Russia Sheet Iron

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We learn that a new company has just commenced the manufacture of this article at Brooklyn, N. Y., with every prospect of success. The peculiar color and polish of Russia ir@n is said to be due to the method of carbonization and thorough hammering. No country has yet been able fully to compete with Muscovy, on account of the greater cheapness there of unskilled labor; but some of our Yankees think they can do the work here for less money by substituting steam for human muscle. At any rate the attempt is now being made. At the works in Brooklyn an engine of 200-horse power drives an automatic steam hammer weighing seven tuns. The rolled sheet iron is greased and arranged in packages of thirty or more sheets. Each sheet is about 2-J- feet wide and 7 feet long. The packs are then run into an oven and exposed to heat until the surface has attained the proper degree of oxidization. The packs are then transferred to the hammer, all the sheets in the pack being hammered at once. The an^-vil is movable, and the workmen change the position of the pack at each stroke of the hammer so that every portion of the iron will be acted upon. We are informed that Russia Iron of excellent quality is being produced at these works* and that the company has large orders in advance. The machinery is from designs by Mr. Morris. The steam boiler is rather novel in construction. It consists Of a circular water drum, and a corresponding steam drum, placed one above the other, and connected by large number of small pipes arranged spirally. The fire acts upon these spiral pipes, and the boiler is said to generate steam with economy. The construction of the boiler is cheap and simple. The boyish test of good steel or good tempered steel blades, made by breathing on the polished surface, and noting the time of the evaporation, has lately been claimed by a promi* nent English mechanic to be founded on correct principles* ------------------------.-------_^^^M-----------:--------,--------------- Two hundred thousand dozen toy drums are manufactured in Paris every year.

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