The Manufacture Of Weldless Steel Tires For Locomotive And Car Wheels (82931f35-3e96-4b24-82ac-30e47597d529)

THE CHAIRMAN (HENRY D. HIBBARD, Plainfield, N. J).-This excellent paper fills a gap in our Transactions and is most acceptable. In the early days another way of casting tire ingots, sometimes called cheeses, because of their shape, was to use a 22-gage sheet-iron cylindrical can for each ingot of the proper size to give the weight desired. These cans were bottom cast in groups, usually of four, each can being surrounded by a heavy iron ring somewhat taller than itself the top of the can being covered by a circular cast-iron plate having a small conical riser in the center, about 2 ½ in. in diameter at the bottom and 10 in. high. The top plate was clamped down to resist the upward pressure of the fluid metal and the space between the can and the outer ring, usually about 2 in. wide, was filled with dry sand. The riser permitted the escape of some of the air displaced by the steel and also increased the pressure in the steel when the mold was filled, and so diminished somewhat the tendency for gas holes to form. But little was known of segregation and pipe in those days, though the center of an ingot was understood to be the worst part, and it was separated in part in the disk which was punched out in perforating the ingot. This disk was about 8 in. in diameter and from ¾ to 2 in. thick, the variation in thickness being to rectify the weight. When an ingot was too -heavy, a thicker disk-was made by not driving the punch in quite as far as when the ingot-weight was right. Then the bloom was turned over and the punch driven in on the other side, which finished the punching and detached the disk. The tire bloom was then" becked" and later reheated and rolled as described in the paper. The forging was done with a 10-ton double-acting steam hammer. The steel generally speaking had lower carbon, from 0.45 to 0.55 per cent., than tires today have, and the tires were smaller, the most common size of ingot weighing 1,060 lb. each. BRADLEY STOUGHTON, New York, N. Y.-This paper was specially requested by the Iron and Steel Committee, because that Committee thought so important an industry should have its history written by one who was familiar with it, and before he had forgotten, or all the rest of the world had forgotten, its early stages. Mr. Aertsen has said that it is not an exhaustive research. I think it would not be any different if it were an exhaustive research, because our library made a careful attempt to find some written light on the history of these tires, but very little was found.