Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 171, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1919 — Wrought Iron From Ore. [ARTICLE]

Wrought Iron From Ore.

Wrought iron is not commonly produced direct from the ore. but a California metallurgist, using petroleum as fuel,-claims to avoid the usual trouMes and to obtain pure iron at a much lediteed cost. The ore, after grinding to’ pass through a sixteen mOsh sieve, is mixed With some heavy oil, such as asphaltum. The mixture is made into cylinders, each of a size to yield about 150 pounds of reduced iron, and these cylinders are placed in the furnace and gradually heated to the welding point of the iron, then taken out and compressed into blooms. A little silicate rock is added to give slag enough to hold the semifluid mass together. To avoid reoxidation —the great difficulty in previous processes—a reducing atmosphere is maintained in -the furnace, and the bloom is compressed before entirely removing from the furnace. Theitime required for heating through «Q,d 5 reducing is given as four or five hours.