The process of manufacture is briefly as follows: The pig metal, after being melted in a cupola and tapped into a discharging ladle, is delivered into a Bessemer converter, in which the metal is largely relieved of its silicon, sulphur, carbon, etc., by the ordinary pneumatic process. At the end of the blow the converter is turned down and its contents discharged into a traveling ladle, and quickly delivered to machines called ballers, which are rotary reverberatory furnaces, each revolving on a horizontal axis. In the baller the iron is very soon made into a ball without manual aid. It is then lifted out by means of a suspended fork and carried to a Winslow squeezer, where the ball is reduced to a roll twelve inches in diameter. Thence it is taken to a furnace for a wash heat, and finally to the muck train.
No reagents are employed, as in steel making or ordinary iron puddling. The high heat of the metal is sufficient to preserve its fluidity during its transit from the converter to the baller; and the cinder from the blow is kept in the ladle.
The baller is a bulging cylinder having hollow trunnions through which the flame passes. The cylinder is lined with fire brick, and this in turn is covered with a suitable refractory iron ore, from eight to ten inches thick, grouted with pulverized iron ore, forming a bottom, as in the common puddling furnace. The phosphorus of the iron, which cannot be eliminated in the intense heat of the converter, is, however, reduced to a minimum in the baller at a much lower temperature and on the basic lining. The process wastes the lining very slightly indeed. As many as sixty heats have been taken off in succession without giving the lining any attention. The absence of any reagent leaves the iron simply pure and homogeneous to a degree never realized in muck bars made by the old puddling process. Thus the expense of a reheating and rerolling to refine the iron is obviated. It was such iron as here results that Bessemer, in his early experiments, was seeking to obtain when he was diverted from his purpose by his splendid discoveries in the art of making steel. So effective is the new process, that even from the poorest grades of pig may be obtained economically an iron equal in quality to the refined irons made from the best pig by the ordinary process of puddling.
Numerous tests of the Chapin irons have been made by competent and disinterested parties, and the results published. The samples here noted were cut and piled only once from the muck bar.
Sample A was made from No. 3 mill cinder pig.
Sample B was made from No. 4 mill pig and No. 3 Bessemer pig, half and half.
Sample C was made from No. 3 Bessemer pig, with the following results:
| Sample. | A | B | C |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tensile strength per sq. in. | 56,000 | 60,772 | 64,377 |
| Elastic limit. | 34,000 | .... | 36,000 |
| Extension, per cent. | 11.8 | .... | 17.0 |
| Reduction of area, per cent. | 65.0 | 16.0 | 33.0 |
The tensile strength of these irons made by ordinary puddling would be about 38,000, 40,000, and 42,000 respectively, or the gain of the iron in tensile strength by the Chapin process is about fifty per cent. Not only so, but these irons made in this manner from inferior pig show a higher elastic limit and breaking strain than are commonly specified for refined iron of best quality. The usual specifications are for refined iron: Tensile strength, 50,000; elongation, 15 per cent.; elastic limit, 26,000; reduction, 25 cent.
Thus the limits of the Chapin iron are from 12 to 20 per cent. above those of refined iron, and not far below those of structural steel, while there is a saving of some four dollars per ton in the price of the pig iron from which it can be made. When made from the best pig metal its breaking and elastic limits will probably reach 70,000 and 40,000 pounds respectively. If so, it will be a safer material than steel under the same working strains, owing to its greater resilience.