The Mechanical Handling and Storing of Material

THE MECHANICAL HANDLING OF MATERIAL of the pigs to the moulds. To guard against this the moulds are in the “Uehling” process coated with a spray of lime water, whilst in the “ Heyl and Patterson ” machine they are coated with soot. There are two further types of casting machines, the “ Ramsay ” and the “ Hawdon.” The former is unlike either of the two first-mentioned appliances, in so far as the moulds are placed round the circumference of a large revolving table. The “ Hawdon ” machine is partly in a straight line and partly in a circular form. Several “ Hawdon ” casting machines are at work in this country and on the Continent, as well as in America. The great difficulty in the mechanical handling of molten metal lies in the enormous say nothing of the great heat. Such machines must be exceedingly strong and substantial, that they may suffer as little as possible from the heat to which they are subjected, and from the weight they have to carry. The expansion of parts of these machines, caused by the heat, the resultant ex- cessive wear and tear, as well as the difficulty of keeping them lubricated, was found a serious obstacle by the builders weight of the metal, moulds, chains, etc., to Figs. 226 and 227. Feed Terminal of “ Uehling” Casting Machine. of such machines. The moulds last only about nine months, and in addi- tion to this great wear and tear on the machines the fracture of the pigs pro- duced by them is spoiled, and as in this country iron for foundry purposes is generally sold by fracture and not by analysis, it does not find so ready a market. The “Uehling”1 Casting Machine.— This machine consists of two casting conveyors and one cooling conveyor, the latter taking the pigs from the two former, as shown in Figs. 224 to 228. Each of the two casting conveyors is about 125 ft. long, and consists of 260 moulds. The moulds travel upwards at an incline of 9°, and are carried over sprocket wheels at each encl. The conveyor travels at such a rate as to give each mould ten minutes to pass from end to end. This allows the iron sufficient time to solidify before reaching the other terminal. The solid pigs are then precipitated down two chutes leading to the tank of the third conveyor, which is nearly 100 ft. long. This third conveyor is of the metal band type and travels in a tank for a distance of about 70 ft., the water being deep enough to cover the pigs as they lie on the conveyor. The pigs are carried through the tank, and are raised at the other end to a sufficient height 1 The. Engineer, 4th August 1899; Engineering and Mining Journal, 5th January 1901 ; Iron and Coal Trades Review, 25th November 1898 and 2nd June 1899 ; Stahl und Eisen, 1897, No. 16 ; 1898, No. 13 ; 1900, No. 1.