The Manufacture of Steel; Containing the Practice and Principles of Working and Making Steel (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: FORGE FOR HARD COAL. In working hard, or anthracite coal, no horizontal tuyere, nor any of the description above referred to, can be used to advantage. A small grate is laid in the bottom of the fire-hearth, space being left below it for the reception of ashes and clinkers; the blast is then introduced under the grate. Such an arrangement may he made at any common forge-fire; but a more perfect forge is represented in Fig. 5. This is a brick hearth, about rig 5 thirty inches high and three feet square, in the centre of which is a square pit, into which the blast-pipe is conducted. At a distance of six inches, or less, below the top of the brick-work, a cast-iron plate is inserted, in which is a square hole for the reception of the grate. A common stove-grate, four or five inches square, and fitting loosely into the cast-iron plate, is the kind generally used. A small opening, below the grate, leads into the ash-pit, in order to carry off the ashes and cinders. On the right and left of the fire, a wall of fire brick is erected, six inches inheight, which support an arch, also of fire-brick. 'This arch is movable, and consists of an iron frame, into which the fire-brick are firmly wedged. In the wall on the right hand is an opening, into which an iron trough, in the form of a hopper, is inserted, for the purpose of heating the coal before it is put on the fire. Fresh hard coal, when thrown suddenly on a hot fire, is liable to crumble into small pieces; the heating prevents this, and keeps the fire open, and free from fine coal. The top of the hearth, or brick- pile, is covered by an iron plate. A fire of this kind is very advantageous for common smith-work; but a concentrated heat cannot be made in it. The fi...