An examination of the walls of a split will settle at once whether it is a seam, a lap, or a water-crack.
A seam will not necessarily be long; its walls will be smooth.
A lap usually runs the whole length of the bar, and the walls are smooth.
By smooth walls of seams and laps comparative smoothness is meant; they are sometimes polished, but not always, and they are never granular like the walls of water-cracks.
If the split be a water-crack, the walls will be rough and granular.
After a temperer has straightened himself out, and brought his work to usual accuracy and uniformity, if his tools continue to crack and indicate weakness in the steel, it is time for him to suspect the character of his material and to require the steel-maker to either show up the faults in tempering, or improve the quality of his product.
A WORD FOR THE WORKMAN.
Give him a chance. A steel-worker to be expert must have a well-trained eye and know how to use it. He must work with delicate tints, ranging in the yellows from creamy yellow to dark orange or orange red as extremes, and most of his work must be done between bright lemon and medium orange in forging, and between rather dark to medium orange, or possibly nearly light orange, when hardening and tempering.
Probably in no other business is there such ridiculous waste as is often found in steel-working where the manufacturer economizes in his blacksmiths.
A large, wealthy railroad condemns a brand of steel. The steel-maker goes to the shop and is informed by a bright, intelligent blacksmith that the steel will not make a track-chisel. It is a hot summer day; the smith is working over a huge fire with a large piece of work in the middle of the fire and a number of small pieces of steel stuck in the edge of the fire.