Manufacture of Russian Sheet Iron. [Volume: 8, Issue: 1, 1888, pp. 15-18]

No. 1.]

CHARCOAL IRON WORKERS.

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is wetted with water,. dusted with charcoal powder, and dried.
They are then made into packets containing from sixty to one
hundred, and bound up with the waste sheets.
The packets are placed one at a time, with a log of wood at each
of the four sides in a nearly air-tight chamber and carefully annealed for five or six hours. When this has been completed the
packet is removed and hammered with a trip hammer weighing
about a ton, the area of its striking surface being about 6 by 14
inches. The face of the hammer is made of this somewhat unusual shape in order to secure a wavey appearance on the surface of
the packet. After the packet has received ninety blows equally
distributed over its surface, it is reheated and the hammering repeated in the same manner. Sometime after the first hammering
the packet is broken and the sheets wetted with a mop, to harden
the surface. After the second hammering the packet is broken, the
sheets examined, to ascertain if any are welded together, and completely finished cold sheets are placed alternately between those of
the packet, thus making a large packet of from 140 to 200 sheets. It
is supposed that the interposition of these cold sheets produces the
peculiar greenish color that the finished sheets possess on cooling.
This large packet is then given what is known as the finishing
or polishing hammering. For this purpose the trip hammer used
has a larger face than the others, having an area about 17 by 21
inches. When the hammering has been properly done, the packet
has received 60 blows equally distributed, and the sheets should
have a perfectly smooth mirror-like surface. The packet is now
broken before cooling, each sheet cleaned with a wet fir broom to
remove the remaining charcoal powder, carefully inspected, and
the good sheets stood on their edges in vertical racks to cool.
These sheets are trimmed to regulation size (28 by 56 inches) and
assorted into Nos. 1, 2, 3, according to their appearance, and again
assorted according to weight, which varies from 1( to 12 lbs. per
sheet. The quality varies according to color, and freedom from
flaws or spots. A first-class sheet must be without the slightest
flaw and have a peculiar metallic gray color, and on bending a
number of times with the fingers, very little or no scale is seperated as in the case of ordinary sheet iron.
The peculiar property of Russian sheet iron, is the beautiful
polished coating of oxides (" glanz ") which it possesses, if there is
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