Steel.—This is a compound of iron with a small per-centage of carbon, and is made either by adding carbon to wrought iron, or by removing some of the carbon from cast iron.
In the cementation process, bars of wrought iron are imbedded in powdered charcoal in a fireclay trough, and kept at a high temperature in a furnace for several days. The iron combines with a portion of the carbon to form blister steel, so named because of the blisters which are found on the surface of the bars when they are removed from the furnace.
The bars of blister steel are broken into pieces about 18 inches long, and tied together in bundles by strong steel wire. These bundles are raised to a welding heat in a furnace, and then hammered or rolled into bars of shear steel.
To form cast steel the bars of blister steel are broken into pieces and melted into crucibles.
In the Siemens-Martin process for making steel, cast and wrought iron are melted together on the hearth of a regenerative gas-furnace.
Bessemer steel is made by pouring melted cast iron into a vessel called a converter, through which a blast of air is then urged. By this means the carbon is burned out, and comparatively pure iron remains. To this is added a certain quantity of 'spiegeleisen,' which is a compound of iron, carbon, and manganese.
Hardening and Tempering of Steel.—Steel, if heated to redness and cooled suddenly, as by immersion in water, is hardened. The degree of hardness produced varies with the rate of cooling; the more rapidly the heated steel is cooled, the harder does it become. Hardened steel is softened by the process of annealing, which consists in heating the hardened steel to redness, and then allowing it to cool slowly. Hardened steel is tempered, or has its degree of hardness lowered, by being heated to a temperature considerably below that of a red heat, and then cooling suddenly. The higher the temperature the hardened steel is raised to, the lower does its 'temper' become.
Case-hardening.—This is the name given to the process by which the surfaces of articles made of wrought iron are converted into steel, and consists in heating the articles in contact with substances rich in carbon, such as bone-dust, horn shavings, or yellow prussiate of potash. This process is generally applied to the articles after they are completely finished by the machine tools or by hand. The coating of steel produced on the article by this process is hardened by cooling the article suddenly in water.
Copper.—This metal has a reddish brown colour, and when pure is very malleable and ductile, either when cold or hot, so that it may be rolled or hammered into thin plates, or drawn into wire. Slight traces of impurities cause brittleness, although from 2 to 4 per cent. of phosphorus increases its tenacity and fluidity. Copper is a good conductor of heat and of electricity. Copper is largely used for making alloys.
Alloys.—Brass contains two parts by weight of copper to one of zinc. Muntz metal consists of three parts of copper to two of zinc. Alloys consisting of copper and tin are called bronze or gun-metal. Bronze is harder the greater the proportion of tin which it contains; five parts of copper to one of tin produce a very hard bronze, and ten of copper to one of tin is the composition of a soft bronze. Phosphor bronze contains copper and tin with a little phosphorus; it has this advantage over ordinary bronze, that it may be remelted without deteriorating in quality. This alloy also has the advantage that it may be made to possess great strength accompanied with hardness, or less strength with a high degree of toughness.