Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1895 — MAKING MACHINERY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MAKING MACHINERY.

HOW REAPERS AND MOWERS ARE MANUFACTURED. Thousands of Hen Work Day After Day in Smoky City Shops Making Implements for the Farmers to Use in Harvesting Their Grain. An Important Industry.

/ —IOKLE, scythe L<T cradle, reaper, twine-binder—such 5) ) are the steps of SK' progress in gralnA harvesting devices, fI - Fifty years ago a man who had ventured to prophesy in any gathering of bent-back farm

hands that a machine would soon be invented to entirely supersede their slowgoing cradles would have been laughed out of countenance. But the miracle has been wrought A man may sit in the harvester-seat and go clicking through the grain with only an occasional chirrup to his horses, and at the end of the day he will have cut eight or ten times as much as the brawniest eradler could have done. Besides that the wheat has not only been cut but gathered up and tied with twine in neat bundles, ready for the hands who

loiter along behind to do the shocking. All of the exhausting work of handbinding has been done away with, together with the necessity of preparing heavy harvest-dinners for the workers. Of course some of the romance of farming is lost in reducing its operations to machinery, but fifty years hence, when there is a machine for cutting, binding and thrashing the grain and then grinding it into flour on the spot so that it can be taken from the field iu barrels, future generations may look back and mourn for the romance of the twine-binder days. The complete interdependence of country and city is perhaps nowhere better illustrated than in the farm machinery industry. Thousands of founders, iron-workers, molders, woodworkers, cabinet-workers, painters and other craftsmen, all pre-eminently city dwellers, are engaged day in and day

out in hot, smoky work-shops making implements for the farmers to use In cutting their grain. Connected with these artisans there is a vast army of advertisers, printers and business men in various capacities. In return for the machines the farmers send a part of their wheat to feed those who serve them. Probably the greatest manufactory of farm machinery in world is located'lni Chicago. The material comes in crude pig-iron in blocks and lumber In planks. It passes to some one of the score of buildings covering fifty-one acres of ground In the northwestern part of Jhe city and is made into tens of thousands of small parts which are finally assembled, fitting together exactly, and the machines—harvesters, reapers, mowers and hay-rakes—go out beautifully painted and ready for work. These devices are not alone used In this country, where they have rendered bonanza farming a possibility, but they

are sent all over the world. Harvesters made in Chicago click through wheat fields in Argentine, in India, in the farms of the Sultan of Turkey, in South Africa, in Australia, in Russia and everywhere else that grain is grown. The'iron is unloaded from trains or boats at one end of the immense factory buildings, and it goes at once to the foundry. This is a great, highrafted room with smoky windows and the earth for a floor. It dangles full of ropes, chains and pulleys connected with devices for lifting the heavy molds and castings. Overhead are the tracks of a railroad with numberless switches and curves. Prom it swing great kettles containing hundreds of pounds of molten metal which is being trundled here and there to fill the molds. Over the entire surface of the ground as thick as they can stand are great square molds made of casting sand and containing little holes in the top through which the metal is to run. All the forenoon the men have been busy at work forming the molds in the shape of heavy wheels, harvester seats and other of the larger iron parts of the machinery. This is done by hollowing out holes in the black sand just the shape and size of the object wanted. The filling of the molds, known to the workmen as the “pouring,” takes place twice every day. The pig metal or gray iron is melted in a huge retort at one side of the room. When it is as liquid as water it Is let out with much sputtering and fireworks through a little hole in the bottom into a big crucible lined with fire-clay. When this is full the workmen push it along, it being suspended by a running pulley to the overhead railroad, and the molders run out one after another to have their long dippers filled. The larger molds are filled by pouring directly from the crucible. Blue flames and a thick white smoke belch out of the mold as the hot iron goes in. After the pouring has gone forward for half an hour the whole room is full of smoke, through which the dark figures of the,men dash back and forth like evil spirits, the blue flames spurt from the molds and the sparks rise in fountains from the

furnace mouth. After file'casting* come forth the. Hour in*ide of them can be readily 'brokW out Then each article goes to the tumb-llng-room, where it is inside of a cylinder resembling a barrel'and half filled with pieces of iron. When the cylinder revolves the rough edges are worn from the. casting, making It smooth and bright. Defective pieces always break In the tumblers. The room in which the machines work is so noisy with the constant rattling of Iron in the cylinders that it suggests all pandemonium let loose. It is perfectly wonderful with what ease immense molds and casts are lifted and carried about the foundry. This is accomplished by means of a pneumatic piston, to which a grappling chain and cables are attached. When the hooks are fastened to the article to be moved the workman pulls a string, the compressed air rushes into the cylinder under, the valve and up goes the load as easily as if it were on a fifty-ton elevator. Pulling another string lets out the air and the load slides easily downward again.

Much greater care is required in the casting of the malleable Iron parts of the machines—the smaller devices on which the strain is very great. In the great room in which this work is done each of the molders, of whom there are about 100, has a stall of his own, with his own casting sand and tools. He makes his own molds—usually the same piece month in and month out One man has made knife heads steadily for fifteen years. The workmen are paid by the piece, and some of them have grown so very expert that their wages are large. When the iron is hot each man fills his thirty-five-pound ladle and runs with it to his stall, where he fills his mold. It is an exciting scene during the pouring hours of the day. Here all the smaller harvester and mower attachments are made—7oo to 800 castings of different kinds—and large quantities are kept on hand for repair purposes. Many old farm implement houses which have a great many of their machines in use, find this a profitable part of their business. Many of them have repair supply houses in all parts of the world. During several months of the recent financial difficulties it is said that one Chicago manufacturer actually made larger profits out of his repair department than he did from the sale of new machines. One of the largest concerns has a cable and telegraph code word for each casting, so that repairs can be ordered from anywhere in the world in the shortest possible space of time. Back of the manufactory and facing on the river is the lumber yard. More than 15,000,000 feet of pine and hardwood stock is used yearly in the manufacture of tongues, whiffletrees and parts of the bodies of the machines, although the wood part of the industry is a bagatelle as compared with the ironwork. About 4,000,000 feet are

used yearly, simply for packing and crating the machines for shipment. Two whole floors of an immense building are devoted to the woodwork, and here, in an atmosphere of sawdust, the planers screech, the saws spin and 100 men work with drawshaves, planes and hammers. Highly seasoned oak, second growth hickory, ash, maple and poplar are most largely used. Most of the wood parts are smoothed on great wheels covered with sandpaper before they go to the paint-shop. In another great room the bolts and screws are made, bitten by clever little machines from solid rods of metal. One great room in the works is devoted entirely to canvas work, for each harvester has numerous canvas parts. One set of girls cuts the pieces out, another hems them and a third puts on the slats the buckles and the straps. In this one factory 170 acres of duck are used every year. This would make a strip three feet wide and 452 miles long. One of the most important processes in the whole manufacture is the making of the knives and sickles which cut the hay and grain. The raw steel comes Into the works in long narrow strips, and an Ingenious machine cuts it up instantly into the prefer shapes at the rate of two every second. 4fter being beveled they are tempered by an Interesting process. The pyramid-shaped pieces of steel are heated over fires fed with fuel oil, and at the proper moment they are lifted off and plunged into an oil bath. Prom this, as soon as they are cool, they are fished out and shoveled Into the tempering ovens, which deprive them of their.brittleness. From this room they go - the grinding room, where a score of huge grindstones whirl noiselessly from daylight to dark. The sections are fitted into swinging brackets, which hold them at an angle against the stone. Water pours down over them in a stream, but so great is

the friction that showers of sparks shoot off and mingle with the water, giving the appearance of liquid fire. The parts are now assembled and put together by skilled workmen, each part being tested. Now they are ready for the paint* They go first to the whiteroom, where all. the floors and the men and the tools are daubed with white paint. Here they are ducked by means of pneumatic lifts into a bath of paint and are then dried Off. After being striped and lettered In blue and red they are beautifully varnished and sent out to the shipping-room.

PREPARING THE COKES.

MALLEABLE IRON MOLDING-ROOM.

IN THE TUMBLING-ROOM.