The tilt hammer was used for drawing and gave a more rapid but gentler stroke. In this type the fulcrum lay in the middle; by depressing the tail, the hammer end at the opposite end was lifted by the leverage exerted through the fulcrum. There were 14 water boxes boshes around the forge for cooling working tools.
Details from the rolling mill at WilsontownA rolling mill is a factory for shaping metal by passing it between pairs of rolls. The rolling mill lay beside the forge to the north. Before being taken into the rolling mill the blooms from the forge were weighed. The rolling mill appears to have been built around and was described as open-sided with stone pillars at suitable intervals and arched between.
Because of the large area covered the roof was supported internally on cast-iron pillars and probably had wrought-iron roof trusses that were tied into the walls by the wall-plates. Internal slender cast-iron pillars would have allowed the movement of materials within; like the forge the floor was laid with cast-iron plates to prevent damage when iron was move about. The mill was powered by a single-acting steam engine with a massive ft diameter flywheel.
The mill engine was placed centrally so that the three pairs of merchant bar rolls could lie one side of the main drive with the three pairs devoted to plain boiler plate, sheet and hoop work on the other. On this side there was also a pair of bolt rolls with cutters worked off an eccentric. A lathe for turning the rolls back to true rolls tended to wear unevenly was also driven off the engine. An Inventory from lists equipment such as Tongs and Hooks which would have been used for drawing the iron between passes.
Between each pass iron would have needed reheating and there were furnaces for this purpose. There is no customer list available for Wilsontown Ironworks but we know of one or two customers, e. Richard Crawshay, who bought bar iron. The Wilsons sold their iron through iron merchants who had large warehouses, like James Pillans in Leith.
We know that iron from Wilsontown went to warehouses in Leith, Glasgow and London. How iron is made. In this section. The top and bottom rollers turned in opposite directions so that the bar iron could be pulled into the machine. When the iron was malleable, it was fed into the rollers. The torque of the waterwheels on the rollers created a high pressure and flattened the iron bars. There was likely a mechanism for adjusting the distance between the rollers so that flats of varying thicknesses could be made.
Flat bar was shipped out so that blacksmiths would have the wrought iron stock to make wagon tires, axes, saw blades, and hinges. Some flat bar might also be processed through the slitting machinery.
The slitter machinery was made up of two square iron bars with cylindrical bearings. A similar but interlocking set of cutters and spacers was assembled upon the other square shaft. These were also coupled to waterwheels and turned in opposite directions. Water was fed over the slitters to keep the precision cutters cool and properly heat treated.
The flat bars were pulled through the slitters and sliced lengthwise. It is possible that slitters may have been larger sized like 1" thick. Both flats and nail rods were semi-finished dimensional iron that helped a blacksmith save a lot of time. In a previous time, flat bar and slit bar would have been pounded into dimension by using a series of water-powered hammers in a "battery" or perhaps more commonly, using hand hammers. The Joseph Jenckes blacksmith shop is where semi-finished product from the forge and the rolling and slitting mill were turned into finished products.
Jenckes was an independent blacksmith that was tied directly to the iron works. He built his shop on the tailrace of the blast furnace and used its water power to run a hammer and wire drawing mill before the water returned to the river.
His hammer wheel was a small overshot waterwheel, that is, the water passed over the wheel. Cams were mortised into the waterwheel shaft and the cams struck the back part of a helve hammer that was supported in the middle of the helve. It is likely that it was a "tail helve" hammer that produced quick blows to take advantage of the heat in thin sections of iron. Between his hammer and anvil Jenckes hammered out axes, saws, scythes, and draw shaves.
To make an axe, flat bar from the rolling mill was first heated to the required temperature indicated by visual observation to a bright orange and forged either by hand or under his power hammer into a symmetrical butterfly shape. The butterfly wings were folded and hammer welded together. Since Jenckes was paid for "steeling axes" for the iron works, we know that he was welding a harder and more durable imported steel bit onto the wrought iron body of the axe.
The edge of the steel axe would be forged to a wedge shape, ground, hardened, tempered, and sharpened. Hardening and tempering were specialized metallurgical processes that controlled the attributes of the steel. The tool was heated to a point where it was no longer magnetic this could be done visually and quenched in a special concoction of water or oil that may have been enhanced with other additives.
The steel was now hard but very brittle. To control the brittleness, the axe especially the steel was tempered by slowly heating the body of the axe and watching the edge progress though a range of oxidizing colors. By taking the steel away from its heat source once the desired color was reached, the skilled smith controlled the hardness of his finished tool thus balancing hardness with durability for a particular function for instance cutting oak vs. Jenckes made hand saw blades and saw mill blades.
He may have made them under his power hammer but it is more likely that e purchased rolled iron from the iron works. Until further analysis is done, it appears that Jenckes was using wrought iron to make his blades rather than steel. For a two-man hand saw, the ends of the blade would have holes punched that would allow riveted tangs to hold wooden handles.
In the case of a mill saw blade, holes would be cut through the ends which the blade would be mounted in its water-powered, reciprocating frame. Jenckes' "new invented sawmill" may have been a way of cutting out the teeth in his blades.
A triangle was cut from the body of the saw to form each tooth. Then, in either the hand saw or the mill saw, the teeth had to be "set.
This would keep the back of the blade from binding in the "kerf" slot of the cut. Each tooth was then sharpened by filing. If a saw was re-sharpened, the blade was also re-set. The iron works paid Jenckes for making a "saw wrest", the slotted tool that was used to bend the teeth. While in his 60s, Joseph Jenckes drew brass and iron wire at his Saugus shop. To draw wire thin strips of metal were rounded off and tapered at the end.
The wire was passed through a "draw plate. The draw plate was held fast in a framework. Many steel plants have closed in recent decades, but this is largely because fewer are needed. The efficiency of blast furnaces alone has improved remarkably. At the beginning of this century, the largest blast furnace in the United States produced tons of pig iron a day.
It is believed that soon the possible production of a single furnace will reach 4, tons per day. Since many of these more modern plants have been built overseas, it has actually become more economical in some cases to ship steel across the ocean than to produce it in older U.
Lambert, Mark. Spotlight on Iron and Steel. Rourke Enterprises, Hartley, Edward N. Iron and Steel Works of the World. International Publication, Lewis, W. Iron and Steel in America.
Hagley Museum, Walker, R. Modern Ironmaking Methods. Gower Publication, Toggle navigation. Made How Volume 2 Iron Iron. Minerals near the surface of the earth that have the highest iron content are known as iron ores and are mined commercially. Other articles you might like:. Also read article about Iron from Wikipedia. User Contributions: 1. Very helpful article. The whole matter presented in a very precise manner.
Great work. Thank you. What is the difference between iron we use for construction and the iron we use for iron deficiency in diets? Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic: Name:.
In the first century CE, around the end of the Iron Age, iron swords were made by heating and twisting together several strips or rods of iron. This process was called pattern welding. Iron ore had a reddish color caused by rust iron oxide. Rust formed when iron combined with a gas called oxygen. To get useable metal, iron ore needed to be heated with a substance called charcoal to remove the oxygen.
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