The Bloom from the Squeezer Goes to the “Muck” Rolls Which Roll It Down into “Muck Bar”
The Re-Heated “Box Piles” Being Rolled into “Skelp” for Pipe, in the Finishing Mills
Cross Piling Gives Cross Fibers in the Finished Bar—a Desirable Quality
Of recent years, mild steel has been the great competitor of wrought iron. With marvelous energy, skill, and much capital the manufacturers of Bessemer and open-hearth steels have adapted their products very well to the needs of the iron user, while the enormous tonnages turned out in short time by use of ingenious furnaces and other devices has resulted in a low cost of production.
Had any of the several mechanical puddling furnaces devised for the manufacture of wrought iron proved really successful, things might be more rosy commercially for this very excellent material.
According to the 1916 Statistical Report of the American Iron and Steel Institute, the recent yearly production in this country of wrought iron and steel merchant bars, plates and sheets, and skelp for pipe in gross tons has been:
| Merchant Bars | Plate and Sheets | Skelp for Pipe | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iron | Steel | Iron | Steel | Iron | Steel | |
| 1905 | 1,322,439 | 2,271,162 | 72,156 | 3,460,074 | 452,797 | 983,198 |
| 1906 | 1,481,348 | 2,510,852 | 74,373 | 4,107,783 | 391,517 | 1,137,068 |
| 1907 | 1,440,356 | 2,530,632 | 74,038 | 4,174,794 | 444,536 | 1,358,091 |
| 1908 | 685,233 | 1,301,405 | 54,033 | 2,595,660 | 297,049 | 853,534 |
| 1909 | 952,230 | 2,311,301 | 76,202 | 4,158,144 | 370,151 | 1,663,230 |
| 1910 | 1,074,163 | 2,711,568 | 91,118 | 4,864,366 | 350,578 | 1,477,616 |
| 1911 | 835,625 | 2,211,737 | 89,427 | 4,398,622 | 322,397 | 1,658,276 |
| 1912 | 944,790 | 2,752,324 | 75,044 | 5,800,036 | 327,012 | 2,119,804 |
| 1913 | 1,026,632 | 2,930,977 | 64,729 | 5,686,308 | 312,746 | 2,189,218 |
| 1914 | 563,171 | 1,960,460 | 56,590 | 4,662,656 | 264,340 | 1,718,091 |
| 1915 | 657,107 | 3,474,135 | 20,253 | 6,057,441 | 262,198 | 2,037,266 |
| 1916 | 993,948 | 5,625,598 | 13,303 | 7,440,677 | 355,445 | 2,572,229 |
There is considerable so-called wrought iron on the market to-day which is not truly wrought iron, by which we mean iron “puddled” from pig iron.