The Morgan Continuous Mill
Morgan’s also was a continuous process. The billet was put in at one end of a new type of heating furnace which Morgan devised, and was gradually pushed along to the other end. From this second or outgoing end, the long, narrow, white-hot billet went through several pairs of two-high rolls set close together, each successive pair having smaller grooves than the one preceding it, so that, after traversing these several pairs of rolls, the rods emerged from the last pair finished, having traveled in a straight line through them.
Hand reeling was much too slow for Morgan who invented two different types of high-speed automatic reel which, in the highly speeded mills of to-day, receive and coil wire coming from the finishing passes at speeds of over one-half mile per minute. It is stated that the billets and rods therefrom traverse the rolls so fast and the pressure is applied so quickly and so hard that the rods emerging from the finishing passes are hotter than were the billets when they went into the rolls.
The Billet Traverses the Morgan Continuous Mill at High Speed Emerging from the Last Roll as Finished Rod
As was explained, no reduction in thickness is brought about by the sides of the grooves in the rolls. Therefore, a bar or rod must be turned after each pass unless Bedson’s alternating horizontal and vertical rolls are used. This turning Morgan did in spiral tubes inserted between the successive sets of rolls, all of which were horizontal. These tubes operate as does the “rifling” in a gun barrel, in turning the rod.
In Bedson’s mill, with its alternating horizontal and vertical pairs of rolls, it was possible to roll only one rod at a time. With Morgan’s system, in which all rolls were horizontal, several rods could be traversing the mill side by side.
With the high-speed reels and what are known as “flying shears” in which billets or rods can be cut to any length while going at full speed, Morgan’s mill had come to a high stage of development. It was practically automatic.