blows until black
begins to show in order to hammer-refine it; this must
be done with extreme care so as not to crush the steel and
cause cracking in the subsequent hardening, or crumbling,
in the hardened tool.

HEATING FOE HARDENING.

When a piece of steel is to be hardened by quenching in
water or any quick-cooling medium, it should be heated
with great care to the exact temperature to produce the
required hardness.

After forging, no piece of steel should be quenched with-
out first being heated uniformly to the proper temperature.
Ede in his book recommends quenching immediately after
forging in some cases. The so-called Harvey patent recom-
mends cooling from a high heat down to the required heat
and then quenching.

Both practices are bad. In the Ede case this is believed
to be the only bad piece of advice in his very valuable book
— in every other respect the most practical and useful book
upon the manipulation of steel known to the author.

The reason for objecting to the quenching after forging

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USEKS. 79

without re-heating is that forging always sets up uneven
strains in the mass; the flow is easier from the sides than
from the middle of the piece, and therefore the amount of
work done upon one part is greater than upon another; also
it is impossible to hammer or press a piece of steel with
exact uniformity throughout, so that it follows that after
forging there is never exact uniformity of texture or temper-
ature, and such uniformity is the one essential thing to in-
sure good and even hardening.

The practice of allowing a highly heated piece to cool
down to a given color and then quenching is objectionable,
because jt produces a 'coarse and brittle grain due to the
higher heat.

Keferring to the illustration on page 67 of the squares
representing grains due to different temperatures: Assume
that square No. 3 represents the heat at which quenching
is to take place, and No. 6 is the heat to which the piece
has been subjected; then the piece when it has cooled to
No. 3 will not have the grain due to No. 3 heat : it will
have a larger, coarser grain that formed as- the piece cooled
from No. 6. If now it be quenched, it will have only the
hardness due to No. 3, with a much coarser and more
brittle grain than No. 3 heat should give. The way to
manage such a case is to let the piece cool completely and
assume the No. 6 grain; then re-heat carefully to exactly
No. 3 and no hotter; keep the piece at that heat for a few
minutes, or moments, according to its size, to allow for lag:
then it will have the finer grain due to No. 3 heat, and
when quenched it will be as hard as under the other
method, and it will be much finer and stronger.

The same rule applies to any two temperatures.

As an expression of exactness as to evenness of heat, it

80 STEEL:

may be said that the piece should be as uniform in color as
if it had been dipped into a pot of paint. When such uni-
formity is attained, a break from quenching is rare, unless
the piece has been shamefully overheated so that the strains
of quenching are greater than the tenacity of the steel.

HEATING FOB WELDING.

When an ingot is to be forged or rolled, it is well to take
the highest heat possible — that immediately below the heat
of granulation. Such a heat may be taken safely by keep-
ing the steel covered with a surface flux to protect it from
the flame. Ordinary red clay, dried and powdered, is an
excellent flux for the purpose, and the cheapest known.
Melted and powdered borax is the best of known fluxes,
but it is so expensive that, as a rule, it is used only on the
finest tool-steel, or on some of the alloy steels where the
highest heat possible is not above a bright orange color, or
hardly so high.

A good flux, intermediate in cost between common red
clay and powdered borax, is an earth or mineral barite, or
heavy spar. This material fuses more readily than red
clay and not quite so easily as borax. It forms a good
protective covering on the steel, and it is nearly or quite
as efficient as borax.

The object in heating so high is to make the steel as soft
and plastic as it may be, so that the subsequent working
will close up all porosity as far as possible. Nearly all
ingots have in them a greater or less number of cavities,
commonly called blow-holes, that are caused by the separa-
tion of occluded gases during cooling. If such porosities
are not oxidized on the surface they will disappear under
heavy working at a high heat. It is probable that under

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 81

the compression of the work the gases are redisseminated
in the mass and the walls of the cavities are reunited. If
there be the slightest oxidation of the surface of a cavity
the walls will not reunite : there will be left in the mass a
little flat film of oxide which will prevent the union.

In mild steels used for machinery or structural purposes
these little films may do no harm, the factor of safety
being sufficient to more than cover any weakening effect.
In tool-steel that is to be hardened such little films are
almost certain to cause fracture. Dies as large as twelve
inches square and six to eight inches thick, having been
heated and quenched with the greatest care, have split
fairly in two, and have revealed in the fracture a little film
no larger than half an inch in diameter and of inappreci-
able thickness. At the same time the perfectly uniform
grain and hardness showed that the highest skill bad been
used. This is only one illustration of the fact that every
break in the continuity of the grain in steel forms a start-
ing-point for fracture under heavy stress.

From what has been said it is plain that to weld two
pieces of steel together is a difficult matter; still it can be
done if great care be used. In general it is better to avoid
such welding except in cases of necessity. The welding
of steel tubing, and the electric welding of rails, frogs,
switches, etc., is done on a large scale and satisfactorily, so
that it will not do to say that steel cannot be welded. It
can be welded or pasted together, and it is a good opera-
tion to avoid in all high steel. In case steel is to be hard-
ened a weld will reveal itself almost certainly.

88 STEEL:

BUBNING IN HEATING.

When a piece of steel breaks and shows a coarse, fiery
fracture, it is common to say that it is burned. This is
not necessarily the case. There are several degrees in the
effects of heat. The first is the raising of the grain; the
second, in high steel, is the decarbonizing or burning out
of carbon from the surface in, the depth of the decarboniz-
ing depending upon time and temperature; the third is
oxidizing, or actual burning in the common acceptance of
the term.

All of these operations go on to a slight extent every
time a piece of steel is heated, but when the heating is
done carefully there is only a small film of steel that is de-
carbonized and oxidized, and this film flies off when the
piece is quenched for hardening. When the steel is forged
or rolled this skin will be united firmly to the steel, and it
will be thinner or thicker, according to the number of
heatings and the time of exposure to the fire. In tool-
making this skin must always be removed. Many an ex-
pensive tool is made perfectly worthless by not having this
skin all removed, owing usually to mistaken economy.
The steel is expensive, and the tool-maker does not wish to
cut it up into worthless chips.

When a tool costing, say, twenty-five dollars is made
useless by failure to cut away twenty-five cents' worth of
useless skin, the economy of such an operation requires no
discussion. It is impossible to forge a piece of steel with-
out producing such a skin, and it is well known that de-
carbonized iron will not harden.

Ordinarily a cut of T^ of an inch should remove such a
skin on . straight rolled or hammered bars. In the case of

A MANUAL FOB STEEL-USERS. 83

a shaped forging where many re-heatings have been re-
quired the forgeman will have done good work if the cut-
ting away of -J of an inch will present a good surface:
tool-makers should consider this and allow for it. On the
other hand, if a tool-maker finds that the removal of -J of
an inch from a bar, or J of an inch from a forging will not
yield him a good, hard surface, he should hold the steel-
maker responsible for bad work.

Actual burning reveals itself in rough tears, and cracks
at the surface and Corners of the piece. Such a piece
should go to the scrap heap.

Overheated steel of coarse, fiery grain has been injured,
and not necessarily destroyed. Such a piece may be re-
stored to any fineness of grain by heating to the right
temperature — medium orange for the best grain — keeping
it at that heat for, say, one minute for a little piece, and
five to ten or fifteen minutes for a large piece. The heat
should penetrate the whole mass, and it should not be
allowed to run above the ' given color in any part, not
even for a moment. It should then be allowed to cool in a
dry place, without disturbance. The grain will now be
fine and uniform, and the steel may be worked in the
ordinary way.

This simple operation is all that is necessary to restore
to a fine grain any piece of steel that has been overheated,
provided that the piece has not been actually burned nor
ruptured.

34 STEEL:

VII.

ANNEALING.

IT has been shown that the grain or structure of steel is
profoundly affected by heat, so that any difference of heat-
color that is visible to the naked eye will cause a difference
of grain that is also visible to the naked eye.

Specific-gravity tests and delicate magnetic tests have
proved that for every variation in grain there is a differ-
ence of specific gravity, which means, of course, a difference
in volume; from this it is clear that if in any one piece of
steel there exists a variety of grain due to uneven heating,
there must necessarily be in the mass internal destructive
strains. These strains become manifest when a piece of
unevenly heated steel cracks in hardening; in this case the
strains are greater than the tenacity of the steel.

It is well known, also, that all working of steel, such as
forging or rolling, has a hardening effect, so that ordinary
bars or forgings cannot be machined readily in the condi-
tion in which they are left by these operations.

If there were no remedy for these conditions of internal
stress and initial hardness, the general use of steel would
be very difficult, and its application would be limited
seriously.

Fortunately, there are three properties of steel which
furnish an easy and efficient remedy.

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 85

First, the fact that steel will assume by mere heating a
grain or structure due to any temperature, no matter what
its previous structure may have been, makes it a simple
matter to remove practically all irregularities of grain and
stress, by heating the mass to a perfectly uniform color and
allowing it to cool uniformly.

Second, as heating is a softening process always, the
mere heating of any piece of steel will soften it, and the
amount of this softness that can be retained when the
piece is cold is a direct function of the length of time of
cooling, so that by sufficiently slow cooling any steel can
be left reasonably soft.

This does not apply to Hadfield's manganese steel, which
cannot be made soft when cold by any of the known
processes of annealing.

Third, by reference to the specific-gravity table No. I,
Chap. V, it will be seen that the change in volume due to
differences of temperature is much less in mild steel than
in high steel. This fact does not rest upon the evidence of
this table alone; it is a fact of common knowledge to all
steel-makers that mild steel is much more inert than high
steel; therefore differences of heat and working that pro-
duce serious results in high steel are hardly appreciable in
mild steel. As a rule all structural steels are comparatively
mild, therefore they are generally in a fit condition for use
when they leave the rolls or forge. In cases of special
forging, where one part is heated and another is left cold,
as in the forging of the heads of eye-bars, it would seem to
be wiser to anneal such pieces to remove the area of strain
that must exist between the unheated parts and those that
were heated and forged.

The operation of removing strains and hardness by

86 STEEL:

careful, uniform heating and slow cooling is known as
annealing.

Annealing should not be confused with tempering. Tem-
pering is the partial softening of hardened steel, to remove
some of the exceeding brittleness of hardened steel, and so
to make it strong and highly elastic while it is still very
hard.

Annealing is the complete softening of a piece of steel;
that is to say, as a rule, the obtaining of the utmost softness
that is possible; or in any case to have the steel softer than
any tempering would leave it.

Annealing, and tempering are frequently used synony-
mously. Such misuse of terms in speaking of technical
matters leads to confusion of ideas and misunderstandings.

.As a rule, the best heat to use for annealing is that
which gives a medium orange color ; it is a good heat to
quench from; it is a little above the heat of recalescence,
about 655° Cent. This heat is that which gives the finest
grain to steel when it is hardened, and is known as the re-
fining heat.

As steel is thoroughly plastic and soft at this heat, and
as it yields the best and strongest grain when cooled from
this heat, it is clear that there is nothing to be gained by
heating any higher for annealing.

In annealing, the steel should be brought up to the right
color, medium orange, and left at that heat until it is hot
through, care being taken that the heat does not run any
higher in any part of the piece. If the corners or edges or
any part be allowed to run up to bright orange, or to
medium or bright lemon, as is often done, then there is
bad work; the result will be uneven grain and internal
Strains.

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 87

When steel is to be hardened afterwards, there may be
no harm in heating up to an even lemon color ; but where
is the use in applying this excess of heat merely to make a
coarse grain, when the lower, medium orange color will
give just as good softness and a much better grain ?

The time necessary for good annealing depends upon
the size of the piece ; a wire may be brought up to the
right heat in five minutes or less, and heated through in
another minute : then it should be removed from the fire,
as every additional moment of heating will only injure the
steel.

A block six or eight inches cube may require three to
five hours to bring it up to the color and have it heated
through, and sufficient time should be given ; but as soon
as it is hot through it should be removed from the fire.

A six-inch block may be brought up to a medium orange
color in twenty minutes or less in a hot furnace, and then
if it be kept in such a furnace until it is hot all through,
the surface and edges will almost certainly be brought to a
bright lemon color, with bad results. To do good anneal-
ing a piece should never be hotter in one part than in an-
other, and no part should be hotter than necessary, usually
the medium orange color. Annealing, then, is a slow proc-
ess comparatively, and sufficient time should be allowed.

There are many ways of annealing steel, and generally
the plan used is well adapted to the result desired ; it is
necessary, however, to consider the end aimed at and to
adopt means to accomplish it, because a plan that is ex-
cellent in one case may be entirely inefficient in another.

Probably the greatest amount of annealing is done in the
manufacture of wire, where many tons must be annealed
daily.

88 STEEL:

For annealing wire sunken cylindrical pits built of fire-
bricks are used usually ; the coils of wire are piled up in
the cylinders, which are then covered tightly, and heat is
applied through flues surrounding the cylinders, so that no
flame comes in contact with the steel. For all ordinary
uses this method of annealing wire is quick, economical,
and satisfactory. The wire comes out with a heavy scale
of oxide on the surface ; this is pickled off in hot acid, and
the steel should then be washed in limewater, then in clean
water, and finally dried.

If it be desired to make drill- wire for drills, punches,
graving-tools, etc., this plan will not answer, because under
the removable scale there is left a thin film of decarbonized
iron which cannot be pickled off without ruining the steel,
and which will not harden. It is plain that this soft
surface must be ruinous to steel intended for cutting-
tools, for it prevents the extreme edge from hardening —
the very place that must be hard if cutting is to be done.

Tools for drills, lathe tools, reamers, punches, etc., are
usually annealed in iron boxes, filled in the spaces between
the tools with charcoal; the box is then looted and heated
in a furnace adapted to the work. This is a satisfactory
method generally, because the tools are either ground or
turned after annealing, removing any decarbonized film
that may be found ; the charcoal usually takes up all of
the oxygen and prevents the formation of heavy scale and
decarbonized surfaces, but it does not do so entirely, and
so for annealing drill-wire this plan is not satisfactory. It
is a common practice in annealing in this way to continue
the heating for many hours, sometimes as many as thirty-
six hours, in the mistaken notion that long-continued
heating produces greater softness, and some people adhere

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 89

to this plan in spite of remonstrances, because they find
that pieces so annealed will turn as easily as soft cast iron.
This last statement is true ; the pieces may be turned in a
lathe or cut in any way as easily as soft cast iron, for the
reason that that is exactly what they are practically.
When steel is made properly, the carbon is nearly all in a
condition of complete solution; it is in the very best condi-
tion to harden well and to be enduring.

When steel is heated above the recalescence -point into
the plastic condition, the carbon at once begins to separate
out of solution and into what is known as the graphitic
condition. If it be kept hot long enough, the carbon will
practically all take the graphitic form, and then the steel
will not harden properly, and it will not hold its temper.
To illustrate : Let a piece of 90-carbon steel be hardened
and drawn to a light brown temper ; it will be found to be
almost file hard, very strong, and capable of holding a fine,
keen edge for a long time.

Next let a part of the same bar be buried in charcoal in
a box and be closed up air-tight, then let it be heated to a
medium orange, no hotter, and be kept at that heat for
twelve hours, a common practice, and then cooled slowly.
This piece will be easily cut, and it will harden very hard,
but when drawn to the same light brown as the other tool
a file will cut it easily ; it will not hold its edge, and it
will not do good work.

Clearly in this case time and money have been spent
merely in spoiling good material. There is nothing to be
gained, and there is everything to be lost, in long-continued
heating of any piece of steel for any purpose. When it is
hot enough, and hot through, get it away from the fire as
quickly as possible.

90 STEEL:

This method of box-annealing is not satisfactory when
applied to drill-wire, or to long thin strands intended for
clock-springs, watch-springs, etc.

The coils or strands do not come out even ; they will be
harder in one part than in another; they will not take an
even temper. When hardened and tempered, some parts
will be found to be just right, and others will have a soft
surface, or will not hold a good temper. The reason of
this seems to be a want of uniformity in the conditions :
the charcoal does not take up all of the oxygen before the
steel is hot enough to be attacked, and so a decarbonized
surface is formed in some parts ; or it may be that some of
the carbon dioxide which is formed comes in contact with
the surface of the«steel and takes another equivalent of car-
bon from it. Whatever the reaction may be, the fact is
that much soft surface is formed. 'This soft surface may
not be more than .001 of an inch thick, but that is enough
to ruin a watch-spring or a fine drill.

Again, it seems to be impossible to heat such boxes evenly;
it is manifest that it must take a considerable length of time
to heat a mass of charcoal up to the required temperature,
and if the whole be not so heated some of the steel will
not be heated sufficiently; this will show itself in the sub-
sequent drawing of the wire or rolling of the strands. On
the other hand, if the whole mass be brought up to the re-
quired heat, some of the steel will have come up to the
heat quickly, and will then have been subjected to that
heat during the balance of the operation, and in this way
the carbon will be thrown out of solution partly. This is
proven by the fact that strands made in this way and
hardened and tempered by the continuous process will be
hard and soft at regular intervals, showing that one side

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 91

of the coil has been subjected to too much heat. This
trouble is overcome by open annealing, which will be de-
scribed presently.

When steel is heated in an open furnace, there is always
a scale of oxide formed on the surface; this scale, being
hard, and of the nature of sand or of sandstone, grinds
away the edges of cutting-tools, so that, although the steel
underneath may be soft and in good cutting condition,
this gritty surface is very objectionable. This trouble is
overcome by annealing in closed vessels; when charcoal is
used, the difficulties just mentioned in connection with
wire- and strand-annealing operate to some extent, al-
though not so seriously, because the steel is to be ma-
chined, removing the surface.

The Jones method of annealing in an atmosphere of gas
is a complete cure for these troubles.

Jones uses ordinary gas-pipes or welded tubes of sizes
to suit the class of work. One end of the tube is welded
up solid; the other end is reinforced by a band upon which
a screw-thread is cut; a cap is made to screw on this end
when the tube is charged. A gas-pipe of about |-inch
diameter is screwed into the solid end, and a hole of TV to
-J-inch diameter is drilled in the cap.

When the tube is charged and the cap is screwed on, a
hose connected with a gas-main is attached to the piece of
gas-pipe in the solid end of the tube; the gas-pipe is long
enough to project out of the end of the furnace a foot or
so through a slot made in the end of the furnace for that
purpose.

The gas is now turned on and a flame is held near the
hole in the cap until the escaping gas ignites; this shows
that the air is driven out and replaced by gas.

92 STEEL:

The pipe is now rolled into the furnace and the door is
closed, the gas continuing to flow through the pipe. By
keeping the pipe down to a proper annealing-heat it is
manifest that the steel will not be any hotter than the pipe.
By heating the pipe evenly by rolling it over occasionally
the steel will be heated evenly. A little experience will
teach the operator how long it takes to heat through a
given size of pipe and its contents, so that he need not ex-
pose his steel to heat any longer than necessary.

There is not a great quantity of gas consumed in the
operation, because the expanding gas in the tube makes a
back pressure, the vent in the cap being small. This seems
to be the perfection of annealing. A tube containing a
bushel or more of bright, polished tacks will deliver them
all perfectly bright and as ductile as lead, showing that
there is.no oxidation whatever. Experiments with drill-
rods, with the use of natural gas, have shown that they can
be annealed in this way, leaving the surface perfectly
bright, and thoroughly hard when quenched. This Jones
process is patented.

Although the Jones process is so perfect, and necessary
for bright surfaces, its detail is not necessary when a tar-
nished surface is not objectionable.

The charcoal difficulty can be overcome also. Let a
pipe be made like a Jones pipe without a hole in the cap
or a gas-pipe in the end. To charge it first throw a hand-
ful of resin into the bottom of the pipe, then put in the
steel, then another handful of resin near the open end, and
screw on the cap. The cap is a loose fit. Now roll the
whole into the furnace; the resin will be volatilized at once,
fill the pipe with carbon or hydrocarbon gases, and unite

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 93

with the air long before the steel is hot enough to be
attacked.

The gas will cause an outward pressure, and may be
seen burning as it leaks through the joint at the cap.
This prevents air from coming in contact with the steel.
This method is as efficient as the Jones plan as far as per-
fect heating and easy management are concerned. It re-
duces the scale on the surfaces of the pieces, leaving them
a dark gray color and covered with fine carbon or soot.
For annealing blocks or bars it is handier and cheaper
than the Jones plan, but it will not do for polished sur-
faces. This method is not patented.

OPEN ANNEALING.

Open annealing, or annealing without boxes or pipes, is
practised wherever there are comparatively few pieces to
anneal and where a regular annealing -plant would noir
pay, or in a specially arranged annealing-furnace where
drill-wire, clock-spring steel, etc., are to be annealed.

For ordinary work a blacksmith has near his fire a box
of dry lime or of powdered charcoal. He brings his piece
up to the right heat and buries it in the box, where it may
cool slowly. In annealing in this way it is well not to use
blast, because it is liable to force all edges up to too high a
heat and to make a very heavy scale all over the surface.
With a little common-sense and by the use of a little care
this way of annealing is admirable.

It is a common practice where there is a furnace in use
in daytime and allowed to go cold at night to charge the
furnace in the evening, after the fire is drawn, with steel
to be annealed, close the doors and damper, and leave the

94 STEEL:

whole until morning. The furnace does not look too hot
when it is closed up, but no one knows how hot it wili
make the steel by radiation: the steel is almost always
made too hot, it is kept hot too long, and so converted into
cast iron, and there is an excessively heavy scale on it.

Many thousands of dollars worth of good steel are ruined
annually in this way, and it is in every way about the worst
method of annealing that was ever devised.

To anneal wire or thin strands in an open furnace the
furnace should be built with vertical walls about two feet
high and then arched to a half circle. The inports for
flame should be vertical and open into the furnace at the
top of the vertical wall; the outports for the gases of com-
bustion should be vertical and at the same level as the
inports and on the opposite side of the furnace from the
inports. These outflues may be carried under the floor of
the furnace to keep it hot.

The bottom of the door should be at the level of the
ports to keep indraught air away from the steel. The an-
nealing-pot is then the whole size of the furnace — two feet
deep — and closed all around.

The draught should be regulated so that the flame will
pass around the roof, or so nearly so as to never touch the
steel, not even in momentary eddies.

In such a furnace clock-spring wire not more than .01
inch in diameter, or clock spring strands not more than
.006 to .008 inch thick and several hundred feet long, may
be annealed perfectly. The steel is scaled of course, but
the operation is so quick and so complete that there is no
decarbonized surface under the scale.

This plan is better than the Jones method or any closed
method, because the big boxes necessary to hold the

A MANUAL FOB STEEL-USERS. 95

strands or coils cannot be heated up without in some parts
overheating the steel; all of which is avoided in the open
furnace, because by means of peep-holes the operator can
see what he is about, and after a little practice he can an-
neal large quantities of steel uniformly and efficiently.

96 BTEEL:

VIII.
HARDENING AND TEMPERING.

FOE nearly all structural and machinery purposes steel
is used in the condition in which it comes from the rolls
or the forge; in exceptional cases it is annealed, and in
some cases such as for wire in cables or for bearings in
machinery, it is hardened and tempered.

For all uses for tools steel must be hardened, or hard-
ened and tempered. The operations of hardening and
tempering, including the necessary heating, are the most
important, the most delicate, and the most difficult of all
of the manipulations to which steel is subjected; these
operations form an art in themselves where skill, care,
good judgment, and experience are required to produce
reliable and satisfactory results. It is a common idea that
all that is necessary is to heat a piece of steel, quench it
in water, brine, or some pet nostrum, and then warm it to
a certain color; these are indeed the only operations that
are necessary, but the way in which they are done are all-
important.

An experienced steel-maker is often amazed at the con-
fidence with which an ignorant person will put a valuable
tool in the fire, rush the heat up to some bright color, or
half a dozen colors at once, and souse it into the cooling-
bath without regard to consequences. That such work

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. ' 97

does not always result in disastrous fractures shows that
steel does possess marvellous strength to resist even the
worst disregard of rules and facts.

On the other hand, the beautiful work upon the most
delicate and difficult shapes that is done by one skilled in
the art cannot but excite the surprise and admiration of
the onlooker who is familiar with the physics of steel, and
who can appreciate the delicacy of handling required in the
operation.

There are a few simple laws to observe and rules to fol-
low which will lead to success ; they will be stated in this
chapter as clearly as may be, in the hope of giving the
reader a good starting-point and a plain path to follow;
but he who would become an expert can do so only by
travelling the road carefully step by step. The hair-spring
of a watch, or a little pinion or pivot, so small that it
can only be seen through a magnifying-glass, the ex-
quisitely engraved die costing hundreds or thousands of
dollars, and the huge armor-plate weighing many tons,
must all be hardened and tempered under precisely the
same laws and in exactly the same way; the only difference
is in the means of getting at it in each case.

Eeferring now to properties mentioned in the previous
chapters, we have first to heat the piece to the right tem-
perature and then to cool it in the quickest possible way in
order to secure the greatest hardness and the best grain.
In doing this we subject the steel to the greatest shocks or
strains, and great care must be used.

The importance of uniformity in heating for forging and
for annealing has been stated, and it has been shown how
an error in this may be rectified by another and a more care-
ful heating; when it comes to hardening, this uniformity

98 STEEL:

must be insisted upon and emphasized, for as a rule an
error here has no remedy.

There may be cases of bad work that do not cause actual
fracture that can be remedied by re-heating and hardening,
but these are rare, because even if incurable fracture does
not occur the error is not discovered until the piece has
been put to work and its failure develops the errors of the
temperer.

If the error is one of merely too low heat, not producing
thorough hardening, it will generally be discovered by the
operator, who will then try again and possibly succeed ; but
if the error be of uneven heat, or too much heat, the proba-
bilities are that it will not be discovered until the piece
fails in work, when it will be too late to apply any remedy.

Referring to Table I, Chap. V, treating of specific gravi-
ties, it is clear that all steel possesses different specific
gravities, due to differences of temperature, and that these
differences of specific gravity increase as the carbon content
increases ; it follows that if a piece of steel be heated un-
evenly, internal strains must be set up in the mass, and it
is certain that if steel be quenched in this condition violent
strains will be set up, even to the causing of fractures.

The theory of this action, as of all hardening, is involved
in discussion which will be considered later; in this chapter
the facts will be dealt with. When a piece of steel is
neated, no matter how unevenly or to what temperature
below actual granulation, and is allowed to cool slowly and
without disturbance, it will not break or crack under the
operation. If a piece be heated as unevenly as, say,
medium orange in one part and medium lemon in another,
and is then quenched, it will be almost certain to crack if
it contains enough carbon to harden at all in the common

A MANUAL FOE STEEL-USERS. 99

acceptance of the term, that is to say, file hard or having
carbon 40 or higher.

This fact is too well known to be open to discussion;
therefore the quenching of hot steel, the operation of
hardening, does set up violent strains in steel, no matter
what the true theory of hardening may be.

Referring to Chap. V, to the series of squares represent-
ing the apparent sizes of grain due to different tempera-
tures, similar results follow from hardening, with the ex-
ceptions that the different structures are far more plainly
marked, and the squares should be arranged a little differ-
ently; they are shown as continuously larger in Chap. V,
from the grain of the cold bar up to the highest tempera-
ture; this is true if a bar has been rolled or hammered
properly into a fine condition of grain. Of course if a bar
be finished at, say, medium orange it will have a grain due
to that heat — No. 3 in the series of squares. Then if it be
heated to dark orange and cooled from that heat it will
take on a grain corresponding to square No. 2, and No. 1
square will be eliminated.

The series of squares to represent hardened grain will
be as follows:

The heat colors being the same as before, viz. :

1. The natural bar — untreated.

2. Quenched at dark orange or orange red.

3. " " medium orange — refined.

4. " " bright orange.

5. " " dark lemon.

6. " " medium lemon.

7. « « bright lemon.

8. " " very bright lemon or creamy.

100

STEEL:

Heats 6, 7, 8 will almost invariably produce cracks
although the pieces be evenly heated.

These squares do not represent absolute structures with
marked divisions; they are only the steps on an incline,
like the temper numbers in the carbon series; thus, the
carton-line is continuous, but the temper divisions rep re-

CARBON.

150

sent steps up the incline. So with the series of squares,
the changes of grain or structure are continuous, as repre-
sented by the doubly inclined line; the squares being

only the steps to indicate easily observed divisions. The
minuteness of the changes is illustrated by the fact that in
a piece heated continuously from creamy to dark orange
and quenched, differences of grain have been observed
unmistakably on opposite sides of pieces broken off not
more than -J inch thick.

In practice the differences due to the colors given in the
list above are as plain and surely marked as are the differ-
ences in the structure of ingots due to the different
temper carbons already described.

In this hardened series each carbon temper gives its own
peculiar grain; in low steel, say 40 carbon compared to

A MANUAL FOE STEEL-USERS. 101

1.00 carbon or higher, No. 3 will be larger and No. 8 will
be smaller in the low temper than in the high — another
illustration of the fact that low steel is more inert to the
action of heat than high steel. All grades and all tempers
go through the same changes, but they are more marked
in the high than in the low steel.

The grain of hardened steel is affected by the presence
of silicon, phosphorus, and manganese, and doubtless by
any other ingredients, these three being the most common.

It is in the grain of hardened steel that the conditions
described in Chap. V as "sappy," " dry," and "fiery" are
the most easily and frequently observed, although the same
conditions obtain in unhardened steel in a manner that is
useful to an observing steel-user. But it is in this hard-
ened condition that the excellences or defects of steel are
brought out and emphasized.

When a piece of steel is heated continuously from
"creamy," or scintillating, down- to black, or unheated, and
is tli en quenched, the grain will be found to be coarsest,
hardest, and most brittle at the hottest end, and with the
brightest lustre, even to brilliancy, and to become finer down
to a certain point, noted as No. 3 in the series of squares,
or at a heat which shows about a medium orange color;
here the grain becomes exceedingly fine, and here the steel
is found to be the strongest and to be without lustre.
Below this heat the grain appears coarser and the steel is
less hard, until the grain and condition of the unheated part
are reached. This fine, condition, known as the refined con-
dition, is very remarkable. It is the condition to be aimed
at in all hardening operations, with one or two exceptions
which will be noted, because in this state steel is at its best;
it is strongest then, and it would seem to be clear without

102 STEEL:

argument that the finest grain and the strongest will hold
the best at a fine cutting-edge, and will do the most work
with the least wear, although a coarser grain may be a
little harder, the coarser and more brittle condition of the
latter more than counterbalancing its superior hardness.

The advantages of this refined condition are so great
that it is found to be well to harden and refine mild-steel
dies, and battering- and cutting-tools that are to be used
for hot work, although the heat will draw out all of the
temper in the first few minutes, because the superior
strength of the fine grain will enable the tool to do twice
to twenty times more work than an unhardened tool.

The refining-heat, like most other properties, varies with
the carbon; the medium orange given is the proper heat
for normal tool-steel of from about 90 to 110 carbon.
Steel of 150 carbon will refine at about a dark orange, and
steel of 50 to 60 carbon will require about a bright orange
to refine it.

This range is small, but it must be observed and worked
to if the best results are desired.

A color-blind person can never learn to harden steel
properly.

In studying this phenomenon of refining, the conclusion
was reached that it occurred at or immediately above the
temperature that broke up the crystalline condition of cold
steel and brought it fairly into the second, the plastic con-
dition. Farther observation led to the conclusion that the
coarser grain and greater hardness caused by higher heats
were due to the gradual change from plastic toward granu-
lar condition that takes place as the heat increases. Later
investigations have given no reason for changing these con-
clusions.

A MANUAL FOE STEEL-USERS. 103

When the phenomenon of recalescence was observed and
investigated by Osmond and others, different theories were
advanced in explanation.

Langley concluded that if recalescence occurred at the
change from a plastic to a crystalline condition, then the
heat absorbed and again set free during such changes
would account for the visible phenomenon of recalescence.

Again, if it should prove that recalescence occurred at
the refining point, the conjunction of these phenomena
would indicate strongly, first, that refining does occur at
the point where this change of structure is complete in the
reverse order, from crystalline to plastic; and second, the
first being true, recalescence would be explained as stated,
as indicating the inevitable absorption and emission of heat
due to such a change.

Langley fitted up an electric apparatus for heating steel,
in a box so placed that the light was practically uniform,
that is, so that bright sunlight, or a cloudy sky, or passing
clouds would not affect seriously the observation of heat-
colors.

Pieces of steel were heated far above recalescence, up to
bright lemon, and then allowed to cool slowly; in this way
recalescence was shown clearly.

It was found to occur at the refining heat in every case,
shifting for different carbons just as the refining heat
shifts.

Immediately under the pieces being observed was a
vessel of water into which the pieces could be dropped and
quenched. After observing the heating and cooling until
the eye was well trained, pieces were quenched at different
heats and the results were noted. It was found that in the
ascending heats no great hardness was produced until the

104 STEEL :

recalescence heat was reached or passed slightly; and in
the descending heat excessive hardening occurred at a little
below the recalescent heat, although no such hardening
occurred at that color during ascending heats. This ap-
parent anomaly is due simply to lag. If, in ascending, the
piece be held for a few moments at the recalescent point,
no increase being allowed, and then it be quenched, it will
harden thoroughly and be refined. If, in descending, the
• cooling be arrested at a little below the recalescence for a
few moments, neither increase nor decrease being allowed,
and then the piece be quenched, it will not harden any
better than if it' be quenched immediately upon reaching
the same heat in ascending.

Time must be allowed for the changes to take place, and
lag must be provided for.

These experiments show that refining and recalescence
take place at the same temperature.

AS TO HARDNESS.

Prof. J. W. Langley showed by sp. gr. determinations
that steel quenched from 212° F. in water at 60° F.
showed the hardening effect of such quenching, the differ-
ence of temperature being only 152° F.

Prof. S. P. Langley, of the Smithsonian, proved the same
to be true by delicate electrical tests, and these again were
confirmed by Prof. J. W. Langley in the laboratory of the
Case School of Sciences.

A piece of refined steel will rarely be hard enough to
scratch glass. A piece of steel quenched from creamy heat
will almost always scratch glass. The maximum hardness
is produced by the highest heat, or when temperature minus

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 105

cold is a maximum; the least hardness is found by quench-
ing at the lowest heat above the cooling medium, or when
temperature minus cold is a minimum — the time required
to quench being a minimum in both cases.

What occurs between these limits ? Is the curve of hard-
ness a straight line, or an irregular line ?

Let a piece of steel be heated as uniformly as possible
from a creamy heat at one end to black at the other, and
then be quenched.

Now take a newly broken hard file and draw its sharp
corner gently and firmly over the piece, beginning at
the black-heated end. The file will take hold, and as
it is drawn along it will be felt that the piece becomes
slightly harder as the file advances, until suddenly it will
slip, and no amount of pressure will make it take hold
above that point. The piece has become suddenly file
hard.

Next try the same thing with a diamond; the diamond
will cut easily until the point is reached where the file
slipped, then there will be found a great increase of hard-
ness.

From this point to the end of the piece it is observed
readily by the action of the diamond that there is a gradual
increase of hardness from the hump to the end of the piece
to the creamy-heated end. Attempts were made to meas-
ure this curve of hardness by putting a load on the dia-
mond and dragging it over the piece; but no diamond ob-
tainable would bear a load heavy enough to produce a
groove that could be measured accurately by micrometer.
An examination of such a groove, through a strong magni-
fying-glass revealed the conditions plainly ; the groove of

106

STEEL:

hardness may be illustrated on an exaggerated scale ; thus1.

• CREAMY
•HOT END

The next question was, Where does this hump occur, and
what is the cause of it ? •

Careful observation showed that it occurred at the point
of recalescence, at the refining-point. This word point
must not be taken as space without dimension in this con-
nection; it is used in the common sense of at or adjacent
to a given place.. There is of course a small allowable
range of temperature above any given exact point of recal-
escence, such as 655° 0. or 1211° F.

By superimposing Langley's curves of cooling and of
hardening (see Trans. Am. Soc. Civ. Eng., Vol. XXVII, p,
403), the relation between recalescence and the hardening-
hump is obvious.

TIME IN COOLINQ

.CURVE.OFCOOUN3

'CURVE OF

HARDENING

INCREASE IN HABDNE33 »

A MANUAL FOB STEEL-USEES. 10?

It is safe to say that experience proves that the refined
condition is the best for all cutting- tools of every shape
and form.

It seems to be obvious; the steel is then in its strongest
condition, and when the grain is finest, the crystals the
smallest, a fine edge should be the most enduring, because
there is a more intimate contact between the particles.
That a steel will refine well, and be strong in that con-
dition is the steel-maker's final test of quality.

No steel-maker who has a proper regard for the charac-
ter of his product will accept raw material upon mere anal-
ysis; analysis is of the utmost importance, for material
for steel-making must be of a quality that will produce a
certain quality of steel, or the result will be an inferior
product. This applies to acid bessemer and open-hearth,
and to crucible-steel especially; the basic processes admit
of a reduction of phosphorus not obtainable in the others.

In making fine-tool steel a bad charge in the pot inevi-
tably means a bad piece of steel. It may happen also that
an iron of apparently good analysis will not produce a
really fine steel; then there must be a search for unusual
elements, such as copper, arsenic, antimony, etc., or for
dirt, left in the iron by careless working. The refining-
test then is as necessary as analysis, for if steel will not
refine thoroughly it will not make good tools. Battering-
tools, such as sledges, hammers, flatters, etc., should be
refined carefully, for although their work is mainly com-
pressive they are liable to receive, and do get, blows on
the corners and edges that would ruin them if they were
not in the strongest condition possible.

The reasons for refining hot-working tools have been
stated already. Engraved dies for use in drop-presses

108

STEEL:

where they are subjected to heavy blows are undoubtedly
in the most durable condition when they are refined, but
they are subjected not only to impact, but to enormous
compression, and therefore they must be hardened deeply.
When a die-block is heated so as to refine, and then is
quenched, it hardens perfectly on the surface and not very
deeply, and it is quite common in such a case to see a die
crushed by a few blows: the hardened part is driven bodily
into the soft steel below it, and the die is ruined; thus:

CRACK

CRACK

To avoid this, such a die should be heated to No. 5, or a
dark lemon, and quenched suddenly in a large volume of
rushing water.

Tt will then have the enormous resistance to compres-
sion that is so well known in very hard steel, and it will
be hardened so deeply that the blow of the hammer will
not crush through the hard part. This is the best con-
dition, too, of an armor-plate that is to resist the impact of
a projectile.

It will be brittle, a light blow of a hammer will snip the
corners, but it cannot be crushed by ordinary work. Dies
made in this way have turned out thousands of gross of
stamped pieces, showing no appreciable wear.

To harden a die in this way is a critical operation, be-
cause the strains are so enormous that a very trifling un-
evenness in the heat will break the piece, but the skill of
expert temperers is so great that they will harden hun-

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 109

dreds of dies in this way and not lose one if the steel be
sound.

HEATING FOR HARDENING.

A smith can heat an occasional piece for hardening, in
his ordinary fire by using care and taking a little time.
Where there are many pieces to be hardened, special fur-
naces should be used.

For thousands of little pieces, such as saw-teeth or little
springs, a large furnace with a brick floor, and so arranged
that the flame will not impinge on the pieces, is good.

The operator can watch the pieces, and as soon as any
come to the right color he can draw them out, letting
them drop into the quenching-tank, which should be right
under the door or close at hand.

For twist drills, reamers, etc., a lead bath, or a bath of
melted salt and soda, is used. The lead bath is the best
if care be taken to draw off the fumes so as not to poison
the heaters. Because a bath of this kind is of exactly the
right color at the top it is not to be assumed that pieces
can be heated in it and hardened without further atten-
tion.

Thousands of tools are ruined, and thousands of dollars
are thrown away annually, by unobserving men who as-
sume that because a lead bath appears to be exactly the
right color at the surface it is therefore just right.

A dark orange color surface may have underneath it an
increasingly higher temperature, up to a bright lemon at
the bottom, and tools heated in such a bath will have all
of the varying temperatures of the bath; then cracked
tools, twisted tools, brittle tools, tools too hard at one end
and not hard enough at the other, will come out with ex-
asperating regularity.

110 STEEL:

All of this can be avoided by a simple thorough stirring
of the bath, to be done as often as may be necessary to
keep it uniform.

In heating toothed tools, taps, reamers, milling-cutters,
and the like, care should be taken that the points of the teeth
never get above the refining-heat, the dark or medium
orange required. It is no easy matter to do this except in
a uniform bath, but it must be done. If the teeth are
bright lemon, or even bright orange, when the body of the
tool is at medium orange refining-heat, the probabilities are
that they will shell off from the hardened tool as easily as
the grains from a cob of corn.

Even if they are not so bad, if they do not crack off, they
will be coarse-grained and brittle; they will not hold a
good edge, and they will not do good work. If a long tool,
such as a drill, etc., be heated medium orange on one side
and bright orange on the other, — a difference of 100° to
200° F., — and Be quenched, it will come out of the bath
curved ; it must be curved. In quenching a long tool
which it is desired to have straight it should be dipped
vertically, so as to cool all around the axis simultaneously.
If such a tool be dipped sideways, it will come out bent.
In heating edge-tools of all kinds it is best to heat first the
thicker part, away from the edge, and then when the
body has come up to the refining-heat to draw the edge
into the fire and let it come up last ; as soon as a uniform
color is reached quench promptly. If the edge be exposed
to the fire in the beginning of the operation, it will almost
certainly become too hot before the thicker parts are hot
enough.

When a smooth, cylindrical piece is to be hardened, it
should be rolled around from time to time while heating,

A MANUAL FOE STEEL-USEBS. Ill

unless it is in a lead bath ; if it be left to lie quietly in a
furnace until it is hot, it will have a soft streak along the
part that was uppermost.

The cause of this is not clear ; the fact is as certain
as hundreds of tests can make any fact. The experiment
can be made by re-heating the piece with the soft streak
down ; then the original soft streak will come out hard, and
another soft streak will be found on top. The changes can
be rung upon this indefinitely.

A maker of roller-tube expanders had great trouble with
his expander-pins; they cut, and wore out on one side. He
tried many makes and many tempers of steel with the same
. result. He was told to turn his pins over and over as he
heated them and his troubles would end. He replied:
" Why, of course ; I can see the reason and sense in that/'
If he did see the reason, he is the only person known, so
far, who has done so. His pins worked all right from that
time.

In hardening ROUND SECTIONS it is necessary to use
great care to have the heat perfectly uniform and not too
high, because the circular form is the most rigid, offering
the greatest resistance to change. For this reason a round
piece will be almost certain to split if it be heated above a
medium orange, or if it be heated unevenly. Many a
round piece is cracked by a heat, or by a little unevenness
of heat, that another section would endure safely. A roll
with journals is perhaps the most difficult of all tools to
harden successfully ; the most expert temperers will not
be surprised at losing as many as one roll in five.

Engraved dies require to be hardened without oxidizing
the engraved face, so that the finest lines will be preserved
clear and clean.

112

STEEL:

This is done by burying the engraved face in carbonaceous
material in such a way as to prevent the flame or any hot
air from coming in contact with it.

There are many ways of doing this, and many different
carbonaceous mixtures are used ; one simple, and known to
be satisfactory, plan will be explained as sufficient to give
any intending operator a good starting-point.

The carbonaceous material preferred is burnt leather
powdered — and the older it is the better — until it is reduced
to ash, so that the material should be saved after each
operation to be used again mixed with enough new material
to make up the necessary quantity.

ft

D is the die to be heated ; B is an open box about two
inches deep and one inch larger each way than the die;
L is the burnt leather packed in thoroughly, and as full as
the box will hold. The engraved face is down, embedded
in the burnt leather, and secure from contact with flame
or air.

Sometimes powdered charcoal is used, with or without a
mixture of tar, according to the fancy of the operator.

Some operators prefer to have the box so high as to

A MANUAL FOR STEEL- USERS. 113

leave only the top surface of the embedded die exposed,
but the most successful workers prefer the plan sketched,
because they can see more of the die, and so regulate
better the even heating.

The die and box are put in the furnace, and the heating
is watched, the die being turned and moved about in the
furnace so as to obtain a perfectly even heat.

When the right temperature is reached, the whole is
withdrawn from the furnace; the die is lifted out of the
box and plunged into the water immediately. There
must be no delay at this point whatever; a few moments'
exposure of the hot die to the air will result in oxidation
and scaling of the engraving.

In heating such a die a furnace should be used. It can
be done in a smith's fire, but it is a hazardous plan, and
gives many chances for a failure.

A furnace with an even bed of incandescent coke is
good, and such a furnace is very useful for many other
purposes.

Where many dies are to be hardened, the handiest appli-
ance is a little furnace with brick floor and lining, and
heated by petroleum or gas, so arranged that the flames
will not impinge upon the piece to be heated.

Such furnaces are now made to work so perfectly that
illuminating-gas is found to be an economical fuel.

For quenching there should be plenty of water. For
small dies that can be handled easily by one man a large
tub or tank of water will answer if the operator will keep
the die in rapid motion in the water.

Running water is the best. A handy plan is to have the
inlet-pipe project vertically a short distance through the
bottom of the tank, producing a strong upward current

114 STEEL:

which will strike directly against the face of the sub-
merged die.

Some prefer a downward stream; others a side stream;
others, again, prefer a shower-bath; and, again, some use
side jets.

A very efficient tank has a partition running from a few
inches from the bottom to within a few inches of the sur-
face of the water, and so placed as to separate, say, nine
tenths of the tank from one tenth. In the smaller com-
partment there is an Archimedean screw driven at a speed
of 200 to 300 revolutions; this drives the water under the
partition and out over the top in a violent current. The
steel is quenched in the larger space. Where water is an
item of expense, this plan is economical, and it is certainly
efficient.

An excellent way of quenching large faces, such as
anvils, is to have a tank raised twelve to fifteen feet from
the floor. In the bottom of the tank is a pipe with a
valve, to be operated by a lever. The whole is enclosed in
a sort of closet with a door in one side. When the piece is
hot, it is placed immediately under the pipe, the door is
closed, the valve is opened, and a great body of water is
dashed down upon the face that is to be hardened.

A slight modification of this plan is used in hardening
armor-plates, where many jets are used to insure even
quenching of the large surface. This plan is supposed to
be patented, or, more properly, it is patented; but #s it is
very old and well known the patent should not be allowed
to disturb anybody.

Water only has been mentioned so far as a quenching
medium, because it is the simplest and the cheapest gen-
erally. Oil is used frequently where extreme hardness is

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 115

not necessary and toughness is desirable. Oil gives a good
hardness with toughness, and it is used almost universally
for springs, and it is sometimes used to toughen railroad
axles and similar work. The oil acts more slowly than
water and leaves the piece in more nearly a tempered con-
dition; it is neither so hard nor so brittle as it would be if
quenched in water. Straits fish-oil is good and cheap;
lard-oil gives greater hardness than fish-oil; mineral oil is
too fiery to use safely; but there are mixed oils in the mar-
ket made expressly for hardening which are cheap and
efficient.

If it is desired to get the greatest hardness, brine will
harden harder than fresh water; and mercury will give
the greatest hardness of all. It is a rather expensive cool-
ing medium.

Acid added to water increases its hardening power; but
those who know the effects of acids will be very chary of
using them.

As to heating, too much emphasis cannot be given to the
importance of even temperature throughout the mass.
The illustration of the painted piece mentioned in connec-
tion with heating for forging applies more forcibly here.
Every piece that is to be quenched should look as if it
were covered with a perfectly even coat of paint of the
exact tint necessary to give the best result.

All hardening should be done on a rising temperature,
because then the grain and strains cannot be greater than
those due to the highest heat, and this maximum heat can
be watched and kept within limits. If a piece be quenched
from a falling temperature, the grain and strains will be
those due to the highest temperature, modified slightly by
the distance through which it has cooled, and always coarser

116 STEEL:

and more brittle than if quenched at the same heat pro-
duced by rising temperature. If by accident a piece gets
too hot to be quenched, it should be allowed to go entirely
cold, and then be heated again to the right color.

After a piece of steel is hardened it is usually tempered
to relieve some of the strain, reduce brittleness, and in-
crease the toughness.

This is done by heating; usually the piece is held over
the fire, or in contact with a large piece of steel or iron
heated for the purpose, until it takes on a certain color
which indicates the degree of tempering that is wanted.

Where great numbers of pieces are to be tempered, a
bath is very convenient. Boiling in water produces only
a slight tempering sufficient for some purposes. Steaming
under given pressure will produce even heating and uni-
form tempering.

When pieces are quenched in oil, they can be tempered
easily and nicely by watching the oil that adheres to them.
When the oil is dried off and begins to char, the tempering
is good, about right for saw-teeth. If the heat is run up
until the oil flashes, the tempering is pretty thorough and
is about right for good springs. If the oil be all burned
off, there will be little temper left except in very high
steel. High steel becomes much harder when quenched
than low steel; consequently very high hardened steel may
be heated until it begins to show color and still retain con-
siderable hardness or temper, whereas a milder steel,
under 90 or 100 carbon, when heated to such a degree will
retain no temper, it will be soft.

Saw-teeth, tap, reamer, and milling-cutter teeth, may be
drawn, and usually should be drawn, down until a file will
barely catch them; then they will do excellent work. Many

A MANUAL FOE STEEL-USERS. 117

inexperienced temperers are apt to complain if swch tools
can be filed at all when drawn to the proper color, forget-
ful or ignorant of the fact that a file should always contain
about twice as much carbon as a tap or reamer, and that
if both are drawn to the same color the file must necessarily
be the harder. Such men often destroy much good work
by trying to get the tools too hard. If a tap-tooth be left
file hard, it will bt? pretty certain to snip off when put to
work.

TEMPER COLORS.

When a clean piece of iron or steel, hardened or un-
hardened, is exposed to heat in the air, it will assume differ-
ent colors as the heat increases. First will be noticed a
light, delicate straw color; then in order a deep straw,
light brown; darker brown; brown shaded with purple,
known as pigeon-wing; as the brown dies out a light
bluish cast; light brilliant blue; dark blue; black.

When black, the temper is gone. It is well established
that these colors are due to thin films of oxide that are
formed as the heat progresses.

These colors are very beautiful, and as useful as they are
beautiful, furnishing an unvarying guide to the condition
of hardened steel.

The drawing of hardened steel to any of these colors is
tempering.

So we have the different tempers:

Light straw For lathe-tools, files, etc.

Straw " " " " "

Light brown " taps, reamers, drills, etc.

Darker brown " " " " "

Pigeon- wing " axes, hatchets, and some drills

Light blue " springs

Dark blue " some springs; but seldom used

118

STEEL:

This is the unfortunate second use of the word temper,
which must be borne in mind if confusion is to be avoided
in consulting with steel-makers and steel-workers. The
meanings may be tabulated thus :

Temper.

Steel-maker's Meaning.

Steel-worker's Meaning.

Very high. .

150 carbon -|-

light straw

High . .

100 to 120 C

straw

Medium

70 to 80 C

brown to pigeon- wing

Mild

40 to 60 C

light blue

Low

20 to 30 C

dark blue

Soft or dead soft

under 20 C

black

The uses given for temper colors are not meant to be ab-
solute; they merely give a good general idea; experienced
men are guided by results, and temper in every case in the
way that proves to be most satisfactory.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CRACKS AND SEAMS.

When temperers find that their tools are cracking under
their treatment, they are apt to assume that, as they are
working in their ordinary way, there must be something
wrong with the steel. It is either seamy, or harder than
usual, or not uniform in temper, or it is. of inferior quality.

All or any of these conditions may exist and be the
cause of the trouble; but every man should bear in mind
that he is also a variable quantity; he may be unwell and
not see and observe as closely as usual; theie maybe a long
spell of unusual weather giving him a light differing from
that to which he is accustomed; or, as is often the case, he
may simply have unconsciously departed from the even
track by not having his mind carefully intent upon the
routine which has become a sort of second nature to him,
so that for a time he ceases to think, makes of himself an

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 119

animated machine, and the machine left to itself does not
run with perfect regularity.

If personal pride, egotism, or ill temper be set aside, it is
always easy to find out whether the fault is in the steel or
in the- man ; that once determined the remedy is easily
applied, and the sooner the better for all parties.

How to Break a Tool. Let an ordinary axe be con-
sidered.

f

If the axe be cracked as shown in Fig. 1, the corners
have been hotter than the middle of the blade; probably
by snipping the corners and the middle and comparing
the fractures the coarser grain at the corners will tell the
tale.

If the crack be as shown in No. 2, the middle of the
blade has been hotter than the corners : snipping and com-
paring the grains will tell the story.

120 STEEL:

If the crack be more nearly a straight line, as shown in
number 3, the chances are that there is a seam there and
the steel is at fault.

How to Tell a Seam from a Water-crack. — A seam is
caused by a gas-bubble in the ingot which has not been
closed up by hammering or rolling; it always runs in the
direction of the work; in bars it is parallel to the axis.

The walls of a seam are always more or less smooth, the
surfaces having been rubbed together under heavy pressure
during hammering or rolling, and they are black usually,
being coated with oxide.

The walls of a water-crack are never smooth, they are
rough and gritty, and they may have any of the temper
colors caused by the action of water and heat.

There need never be any question as to which is which.

If a long tool cracks down the middle, it may be from
too much heat, from seams, or from a lap.

A lap is caused by careless working under a hammer, or
by bad draughts in the rolls, folding part of the steel over
on itself. Laps, like seams, run parallel to the axis of a
bar, and usually in very straight lines.

Any long piece of steel may be split in hardening by too
much heat. In making the experiment of heating a piece
continuously from scintillating, or creamy color, down to
black, to show the differences of grain due to the different
heats, the sample almost invariably splits down the middle
as far as the strong, refined grain, or nearly that far.

As stated before, a round bar will be almost certain to
split if it be heated up to medium lemon, although a
square bar may endure the same heat without cracking.

An examination of the walls of a split will settle at once
whether it is a seam, a lap, or a water-crack.

A MANUAL FOB STEEL-USERS. 1841

A seam will not necessarily be long; its walls will be
smooth.

A lap usually runs the who^ length of the bar, and the
walls are smooth.

By smooth walls of seams and laps comparative smooth-
ness is meant; they are sometimes polished, but not always,
and they are never granular like the walls of water-cracks.

If the split be a water-crack, the walls will be rough and
granular.

After a temperer has straightened himself out, and
brought his work to usual accuracy and uniformity, if his
tools continue to crack and indicate weakness in the steel,
it is time for him to suspect the character of his material
and to require the steel-maker to either show up the faults
in tempering, or improve the quality of his product.

A WORD FOR THE WORKMAN.

Give Mm a chance. A steel-worker to be expert must
have a well-trained eye and know how to use it. He must
work with delicate tints, ranging in the yellows from
creamy yellow to dark orange or orange red as extremes,
and most of his work must be done between bright lemon
and medium orange in forging, and between rather dark
to medium orange, or possibly nearly light orange, when
hardening and tempering.

Probably in no other business is there such ridiculous
waste as is often found in steel-working where the manu-
facturer economizes in his blacksmiths.

A'large, wealthy railroad condemns a brand of steel. The
steel-maker goes to the shop and is informed by a bright,
intelligent blacksmith that the steel will not make a track-

122 STEEL:

chisel. It is a hot summer day; the smith is working over
a huge fire with a large piece of work in the middle of the
fire and a number of small pieces of steel stuck in the edge
of the fire.

He is welding large iron frog-points, and in the interval
he is filling a hurried order for four dozen track-chisels for
which the trackmen are waiting. He is not merely forging
the chisels, he is hardening and tempering them. .The
glare of the welding-work makes him color-blind, the hurry
gives him no time for manipulation, and the trackmen
have no chisels.

After a thorough expression of sympathy for the smith
the steel-maker turns upon the foreman and master me-
chanic, and gives them such a tongue-lashing that they
turn away silenced and ashamed.

Page after page of such cases could be written, but one
should be enough.

A steel-maker has a thoroughly skilled and expert steel-
worker; he rushes into the shop and says, "Mike, refine
this right away, please; I want to know what it is."

Mike replies, "I will do that to-morrow; I am welding
to-day. "

That is entirely satisfactory; those men understand one
another, and they know a little something about their
business.

A temperer should do no other work when he' is heating
for hardening, and he should always be allowed to use as
much time about it as he pleases, assuming that he is a
decently honest man who prefers good work to bad; and as
a rule such honest men. are in the majority, if they are
given a fair chance.

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS.

IX.

ON THE SURFACE.

THE condition of the surface of steel has much to do
with its successful hardening and working.

A slight film adherent to the surface of steel will
prevent its hardening properly; the steel may harden
under such a film and not be hard upon the immediate
surface, and, as in almost every case a hard, strong surface
is necessary to good work, it is important that a piece of
steel to harden well should have a clean surface of sound
steel.

It has been stated already that all bars and forgings of
steel have upon the surface a coat of oxide of iron, and im-
mediately beneath this a thin film of decarbonized iron.

Neither of these substances will harden, and in every
case where a hard-bearing surface or a keen-cutting edge
is desired these coatings must be removed. Polished
drill-wire and cold-rolled spring-steel for watches, clocks,
etc., should have perfect surfaces, and it is the duty of
steel-makers to turn them out in that condition. All black
steel, or hot-finished steel, contains these coatings.

In the manufacture of railroad, wagon, and carriage
springs it is not necessary or customary to pay any atten-
tion to these coatings ; the body of the steel hardens well,
giving the required resilience and elasticity, so that an un-

124 STEEL:

hardened coat of .01 to .001 inch thick does no harm. To
all bearing-surfaces and cutting-edges such coatings are
fatal.

The ordinary way of preparing steel is to cut the skin
off, and this is sufficient if enough be take off ; it happens
often that a purchaser, in pursuit of economy and unaware
of the importance of this skin, orders his bars or forgings
so close to size that when they are finished the decarbon-
ized skin is not all removed, and the result is an expensive
tap, reamer, milling-cutter, or some tool of that sort with
the points of the teeth soft and worthless.

In small tools ^ inch, in medium-size tools, say up to
two or three inches in diameter, -J inch cut off should be
plenty ; in large tools and dies, especially in shaped forg-
ings, it would be wiser to cut away -fa inch.

In many cases sufficient hardness can be obtained by
pickling off the surface-scale, but this will not do where
thorough hardening is required, because the acid does not
remove the thin decarbonized surface. It seems to be im-
practicable to remove the decarbonized skin by the action
of acid, for if the steel be left in the acid long enough to
accomplish this the acid will penetrate deeper, oxidizing
and ruining the steel as it advances.

Grinding is frequently resorted to, being quicker and
cheaper than turning, planing, or milling.

When grinding is used, care must be taken not to glaze
the surface of the steel, or if it should be glazed the glaze
must be removed by filing or scraping.

In the manufacture of files it is customary to grind the
blanks after they are forged and before the teeth are cut.

After the blanks are ground they are held up to the
light and examined carefully for glaze. Every blank that

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 125

shows by the flash of light that it is glazed is put to one
side; then these glazed blanks are taken by other opera-
tives and filed until all traces of glaze are removed. The
file-maker will explain that if this be not done the files
when hardened will be soft at the tips of the teeth over
the whole of the glazed surface. This inspection and filing
of blanks involves considerable expense, and it is certain
that such an expense would not be incurred if it were not
necessary.

This glaze does not appear to be due to burning, at least
the stones are run in water ; the blanks are handled by the
bare hands of the grinders, and do not appear to be hot.

After pieces are hardened and tempered they frequently
require grinding to bring them to exact dimensions. This
is usually done on emery-wheels with an abundance of
water, and as no temper colors are developed indicating
heat it is assumed that no harm can be done.

Just here much valuable work is destroyed. The tem-
pered piece is put on the wheel, in a " flood of water" ; the
work is rushed, and the piece comes out literally covered
with little surface-cracks running in every direction, per-
fectly visible to the naked eye. Until the steel-worker
learns better he blames and condemns the steel.

This result is very common in the manufacture of shear-
knives, scissors, shear-blades, dies, etc.

Sometimes too a round bearing or expander-pin is hard-
ened ; examined by means of a file it appears perfectly
hard ; it is then ground, not quite heavily enough to pro-
duce surface-cracks, but still heavily, and on a glazed
wheel. It is found now that the surface is soft; only a
thousandth of an inch or so has been cut o£f, and the steel
is condemned at once because it will harden only skin deep.

126 STEEL:

Let the file be drawn heavily over the surface and it will
be found that the soft surface is only about a thousandth
of an inch thick, and underneath the steel is perfectly
hard.

Now grind slightly on a sharp, clean wheel and re-harden ;
the surface will be found to be perfectly hard. Ground
heavily again on the glazed wheel, it will become soft, as
before. These operations can be repeated with unvarying
results until the whole piece is ground away.

These difficulties occur more with emery-wheels than
with grindstones, either because emery-wheels glaze more
easily than grindstones, or because, owing to their superior
cutting powers under any circumstances, they are more
neglected than grindstones.

Experience shows that these bad results occur almost in-
variably on glazed wheels. It is rare to find any bad work
come off from a clean, sharp wheel, unless the pressure has
been so excessive as to show that the operator is either
foolish or stupid.

The remedy is simple : Keep the wheels clean and sharp.

Many grinders who understand this matter will not run
any wheel more than one day without dressing, nor even a
whole day if the work is continuous and they have reason
to apprehend danger.

A FEW WORDS IN REGARD TO PICKLING.

Pickling is the placing of steel in a bath of dilute acid
to remove the scale. It is a necessary operation in wire-
making and for many other purposes, and it may be
hastened by having the acid hot.

Sulphuric acid is used generally; it is efficient and cheap.
When thin sheets are to be pickled, the, acid should not be

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 127

too hot, or it will raise a rash all over the sheet in many
cases. This indicates some unsoundness in the steel, the
presence probably of innumerable little bubbles of oc-
cluded gases. This is possibly true, yet the same sheets
pickled properly and brought out smooth will polish per-
fectly, or if cut up will make thousands of little tools that
will show no evidence of unsoundness.

Steel should never be left in the pickling-bath any
longer than is necessary to remove the scale; it seems
unnecessary to warn readers that the acid will continue to
act on the steel, eat the steel after the scale is removed.
When taken from the pickle, the steel should be washed
in limewater and plenty of clean running water; but this
does not take out all of the acid. It should then be baked
for several hours at a heat of 400° to 450° F. to decompose
the remaining acid. This is just below a bluing heat, and
it does not discolor or oxidize the surface. It is known as
the sizzling-heat, the heat that the expert laundry-woman
gets on her flat-iron which she tests with her moistened
finger.

Acid if not taken off completely will continue to act
upon and rot the steel; how far this will go on is not
known exactly; for instance, it is not known whether if a
block six inches cube were pickled and merely washed, the
remaining acid would penetrate and rot the whole mass or
not. There must be some relation between the mass of
the steel and the power of a small amount of acid to pene-
trate.

The power of acid can be illustrated on the other ex-
treme : A lot of watch-spring steel is finished in long
coils and .010 inch thick; when last pickled, the baking
was neglected ; the steel is tough, it hardens well, anc

128 STEEL:

when tempered it is springy and strong; by all of the tests
it is just right in every coil. It is shipped away and in
three or four weeks the spring-maker begins work on it.
He reports at once that it is rotten and worthless, it will
not make a spring at all, and he is angry. The steel is
returned to the maker and he finds the report true : the
steel is rotten and worthless. Then by diligent inquiry be
finds that the last baking was omitted, and he pockets his
loss, sending an humble apology to the irate spring-maker.
Whether the residual acid can ruin a large piece of steel
or not need not be considered when the simple operation
of baking will remove the possibility of harm.

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 129

X.

IMPUEITIES IN STEEL.

ANY elements in steel which reduce its strength 01
durability in any way may be classed as impurities.

A theoretical ideal of pure steel is a compound of iron
and carbon ; it is an ideal that is never reached in practice,
but it is one that is aimed at by many manufacturers and
consumers, because experience shows that, especially in
high steels, the more nearly it is attained the more reliable
and safe is the product.

All steel contains silicon, phosphorus, sulphur, oxygen,
hydrogen, and nitrogen, none of which add any useful
property to the material. It is admitted that, starting
with very small quantities of silicon or phosphorus in mild
steel, small additions of either element will increase the
tensile strength of the steel perceptibly up to a given
amount, and that then the addition of more of either one
will cause a reduction of strength. The same increase of
strength can be obtained by the addition of a little carbon,
producing a much more reliable material. It is not known
that even such slight apparent gain in strength can be
made by using oxygen, nitrogen, or hydrogen.

Manganese is present in all steel as a necessary ingredi-
ent, it gives an increase in strength in the same way as
phosphorus, and when increased beyond a small limit it
causes brittleness. Hadfield's manganese steel is a unique

130 STEEL :

material, not to be considered in connection with the ordi-
nary steel of commerce.

Webster's experiments are perhaps the most complete of
any that show the effects of small increases of silicon,
phosphorus, sulphur, and manganese, but as these are not
completed they are not quoted here, because Mr. Webster
may reach additional and different results before these
pages are printed.

The chief bad qualities of steel that are caused by these
impurities are known as " red-shortness," " cold-shortness,"
and " hot-shortness."

A steel is called red-short when it is brittle and friable
at what is known commonly as a low red heat — "cherry
red," " orange red."

Red-shortness is caused chiefly by sulphur or by oxygen;
many other elements may produce the same effects; it
seems probable that nitrogen may be one of these, but the
real action of nitrogen is as yet obscure.

A red-short steel is difficult to work; it must be worked
at a high heat — from bright orange up to near the heat of
granulation — or it will crack. When hardened, it is almost
certain to crack. When red-short steel is worked with
care into a sound condition, it may when cold be reason-
ably strong, but hardly any engineer of experience would
be willing to trust it.

Hot-short steel is that which cannot be worked at a high
heat, say above a medium to light orange, but which is gen*
erally malleable and works soundly at medium orange
down to dark orange, or almost black.

This is a characteristic of most of the so-called alloy
steels, or steels containing considerable quantities of tung-
sten, manganese, or silicon. It is claimed that chrome

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 131

steel may be worked at high heats and that it is less easily
injured in the fire than carbon steel. This is not within
the author's experience. It is this property of hot-short-
ness that makes the alloy steels so expensive; the ingots
cannot be heated hot enough nor worked heavily enough
to close up porosities, and therefore, there is a heavy loss
from seams.

The range of heat at which they can be worked is so
small that many re-heatings are required, increasing greatly
the cost of working.

As compared to good carbon steel they are liable to
crack in hardening, and when hardened they are friable,
although they may be excessively hard.

Cold-short steel is steel which is weak and brittle when
cold, either hardened or unhardened. Of those which are
always found in steel, phosphorus is the one well-known
element which produces cold-shortness.

It is clear that no one can have any use for cold-short
steel.

Red-short or hot short steel may be of some use when
worked successfully into a cold condition, but cold-short
steel is to be avoided in all cases where the steel is used
ultimately cold.

If the theoretically perfect steel is a compound of iron
and carbon, it cannot be obtained in practice, and the only
safeguard is to fix a maximum above which other elements
are not to be tolerated.

In tool-steel of ordinary standard excellence such maxi-
mum should be .02 of one per cent ; it may be worked to
easily and economically, except perhaps in silicon, which
element is generally given off to some extent by the cruci-
ble; it should be kept as low as possible, however, say well

132 STEEL:

under 10, one tenth of one per cent. Some people claim
that a little higher silicon makes steel sounder and better;
but any expert temperer will soon observe the difference
between steels of .10 and .01 silicon. For the highest and
best grade of tool-steel the maximum should be the least
attainable. Every one hundredth of one per cent of phos-
phorus, silicon, or sulphur will show itself in fine tool-steel
when it is hardened. It is assumed, of course, that such
impurities as copper, antimony, arsenic, etc., exist only as
mere traces, or not at all.

As oxygen must be at a minimum, no one has yet suc-
ceeded in making a really fine tool-steel from the products
of the Bessemer or of the open-hearth process.

The removal of the last fractions of these impurities is
difficult and expensive ; for instance, a steel melting iron of

Silicon 03 to .06

Phosphorus 03 " .02

Sulphur 002 or

may be bought for 2 cents a pound or less, whereas an
iron of

Silicon < .02

Phosphorus < .01

Sulphur trace

can hardly be bought for less than 5 cents a pound.

This difference of three cents a pound is justifiable when
the highest grade of tool-steel is to be made; and it would
be silly to require any such material in any spring, ma-
chinery, or structural steel.

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 133

In addition to these impurities there are other difficulties
to be guarded against, chief among which is an uneven
distribution of elements.

In all steel there is some segregation; that is to say, as
the liquid metal freezes, the elements are to some extent
squeezed out and collected in that part of the ingot which
congeals last. It is claimed that in the Bessemer and
Open-hearth processes any ferro-silicon added to quiet a
heat, or any ferro-manganese added to remove oxygen, are
at once absorbed and distributed through the mass, and so
when any serious irregularity is discovered it is charged to
segregation.

A heat may produce billets of 75 carbon and 120 carbon,
and again it is called segregation.

As a rule, inertia has more to do with such differences
than segregation. One crucible of steel may produce an
ingot containing 90 carbon and 130 carbon. Segregation
has nothing to do with this: a careless mixer has put a
heavy lump of 140- or 1 50-carbon steel in the bottom of the
pot and covered it up with iron. The steel melted first
and settled in the bottom of the pot, the iron melted later
and settled on top of the steel, and they did not mix.
The teeming was not sufficient to cause a thorough mixing.

Segregation covers a multitude of sins.

Exactly how much is sin and how much is segregation
will not be known until analyses are made of the top, middle,
and bottom of the bath, and of the contents of the ladle,
these to be compared to analyses of the top, bottom, and
middle of the ingots. There is certainly an unavoidable
amount of segregration, and as equally certain an amount
of curable irregularity due to inertia.

134 STEEL:

WILD HEATS.

After steel is melted, whether in a crucible, an open
hearth, or a Bessemer vessel, it boils with more or less vio-
lence. This boiling is caused by ebullition of gases, and if
steel be poured into moulds while it is boiling the resulting
ingot will be found to be honeycombed to an extent that
is governed by the degree of the boiling.

If a heat toils violently and persistently, it is said to be
" wild/' and if a wild heat be teemed the ingots will be
honeycombed completely; such ingots cannot be worked
into thoroughly sound steel, and no melter who has any re-
gard for his work will teem a wild heat if he knows it.

To stop the boiling is called " dead-melting," " killing "
the steel, so that it shall be quiet in the furnace and in
the moulds.

A crucible-steel maker who knows his business can, and
he will, always dead-melt his steel. It only requires a few
minutes of application of a heat a little above melting tem-
perature, and this can be applied by a skilled melter with-
out burning his crucible or cutting down his furnace; this
is indeed about all of the art there is in crucible-melting,
the remaining operations being easy and simple.

Dead-melting in the Bessemer vessel is not possible by
increase of time; wild heats are managed differently, prob-
ably by adding manganese or silicon, or both, but exactly
how is not within the author's experience.

Dead-melting in the open hearth would appear at first
sight to be always possible, but there are more difficulties
in the way than in the case of crucible-melting.

The heat may be wild when the right carbon is reached,

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USEES. 135

and then the melter must use a little ferro-silicon, or
silico-spiegel, or highly silicious pig, or aluminum, and he
must use good judgment so as not to have his steel over-
dosed with any of these. From half an ounce to an ounce
of aluminum to a ton of steel is usually sufficient, and al-
though liny considerable content of aluminum is injurious
to steel there is little danger of its being added, because of
its cost, and because a little too much aluminum will cause
the ingots to pipe from top to bottom.

Silicon seems to be the most kindly element to use, and it
is claimed that a content of silicon as high as 20 is not inju-
rious ; some people claim that it is beneficial. That it does
help materially in the production of sound steel there can
be no doubt, and if such steel meets all of the requirements
of the engineer and of practice it would seem to be wise
not to place the upper limit for silicon so low as to prevent
its sufficient use in securing soundness. But the author
cannot concede that as much as 20 silicon is necessary. In
crucible practice high silicon is not necessary ; in "melt-
ing-iron," or iron to be melted, it means so much dirt, in-
dicating careless workmanship ; but there will always be a
little silicon present which the steel has absorbed from the
walls of the crucible during the operation of melting. In
high tool-steel silicon should be at the lowest minimum
that is attainable.

This discussion of wild heats may appear to be outside
of the scope of this work, and to belong exclusively to the
art of manufacturing steel, of which this book does not
pretend to treat. This is true so far that it is not recom-
mended that the engineer shall meddle in any way with
the manufacturer in the management of his work; on the
other hand, it is vital to the engineer that he should know

136 STEEL:

about it, because wild steel may hammer or roll perfectly
well, it may appear to be sound, but the author cannot
believe that it is ever sound and reliable.

Again, it has a scientific interest; that wildness is due to
too much gas, and probably to carbon-gas, may be shown
by an illustration.

It has its parallel in the rising of the iron in a puddling-
furnace at the close of the boil, a phenomenon with which
every one is familiar who has watched a heat being boiled
or puddled. That all of the iron does not run out of the
puddling-furnace at this stage is owing to the fact that
there is not heat enough in the puddling-furnace to keep
the iron liquid after it has been decarbonized.

During the running of a basic open-hearth furnace an
apparently dead heat was tapped; before the steel reached
the ladle there was a sort of explosion; the steel was blown
all over the shop, the men had to run for their lives, and
not one tenth of the steel reached the ladle. The mana-
ger was rated roundly for carelessness in not having dried
his spout, and the incident closed. A few days later an-
other quiet heat was tapped and it ran into the ladle;
about the time the ladle was full the steel rose rapidly,
like a beaten egg or whipped cream, and ran out on to the
floor, cutting the sides of the ladle, the ladle-chains, and
the crane-beams as it flowed. The men ran, and there
was no injury to the person.

Again the manager was blamed, this time for having a
damp ladle, and he was notified of an impending dis-
missal if such a thing occurred again. He protested that
he knew the ladle and the stopper were red-hot, that he
had examined them personally and carefully, and knew he
stated the truth.

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 137

There were several reasons for looking into the matter
farther: first, the man in charge was known to be truthful
and careful, so that there was no reason for doubting his
word; second, if the vessel and rod were red-hot, there
could be no aqueous moisture there ; and, finally, such an
ebullition from dampness was contrary to experience, as a
small quantity of water under a mass of molten iron, or
slag, results almost invariably in a violent explosion, like
that of gunpowder or dynamite.

Upon inquiry it was found that prior to both ebullitions
there had been a large hole in the furnace-bottom, requir-
ing about a peck of material to fill it in each case. Mag-
nesite was used; the magnesite was bought raw, and
burned in the place. It is well known that it takes a long
time and high heat to drive carbonic acid out of magne-
site, and it was surmised that insufficient roasting might
have caused the trouble. Samples of burned and of raw
magnesite were sent to the laboratory, and the burned was
found to contain about as much carbonic acid as the raw
magnesite. Then the case seemed clear : This heavily
charged magnesite was packed into the hole; the heat was
charged and melted. The magnesite held the carbonic acid
until near the close of the operation; then the intense heat
of the steel forced the release of the gas, which was at
once absorbed by the steel. Owing to the superincumbent
weight of the steel the gas was absorbed quietly, and when
the weight was removed the gas escaped, exactly as it does
at the close of puddling or in the frothing of yeast.

Whether the carbonic acid remained such, or whether it
took up an equivalent of carbon and became carbonic
oxide, and then again took up oxygen from the bath,, an<2
so kept on increasing in volume, is not known-

138 STEEL :

The facts seem clear, and the collateral proof is that
thorough burning of the magnesite, and of any dolomite
that was used, prevented a recurrence of any such acci-
dents.

Such ebullitions have occurred and caused the burning
to death of pitmen, and the statement of the above case
may be of use to melters in the future who have not met
such an experience.

OXYGEN AND NITBOGEN.

Oxygen and nitrogen are present in all steel and both
are injurious, probably the most so of all impurities.

The oxides of iron are too well known to need discus-
sion or description; they are the iron ores mixed with
gangue. They are brittle, friable, hard, and weak, like
sandstones. Mixed in steel they can be nothing but weak-
eners, elements of disintegration. Let any one take a
handful of scale — or rust — oxide of iron, in his fingers and
crumble it, and it will be difficult for him to imagine how
such material could be anything but harmful when incor-
porated in steel. Langley has shown, and other scientists
have confirmed him, that oxygen may exist in iron in solu-
tion, and not as oxide; the discovery was attended with
the assertion that such dissolved oxygen produced exces-
sive red-shortness. The proof that red-shortness was
caused in this way was completed by the removal of the
oxygen from some extremely red-short steel; the red-
shortness disappeared with the oxygen and the steel
worked perfectly.

When steel is melted very low in carbon, by any process,
it is certain to be red-short and rotten unless the greatest
care be used to prevent the introduction of oxygen.

A MANUAL FOB STEEL-USERS. 139

Crucible-steel of 15 carbon or less will as a. rule be red-
short and cold-short; it will not weld, and is generally
thoroughly worthless. The same material melted to con-
tain 18 to 25 carbon will be tough and waxlike, hot or
cold. It wil/ weld easily into tubes, and may be stamped
cold into almost any desired shape.

Bessemer or open-hearth steel of less than 8 carbon is
almost certaii? to be equally worthless, whereas the same
material blown or melted not below 10 or 12 carbon, and
re-carbonized not above 20, will be tough and good at any
heat under granulation, and equally good and tough when
cold.

As to Bessemer steel, the author cannot say whether it
would be possible to stop the blow between 10 and 15
carbon or not, but it seems certain that if there be no
overblowing red-shortness and cold-shortness may be
avoided by carbonizing back to about 15 by the use of
manganese or silicon, or both together.

In the open hearth it is always possible to stop the
melt at 10 carbon, and to deoxidize the heat so as to avoid
shortness, and not to go above 20 carbon. Such steel will
be sound and tough ; it will weld and stamp perfectly, and
will be satisfactory for all reasonable requirements.

The reason of this seems to be simple and plain: In
melting or blowing out the last fractions of carbon below
10 to 15 the same quantity of air per second or minute
must be used as when burning out the higher quantities,
and now there is so little carbon to be attacked that the
oxygen necessarily attacks the iron in greater and greater
force as the carbon decreases.

This leaves an excess of oxygen in the steel which cannot

140 STEEL:

be removed by the ordinary quantities of silicon, or man-
ganese, or aluminum.

If more manganese or silicon be used, the red-shortness
and weakness can be cured largely; but then the carbon
is raised considerably, and thus the steel is brought up to
where it would have been without this excessive decar-
bonizing, with the difference that it is not quite so strong.

What good is there, then, in extremely low melting ?

It must be admitted that there are tough, good-working
steels in the market of carbon < 5, manganese < 20. They
are made in small furnaces, worked with great care; the
product is expensive, and, unless it is wanted to be welded
in place of common wrought iron, it is in no case as good
as well-made steel of 12 to 20 carbon; even for welding
the latter is superior if the worker will only be satisfied to
work at a lemon instead of a scintillating heat.

These special cases do not militate against the general
fact that extremely low steel is usually red-short and weak.

The above is written for the consideration of those en-
gineers who think they are going safe when they prescribe
low tensile strength and excessive ductility. If these
requirements meant the reception of pure, or nearly pure,
iron, indicated by the low tenacity and high stretch, then
they would be wise; but if they result, as they almost cer-
tainly do, in initially good material rotted by overdoses of
oxygen the wisdom may not be so apparent.

NITROGEN.

The real influence of nitrogen is not known to the author.
Percy shows that nitrogenized iron is hard, exceedingly
friable, and causes a brilliant, brassy lustre. He also says
nitrogen is driven out at a yellow heat; doubtless this is

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 141

true of the excess of nitrogen, but it has been shown in
Chapter II that melting in a crucible will not drive the
nitrogen out of Bessemer steel.

When crucible-steel not made from Bessemer scrap and
Bessemer steel of equal analysis are compared in the tem-
pered condition, there is almost invariably a yellowish tinge
over the fresh Bessemer fracture which distinguishes it
from the crucible-steel. The Bessemer steel is also the
weaker. These differences are believed to be due to nitro-
gen.

Langley maintains his belief that oxygen is still the chief
mischief-maker; the author believes nitrogen to be the
more potent of the two; there is no known way to remove
the nitrogen, and there the question stands.

ELEMENTS OF DISINTEGRATION.

It has been stated time and again that these impurities
are elements of disintegration, and that it would be wise in
every case to restrict the quantities allowable within rea-
sonable limits, giving the steel-maker sufficient leeway to
enable him to work efficiently and economically, and at the
same time to keep the quantities of these impurities as low
as possible.

On the other hand, able, successful, and conservative
engineers have claimed that if the steel-maker meets their
physical requirements as shown by prescribed tests they,
the engineers, should be satisfied; that they should not
interfere with chemical composition, as they had no fear of
subsequent disintegrations.

This argument was answered by the statement that
skilled steel-workers could manipulate poor steel so as to
bring it up to the requirements; that the well- trained

142 STEEL :

workers in the bridge-shops would not abuse the steel; that
the inherent deficiencies would not be developed; the work
would go out apparently satisfactory; and that it might re-
main so for a long time, in the absence of unusual shocks
or strains, but that in an emergency such material might
fail because of deterioration where a purer material would
have held on. In the absence of proofs such statements
have been met with a smile of incredulity.

Fortunately some proofs are now at hand, and as the
method of getting them has been obtained, more will follow
from time to time.

In Engineering, Jan. 17, 1896, Mr. Thomas Andrews,
F.R.S., M.Inst.C.E., gives the following cases:

A fracture of a rail into many pieces, causing a serious
accident.

A broken propeller-shaft which nearly caused a disastrous
accident.

Analysis of the rail:

Carbon 0.440

Silicon 0.040

Manganese 0.800

Sulphur 0.100

Phosphorus 0.064

It is clear that the sulphur is excessive, and that it was
neutralized so as to make the steel workable by an excess
of manganese.

Of the propeller-shaft Mr. Andrews says chemical analy-
sis of outside and central portions of the shaft showed
serious segregation.

" The percentage of combined carbon was nearly 50 per
cent greater in the inside of the shaft than on the out-

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 143

side; the manganese was also in excess in the inside of the
shaft; the phosphorus and sulphur had also segregated in
the interior of the shaft to nearly three times the percent-
age of these elements found near the outside of the shaft."

Unfortunately Mr. Andrews does not give the analysis of
the shaft.

A number of micro-sections of the rail and of the shaft
were made and examined.

"Numerous micro-sulphur flaws were found, varying in
size from 0.015 inch downward, interspersed or segregated
in the intercrystalline junctions of the ultimate crystals of
the steel, and being located in such a manner as to prevent
metallic cohesion between the facets of the crystals, thus
inducing lines of internal weakness liable to be acted upon
by the stress and strain of actual wear."

'The dimensions of these flaws in the rail varied from
.0150 X .0012 to .0010 X .0004 parts of an inch.

In the shaft from .0160 X .0030 to .0020 X .0016 parts
of an inch.

In the rail he found as many as 14 flaws in an area of
only 0.00018 square inch, equal to nearly 60,000 flaws per
square inch.

In the shaft he found as many as 34 flaws in an area of
only 0.00018 square inch, equal to nearly 190,000 per
square inch.

In speaking of the shaft he says: "In addition to
blow-holes, air-cavities, etc., the interior of the shaft was
literally honeycombed with micro-sulphide of iron flaws,
which were meshed about and around the primary crystals
of the metal in every direction." " The deleterious effects
of an excess of manganese in interfering with the normal

144 STEEL I

crystallization of the normal carbide of iron areas were
also perceptible."

As the number of micro-sulphur flaws in the shaft were
about three times as many as in the rail, we may assume
that the shaft contained at least as large a percentage of
sulphur as the rail, and, owing to the general honey-
combed structure, it would not be a far guess to assume
that the steel was teemed wild.

" The deleterious effect of these treacherous sulphur areas
and other microscopic flaws, with their prolonged ramifica-
tions spreading along the intercrystalline spaces of the
ultimate crystals of the metal and destroying metallic co-
hesion, will be easily understood."

" Constant vibration gradually loosens the metallic ad-
herence of the crystals, especially in areas where these
micro-flaws exist. Cankering by internal corrosion and
disintegration is induced whenever the terminations of any
of the sulphide areas or other flaws in any way become
exposed at the surface of the metal, either to the action of
sea-water, or atmospheric or other oxidizing influences.
In many other ways, also, it will be seen how deleterious is
their presence."

"Internal micro-flaws of various character are neverthe-
less almost invariably present in masses of steel, and consti-
tute sources of initial weakness which not unfrequently pro-
duce those mysterious and sudden fractures of steel axles,
rails, tires, and shafts productive of such calamitous results.
A fracture once commencing at one of these micro-flaws
(started probably by some sudden shock or vibration, or
owing to the deterioration caused by fatigue in the metal)
runs straight through a steel forging on the line of least

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 145

resistance, in a similar manner to the fracture of glass or
ice."

It is understood that similar investigations are being
carried out on an extensive scale by Prof. Arnold; in the
meantime the above cases should satisfy any one that these
impurities are elements of disintegration, and that the less
there are of them in any steel the better for the steel.

It seems clear that if 10 sulphur will cause 60,000 flaws
per square inch, 01 sulphur ought not to cause more than
one tenth of that number; or, if an equal number, then
they could only be one tenth of the size.

The segregation found in the shaft is so excessive that it
would seen probable that there was a good deal of sin there
also ; but, even if it were unavoidable segregation, the harm
would have been just so much the less if there had been
less of total impurities present to segregate.

ARSENIC.

Arsenic is known to be very harmful in tool-steel, and it
is proper to assume that it can do no good in structural
steel. In any case where the properties of steel do not
come up to the standard to be expected from the regular
analysis examination should be made for arsenic, antimony,
copper, etc. These are not as universal constitutents of
steel as silicon, phosphorus, sulphur, and manganese, but
they are present frequently, and in any appreciable amount
they are bad.

146 STEEL:

XL

THEORIES OF HARDENING.

THE hardening of steel is such a marked phenomenon,
and one of so great importance, that it has always attracted
a great deal of attention, and many theories have been put
forward in explanation.

Before chemistry was brought to bear upon the subject
the proposed theories were based upon assumption, and as
there were no proofs one had as much right to consideration
as another, and none seemed to be altogether satisfactory.

Since science has taken up the question the theories are
about as numerous as the investigators, and while no one
can claim as yet to have settled the matter definitely, each
one has an apparent basis of reason deduced from observed
facts.

Among early observations it was noted that when un-
hardened steel and hardened steel were dissolved in acid
a much larger amount of carbon was found in the solu-
tion of the unhardened than in that of the hardened
steel. This led, first, to the distinction of combined carbon
and graphitic carbon, a distinction that has been main-
tained through subsequent investigations. It seems to be
well established now that there is a definite carbide of iron,
Fe9C, and some observers believe it to be the hard sub-
stance in hardened steel.

Following this came the announcement that these condi-

A MANUAL FOE STEEL-USERS. 147

tions, combined and graphitic carbon, represented two
different forms of carbon, and they were designated as
cement carbon and hardening carbon ; also as non-harden-
ing and hardening carbon. Later investigation having
established the existence of the carbide Fe3C, this was
claimed to be the hard body, but this has not met universal
acceptance.

Another investigator, studying by means of the py-
rometer and observing heat phenomena, concludes that
hardening is due to an allotropic condition of the iron
itself; that when iron is heated above the recalescent-point,
and presumably below granulation, it becomes in itself
excessively hard; that sudden cooling prevents its changing
from this form, and so, when there is carbon present, the
result of quenching is great hardness.

When steel is allowed to cool slowly to below recalescence,
the iron assumes another form, and one which cannot be
hardened by quenching; this latter is known as a iron, and
the hardening kind as /? iron. A later investigator finds it
necessary to have a third allotropic form to meet some of
the phenomena, which he designates by another Greek
letter.

Another investigator establishes independently the satu-
ration-point, which was pointed out and published twenty
years ago, viz , somewhere about 90 to 100 carbon; he fixes
the saturation-point at 89 carbon and gives the formula
Fe24C. He assumes that this is an exceedingly unstable
carbide, that it is formed between recalescence and granu-
lation, and can only be fixed by quenching, and that when
steel is quenched the fixing of this carbide is the cause of
hardness.

A still later investigation establishes this saturation-point

148 STEEL:

at about 100 carbon by observing that in hardened steel of
135 carbon there is a combination of 100 carbon which is
the excessively hard part of the steel, and a portion con-
taining the remaining 35 parts of carbon that is not quite
so hard, and he suggests a fourth allotropic form to cover
this part.

It is also suggested that steel should be considered and
treated as an igneous rock; judging from the appearance of
magnified micro-sections, this suggestion appears to be a
happy one for the purpose of making comparisons.

The above theories of hardening, and others, are not to
be regarded as antagonistic or contradictory, doubtless there
are germs of truth in every one of them, or each one may
be merely the individual's way of suggesting an explanation
of the same observed phenomena, so that when a final con-
clusion is reached each may be found to have been travel-
ling in the same direction by a different path. It is certain
that able, patient, painstaking, men are working faithfully
to produce a solution of the problem, and even if their
ideas, as briefly given above, do seem to be contradictory it
would only evince deeper ignorance and a stupid mind in
any who should attempt to ridicule or unduly criticise
honest work before it is completed. While these investiga-
tions are going on, and before any definite conclusion is
reached, is there any well-established safe ground for tlio
steel-worker and the engineer to stand upon ? There cer-
tainly is a good working hypothesis for all to use, and one
which it is believed will always be the right one to follow
no matter what the final explanation of the remarkable
phenomena of hardening, tempering, and annealing may
prove to be.

After many years of careful experimenting and study

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 149

Prof. J. W. Langley came to the conclusion that no matter
what the final result might be as to carbides, allotropic con-
ditions, etc., that if steel were considered as iron containing
carbon in solution, whether it were a chemical combination
or a mere solution, and that cold steel be regarded as a
congealed liquid in a state of tension, then all known
phenomena could be accounted for, and all known condi-
tions could be produced with certainty by well-known ap-
plications of heat and force.

When carbon is in the so-called combined condition,
then the solution maybe compared to pure sea-water; when
the carbon is partly combined and partly graphitic, the
solution may be compared to muddy sea- water, the mud
representing the graphitic carbon.

When the carbon is practically all graphitic, as in over-
annealed steel, then the solution may be compared to thor-
oughly muddy fresh water.

This hypothesis of solution agrees well with the saturation
noted; then about 100 carbon is all that iron will dissolve
without extraneous force; and higher carbon must be forced
into solution by the work of hammers, presses, or rolls.

This gives reason to the experienced tool-maker's well-
known preference for well-hammered steel,

The hypothesis of tension, probably molecular, covers all
of the phenomena of excessive hardness due to high heat,
which means high molecular motion checked violently by
sudden quenching. It accounts for the progressive soften-
ing due to every added degree of heat, and it accounts for
rupture, cracking, due to excessive heat or to any uneven-
ness of heat.

Without this hypothesis of tension it is difficult to un-
derstand why quenching should rupture a piece of steel, no
matter what the degree of heat, or how uneven it might be.

150 STEEL:

Without it, too, it is hard to see how successive additions
of heat can cause gradual changes from /3 to a iron, or
from an unstable carbide to an imperfect solution. It
would seem that the allotropic changes, or the decomposi-
tions of carbides, must be more marked than the gradual
changes from hard to soft which we know to take place by
slow and gentle accretions of heat.

There is no property of steel known to the author which
is not covered by Langley's hypothesis, and therefore it is
put forward with confidence for engineers and steel-users
to work by until the scientists shall have completed their
investigations, and after that it is believed that it will be a
safe working hypothesis, because science does not change
facts, it only collates them and reveals the laws of action.

Under this hypothesis of Langley's we may define hard-
ness as tension, softness as absence of tension.

This is not stated as established fact; it is given as a
simple definition to cover the known phenomena until the
final solution of the problem shall lead to a better explana-
tion.

^Regarding steel as a solution of carbon in iron, one im-
portant fact maybe set down as established thoroughly:
that is, that the more perfect the solution under all circum-
stances the better the steel.

Continued application of heat in any part of the plastic
condition allows carbon to separate out of solution into a
condition of mere mixture ; it converts the clear sea- water
into muddy water; this is the reason why so much em-
phasis has been given in previous chapters to the harmful-
ness of long-continued heating.

In every case, when steel is hot enough for the purpose
desired, it should be removed at once from the fire.

A MANUAL FOR STKEL-USERS. 151

XII.

INSPECTION.

CAREFUL and systematic inspection is of the utmost im-
portance from the first operation of melting to the last act
of the finisher.

Assuming that every operator is honest and conscien-
tious in the performance of his work, the personal equation
must be considered, as well as the exigencies of the many
operations. The steel-maker must inspect his ingots to see
that they are melted well and teemed properly, that they
are sound and clean, and to determine their proper temper.

When work is finished, he must inspect it to see that it
has been worked at proper, even heats, that it is correct in
dimensions, and that all pipes and seams have been cut out.
After all this has been done faithfully it were well that his
work were done when it were well done. Such is not his
happy lot; every successive manipulator may ruin the steel
by carelessness or ignorance, and it is a gala day for a steel-
maker when he does not receive some sample of stupid ig-
norance or gross carelessness, with an intimation that it
would be well for him to learn how to make steel before he
presumed to offend by sending out such worthless material.
And sometimes, though not so often if he knows his busi-
ness, he finds a complaint well founded; then he must regu-
late his own household and make Ms peace with his angry
customer as best he can.

The engineer must inspect his steel to see that it is
sound, and clean, and finished properly, as he has a right
to expect that it should be.

153 STEEL'

It is not intended here to lay down rules for shop and
field inspection, — that is an art in itself outside of the func-
tion or the experience of a steel-maker, — but some hints may
be given as to the examination of steel as it comes from the
mill, and it has been the aim in previous chapters to give
such information as may enable an engineer to form a good
judgment as to matters which are not likely to come to his
knowledge in the course of ordinary practice.

Steel should be sound; it should be examined before it is
oiled or painted. All pipe should be cut off; a pipe of any
considerable size will show in the end of a sheared bar, and
a careful observer will soon learn to detect it. If there is
reason to suspect a pipe, file the place and the pipe will be
revealed if it is there. Do not chip at it, for a chisel will
often smooth a line which a file will bring out. In tool-
steel there should not only be no pipe, there should be no
star left in the bar. A " star " is a bright spot which
shows the last of the pipe, not quite cut away; the steel is
not solid in the star and it will not make a good cutting-
edge; it may even cause a sledge to split.

SEAMS.

In tool-steel there should be no seams at all. Some makers
declare that in high steel, seams are evidences of good
quality; such a statement is the veriest fraud; it is hard to
get any high steel free from seams, and therefore if the
maker can get the user to believe that a seam is a good
thing he can enhance his profit; that is, he can enhance it
for a time until his fraud is understood.

Some seams are hard to see; when there is reason to sus-
pect one, a little filing across the line will show it in a dis-
tinct black line if it is there. A file is an indispensable
tool for an inspector, better than a chisel or a grindstone.

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 153

In machinery .and structural steel a few small seams
may be unobjectionable; too close inspection may lead tc
unnecessary cost without a compensating gain ; still every
engineer should reserve the right to determine what seams
are allowable arid what are not, for his own safety.

Laps should not be tolerated in any work.

Torn cracks on edges or surface indicate burned steel
or red-short steel; they should not be allowed.

The grain of steel should be practically uniform, not too
coarse, not with brilliant lustre, nor with a dark india-ink
tint. With an even fine grain, a bright lustre may indicate
a mild steel not worked badly. Inspectors must learn by
practice what is tolerable and what is not, as it is impossi-
ble to lay down hard and fast rules; it is safe, however, to
say that a fairly fine grain of even texture, not much lustre,
and no india-ink shade, is indicative of good heating and
proper working.

With these few general hints the subject must be left,
for, like tempering, inspecting is an art in itself, and it can-
not be taught in a book.

An expert inspector will see seams and pipes with his
naked eye that a novice could not detect with an ordinary
magnifying-glass.

It may do no harm to the inspector to suggest to him
that amiability and good sense are the best ingredients to
mix with sound judgment.

If he will cultivate these, and learn to distinguish be-
tween a mere blemish and a real defect, he will find his
work made easy and pleasant; and he will be far less likely
to have bad work thrust at him than he will if he makes it
apparent that he regards himself as the only honest man.

154 STEEL:

XIII.

SPECIFICATIONS.

SPECIFICATIONS should cover three principal points:

Physical properties: Elastic limit; ultimate tensile
strength; elongation; reduction of area.

Chemical constituents: Limiting silicon, phosphorus,
sulphur, manganese, and copper; all other elements to be
absent or mere traces in quantity, except carbon.

Finish and general condition: Fixing limit of variation
in size from a given standard; conditions as to pipes,
seams, laps, uniformity of grain, and other defects; no
red-shortness.

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES.

It has been shown in Chap. V that tensile strength may
be had from 46,800 Ibs. per square inch to 248,700 Ibs. per
square inch.

There are published in many transactions and technical
periodicals thousands of tests giving elastic and ultimate
strength, ductility, etc., so that every engineer can find
easily what has been done to guide him as to what he can
get.

In almost every case the engineer must be the judge as
to the requirements in each ; therefore it would be useless
to attempt to lay down any fixed rules or limits.

Many engineers adhere to low tenacity and high ductility

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 155

in the belief that they are securing that material which
will be safest against sudden shocks and violent accidental
strains.

Theoretically this appears to be correct, but if the state-
ments made in the preceding chapters are credible it is
plain that the limit to such safety can be passed, and that
in insisting upon too low tenacity and high ductility the
engineer may be getting simply a rotten, microscopically
unsound material, through no fault of the manufacturer,
who has been compelled to overmelt or overblow his steel
to meet the requirements, and so reducing the quality of
otherwise good material at no saving in cost to himself, and
at a considerable cost in quality to the consumer.

Any manufacturer would rather check his melt between
10 and 15 carbon, or stop his blow so as to be sure not to
overblow, if he were asked to do so, because it would save
him time and expense, and it would yield sounder, better,
and easier working steel.

It may not be wise yet for an engineer to fix limits as
to blowing or melting, for the reason that neither he nor
his assistants would know how to insure compliance, and
in attempting to do it they might interfere too far with
manufacturing operations and so involve themselves in
responsibilities which they ought not to assume.

On the other hand, if they will let the carbon and tensile
strength run up a little and reduce ductility slightly, it is
Safe to say that any manufacturer will be glad of the chance
to help them to get the best results, which involve no extra
cost.

Boiler-steel and rivet-steel usually suffer the most in this
respect. A boiler should be tough, yet it is the belief of
the author that boilers made of the 46,800-lb. steel of

156 STEEL:

which the analysis is given in Chap. V would not last half
as long as boilers made of 65,000-lb. to 70, 000-1 b. steel
when the increased strength was gained by added carbon
and no overmelting was allowed.

In the same table the " Crucible-sheet " column gives a
mean of 24 tests, and a mean analysis, of boiler-steel which
has been in use in 12 boilers for nearly 16 years. The
boilers are in perfectly good condition ; they have been sub-
jected to severe and very irregular usage, and they have
been in every way satisfactory, Only one test-piece of the
24 was mild enough to stand the ordinary bending test
after quenching.

That 46,800-lb. steel is remarkably pure chemically; it
is unusually red-short. It would appear to some to be an
ideal rivet-steel; it would stand a very high heat, it would
head well and finish beautifully under a button-set. There
is every probability that the majority of rivets driven of
that steel would be cracked on the under side of the head,
where the cracks would never be discovered until in service
the heads flew off.

Eails are usually made of 40 to 45 carbon, tires from 65
up to 80 carbon, crank -pins as high as 70 carbon, with
85,000 Ibs. to 95,000 Ibs. tensile strength and 12$ to 15$
elongation.

It is difficult to see how a bridge or a boiler is to be
subjected to any such violent usage as these receive daily;
and while it is not advised that even 40 carbon should be
used in boilers or bridges, although it would be perfectly
safe, it does seem to be unreasonable to run to the other
extreme to the injury of the material.

For steel for springs, and for all sorts of tools that are to

A MANUAL FOE STEEL-USERS. 157

be tempered, there is no need of a specification of physical
properties as they are indicated by testing-machines.

The requirement that they shall harden safely and do
good work afterwards involves necessarily, high steel of
suitable quality.

CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS.

No engineer should, unless he be an expert steel-maker,
attempt to specify an exact chemical formula and a corre-
sponding physical requirement; in doing so he would prob-
ably make two requirements which could not be obtained
in one piece of steel, and so subject himself to a back down
or to ridicule, or both.

On the other hand, he may properly, and he should fix,
a limit beyond which the hurtful elements would not be
tolerated. Notwithstanding satisfactory machine tests,
successful shop-work, and a liberal margin of safety, no
steel can be relied upon that is overloaded with phosphorus,
sulphur, manganese, oxygen, antimony, arsenic, or nitrogen.
In regard to silicon, it is common to have as much as 20
to 25 points in tire, with 55 to 80 carbon ; such tires are
made by the best manufacturers, and they endure well.
But it is certain that good, sound steel can be made for any
purpose with silicon not exceeding 10.

Structural steel can be made cheaply within the follow-
ing limits:

Silicon < .10

Phosphorus < .05

Sulphur ". < .02

Manganese < .50 or even < .30

Copper < .03

Carbon to meet the physical requirements

158 STEEL:

Steel made within these limits and not overblown or
overmelted must be better in every way than steel of

Silicon > .20

Phosphorus > .08

Sulphur > .05

Manganese > .60

Carbon to meet the same requirements

A steel of the latter composition, or with no fixed limits,
may be made cheaper than the first by a dollar or two a
ton ; but for any large lot it is believed that the first speci-
fication would be bid to at as low a price as if there were
no specification; competition among manufacturers would
fix that. At any rate there is no reason why an engineer
should refuse to demand fairly pure material when he can
do so at little or no extra cost.

Arsenic, antimony, or any other elements should be ab-
sent, or < .005.

FINISH AND GENERAL CONDITIONS.

As there can be no such thing as exact work done, there
must be some tolerance as to variation in size. In standard
sections, sheets, and plates this is usually covered by a per-
centage of weight; in forgings or any pieces that are to be
machined the consumer should allow enough to insure a
clean, sound surface. But it would be unwise to lay down
any rule here, because conditions vary; a rolled round bar
may finish nicely by a cut of from -fa to -fa of an inch, and
so also a neatly dropped forging ; an ordinary hammered
forging might require a cut of i or f of an inch; such a
forging might be made closer to size at a cost for extra
time at the hammer far exceeding the saving of cost in the

A MANUAL FOE STEEL-USERS. 159

lathe. These are cases where common-sense and good
judgment must govern.

Pipes should not be tolerated if they can be discovered;
because a pipe appears small in the end of a bar it is no
evidence that it is not larger farther in.

Seams should not be allowed in any steel that is to be
hardened ; they should be a mininum in any steel, as they
are of no possible use ; small seams when not too numer-
ous may do no harm in structural or machinery steel, and
consumers should be reasonable in regard to them, or else
they may have too high prices put upon their work, or too
high heat used in efforts to close the last few harmless seams.

Burns, rough, ragged holes in the faces or on the corners,
are inexcusable and should be rejected ; the steel has been
abused, or it is red-short; in either case the ragged breaks
are good starting-points for final rupture.

Laps should not be permitted ; they are evidences of
carelessness ; there can be no excuse for them.

Fins are sometimes unavoidable in a difficult shape; for
instance, if a trapezoid is wanted, it may be rolled in this
form:

or in this:

160 STEEL:

The consumer must decide which; if he wants sharp
angles he must accept the fin and cut it off, or have it cut
off by the manufacturer.

Eivet-steel should be tested rigidly for red-shortness, be-
cause red-short steel may crack under the head as the steel
cools.

Emphasis is laid upon this because engineers will insist
upon excessive ductility in rivet-steel, not realizing that
they may be requiring the manufacturer to overdose his
steel with oxygen to its serious injury.

No sharp re-entrant angles should be allowed under any
circumstances where there is a possibility of vibrations run-
ning through the mass. All re-entrant angles should be
filleted neatly.

No deep tool-marks should be allowed ; a fine line scored
around a piece by a lathe-tool, or a sharp line cut in a sur-
face by a planing-tool will fix a line of fracture as neatly as
a diamond-scratch will do it on a piece of glass.

Indentations by hammers or sledges should be avoided ;
they may not be as dangerous as lathe-cuts, but they can
do no good, and therefore they are of no use.

A MANUAL FOB STEEL-USERS. 161

XIV.
HUMBUGS.

STEEL is of such universal use and interest in all of the
arts that it attracts the attention of would-be inventors
perhaps more than any other one material.

Half-informed, or wholly uninformed, men get a smat-
tering of knowledge of some one or more of the well-known
properties of steel, make an experiment which produces a
result that is new and startling to them, and at once
imagine that they have made a discovery; this they proceed
to patent and then offer it to the world with a great flourish
of trumpets.

Many steel-workers, even men of skill, who know some-
thing of the difficulties that follow irregular work, or who
are not quite fully informed as to the properties of steel,
seize upon these discoveries in the hope that they have
found a royal road to success where all old pitfalls are
removed and their path is made easy.

Not wishing to discourage pioneers in legitimate efforts
to improve, it is the object of this chapter to warn them
against being too ready to spend their money because of
flaming circulars or glib tongues. It is the duty and the
interest of a steel-maker to examine and test every appar-
ently new suggestion, for the reason that there is still room
for improvement, and he should let no opportunity for a
betterment slip past him.

As a rule the steel-maker does test every claim that is
laicl before him, unless it be a repetition of some old plan

162 STEEL:

long since tried and found worthless. This is the bane of
the steel-inaker's life, and yet he must keep at this work
so that he may know for himself whether anything of value
has been discovered, and also that he may advise his client-
age properly.

Inventions relating to the manufacture of steel have no
interest for steel-users except as lively manufacturers may
adopt the mistaken plan of flourishing trumpets to attract
trade, not always giving a corresponding benefit to the con-
sumer.

Examples of this sort of thing may be illustrated by so-
called phosphorus steel, silicon steel, and aluminum steel;
also the case mentioned before of parties recommending
seams as evidences of excellence in high steel. Such
efforts are sometimes costly to consumers until active com-
petitive manufacturers expose the humbug.

Among the most absurd of such claims are those where a
nostrum is used to convert ordinary Bessemer or open-
hearth steel into the finest of tool- steel, equal to the best
crucible-steel; for example, a patent to convert mild Besse-
mer steel into the finest tool-steel by merely carbonizing it
by the old cementation process; this takes no account of
the silicon, manganese, oxygen, and nitrogen in the mild
Bessemer, makes no provision for their removal, and in-
volves a costly method of putting carbon into poor stock in
face of the fact that a Bessemer-steel maker can put the
same amount of carbon there at practically no cost, and so
produce a better material.

Among the humbugs that do not involve the manu-
facturer, the pet one is a nostrum for restoring burnt steel;
these have been evolved by the dozen, in face of the fact
that burned steel cannot be restored except by smelting,

A MANUAL FOR STEEL-USERS. 163

and that overheated steel, coarse-grained steel, can be re-
stored by merely heating it to the right temperature, a
process which has been explained fully in Chapter VI.

Another pet is some greasy compound for toughening
high steel so as to make it do more work. This is done by
heating the steel to about recalescence and plunging it into
the grease, perhaps once, or possibly two or three times;
then working it into a tool and proceeding in the ordinary
way. This will make a good tool ; it is the partial anneal-
ing plan explained in a previous chapter. Now take a
similar piece of steel, heat it the same way, lay it down in a
warm, dry place alongside the forge-fire, and let it cool;
then heat it and work it into a tool and it will beat the
greased tool.

When all of these operations of restoring, partial anneal-
ing, annealing, etc., depend merely upon temperature and
rate of cooling, why spend money for nostrums that add no
possible benefit ?

There is room for improvement in steel, great room for
great improvements; they will come in time as science and
knowledge advance, and great benefits to the consumers
will come with them.

This chapter is not written to place difficulties in the
way of legitimate improvement, but to warn unsuspecting
people against quackery. Some of the humbugs are honest
productions of well-meaning ignorance, and some that
come from designing manufacturers are not entitled to
such charitable designation. A knowledge of the simplest
properties of steel will enable a thoughtful man to judge
as to whether a proposed improvement is likely to be of
any value or not, and the warnings given are intended as a
protection to the unsuspecting and credulous,

164 STEEL:

XV.

CONCLUSIONS.

AFTER perusal of the preceding chapters the reader may
form a hasty conclusion that if steel be so sensitive as it is
stated to be its use may be difficult and precarious, and
that it must be handled in fear and trembling, lest the
result should be a dangerous structure, and the builder
must be in doubt as to its safety.

The conveyance of any such impressions is not intended
at all; emphasis has been laid upon practices that are
hurtful in order that every steel-user may know what to
avoid, solely that he may then be sure that he has the best,
the most reliable, and most useful material that is known
to man.

WHAT TO AVOID.

He should avoid uneven heat, excessive heat, or too low
heat. The range between orange red and the heat that
will granulate is so great that no one who is not a bungler
or indifferent need ever get outside of it.

The uniformity of temperature that is insisted upon is
so easily seen that any person who is not color-blind should
have no trouble in securing it by the simplest manipula-
tions of the furnace.

Practical uniformity of the work put on a piece is readily
secured by any mechanic of ordinary skilL

A MANUAL FOE STEEL-USERS. 165

Red-short, cold-short, or honeycombed steel are easily
detected, and, under reasonable specifications, the steel-
makers can as easily avoid them.

Steel a little higher than most engineers favor in their
specifications is certainly as safe as, and likely to be
sounder than, extremely ductile steel.

Wild steel, resulting almost certainly in micro-honey-
combs, if not worse, can only be avoided by the co-opera-
tion of the manufacturer, and engineers should impress
this point with energy.

Such micro-unsoundness as is shown in Mr. Andrews's re-
port upon a broken rail and propeller-shaft can be reduced
to a minimum by insisting upon reasonably pure steel.

If sulphur, phosphorus, silicon, and oxygen are kept at a
reasonable minimum, sulphides, phosphides, silicides or
silicates, and oxides must be at a corresponding minimum.

That there is much room for improvement in the manu-
facture of steel is evident, and when means of getting rid
of oxygen, nitrogen, and all other undesirable elements
have been found the steel of the future will be very differ-
ent in kindliness of working and in endurance of strains
than that with which we are familiar.

It is believed, however, that no matter how perfect the
manufacture may become, nor what the final theories of
hardening, etc., may be, the properties stated in these pages
will remain the same as long as steel continues to be essen-
tially a union of iron and carbon.

Some other alloy or compound may displace carbon steel,
and present an entirely new set of properties, but there is
nothing of the kind in sight now, and engineers need have
no fear of having a new art to learn very soon.

To one who has spent an ordinary business lifetime in

136 STEEL: A MANUAL FOE STEEL-USERS.

making steel, studying it, and working with it it becomes a
subject of absorbing interest, if not of love ; and steel when
handled reasonably is so true that "true as steel" ceases
to be a metaphor, it is then a fact which fills him with
the most entire confidence.

Once more, steel highly charged with sulphur, phos-
phorus, arsenic, oxygen, and nitrogen is certainly highly
charged with so many elements of disintegration ; it takes
more serious harm from ordinary deviations from good
practice, such little irregularities as occur inevitably in
daily working, than steel does which is more free from these
elements.

Reasonably pure, sound, reliable steel can be had at
moderate cost, and all consumers should insist upon having
it.

Regular, uniform, reliable working can be had where it
is required, and there should be no excuse for irregular
grain, overheated work, uneven work, or any other bung-
ling. Where skill is required and reasonable discipline is
enforced, good work will not cost any more than bad work.

Many people still hold to the idea that there are many
mysteries connected with steel, and that many unaccount-
able breaks occur which make it an unreliable material.
It is hoped that what has been set down in these pages
will go far to dissipate these supposed mysteries, and to
give confidence to steel-users.

Many breaks are unaccounted for, but it is not within
the author's experience that any fracture ever occurred
that could not have been explained if it had been exam-
ined thoroughly in the light of what we know now. There
is much to be learned, but there are no mysteries.

GLOSSARY.

THERE are many shop terms used in this book which may not be
familiar to all steel-users.

They are in common use in steel-manufactories, and definitions of
them will enable a steel-user to understand more clearly the common
talk he will hear in the shops.

Blow-holes. — Blow-holes are the small cavities, usually spherical,
which are formed in ingots as the steel congeals by bubbles of gas
which cannot escape through the already frozen surface.

Burned.— Burned steel is steel that is reduced to oxide in part by
excessive heating.

Check. — A check is a small rupture caused by water; it may run in
any direction ; it is usually not visible until steel is ruptured.

Chemical Numeration. — Chemical quantities are almost universally
expressed in hundredths of one per cent, as explained in the body of
the work. It is a very convenient numeration; any steel- worker,
melter, hammerman, etc., will talk of 20, or 50, or 130 carbon; or 8
phosphorus; or 10, 15, or 25 silicon, etc.; and will talk intelligently,
although he may not know the exact mathematical value of these
points.

Dead-melting ; synonym, killing. — Dead-melting — killing — means
melting steel in the crucible or open hearth until it ceases to boil or
evolve gases; it is then dead, it lies quiet in the furnace, and killed
properly it will set in the moulds without rising or boiling.

Dry. — gteel is called dry when its fracture is sandy -looking, with-
out lustre or sheen, and without a proper blue cast. There is more
of a shade of yellowish sandstone. It is an evidence of impurity and
weakness.

Fiery. — Fiery steel has a brilliant lustre; it is an evidence of high
heat.

167

168 GLOSSARY.

If the grain be fairly fine and of bluish cast, it is not necessarily
bad in mild steel; in high steel or in tool-steel it should not be
tolerated.

If the grain be large and of brassy cast, it is sure evidence of bad
condition ; the grain should be restored before the steel is used.

In hardened steel it is always bad, except in dies to be used under
the impact of drop-hammers; in this case steel must be so hard as to
be slightly fiery.

Grade. — Grade applies to quality, as crucible, Bessemer, or open-
hearth grade. Or in the crucible, common, spring, machinery, tool,
special tool, etc. , etc. It does not indicate temper or relative hardness.

Honeycombed. — Unsound from many blow-holes. Usually applied
to ingots. It is a bad condition.

Lap. — A lap is caused by careless hammering, or by badly propor-
tioned grooves in rolls, or by careless rolling. A portion of the steel
is folded over on itself, the walls are oxidized and cannot unite. A lap
generally runs clear along a bar, practically parallel with its axis; it
may be seen by a novice. Lapped steel should be rejected always.

Overblown. — Steel that has been blown in a Bessemer converter
after the carbon is all burned; then there is nothing but steel to burn,
and the result is bad.

Overheated. — Steel that has been heated too hot, and not quite
burned ; its fiery fracture exposes it. The grain of overheated steel
may be restored, but restored steel is never as reliable as steel that
has not been overheated. Overheating is a disintegrating operation.

Overmelted. — Steel that has been kept too long in fusion. The
finest material may be ruined in a crucible by being kept in the
furnace any considerable time after it has been killed. Open-hearth
steel may be injured seriously in the same way. Prompt teeming after
killing should be the rule.

Pipe. — A pipe is the cavity formed in an ingot when it cools; the
walls chill first and nearly to the full size of the mould, then the
shrinking mass separates in the middle, forming a pipe. A pipe
should be at the top of the ingot; it may occur anywhere by bad
teeming.

Point. — One hundredth of one per cent of any element. You have
say 10 points of carbon, or 10 carbon; you want it raised a few points
to 15 or 18 carbon.

GLOSSABY. 169

Recalescence. — When a piece of steel is heated above medium
orange color and cools slowly, at about medium orange— 1100° to
1200° F. — the change of color ceases, then the color rises sometimes
to bright orange, and afterwards the cooling goes on; this phenome-
non is called recalescence. This is not yet a common shop term.

Restoring.— When a piece of overheated steel is re-heated to re-
calescence, kept there a few minutes, and then cooled slowly, its grain
becomes fine and its fiery lustre disappears; this is called restoring.
No nostrums are necessary.

Sappy. — Well- worked, good steel has a bluish cast, a fine grain,
and a silky sheen. It is sappy; it is as good as it can be made.

Seam. — A seam is a longer or shorter defect, caused by a blow-hole
which working has brought out to the surface and not eliminated.
It usually, or always, runs in the direction of working. Seams are
distinguished from laps by not being continuous; they are usually
only an inch or two in length.

Short (Cold, Bed, Hot). — Cold-short steel is weak and brittle when
cold.

Red-short steel is brittle at dark orange or medium orange heat or
at the common cherry-red heat. It may forge well at a lemon heat,
and be reasonably tough when cold.

Hot-short steel is brittle and friable above a medium orange color;
it may forge well from medium orange down to black heat.

Star. — A brilliant spot in mid-section showing that the pipe is not
all cut away. It should be removed from tool-steel especially, as it
may have considerable depth. It is of no use in any steel.

Temper. — Used by the steel-maker it means the quantity of carbon
present. It is low temper, medium, or high; or number so and so by
his shop numbers.

Used by the steel-user or the temperer it means the color to which
hardened steel is drawn : straw, brown, pigeon-wing, blue, etc. , etc.

Or, it is the steel-maker's measiYre of initial hardness; and it is the
steel- user's measure of final hardness.

Water-crack. — A crack caused in hardening; it may run in any
direction governed by lines of stress in the mass. It is distinguished
from a check by being larger, and usually plainly visible

Wild Steel.— Steel in fusion that boils violently, and acts in tht
moulds like lively soda-water or beer does when poured into a glass.

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LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LIMITED.

ARRANGED UNDER SUBJECTS.

Descriptive circulars sent on application. Books marked with an asterisk (*) are sold
at net prices only. All books are bound in cloth unless otherwise stated.

AGRICULTURE— HORTICULTURE— FORESTRY.

Armsby's Manual of Cattle-feeding 12 mo, $i 75

Principles of Animal Nutrition 8vo, 4 oo

Budd and Hansen's American Horticultural Manual:

Part I. Propagation, Culture, and Improvement : 12010, i 50

Part II. Systematic Pomology I2mo, i 50

Elliott's Engineering for Land Drainage i2mo, i 50

Practical Farm Drainage izmo, i oo

Graves's Forest Mensuration 8vo, 4 oo

Green's Principles of American Forestry i2mo, i 50

Grotenfelt's Principles of Modern Dairy Practice. (Woll.) i2mo, 2 oo

* Herrick's Denatured or Industrial Alcohol 8vo, 4 oo

Kemp and Waugh's Landscape Gardening. (New Edition, Rewritten. In

Preparation).

* McKay and Larsen's Principles and Practice of Butter-making 8vo, i 50

Maynard's Landscape Gardening as Applied to Home Decoration i2mo, i 50

Quaintance and Scott's Insects and Diseases of Fruits. (In Preparation).

Sanderson's Insects Injurious to Staple Crops I2mo, i 50

*Schwarz's Longleaf Pine in Virgin Forests i2tno, i 25

Stockbridge's Rocks and Soils 8vo, 2 50

Winton's Microscopy of Vegetable Foods 8vo, 7 50

WolTs Handbook for Farmers and Dairymen i6mo, i 50

ARCHITECTURE.

Baldwin's Steam Heating for Buildings i2mo, 251

Berg's Buildings and Structures of American Railroads 4to, 5 oo

Birkmire's Architectural Iron and SteeL 8vo, 3 50

Compound Riveted Girders as Applied in Buildings 8vo, 2 oo

Planning and Construction of American Theatres 8vo, 3 oo

Planning and Construction of High Office Buildings 8vo, 3 50

Skeleton Construction in Buildings 8vo, 3 oo

Briggs's Modern American School Buildings 8vo, 4 oo

Byrne's Inspection of Material and Wormanship Employed in Construction.

i6mo, 3 oo

Carpenter's Heating and Ventilating of Buildings 8vo, 4 oo

1

* Corthell's Allowable Pressure on Deep Foundations i2mo, i 25

Freitag's Architectural Engineering 8vo 3 50

Fireproofing of Steel Buildings. .- . . 8vo, 2 50

French and Ives's Stereotomy 8vo, 2 50

Gerhard's Guide to Sanitary House-Inspection i6mo, i oo

* Modern Baths and Bath Houses 8vo, 3 oo

Sanitation of Public Buildings I2mo, i 50

Theatre Fires and Panics i2mo, i 50

Holley and Ladd's Analysis of Mixed Paints, Color Pigments, and Varnishes

Large 12 mo, 2 So

Johnson's Statics by Algebraic and Graphic Methods 8vo, 2 oo

Kellaway 's How to Lay Out Suburban Home Grounds 8vo, 2 oo

Kidder's Architects' and Builders' Pocket-book i6mo, mor., 5 oo

Maire's Modern Pigments and their Vehicles i2mo, 2 oo

Merrill's Non-metallic Minerals: Their Occurrence and Uses 8vo, 4 oo

Stones for Building and Decoration 8vo, 5 oo

Monckton's Stair-building 4to, 4 oo

Patton's Practical Treatise on Foundations 8vo, 5 oo

Peabody's Naval Architecture 8vo, 7 50

Rice's Concrete-block Manufacture 8vo, 2 oo

Richey's Handbook for Superintendents of Construction i6mo, mor., 4 oo

* Building Mechanics' Ready Reference Book :

* Building Foreman's Pocket Book and Ready Reference. (In

Preparation).

* Carpenters' and Woodworkers' Edition i6mo, mor. i 50

* Cement Workers and Plasterer's Edition i6mo, mor. i 50

* Plumbers', Steam- Filters', and Tinners' Edition i6mo, mor. i 50

* Stone- and Brick- masons' Edition i6mo, mor. i 50

Sabin's Industrial and Artistic Technology of Paints and Varnish 8vo, 3 oo

Siebert and Biggin's Modern Stone-cutting and Masonry 8vo, i 50

Snow's Principal Species of Wood :......... 8vo, 3 50

Towne's Locks and Builders' Hardware i8mo, mor. 3 oo

Wait's Engineering and Architectural Jurisprudence 8vo, 6 oo

Sheep, 6 50

Law of Contracts 8vo, 3 oo

Law of Operations Preliminary to Construction in Engineering and Archi-
tecture 8vo, 5 oo

Sheep, 5 50

Wilson's Air Conditioning i2mo, i 50

Worcester and Atkinson's Small Hospitals, Establishment and Maintenance,
Suggestions for Hospital Architecture, with Plans for a Small Hospital.

I2mo, i 25

ARMY AND NAVY.

Bernadou's Smokeless Powder, Nitro-cellulose, and the Theory of the Cellulose

Molecule i2mo, 2 50

Chase's Art of Pattern Making i2mo, 2 50

Screw Propellers and Marine Propulsion 8vo, 3 oo

Cloke's Gunner's Examiner 8vo, i 50

Craig's Azimuth 4to, 3 50

Crehore and Squier's Polarizing Photo-chronograph 8vo, 3 oo

* Davis's Elements of Law 8vo, 2 50

* Treatise on the Military Law of United States 8vo, 7 oo

Sheep, 7 50

De Brack's Cavalry Outpost Duties. (Carr.) 241110, mor. 2 oo

* Dudley's Military Law and the Procedure of Courts-martial. . . Large 12 mo, 2 50
Durand's Resistance and Propulsion of Ships 8vo, 5 oo

2

* Dyer's Handbook of Light Artillery I2mo, 3 oo

Eissler's Modern High Explosives 8vo, 4 oo

* Fiebeger's Text-book on Field Fortification Large 12 mo, 2 oo

Hamilton and Bond's The Gunner's Catechism i8mo, i oo

* Hoff's Elementary Naval Tactics 8vo, i 50

Ingalls's Handbook of Problems in Direct Fire 8vo, 4 oo

* Lissak's Ordnance and Gunnery 8vo, 6 oo

*Ludlow's Logarithmic and Trigonometric Tables 8vo, I oo

* Lyons's Treatise on Electromagnetic Phenomena. Vols. I. and II. .8vo, each, 6 oo

* Mahan's Permanent Fortifications. (Mercur.) 8vo, half mor. 7 50

Manual for Courts-martial i6mo, mor. i 50

* Mercur's Attack of Fortified Places ' i2mo, 2 oo

* Elements of the Art of War 8vo, 4 oo

Metcalf's Cost of Manufactures — -And the Administration of Workshops. .8vo, 5 oo

* Ordnance and Gunnery. 2 vols Text I2mo, Plates atlas form 5 oo

Nixon's Adjutants' Manual 24010, i oo

Peabody's Naval Architecture Svo, 7 50

* Phelps's Practical Marine Surveying Svo, 2 50

Powell's Army Officer's Examiner i2mo, 4 oo

Sharpe's Art of Subsisting Armies in War i8mo, mor. i 50

* Tupes and Poole's Manual of Bayonet Exercises and Musketry Fencing.

24mo, leather, 50

* Weaver's Military Explosives Svo, 3 oo

Woodhull's Notes on Military Hygiene i6rno, i 50

ASSAYING.

Betts's Lead Refining by Electrolysis Svo, 4 oo

Fletcher's Practical Instructions in Quantitative Assaying with the Blowpipe.

i6mo, mor. i 50

Furman's Manual of Practical Assaying Svo, 3 oo

Lodge's Notes on Assaying and Metallurgical Laboratory Experiments. . . .Svo, 3 oo

Low's Technical Methods of Ore Analysis ; Svo, 3 oo

Miller's Cyanide Process i2mo, i oo

Manual of Assaying i2mo, i oo

Minet's Production of Aluminum and its Industrial Use. (Waldo.) i2mo, 2 50

O'Driscoll's Notes on the Treatment of Gold Ores Svo, 2 oo

Ricketts and Miller's Notes on Assaying Svo, 3 oo

Robine and Lenglen's Cyanide Industry. (Le Clerc.) Svo, 4 oo

Ulke's Modern Electrolytic Copper Refining Svo, 3 oo

Wilson's Chlorination Process i2mo, i 50

Cyanide Processes i2mo, i 50

ASTRONOMY.

Comstock's Field Astronomy for Engineers Svo, 2 50

Craig's Azimuth 4to, 3 50

Crandall's Text-book on Geodesy and Least Squares Svo, 3 oo

Doolittle's Treatise on Practical Astronomy Svo, 4 oo

Gore's Elements of Geodesy. Svo, 2 50

Hayford's Text-book of Geodetic Astronomy Svo, 3 oo

Merriman's Elements of Precise Surveying and Geodesy Svo, 2 50

* Michie and Harlow's Practical Astronomy Svo, 3 oo

Rust's Ex-meridian Altitude, Azimuth and Star-Finding Tables. (In Press.)

* White's Elements of Theoretical and Descriptive Astronomy lamo, 2 oo

3

CHEMISTRY.

Abderhalden's Physiological Chemistry in Thirty Lectures. (Hall and Defren).
(In Press.)

* Abegg's Theory of Electrolytic Dissociation, (von Ende.) i2mo, i 25

Adriance's Laboratory Calculations and Specific Gravity Tables i2mo, i 25

Alexeyeff's General Principles of Organic Syntheses. (Matthews.) 8vo, 3 oo

Allen's Tables for Iron Analysis 8vo, 3 oo

Arnold's Compendium of Chemistry. (Mandel.) Large i2mo, 3 50

Association of State and National Food and Dairy Departments, Hartford

Meeting, 1906 8vo, 3 oo

Jamestown Meeting, 1907 8vo, 3 oo

Austen's Notes for Chemical Students i2mo, i 50

Baskerville's Chemical Elements. (In Preparation).

Bernadou's Smokeless Powder. — Nitro-cellulose, and Theory of the Cellulose

Molecule i2mo, 2 50

* Blanchard's Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry i2mo, i oo

* Browning's Introduction to the Rarer Elements 8vo, i 50

Brush and Penfield's Manual of Determinative Mineralogy 8vo, 4 oo

* Claassen's Beet-sugar Manufacture. (Hall and Rolfe.) 8vo, 3 oo

Classen's Quantitative Chemical Analysis by Electrolysis. (Boltwood.). .8vo, 3 oo

Cohn's Indicators and Test-papers i2mo, 2 oo

Tests and Reagents 8vo, 3 oo

* Danneel's Electrochemistry. (Merriam.) I2mo, I 25

Duhem's Thermodynamics and Chemistry. (Burgess.) 8vo, 4 oo

Eakle's Mineral Tables for the Determination of Minerals by their Physical

Properties 8vo, i 25

Eissler's Modern High Explosives 8vo, 4 oo

Effront's Enzymes and their Applications. (Prescott.) 8vo, 3 oo

Erdmann's Introduction to Chemical Preparations. (Dunlap.) 12010, i 25

* Fischer's Physiology of Alimentation Large I2mo, 2 oo

Fletcher's Practical Instructions in Quantitative Assaying with the Blowpipe.

I2mo, mor. i 50

Fowler's Sewage Works Analyses i2mo, 2 oo

Fresenius's Manual of Qualitative Chemical Analysis. (Wells.) 8vo, 5 oo

Manual of Qualitative Chemical Analysis. Part I. Descriptive. (Wells.) 8vo, 3 oo

Quantitative Chemical Analysis. (Cohn.) 2 vols 8vo, 12 50

When Sold Separately, Vol. I, $6. Vol. II, $8.

Fuertes's Water and Public Health I2mo, i 50

Furman's Manual of Practical Assaying 8vo, 3 oo

* Getman's Exercises in Physical Chemistry i2mo5 2 oo

Gill's Gas and Fuel Analysis for Engineers i2mo, i 25

* Gooch and Browning's Outlines of Qualitative Chemical Analysis.

Large i2mo, i 25

Grotenfelt's Principles of Modern Dairy Practice. (Woll.) i2mo, 2 oo

Groth's Introduction to Chemical Crystallography (Marshall) i2mo, i 25

Hammarsten's Text-book of Physiological Chemistry. (Mandel.) 8vo, 4 oo

Hanausek's Microscopy of Technical Products. (Winton.) 8vo, 5 oo

* Haskins and Macleod's Organic Chemistry i2mo, 2 oo

Helm's Principles of Mathematical Chemistry. (Morgan.) I2mo, i 50

Bering's Ready Reference Tables (Conversion Factors) i6mo, mor. 2 50

* Herrick's Denatured or Industrial Alcohol 8vo, 4 oo

Hinds's Inorganic Chemistry 8vo, 3 oo

* Laboratory Manual for Students i2mo, i oo

* Holleman's Laboratory Manual of Organic Chemistry for Beginners.

(Walker.) i2mo, i oo

Text-book of Inorganic Chemistry. (Cooper.) 8vo, 2 50

Text-book of Organic Chemistry. (Walker and Mott.) 8vo, 2 50

Holley and Ladd's Analysis of Mixed Paints, Color Pigments, and Varnishes.

Large 12 mo 2 50

4

Hopkins's Oil-chemists' Handbook 8vo, 3 oo

Iddings's Rock Minerals 8vo, 5 oo

Jackson's Directions for Laboratory "Work in Physiological Chemistry. .8vo, i 25

Johannsen's Determination of Rock-forming Minerals in Thin Sections.. .8vo, 4 oo

Keep's Cast Iron 8vo, 2 50

Ladd's Manual of Quantitative Chemical Analysis I2mo, i oo

Landauer's Spectrum Analysis. (Tingle.) 8vo, 3 oo

* .Langwurthy and Austen's Occurrence of Aluminium in Vegetable Prod-

ucts, Animal Products, and Natural Waters 8vo, 2 oo

Lassar-Cohn's Application of Some General Reactions to Investigations in

Organic Chemistry. (Tingle.) i2mo, i oo

Leach's Inspection and Analysis of Food with Special Reference to State

Control 8vo, 7 50

Lob's Electrochemistry of Organic Compounds. (Lorenz.) 8vo, 3 oo

Lodge's Notes on Assaying and Metallurgical Laboratory Experiments. .. .8vo, 3 oo

Low's Technical Method of Ore Analysis 8vo, 3 oo

Lunge's Techno-chemical Analysis. (Cohn.) i2mo i oo

* McKay and Larsen's Principles and Practice of Butter-making 8vo, i 50

Maire's Modern Pigments and their Vehicles i2mo, 2 oo

Mandel's Handbook for Bio-chemical Laboratory i2mo, i 50

* Martin's Laboratory Guide to Qualitative Analysis with the Blowpipe . . i2mo, 60
Mason's Examination of Water. (Chemical and Bacteriological.). ... i2mo, i 25

Water-supply. (Considered Principally from a Sanitary Standpoint.)

8vo, 4 oo

Matthews's The Textile Fibres, ad Edition, Rewritten 8vo, 4 oo

Meyer's Determination of Radicles in Carbon Compounds. (Tingle.). .i2mo, i oo

Miller's Cyanide Process i2mo, i oo

Manual of Assaying i2mo, i oo

Minet's Production of Aluminum and its Industrial Use. (Waldo.) . . . . i2mo, 2 50

Mixter's Elementary Text-book of Chemistry I2mo, i 50

Morgan's Elements of Physical Chemistry I2mo, 3 co

Outline of the Theory of Solutions and its Results i2mo, i oo

* Physical Chemistry for Electrical Engineers I2mo, i 50

Morse's Calculations used in Cane-sugar Factories i6mo, mor. i 50

* Muir's History of Chemical Theories and Laws 8vo, 4 oo

Mulliksn's General Method for the Identification of Pure Organic Compounds.

Vol. I Large 8vo, 5 oo

O'DriscolFs Notes on the Treatment of Gold Ores 8vo,

Ostwald's Conversations on Chemistry. Part One. (Ramsey.) i2mo,

Part Two. (Turnbull.) i2mo,

* Palmer's Practical Test Book of Chemistry i2mo,

* Pauli's Physical Chemistry in the Service of Medicine. (Fischer.) . . . . I2mo,

* Penfield's Notes on Determinative Mineralogy and Record of Mineral Tests.

8vo, paper, 50
Tables of Minerals, Including the Use of Minerals and Statistics of

Domestic Production 8vo, i oo

Pictet's Alkaloids and their Chemical Constitution. (Biddle.) 8vo, 5 oo

Poole's Calorific Power of Fuels 8vo, 3 oo

Prescott and Winslow's Elements of Water Bacteriology, with Special Refer-
ence to Sanitary Water Analysis i2mo, i 50

* Reisig's Guide to Piece-dyeing 8vo, 25 oo

Richards and Woodman's Air, Water, and Food from a Sanitary Standpoint.. 8vo, 2 oo

Ricketts and Miller's Notes on Assaying 8vo, 3 oo

Rideal's Disinfection and the Preservation of Food 8vo, 4 oo

Sewage and the Bacterial Purification of Sewage 8vo, 4 oo

Riggs's Elementary Manual for the Chemical Laboratory 8vo, i 25

Robine and Lenglen's Cyanide Industry. (Le Clerc.) 8vo, 4 oo

Ruddiman's Incompatibilities in Prescriptions 8vo, 2 oo

Whys in Pharmacy ..., J2mo, i oo

5

Ruer's Elements of Metallography. (Mathewson). (In Preparation.)

Sabin's Industrial and Artistic Technology of Paints and Varnish 8vo, 3 oo

Salkowski's Physiological and Pathological Chemistry. (Orndorff.) 8vo, 2 50

Schimpf's Essentials of Volumetric Analysis i2mo, i 25

* Qualitative Chemical Analysis 8vo, i 25

Text-book of Volumetric Analysis I2mo, 2 50

Smith's Lecture Notes on Chemistry for Dental Students 8vo, 2 50

Spencer's Handbook for Cane Sugar Manufacturers i6mo, mor. 3 oo

Handbook for Chemists of Beet-sugar Houses . i6mo, mor. 3 oo

Stockbridge's Rocks and Soils 8vo, 2 50

* Tillman's Descriptive General Chemistry 8vo, 3 oo

* Elementary Lessons in Heat 8vo, i 50

Treadwell's Qualitative Analysis. (Hall.) 8vo, 3 oo

Quantitative Analysis. (Hall.) 8vo, 4 oo

Turneaure and Russell's Public Water-supplies 8vo, 5 oo

Van Deventer's Physical Chemistry for Beginners. (Boltwood.) i2mo, i 50

Venable's Methods and Devices for Bacterial Treatment of Sewage 8vo, 3 oo

Ward and Whipple's Freshwater Biology. (In Press.)

Ware's Beet-sugar Manufacture and Refining. Vol. I Small 8vo, 4 oo

Vol. II Small 8vo, 5 co

Washington's Manual of the Chemical Analysis of Rocks, „ 8vo, 2 oo

* Weaver's Military Explosives 8vo, 3 oo

Wells's Laboratory Guide in Qualitative Chemical Analysis 8vo, i 50

Short Course in Inorganic Qualitative Chemical Analysis for Engineering

Students I2mo, 50

Text-book of Chemical Arithmetic i2mo, 25

Whipple's Microscopy of Drinking-water 8vo, 50

Wilson's Chlorination Process . i2mo 50

Cyanide Processes : i2mo 50

Winton's Microscopy of Vegetable Foods 8vo 50

CIVIL ENGINEERING.

BRIDGES AND ROOFS. HYDRAULICS. MATERIALS OF ENGINEER-
ING. RAILWAY ENGINEERING.

Baker's Engineers' Surveying Instruments 12 mo, 3 oo

Bixby's Graphical Computing Table Paper ig£X24i inches. 25

Breed and Hosmer's Principles and Practice of Surveying 8vo, 3 oo

* Burr's Ancient and Modern Engineering and the Isthmian Canal 8vo, 3 50

Comstock's Field Astronomy for Engineers 8vo, 2 50

* CorthelTs Allowable Pressures on Deep Foundations I2mo, 125

CrandalPs Text-book on Geodesy and Least Squares 8vo, 3 oo

Davis's Elevation and Stadia Tables 8vo, i oo

Elliott's Engineering for Land Drainage i2mo, i 50

Practical Farm Drainage i2mo, i oo

*Fiebeger's Treatise on Civil Engineering 8vo, 5 oo

Flemer's Phototopographic Methods and Instruments 8vo, 5 oo

Folwell's Sewerage. (Designing and Maintenance.) 8vo, 3 oo

Freitag's Architectural Engineering 8vo, 3 5<>

French and Ives's Stereotomy 8vo, 2 50

Goodhue's Municipal Improvements i2mo, i 50

Gore's Elements of Geodesy. . . . .. 8vo, 2 50

* Hauch and Rice's Tables of Quantities for Preliminary Estimates, I2mo, i 25

Hayford's Text-book of Geodetic Astronomy 8vo, 3 oo

Bering's Ready Reference Tables (Conversion Factors) i6mo, mor. 2 50

Howe's Retaining Walls for Earth izmo, I 25

* Ives's Adjustments of the Engineer's Transit and Level i6mo, Bds. 25

Ives and Hilts's Problems in Surveying i6mo, mor. i 50

Johnson's (J. B.) Theory and Practice of Surveying Small 8vo, 4 oo

Johnson's (L. J.) Statics by Algebraic and Graphic Methods 8vo, 2 oo

Kinnicutt, Winslow and Pratt's Purification of Sewage. (In Preparation).
Laplace's Philosophical Essay on Probabilities. (Truscott and Emory.)

i2mo, 2 oo

Mahan's Descriptive Geometry 8vo, i 50

Treatise on Civil Engineering. (1873.) (Wood.) 8vo, 5 oo

Merriman's Elements of Precise Surveying and Geodesy 8vo, 2 50

Merriman and Brooks's Handbook for Surveyors i6mo, mor. 2 oo

Morrison's Elements of Highway Engineering. (In Press.)

Nugent's Plane Surveying 8vo, 3 50

Ogden's Sewer Design I2mo, 2 oo

Parsons's Disposal of Municipal Refuse 8vo, 2 oo

Patton's Treatise on Civil Engineering 8vo, half leather, 7 50

Reed's Topographical Drawing and Sketching 4to, 5 oo

Rideal's Sewage and the Bacterial Purification of Sewage 8vo, 4 oo

Riemer's Shaft-sinking under Difficult Conditions. (Corning and Peele.) . .8vo, 3 oo

Siebert and Biggin's Modern Stone-cutting and Masonry 8vo, i 50

Smith's Manual of Topographical Drawing. (McMillan.) 8vo, 2 50

Soper's Air and Ventilation of Subways. (In Press.)

Tracy's Plane Surveying I6mo, mor. 3 oo

* Trautwine's Civi-1 Engineer's Pocket-book i6mo, mor. 5 oo

Venable's Garbage Crematories in America 8vo, 2 oo

Methods and Devices for Bacterial Treatment of Sewage 8vo, 3 oo

Wait's Engineering and Architectural Jurisprudence 8vo, 6 oo

Sheep, 6 50

Law of Contracts 8vo, 3 oo

Law of Operations Preliminary to Construction in Engineering and Archi-
tecture 8vo, 5 oo

Sheep, 5 50

Warren's Stereotomy — Problems in Stone-cutting 8vo, 2 50

* Waterbury's Vest-Pocket Hand-book of Mathematics for Engineers.

2 JX 5s inches, mor. i oo
Webb's Problems in the Use and Adjustment of Engineering Instruments.

i6mo, mor. i 25

Wilson's Topographic Surveying 8vo, 3 So

BRIDGES AND ROOFS.

Boiler's Practical Treatise on the Construction of Iron Highway Bridges. .8vo, 2 oo

Burr and Falk's Design and Construction of Metallic Bridges 8vo, 5 oo

Influence Lines for Bridge and Roof Computations 8vo, 3 oo

Du Bois's Mechanics of Engineering. Vol. II Small 4to, 10 oo

Foster's Treatise on Wooden Trestle Bridges 4to, 5 oo

Fowler's Ordinary Foundations 8vo, 3 50

French and Ives's Stereotomy 8vo, 2 50

Greene's Arches in Wood, Iron, and Stone 8vo, 2 50

Bridge Trusses 8vo, 2 50

Roof Trusses 8vo, i 25

Grimm's Secondary Stresses in Bridge Trusses 8vo, 2 50

Heller's Stresses in Structures and the Accompany in Deformations 8vo,

Howe's Design of Simple Roof- trusses in Wood an.d Steel 8vo, 2 oo

Symmetrical Masonry Arches 8vo, 2 50

Treatise on Arches , 8vo, 4 oo

Johnson, Bryan, and Turneaure's Theory and Practice in the Designing of

Modern Framed Structures Small 4to, 10 oo

7

Merriman and Jacoby's Text-book on Roofs and Bridges:

Part I. Stresses in Simple Trusses 8vo, 2 50

Part II. Graphic Statics 8vo, 2 50

Part III. Bridge Design 8vo, 2 50

Part IV. Higher Structures 8vo, 2 50

Morison's Memphis Bridge Oblong 4to, 10 oo

Sondericker's Graphic Statics, with Applications to Trusses, Beams, and Arches.

8vo, 2 oo

Waddell's De Pontibus, Pocket-book for Bridge Engineers i6mo, mor, 2 oo

Specifications for Steel Bridges i2mo, 50

Waddell and Harrington's Bridge Engineering. (In Preparation.)

Wright's Designing of Draw-spans. Two parts in one volume 8vo, 3 50

HYDRAULICS.

Barnes's Ice Formation 8vo, 3 oo

Bazin's Experiments upon the Contraction of the Liquid Vein Issuing from

an Orifice. (Trautwine.) 8vo, 2 oo

Bovey's Treatise on Hydraulics 8vo, 5 oo

Church's Diagrams of Mean Velocity of Water in Open Channels.

Oblong 4to, paper, i 50

Hydraulic Motors . . .8vo, 2 oo

Mechanics of Engineering 8vo, 6 oo

Coffin's Graphical Solution of Hydraulic Problems i6mo, morocco, 2 50

Flather's Dynamometers, and the Measurement of Power i2mo, 3 oo

Folwell's Water-supply Engineering 8vo, 4 oo

Frizell's Water-power 8vo, 5 oo

Fuertes's Water and Public Health i2mo, i 50

Water-filtration Works i2mo, 2 50

Ganguillet and Kutter's General Formula for the Uniform Flow of Water in

Rivers and Other Channels. (Hering and Trautwine.) . .8vo, 4 oo

Hazen's Clean Water and How to Get It Large I2mo, i 5o

Filtration of Public Water-supplies 8vo, 3 oo

Hazlehurst's Towers and Tanks for Water-works 8vo, 2 50

Herschel's 115 Experiments on the Carrying Capacity of Large, Riveted, Metal

Conduits 8vo, 2 oo

Hoyt and Grover's River Discharge 8vo, 2 oo

Hubbard and Kiersted's Water- works Management and Maintenance 8vo, 4 uo

* Lyndon's Development and Electrical Distribution of Water Power. . . .8vo, 3 oo
Mason's Water-supply. (Considered Principally from a Sanitary Standpoint.)

8vo, 4 oo

Merriman's Treatise on Hydraulics 8vo, 5 oo

* Michie's Elements of Analytical Mechanics 8vo, 4 oo

Mo liter's Hydraulics of Rivers, Weirs and Sluices. (In Press.)

Schuyler's Reservoirs for Irrigation, Water-power, and Domestic Water-
supply Large 8vo, 5 oo

* Thoma-- and Watt's Improvement of Rivers 4to, 6 oo

Turneaure and Russell's Public Water-supplies 8vo, 5 oo

Wegmann's Design and Construction of Dams. 5th Ed., enlarged 4to, 6 oo

Water-supply of the City of New York from 1658 to 1895 4to, 10 oo

Whipple's Value of Pure Water Large i2mo, i oo

Williams and Hazen's Hydraulic Tables 8vo, i 50

Wilson's Irrigation Engineering Small 8vo, 4 oo

Wolff's Windmill as a Prime Mover 8vo, 3 oo

Wood's Elements of Analytical Mechanics 8vo, 3 oo

Turbines 8vo, 2 50

8

MATERIALS OF ENGINEERING.

Baker's Roads and Pavements 8vo, 5 oo

Treatise on Masonry Construction 8vo, 5 oo

Birkmire's Architectural Iron and Steel 8vo, 3 50

Compound Riveted Girders as Applied in Buildings 8vo, 2 oo

Black's United States Public Works Oblong 4to, 5 oo

Bleininger's Manufacture of Hj^draulic Cement. (In Preparation.)

* Bovey's Strength of Materials and Theory of Structures 8vo, 7 50

Burr's Elasticity and Resistance of the Materials of Engineering 8vo, 7 50

Byrne's Highway Construction 8vo, 5 oo

Inspection of the Materials and Workmanship Employed in Construction.

i6mo, 3 oo

Church's Mechanics of Engineering 8vo, 6 oo

Du Bois's Mechanics of Engineering.

Vol. I. Kinematics, Statics, Kinetics Small 4to, 7 50

Vol. H. The Stresses in Framed Structures, Strength of Materials and

Theory of Flexures Small 4to, 10 oo

*Eckel's Cements, Limes, and Plasters 8vo, 6 oo

Stone and Clay Products used in Engineering. (In Preparation.)

Fowler's Ordinary Foundations 8vo, 3 50

Graves's Forest Mensuration 8vo, 4 oo

Green's Principles of American Forestry i2mo, i so

* Greene's Structural Mechanics 8vo, 2 50

Holly and Ladd's Analysis of Mixed Paints, Color Pigments and Varnishes

Large i2mo, 2 50

Johnson's Materials of Construction Large 8vo, 6 oo

Keep's Cast Iron 8vo, 2 50

Kidder's Architects and Builders' Pocket-book i6mo, 5 oo

Lanza's Applied Mechanics 8vo, 7 50

Maire's Modern Pigments and their Vehicles i2mo, 2 oo

Martens's Handbook on Testing Materials. (Henning.) 2 vols 8vo, 750

Maurer's Technical Mechanics 8vo, 4 oo

Merrill's Stones for Building and Decoration 8vo, 5 oo

Merriman's Mechanics of Materials 8vo, 5 oo

* Strength of Materials i2mo, i oo

Metcalf's Steel. A Manual for Steel-users i2mo, 2 oo

Patton's Practical Treatise on Foundations 8vo, 5 oo

Rice's Concrete Block Manufacture 8vo, 2 oo

Richardson's Modern Asphalt Pavements 8vo, 3 oo

Richey's Handbook for Superintendents of Construction. ... .... i6mo, mor., 4 oo

* Ries's Clays: Their Occurrence, Properties, and Uses 8vo, 5 oo

Sabin's Industrial and Artistic Technology of Paints and Varnish 8vo, 3 oo

*Schwarz'sLongleafPinein Virgin Forest,.. i2mo, i 25

Snow's Principal Species of Wood 8vo, 3 50

Spalding's Hydraulic Cement I2mo, 2 oo

Text-book on Roads and Pavements I2mo, 2 oo

Taylor and Thompson's Treatise on Concrete, Plain and Reinforced 8vo, 5 oo

Thurston's Materials of Engineering. In Three Parts 8vo, 8 oo

Part I. Non-metallic Materials of Engineering and Metallurgy 8vo, 2 oo

Part H. Iron and Steel 8vo, 3 So

Part III. A Treatise on Brasses, Bronzes, and Other Alloys and their

Constituents 8vo, 2 50

Tillson's Street Pavements and Paving Materials 8vo, 4 oo

Turneaure and Maurer's Principles of Reinforced Concrete Construction.. .8vo, 3 oo
Wood's (De V.) Treatise on the Resistance of Materials, and an Appendix on

the Preservation of Timber 8vo, 2 oo

Wood's (M. P.) Rustless Coatings: Corrosion and Electrolysis of Iron and

Steel 8vo, 4 oo

0

RAILWAY ENGINEERING.

Andrews's Handbook for Street Railway Engineers 3x5 indies, mor. i 25

Berg's Buildings and Structures of American Railroads 4to, 5 oo

Brooks's Handbook of Street Railroad Location i6mo, mor. i 50

Butt's Civil Engineer's Field-book i6mo, mor. 2 50

CrandalPs Railway and Other Earthwork Tables . 8vo, i 50

Transition Curve .' i6mo, mor. 'i 50

* Crockett's Methods for Earthwork Computations 8vo, i 50

Dawson's "Engineering" and Electric Traction Pocket-book i6mo, mor. 5 oo

Dredge's History of the Pennsylvania Railroad: (1879) Paper, 5 oo

Fisher's Table of Cubic Yards Cardboard, 25

Godwin's Railroad Engineers' Field-book and Explorers' Guide. . . i6mo, mor. 2 50
Hudson's Tables for Calculating the Cubic Contents of Excavations and Em-
bankments 8vo, i oo

Ives and Hilts's Problems in Surveying, Railroad Surveying and Geodesy

i6mo, mor. i 50

Molitor and Beard's Manual for Resident Engineers i6mo, i oo

Nagle's Field Manual for Railroad Engineers i6mo, mor. 3 oo

Philbnck's Field Manual for Engineers i6mo, mor. 3 oo

Raymond's Railroad Engineering. 3 volumes.

Vol. I. Railroad Field Geometry. (In Preparation.)

Vol. II. Elements of Railroad Engineering 8vo, 3 50

Vol III. Railroad Engineer's Field Book. (In Preparation.)

Searles's Field Engineering i6mo, mor. 3 oo

Railroad Spiral i6mo, mor. i 50

Taylor's Prismoidal Formulae and Earthwork 8vo, i 50

*Trautwine's Field Practice of Laying Out Circular Curves for Railroads.

i2mo. mor, 2 50

* Method of Calculating the Cubic Contents of Excavations and Embank-

ments by the Aid of Diagrams 8vo, 2 oo

Webb's Economics of Railroad Construction Large i2mo, 2 50

Railroad Construction i6mo, mor. 5 oo

Wellington's Economic Theory of the Location of Railways Small 8vo, 5 oo

DRAWING.

Barr's Kinematics of Machinery .*. 8vo, 2 50

* Bartlett's Mechanical Drawing 8vo, 3 oo

* " " " Abridged Ed 8vo, 150

Coolidge's Manual of Drawing 8vo, paper, i oo

Coolidge and Freeman's Elements of General Drafting for Mechanical Engi-
neers Oblong 4to, 2 50

Durley's Kinematics of Machines 8vo, 4 oo

Emch's Introduction to Projective Geometry and its Applications Svo, 2 50

Hill's Text-book on Shades and Shadows, and Perspective Svo, 2 oo

Jamison's Advanced Mechanical Drawing Svo, 2 oo

Elements of Mechanical Drawing Svo, 2 50

Jones's Machine Design:

Part I. Kinematics of Machinery Svo, i 50

Part II. Form, Strength, and Proportions of Parts Svo, 3 oo

MacCord's Elements of Descriptive Geometry Svo, 3 oc

Kinematics; or, Practical Mechanism Svo, 5 oo

Mechanical Drawing 4to, 4 oo

Velocity Diagrams Svo, i 50

McLeod's Descriptive Geometry Large i2mo, i 50

* Mahan's Descriptive Geometry and Stone-cutting Svo, i 50

Industrial Drawing. (Thompson.) Svo, 3 50

10

Meyer's Descriptive Geometry 8vo, 2 oo

Reed's Topographical Drawing and Sketching 4to, 5 oo

Reid's Course in Mechanical Drawing 8vo, 2 oo

Text-book of Mechanical Drawing and Elementary Machine Design. 8vo, 3 oo

Robinson's Principles of Mechanism 8vo, 3 oo

Schwamb and Merrill's Elements of Mechanism 8vo, 3 oo

Smith's (R. S.) Manual of Topographical Drawing. (McMillan.) 8vo, 2 50

Smith (A. W.) and Marx's Machine Design 8vo, 3 oo

* Titsworth's Elements of Mechanical Drawing Oblong 8vo, i 25

Barren's Drafting Instruments and Operations i2mo, i 25

Elements of Descriptive Geometry, Shadows, and Perspective 8vo, 3 50

Elements of Machine Construction and Drawing. . 8vo, 7 50

Elements of Plane and Solid Free-hand Geometrical Drawing. . . i .2mo, i OO'

General Problems of Shades and Shadows 8vo, 3 oo.

Manual of Elementary Problems in the Linear Perspective of Form and

Shadow i2mo, i oo

Manual of Elementary Projection Drawing i2mo, i 50

Plane Problems in Elementary Geometry I2mo, i 25

Problems, Theorems, and Examples in Descriptive Geometry 8vo, 2 50

Weisbach's Kinematics and Power of Transmission. (Hermann and

Klein.) 8vo, 5 oo<

Wilson's (H. M.) Topographic Surveying 8vo, 3 50

Wilson's (V. T.) Free-hand Lettering 8vo, i oo

Free-hand Perspective 8vo, 2 50'

Woolf's Elementary Course in Descriptive Geometry Large 8vo, 3 oo

ELECTRICITY AND PHYSICS.

* Abegg's Theory of Electrolytic Dissociation, (von Ende.) i2mo, i 25

Andrews's Hand-Book for Street Railway Engineering, ....3X5 inches, mor., i 25

Anthony and Brackett's Text-book of Physics. (Magie.) Large i2mo, 3 oo

Anthony's Lecture-notes on the Theory of Electrical Measurements. . . . i2mo, i oo

Benjamin's History of Electricity 8vo, 3 oo

Voltaic Cell 8vo, 3 oo

Betts's Lead Refining and Electrolysis 8vo, 4 oo

Classen's Quantitative Chemical Analysis by Electrolysis. (Boltwood.).8vo, 3 oo

* Collins's Manual of Wireless Telegraphy i2mo, i 50

Mor. 2 oo •

Crehore and Squier's Polarizing Photo-chronograph 8vo, 3 oo

* Danneel's Electrochemistry. (Merriam.) I2mo, i 25

Dawson's "Engineering" and Electric Traction Pocket-book i6mo, mor 5 oo

Dolezalek's Theory of the Lead Accumulator (Storage Battery), (von Ende.)

i2mo, 2 50

Duhem's Thermodynamics and Chemistry. (Burgess.) 8vo, 4 oo

Flather's Dynamometers, and the Measurement of Power .' . i2mo, 3 oo

Gilbert's De Magnete. (Mottelay.) 8vo, 2 50

* Hanchett's Alternating Currents i2mo, i oo>

Bering's Ready Reference Tables (Conversion Factors) i6mo, mor. 2 50-

Hobart and Ellis's High-speed Dynamo Electric Machinery. (In Press.)

Holman's Precision of Measurements 8vo, 2 oo

Telescopic Mirror-scale Method, Adjustments, and Tests. .. .Large 8vo, 75

* Karapetoff's Experimental Electrical Engineering 8vo, 6 oo

Kinzbrunner's Testing of Continuous-current Machines 8vo, 2 oo

Landauer's Spectrum Analysis. (Tingle.) 8vo, 3 oo

Le Chatelier's High-temperature Measurements. (Boudouard — Burgess.) i2mo, 3 oo

Lob's Electrochemistry of Organic Compounds. (Lorenz.) 8vo, 3 oo

* London's Development and Electrical Distribntion of Water Power . . . .8vo, 3 oo

* Lyons'? Treatise on Electromagnetic Phenomena. Vols. I. and II. 8vo, each, 6 oo

* Michie's Elements of Wave Motion Relating to Sound and Light 8vo, 4 oo

11

Morgan's Outline of the Theory of Solution and its Results i2mo, i oo

* Physical Chemistry for Electrical Engineers I2mo, i 50

Niaudet's Elementary Treatise on Electric Batteries. (Fishback). . . . i2mo. a 50

* Norris's Introduction to the Study of Electrical Engineering Svo, 2 50

* Parshall and Hobart's Electric Machine Design 4to, half morocco, 12 50

Reagan's Locomotives: Simple, Compound, and Electric. New Edition.

Large 12 mo, 3 50

* Rosenberg's Electrical Engineering. (Haldane Gee — Kinzbrunner.). . .8vo, 2 oo

Ryan, Norris, and Hoxie's Electrical Machinery. Vol. 1 8vo, 2 50

Swapper's Laboratory Guide for Students in Physical Chemistry i2mo, i oo

Thurston's Stationary Steam-engines 8vo, 2 50

* Tillman's Elementary Lessons in Heat 8vo, i 50

Tory and Pitcher's Manual of Laboratory Physics Large 12 mo, 2 oo

Ulke's Modern Electrolytic Copper Refining Svo, 3 oo

LAW.

* Davis's Elements of Law Svo, 2 50

* Treatise on the Military Law of United States Svo, 7 oo

* Sheep, 7 50

* Dudley's Military Law and the Procedure of Courts-martial . . . .Large i2mo, 2 50

Manual for Courts-martial i6mo , mor. i 50

Wait's Engineering and Architectural Jurisprudence Svo, 6 oo

Sheep, 6 50

Law of Contracts Svo, 3 oo

Law of Operations Preliminary to Construction in Engineering and Archi-
tecture Svo 5 oo

Sheep, 5 50
MATHEMATICS.

Baker's Elliptic Functions Svo,

Briggs's Elements of Plane Analytic Geometry. (Bocher) 1 2mo,

* Buchanan's Plane and Spherical Trigonometry. 8vo,

Byerley's Harmonic Functions Svo,

Chandler's Elements of the Infinitesimal Calculus i2mo,

Compton's Manual of Logarithmic Computations i2mo,

Davis's Introduction to the Logic of Algebra Svo,

* Dickson's College Algebra Large 12010,

* Introduction to the Theory of Algebraic Equations Large i2mo,

Emch's Introduction to Projective Geometry and its Applications Svo,

Fiske's Functions of a Complex Variable Svo,

Halsted's Elementary Synthetic Geometry Svo,

Elements of Geometry : . Svo, 75

* Rational Geometry I2mo, 50

Hyde's Grassmann's Space Analysis Svo, oo

* Jonnson's (./ B.) Three-place Logarithmic Tables: Vest-pocket size, paper, 15

100 copies, 5 oo

* Mounted on heavy cardboard, 8X 10 inches, 25

10 copies, 2 oo
Johnson's (W. W.) Abridged Editions of Differential and Integral Calculus

Large i2mo, i vol. 2 50

Curve Tracing in Cartesian Co-ordinates I2mo, i oo

Differential Equations Svo, i oo

Elementary Treatise on Differential Calculus. (In Press.)

Itlcc icntary Treatise on the Integral Calculus Large i2mo> i 50

* Theoretical Mechanics i2mo, 3 oo

Theory of Errors and the Method of Least Squares i2mo, i 50

Treatise on Differential Calculus Large i2mo, 3 oo

Treatise on the Integral Calculus Large i2mo, 3 oo

Treatise on Ordinary and Partial Differential Equations. . Large 12 mo, 3 50

12

taplace's Philosophical Essay on Probabilities. (Truscott and Emory. ).i2mo, 2 oo

* Ludlow and Bass's Elements of Trigonometry and Logarithmic and Other

Tables 8vo, 3 oo

Trigonometry and Tables published separately Each, 2 oo

* Ludlow's Logarithmic and Trigonometric Tables 8vo, i oo

Macfarlane's Vector Analysis and Quaternions 8vo, i oo

McMahon's Hyperbolic Functions 8vo, i oo

Manning's IrrationalNumbers and their Representation bySequences and Series

I2mo, i 25
Mathematical Monographs. Edited by Mansfield Merriman and Robert

S. Woodward Octavo, each i oo

No. i. History of Modern Mathematics, by David Eugene Smith.
No. 2. Synthetic Projective Geometry, by George Bruce Halsted.
No. 3. Determinants, by Laenas Gifford Weld. No. 4. Hyper-
bolic Functions, by James McMahon. Ko. S. Harmonic Func-
tions, by William E. Byerly. No. 6. Grassmann's Space Analysis,
by Edward W. Hyde. No. 7. Probability and Theory of Errors,
by Robert S. Woodward. No. 8. Vector Analysis and Quaternions,
by Alexander Macfarlane. No. 9. Differential Equations, by
William Woolsey Johnson. No. 10. The Solution of Equations,
by Mansfield Merriman. No. n. Functions of a Complex Variable,
by Thomas S. Fiske.

Iflaurer's Technical Mechanics 8vo, 4 oo

Meriiman's Method of Least Squares 8vo, 2 oo

Solution of Equations 8vo, i oo

Rice and Johnson's Differential and Integral Calculus. 2 vols. in one.

Large i2mo, i 50

Elementary Treatise on the Differential Calculus Large i2mo, 3 oo

Smith's History of Modern Mathematics 8vo, i oo

* Veblen and Lennes's Introduct:on to the Real Infinitesimal Analysis of One

Variable 8vo, 2 oo

* Waterbury's Vest Pocket Hand-Book of Mathematics for Engineers.

2 |-Xsl inches, mor., i oo

Weld's Determinations 8vo, i oo

Wood's Elements of Co-ordinate Geometry 8vo, 2 oo

Woodward's Probability and Theory of Errors 8vo, i oo

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING.

MATERIALS OF ENGINEERING, STEAM-ENGINES AND BOILERS.

Bacon's Forge Practice i2mo, i 50

Baldwin's Steam Heating for Buildings i2mo, 2 50

Bair's Kinematics of Machinery 8vo, 2 50

* Bartlett's Mechanical Drawing 8vo, 3 oo

* " " " Abridged Ed 8vo, 150

Benjamin's Wrinkles and Recipes i2mo, 2 oo

* Burr's Ancient and Modern Engineering and the Isthmian Canal 8vo, 3 50

Carpenter's Experimental Engineering 8vo, 6 oo

Heating and Ventilating Buildings 8vo, 4 oo

Clerk's Gas and Oil Engine Large i2mo, 4 oo

Compton's First Lessons in Metal Working i2mo, i 50

Compton and De Groodt's Speed Lathe 12mo, i 50

Coolidge's Manual of Drawing 8vo, paper, i oo

Coolidge and Freeman's Elements of General Drafting for Mechanical En-
gineers Oblong 4to, 2 50

Cromwell's Treatise on Belts and Pulleys i2mo, i 50

Treatise on Toothed Gearing i2mo, i 50

Durley's Kinematics of Machines 8vo, 4 oo

13

Flather's Dynamometers and the Measurement of Power, i2mo, 3 oo

Rope Driving i2mo, 2 oo

Gill's Gas and Fuel Analysis for Engineers i2mo, i 25

Goss':j Locomotive Sparks 8vo, 2 oo-

HalFs Car Lubrication i2mo, i oo-

Hering's Ready Reference Tables (Conversion Factors) i6mo, mor., 2 50

Hobart and Elds's High Speed Dynamo Electric Machinery. (In Press.)

Button's Gas Engine 8vo, 5 oo

Jamison's Advanced Mechanical Drawing 8vo, 2 oo

Elements of Mechanical Drawing 8vo, 2 50

Jones's Machine Design:

Part I. Kinematics of Machinery 8vo, i 50

Part II. Form, Strength, and Proportions of Parts 8vo, 3 oo>

Kent's Mechanical Engineers' Pocket-book i6mo, mor , 5 oo

Kerr's Power and Power Transmission 8vo, 2 oo-

Leonard's Machine Shop Tools and Methods 8vo, 4 oo

* Lorenz's Modern Refrigerating Machinery. (Pope, Haven, and Dean.) . . 8vo, 4 oo
MacCord's Kinematics; or, Practical Mechanism 8vo, 5 oo

Mechanical Drawing 4to, 4 oo-

Velocity Diagrams 8vo, i 50-

MacFarland's Standard Reduction Factors for Gases 8vo, i 50

Mahan's Industrial Drawing. (Thompson.) 8vo, 3 50

* Parshall and Hobart's Electric Machine Design Small 4to, half leather, 12 50

Peele's Compressed Air Plant for Mines. (In Press.)

Poole's Calorific Power of Fuels 8vo, 3 oo

* Porter's Engineering Reminiscences, 1855 to 1882 8vo, 3 oo

Reid's Course in Mechanical Drawing 8vo, 2 oo-

Text-book of Mechanical Drawing and Elementary Machine Design. 8vo, 3 oo>

Richard's Compressed Air i2mo, i 50

Robinson's Principles of Mechanism 8vo, 3 oo

Schwamb and Merrill's Elements of Mechanism 8vo, 3 oo

Smith's (O.) Press- working of Metals 8vo, 3 oo

Smith (A. W.) and Marx's Machine Design 8vo, 3 oo

Sorel ' s Carbureting and Combustion in Alcohol Engines . (Woodward and Preston) .

Large 12 mo, 3 oo
Thurston's Animal as a Machine and Prime Motor, and the Laws of Energetics.

i2mo, i oo

Treatise on Friction and Lost Work in Machinery and Mill Work... 8vo, 3 oo

Tillson's Complete Automobile Instructor i6mo, i 50

mor., 2 oo

* Titsworth's Elements of Mechanical Drawing Oblong 8vo, i 25

Warren's Elements of Machine Construction and Drawing 8vo, 7 5<>

* Waterbury's Vest Pocket Hand Book of Mathematics for Engineers.

2iXst inches, mor., i oo
Weisbach's Kinematics and the Power of Transmission. (Herrmann —

Klein.) 8vo, 5 oo

Machinery of Transmission and Governors. (Herrmann — Klein.). .8vo, 5 oo

Wolff's Windmill as a Prime Mover 8vo, 3 oo

Wood's Turbines 8vo, 2 50

MATERIALS OF ENGINEERING.

* Bovey's Strength of Materials and Theory of Structures 8vo, 7 50

Burr's Elasticity and Resistance of the Materials of Engineering 8vo, 7 50

Church's Mechanics of Engineering 8vo, 6 oo

* Greene's Structural Mechanics . .8vo, 2 50

Holley and Ladd's Analysis of Mixed Paints, Color Pigments, and Varnishes.

Large 121110, 2 50

Johnson's Materials of Construction 8vo, 6 oo

Keep's Cast Iron 8vo, 2 50

Lanza's Applied Mechanics 8vo, 7 50

14

Maire's Modern Pigments and their Vehicles izmo, 2 oo

Martens 's Handbook on Testing Materials. (Henning.) 8vo, 7 50

Maurer's Technical Mechanics 8vo, 4 oo

Merriman's Mechanics of Materials 8vo, 5 oo

* Strength of Materials i2mo, i oo

Metcalf' s Steel. A Manual for Steel-users i2mo, 2 oo

Sabin's Industrial and Artistic Technology of Paints and Varnish 8vo, 3 oo

Smith's Materials of Machines I2mo, i oo

Thurston's Materials of Engineering 3 vols., 8vo, 8 oo

Part I. Non-metallic Materials of Engineering, see Civil Engineering,
page 9.

Part II. Iron and Steel 8vo, 3 50

Part III. A Treatise on Brasses, Bronzes, and Other Alloys and their

Constituents 8vo, 2 50

Wood's (De V.) Elements of Analytical Mechanics 8vo, 3 oo

Treatise on the Resistance of Materials and an Appendix on the

Preservation of Timber 8vo, a oo

Wood's (M. P.) Rustless Coatings: Corrosion and Electrolysif of Iron and

Steel 8vo, 4 oo

STEAM-ENGINES AND BOILERS.

Berry's Temperature-entropy Diagram izmo, i 25

-Carnot's Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat. (Thurston.) I2mo, i 50

Chased Art of Pattern Making i2mo, 2 50

Creighton's Steam-engine and other Heat-motors 8vo, 5 oo

Dawson's "Engineering" and Electric Traction Pocket-book. . . .i6mo, mor., 5 oo

Ford's Boiler Making for Boiler Makers i8mo, i oo

Goss's Locomotive Performance 8vo, 5 oo

Hemenway's Indicator Practice and Steam-engine Economy i2mo, 2 oo

Button's Heat and Heat-engines 8vo, 5 oo

Mechanical Engineering of Power Plants 8vo, 5 oo

Kent's Steam boiler Economy 8vo, 4 oo

Kneass's Practice and Theory of the Injector 8vo, i 50

MacCord's Slide-valves 8vo, 2 oo

Meyer's Modern Locomotive Construction 4to, 10 oo

Mover's Steam Turbines. (Tn Press.)

Peabody's Manual of the Steam-engine Indicator I2mo, i 50

Tables of the Properties of Saturated Steam and Other Vapors 8vo, i oo

Thermodynamics of the Steam-engine and Other Heat-engines 8vo, 5 oo

Valve-gears for Steam-engines 8vo, 2 50

Peabody and Miller's Steam-boilers 8vo, 4 oo

Pray's Twenty Years with the Indicator Large 8vo, 2 50

Pupin's Thermodynamics of Reversible Cycles in Gases and Saturated Vapors.

(Osterberg.) I2mo, i 25

Reagan's Locomotives: Simple, Compound, and Electric. New Edition.

Large i2mo, 3 50

Sinclair's Locomotive Engine Running and Management I2mo, 2 oo

Smart's Handbook of Engineering Laboratory Practice I2mo, 2 50

Snow's Steam-boiler Practice 8vo, 3 oo

Spangler's Notes on Thermodynamics I2mo, i oo

Valve-gears 8vo, 2 50

Spaugler, Greene, and Marshall's Elements of Steam-engineering 8vo, 3 oo

Thomas's Steam-turbines 8vo, 4 oo

Thurston's Handbook of Engine and Boiler Trials, and the Use of the Indi-
cator and the Prony Brake 8vo, 5 oo

Handy Tables. . . . 8vo, i 50

Manual of Steam-boilers, their Designs, Construction, and Operation..8vo, 5 oo

15

Thurston's Manual of the Steam-engine 2 vols., 8vo, 10 oo

Part I. History, Structure, and Theory 8vo, 6 oo

Part II. Design, Construction, and Operation 8vo, 6 oo

Stationary Steam-engines 8vo, 2 50

Steam-boiler Explosions in Theory and in Practice 12mo, i 50

Wehrenfenning's Analysis and Softening of Boiler Feed-water (Patterson) 8vo, 4 oo

Weisbach's Heat, Steam, and Steam-engines. (Du Bois.) 8vo, 5 oo

Whitham's Steam-engine Design 8vo, 5 oo

Wood's Thermodynamics, Heat Motors, and Refrigerating Machines. . .8vo, 4 oo

MECHANICS PURE AND APPLIED.

Church's Mechanics of Engineering 8vo, 6 oo

Notes and Examples in Mechanics 8vo, 2 oo

Dana's Text-book of Elementary Mechanics for Colleges and Schools. .i2mo, i 50
Du Bois's Elementary Principles of Mechanics:

Vol. I. Kinematics 8vo, 3 50

Vol. II. Statics 8vo, 4 oo

Mechanics of Engineering. Vol. I Small 4to, 7 50

Vol. II Small 4to, 10 oo

* Greene's Structural Mechanics 8vo, 2 50

James's Kinematics of a Point and the Rational Mechanics of a Particle.

Large 12mo, 2 oo

* Johnson's (W. W.) Theoretical Mechanics 12mo, 3 oo

Lanza's Applied Mechanics 8vo, 7 50

* Martin's Text Book on Mechanics, Vol. I, Statics 12mo, i 25

* Vol. 2, Kinematics and Kinetics . .I2mo, l 50
Maurer's Technical Mechanics 8vo, 4 oo

* Merriman's Elements of Mechanics 12mo, i oo

Mechanics of Materials 8vo, 5 oo

* Michie's Elements of Analytical Mechanics 8vo, 4 oo

Robinson's Principles of Mechanism 8vo, 3 oo

Sanborn's Mechanics Problems Large 12mo, i 50

Schwamb and Merrill's Elements of Mechanism 8vo, 3 oo

Wood's Elements of Analytical Mechanics 8vo, 3 oo

Principles of Elementary Mechanics 12mo, i 25

MEDICAL.

Abderhalden's Physiological Chemistry in Thirty Lectures. (Hall and Defren).

(in Press).
von Behring's Suppression of Tuberculosis. (Bolduan.) I2mo, i oo

* Bolduan's Immune Sera i2mo, i 50

Davenport's Statistical Methods with Special Reference to Biological Varia-
tions i6mo, mor., i 50

Ehrlich's Collected Studies on Immunity. (Bolduan.) 8vo, 6 oo

* Fischer's Physiology of Alimentation Large i2mo, cloth, 2 oo

de Fursac's Manual of Psychiatry. (Rosanoff and Collins.) Large i2mo, 2 50

Hammarsten's Text-book on Physiological Chemistry. (Mandel.) 8vo, 4 oo

Jackson's Directions for Laboratory Work in Physiological Chemistry. ..8vo, i 25

Lassar-Cohn's Practical Urinary Analysis. (Lorenz.) i2mo, i oo

Mandel's Hand Book for the Bio-Chemical Laboratory i2mo, i 50

* Pauli's Physical Chemistry in the Service of Medicine. (Fischer.) . . . . i2mo, i 25

* Pozzi-Escot's Toxins and Venoms and their Antibodies. (Cohn.) i2mo, i oo

Rostoski's Serum Diagnosis. (Bolduan.) I2mo, I oo

Ruddiman's Incompatibilities in Prescriptions , 8vo, 2 oo

Whys in Pharmacy I2mo, i oo

Salkowski's Physiological and Pathological Chemistry. (Orndorff.) 8vo, 2 50

* Satterlee's Outlines of Human Embryology I2mo, i 25

Smith's Lecture Notes on Chemistry for Dental Students 8vo, 2 50

16

Steel's Treatise on the Diseases of the Dog 8vo, 3 50

* Whipple's Typhoid Fever Large 12010, 3 oo

Woodhull's Notes on Military Hygiene i6mo, i 50

* Personal Hygiene i2mo, i oo

Worcester and Atkinson's Small Hospitals Establishment and Maintenance,

and Sjggestions for Hospital Architecture, with Plans for a Small

Hospital i2mo, i 25

METALLURGY.

Betts's Lead Refining by Electrolysis 8vo. 4 oo

Holland's Encyclopedia of Founding and Dictionary of Foundry Terms Used

in the Practice of Moulding 12mo, 3 oo

Iron Founder I2mo. 2 50

Supplement . izmo, 2 50

Douglas's Untechnical Addresses on Technical Subjects I2mo, i oo

Goesel's Minerals and Metals: A Reference Book , . . . . i6mo, mor. 3 oo

* Iles's Lead-smelting 12mo, 2 50

Keep's Cast Iron , 8vo, 2 50

Le Chatelier's High-temperature Measurements. (Boudouard — Burgess.) 12mo, 3 oo

Metcalf's Steel. A Manual for Steel-users 12mo, 2 oo

Miller's Cyanide Process 12mo i oo

Minet's Production of Aluminum and its Industrial Use. (Waldo.)... . 12mo, 2 50

Robine and Lenglen's Cyanide Industry. (Le Clerc.) 8vo, 4 oo

Ruer's Elements of Metallography. (Mathewson). (In Press.)

Smith's Materials of Machines 12mo, i oo

Thurston's Materials of Engineering. In Three Parts 8vo, 8 oo

part I. Non-metallic Materials of Engineering, see Civil Engineering,
page 9.

Part II. Iron and Steel 8vo, 3 50

Part III. A Treatise on Brasses. Bronzes, and Other Alloys and their

Constituents 8vo, 2 50

Ulke's Modern Electrolytic Copper Refining. 8vo, 3 oo

West's American Foundry Practice I2mo, 2 50

Moulders Text Book 12mo, 2 50

Wilson's Chlorination Process 12mo, i 50

Cyanide Processes 12mo, i 50

MINERALOGY.

Barringer's Description of Minerals of Commercial Value. Oblong, morocco, 2 50

Boyd's Resources of Southwest Virginia 8vo 3 oo

Boyd's Map of Southwest Virginia Pocket-book form. 2 oo

* Browning's Introduction to the Rarer Elements 8vo, i 50

Brush's Manual of Determinative Mineralogy. (Penfield.) 8vo, 4 oo

Butler's Pocket Hand-Book of Minerals 16mo, mor. 3 oo

Chester's Catalogue of Minerals 8vo, paper, i oo

Cloth, i 25

Crane's Gold and Silver. (In Press.)

Dana's First Appendix to Dana's New " System of Mineralogy. ." . .Large 8vo, i oo

Manual of Mineralogy and Petrography I2mo 2 oo

Minerals and How to Study Them I2mo, i 50

System of Mineralogy Large 8vo, half leather, 12 50

Text-book of Mineralogy 8vo, 4 oo

Douglas's Untechnical Addresses on Technical Subjects I2mo, i oo

Eakle's Mineral Tables 8vo, i 25

Stone and Clay Products Used in Engineering. (In Preparation).

Egleston's Catalogue of Minerals and Synonyms 8vo, 2 50

Goesel's Minerals and Metals : A Reference Book i6mo, mor. 3 oo

Groth's Introduction to Chemical Crystallography (Marshall) i2mo, i 25

17

* Iddings's Rock Minerals r 8vo, 5 oo

Johannsen's Determination of Rock-forming Minerals in Thin Sections 8vo, 4 oo

* Martin's Laboratory Guide to Qualitative Analysis with the Blowpipe. i2mo, 60
Merrill's Non-metallic Minerals: Their Occurrence and Uses 8vo, 4 oo

Stones for Building and Decoration .. 8vo, 500

* Penfield's Notes on Determinative Mineralogy and Record of Mineral Tests.

8vo, paper, 50
Tables of Minerals, Including the Use of Minerals and Statistics of

Domestic Production 8vo, i oo

Pirsson's Rocks and Rock Minerals. (In Press.)

* Richards's Synopsis of Mineral Characters I2mo, mor. i 25

* Ries's Clays: Their Occurrence, Properties, and Uses 8vo, 5 oo

•* Tillman's Text-book of Important Minerals and Rocks 8vo, 2 oo

MINING.

* Beard's Mine Gases and Explosions Large i2mo, 3 oo

Boyd's Map of Southwest Virginia Pocket-book form, 2 oo

Resources of Southwest Virginia 8vo, 3 oo

Crane's Gold and Silver. (In Press.)

Douglas's Untechnical Addresses on Technical Subjects i2mo, I oo

Eissler's Modern High Explosives 8vo. 4 oo

Ooesel's Minerals and Metals : A Reference Book . . , i6mo, mor. 3 oo

Ihlseng's Manual of Mining 8vo, 5 oo

* Iles's Lead-smelting i2mo, 2 50

Miller's Cyanide Process i2mo, i oo

O'Driscoll's Notes on the Treatment of Gold Ores Svo, 2 oo

Peele's Compressed Air Plant for Mines. (In Press. )

Riemer's Shaft Sinking Under Difficult Conditions. (Corning anl Peele) . . . Svo, 3 oo

Robine and Lenglen's Cyanide Industry. (Le Clerc.) Svo, 4 oo

* Weaver's Military Explosives Svo, 3 oo

Wilson's Chlorination Process i2mo, i 50

Cyanide Processes i2mo, i 50

Hydraulic and Placer Mining. 2d edition, rewritten i2mo, 2 50

Treatise on Practical and Theoretical Mine Ventilation i2mo, i 25

SANITARY SCIENCE.

Association of State and National Food and Dairy Departments, Hartforci Meeting,

1906.. x Svo, 3 oo

Jamestown Meeting, 1907 Svo, 3 oo

* Bashore's Outlines of Practical Sanitation 12mo, i 25

Sanitation of a Country House 12mo, i oo

Sanitation of Recreation Camps and Parks 12mo, i oo

Folwell's Sewerage. (Designing, Construction, and Maintenance.; Svo, 3 oo

Water-supply Engineering Svo, 4 oo

Fowler's Sewage Works Analyses 12mo, 2 oo

Fuertes's Water-filtration Works 12mo,

Water and Public Health 12mo,

Gerhard's Guide to Sanitary House-inspection 16mo,

* Modern Baths and Bath Houses Svo,

Sanitation of Public Buildings 12mo,

Hazen's Clean Water and How to Get It Large I2mo,

Filtration of Public Water-supplies Svo, 3 oo

Xinnicut, Winslow and Pratt's Purification of Sewage. (In Press. )

Leach's Inspection and Analysis of Food with Special Reference to State

Control Svo, 7 oo

Mason's Examination of Water. (Chemical and Bacteriological) 12mo, i 25

Water-supply. (Considered principally from a Sanitary Standpoint; . . Svo, 4 oo
18

* Merriman's Elements of Sanitary Engineering 8vo, a 00=

Ogden's Sewer Design 12mo, oo-

Parsons 's Disposal of Municipal Refuse 8vo, oo

Prescott and Winslow's Elements of Water Bacterielogy, with Special Refer-
ence to Sanitary Water Analysis 12mo,

* Price's Handbook on Sanitation 12mo,

Richards's Cost of Food. A Study in Dietaries 12mo,

Cost of Living as Modified by Sanitary Science 12mo,

So
50
oo
oo

Cost of Shelter 12mo, oo

* Richards and Williams's Dietary Computer ' 8vo, 50

Richards and Woodman's Air, Water, and Food from a Sanitary Stand-
point 8vo, 2 oo

Rideal's Disinfection and the Preservation of Food 8vo, 4 oo

Sewage and Bacterial Purification of Sewage 8vo, 4 oo

Soper's Air and Ventilation of Subways. (In Press.)

Turneaure and Russell's Public Water-supplies 8vo, 5 oo

Venable's Garbage Crematories in America 8vo, 2 oo

Method and Devices for Bacterial Treatment of Sewage 8vo, 3 oo

Ward and Whipple's Freshwater Biology. (In Press.)

Whipple's Microscopy of Drinking-water 8vo, 3 50

* Typhod Fever Large I2mo, 3 oo

Value of Pure Water Large I2mo, i oo

Winton's Microscopy of Vegetable Foods 8vo, 7 50

MISCELLANEOUS.

Emmons's Geological Guide-book of the Rocky Mountain Excursion of the

International Congress of Geologists Large 8vo, i 50

Ferrel's Popular Treatise on the Winds 8vo, 4 oo

Fitzgerald's Boston Machinist i8mo, i oo

Gannett's Statistical Abstract of the World 24mo, 75

Raines's American Railway Management 12mo, a 50

* Hanusek's The Microscopy of Technical Products. (Winton) 8vo, 5 oo

Ricketts's History of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 1824-1894.

Large i2mo, 3 oo

Rotherham's Emphasized New Testament Large 8vo, 2 oo

Standage's Decoration of Wood, Glass, Metal, etc 12mo, 2 oo

Thome's Structural and Physiological Botany. (Bennett) 16mo, 2 25.

Westermaier's Compendium of General Botany. (Schneider) 8vo, 2 oo

Winslow's Elements of Applied Microscopy 12mo, i 50

HEBREW AND CHALDEE TEXT-BOOKS.

Green's Elementary Hebrew Grammar 1210.0, i 25.

Gasenius's Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures.

(Tregelles.) Small 4to, half morocco, 5 oo>

19

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