The blank to be operated upon is inserted between the dies, and Vests on the supporting plate marked V, in Fig.:;, one of the dies being at or near the end of its up stroke, and the other at or near the end of its down stroke, so that the extreme ends of the gripping surfaces of the dies are opposite each other in a line passing through the centers of the shafts, A A. One of the die platens travels up and the other down, until the extrem ities of the cutting-off edges are opposite each other, when a finished car-axle, or whatever other product the dies may have been designed for, i; the result. The whole operation occupies only a fraction of a minute. The smaller the article made, the greater may, of course, be the speed of working; boot calks for lumbermen, for example, being turned out at the works of the Simonds Rolling Machine Co. at the rale of from 10,000 to 20,000 per day.
The nton Process of manufacturing ;,Thel Tires.—The Chicago Tire and Spring Co.. of Melrose, near Chicago, Ill., use a plant for the manufacture of locomotive and car-wheel tires and circular forgings which, in its method of treating steel, is a marked departure. Mr. James Manton, the superintendent, is the inventor of the new process and the machinery for operating it. The ordinary method of manufacturing tires is to cast a solid ingot of cylindrical shape, which is then heated and upset under a steant-hammer until its height is reduced and its diameter enlarged. After a hole has been punched in its center.
the ingot is then placed on a beak or pike-horn and ham mered by blows struck on the periphery. It is then again heated and placed in a rolling mill, and rolled into a tire of the required diameter. In Mr. Munton's process he avoids the use of the hammer altogether, and in elongating the ingot, or bloom, into a tire he densities the metal on the tread and increases the wear-resisting properties of the steel.
A brief summary of the several steps taken is as follows : (1) The ingot is cast with a hole cored out large enough to admit a small mil. t2) The ingot is heated and taken to the rolling mill, where its top, with its imperfections, is sheared off and the bloom left of a given weight. AL the same heat, and by the same operation, the bloom is also roughed out by the roughing rolls of the mill and edged down by horizontal rolls. (3) The bloom is reheated and placed in the tire rolling mill, where it is rolled and finished to the exact inside and outside diameter required. Mr.
Mutton's present practice is to east an ingot large enough for two or more time blooms. lie uses a collapsible steel core. The steel is produced in an open-hearth furnace and poured from a ladle into the molds over a spreader of circular form, which covers the core and causes the steel to flow down on all sides, keeping any dirt in it flowing and thus col lecting at the top. Fig. 5 shows a cross section of an ingot as first east, before slit ting. Fig. 6 shows a two-tire ingot partially slit, and also indicates the method by which the slitting is done. In slitting, two upright rolls are used. One roll operates upon the inside of the ingot, as shown above. while the other roll operates on the outside. The outside roll is driven. It has a sharply beveled edge as a top cutter, a projecting flange as a central cutter, and a bottom flange to support the base of the ingot. Grooves are formed in this roll at suitable places to partly shape the tread of the tires. The flanges all extend the same distance outward from the roll. The inside roll has projecting flanges to correspond with those on the outside roll, but shorter. Fig, 7 shows an ingot after the top has been sheared off and the remainder cut into tire blooms ready for finishing. In Fig. 8 a perspective view of the mill is given. It consists of an exterior fixed vertical pressure roll (which also operates as the slitter); a vertical inner pressure roll, with horizontal movement ; two vertical exterior pressure rolls with hori zontal movement ; and two horizontal or edging rolls, one above and the other below the bloom operated upon. The upper edging roll is moved vertically by the edging cylinder. This mill is a universal mill, which can be used for rolling tires or rings of any section and diameter up to 8 ft., and rings up to 16 in. wide. The vertical exterior pressure or slitting roll and the lower edging roll are driven by steam-power. The engine has no fly wheels, being built on the reversing principle, so as to start or stop quickly. The movable rolls are operated by hydraulic power, controlled by valves shown in the foreground of the perspective view. Thus the edging, interior, or exterior rolls may either or all be brought into play upon the tire whenever desired, either simultaneously or one set at a time, so that the section of the tire, its size and diameter, are always under the complete control of the oper ator, and can be in stantly changed as de sired.