FIRST OPERATIONS IN THE SHED — THE EARLY DIN — ITS EFFECT ON THE WORKMEN — CHARGING THE HEATS — THE OIL FURNACE — THE “AJAX” — HARRY AND SAMMY — THE “STRAPPIE” — HYDRAULIC POWER — WHEEL-BURSTING

Arrived in the shed the workmen remove their coats and hang them up under the wall, or behind the forges. If any shall be seen wearing them by the foreman when he enters they will be noticed and marked: it is a common rule, winter and summer, to take them off on coming into the workshop, except in places where there are no fires. A terrible din, that could be heard in the yard long before you came to the doors of the shed, is already awaiting. Here ten gigantic boilers, which for several hours have been steadily accumulating steam for the hammers and engines, packed with terrific high pressure, are roaring off their surplus energy with indescribable noise and fury, making the earth and roof tremble and quiver around you, as though they were in the grip of an iron-handed monster. The white steam fills the shed with a dense, humid cloud like a thick fog, and the heat is already overpowering. The blast roars loudly underground and in the boxes of the forges, and the wheels and shafting whirl round in the roof and under the wall. The huge engines, that supply the hydraulic machines with pressure, are chu-chu-ing above the roof outside; everything is in a state of the utmost animation. If you were not fully awake before and sensible of what the day had in store for you, you are no longer in any doubt about the matter. All sluggishness, both of the mind and body, is quickly dispelled by the great activity everywhere displayed around you. The very air, hot and heavy, and thickly charged with dust as it is, seems to have an electrical effect upon you. You immediately feel excited to begin work; the noise of the steam, the engines, the roar of the blast, and the whirling wheels compel you to it.

At the same time the morning freshness, the bloom, vigour, the hopeful spirit, the whole natural man will be entirely quelled and subdued after the first few moments in this living pandemonium. Wife and children, friends and home, town and village, green fields and blue skies, the whole outside world will have been left far behind. There is no opportunity to think of anything but iron and steel, furnaces and hammers, the coming race and battle for existence. Moreover, as everything is done at the piece rate, the men will be anxious to make an early start, before the day gets hot. It is especially true of the stampers and hammermen that “A bird in the hand’s worth two in the bush,” and a good heat performed before breakfast is far better than depending upon exertions to be made at a later part of the day.

So, before you can well look around you, before the foreman can reach the shed, in fact, the workmen are up and at it. Those who are earliest on the place usually make the first start. They, and especially the furnacemen and forgemen, often begin before the regulation hour, and make haste to get their fires in a fit condition to receive the metal. First of all, the coal furnaces have to be clinkered. A large steel bar and a heavy sledge break the clinker; the fire-bars are withdrawn, and down plunges the white-hot mass into the “bosh” of water beneath. When this is performed new fuel is laid on, light at first, and sloping gently to the rear wall. The corners are well filled; the floor of the furnace, recently levelled with fresh sand, is firmly beaten down with the heavy paddle, and all is ready to receive the ingots or blooms.

Immediately the forger and his mates swarm round with the metal, either using the crane and pulley, or charging it in upon the peel. The chargeman grunts and scolds and the furnace door is raised, lighting up the dark corners behind the forges. Now the hammer-driver winds the wheel that opens the valve, and fills his cylinder with the raucous vapour; the heavy monkey travels noiselessly up and down, preparing to beat the iron into the shape required. Little by little, as the steam is absorbed by the engines and hammers, the din of the boilers subsides. The tremendous amount of power required to drive the various machines soon reduces the pent-up energy, and by and by the priming ceases altogether. The steam will continue gradually to diminish until the first meal-hour, when it will have reached a low figure, as indicated by the pressure gauge. During the interval, however, it will have risen again, and long before it is time to recommence work the boilers will be roaring off their superfluous energy with the same indescribable din and fury.

To obviate the noise of the simultaneous priming of the boilers an escape valve was recently constructed, and a pipe affixed to carry it through the roof. Owing to the incapacity of the tube, however, the noise, instead of being diminished, was considerably intensified. People heard it in every quarter of the town and thought it was an explosion. No one in the vicinity of the shed could sleep at night, so at last complaints were made to the manager, and the use of the valve was discontinued. Now the oil furnaces will have been lit up and the smiths’ forges kindled. The two foremen will have arrived and made their first perambulation of the shed, and everything will be in a state of bustle and confusion. Certainly the sparks will not be flying, nor the anvils ringing yet. It will take fully twenty minutes to get everything into order and to produce the first heat. But there is a deadly earnestness evident all round. It will not be long before the busy Titans are stripped to the waist, turning the ponderous ingots and blooms over and over, and raining the blows upon the yielding metal.

The oil forge hails from the other side of the Atlantic, and is an innovation at the shed. It is attached to machinery of the American type, and is well suited for the game of hustle. It is not very large, and occupies but a small space anywhere, but it has this advantage, that it may be moved to any position; it is not a fixture, as are the other furnaces. It is oblong in shape, with an arched roof; and the heating space is not more than several cubic feet. The front is of brick, with as many apertures as are required for the bars of metal, and the back and ends are enclosed in a stout iron frame. The oil — derived from water-gas and tar — is contained in a tank as high as the roof, fixed outside the shed, and is conducted through pipes to the furnace. A current of air from the fan blows past the oil-cock and drives the fluid into the furnace. The heat generated from combustion of the oil is regular and intense; the whole contrivance is speedy and simple.

This is so, however, only when the oil is good and clear. Then there will be scarcely any smoke or fume. The slight flame emitted from the vent-hole on top will be of a copperish colour, and the interior will glitter like a star. The furnace will go right merrily; there will be no need for the workman to wait a moment. But when the oil is cheap and inferior, or absolutely worthless — as it often is at the shed — the system is a most foul and abominable nuisance. As soon as the forger attempts to light up in the morning, tremendous clouds of black, filthy smoke pour out of every little crack and hole and mount into the roof. After striking against the boards and rafters this beats down to the ground again and rolls away up the shed, filling the place from end to end, half suffocating the workmen with the sickening, disgusting stench, and making their eyes smart and burn. Several times during the operation of lighting up, by reason of the irregular flow through the feeder, the oil in the furnace will explode with a loud bang, shooting out the flames and smoke to a great distance, and frequently blowing the whole front of the forge to pieces, to the great danger of the stampers and the amusement of the other workmen and smiths — for the oil system of heating is not at all popular with the men of the shed.

The stampers’ furnaces, to the number of five or six, are behaving in the same manner, and as there are no chimneys to carry off the smoke the whole smother is poured out into the shed. This will very soon be more than the average man can stand. With loud shouts and curses, down go hammers and tools; the blast is shut off from the fires and a rush is made for the open air until the nuisance is somewhat abated. The overseer walks round and round, viewing the scene with great ill-temper, defending the oil and the furnaces, and blaming the lighters-up for everything, at the same time darting angry looks at those who, half suffocated, have sought refuge outside. So, no matter what the time of year may be, whether summer or the dead of winter, when the chilling winds drive through upon the stampers shivering at their fires, he has every door and window thrown open, and often does it himself and stands like a sentinel in the doorway, that no one shall close them up till he is quite satisfied. If he moves away and the half-frozen workmen steal along and adjust the doors, he returns, closes them entirely, and forces the stampers to endure the whole smother, because they dared to meddle with the doors when he had opened them.

By and by, as the heat in the furnaces increases, the smoke will diminish somewhat, though as long as the oil is inferior they will continue to emit a dirty cloud accompanied with deadly fumes and intense volumes of heat, which are forced out by the blast to a distance of several yards, making it impossible for the youth to get near enough to attend to his bars without having his arms and face scorched and burnt. The roof and walls, for a great distance around, are blackened with the soot. There is no mistaking the cause of it, though it is a favourite recommendation of the oil furnaces that they consume every particle of their vapour. When the oil is of a sufficiently good quality this actually happens; it is only when the fuel is cheap and bad that considerable unpleasantness arises.

Our entry to the shed was made through the large door in the north-west corner, near which the first oil furnace is situated. This furnace is attached to a new kind of forging machine conveniently named the “Ajax,” by reason of its great strength. Ajax was the name of two of the mighty ones who fought before Troy, but the manufacturer does not inform us whether the machine is named after Ajax, the son of Telamon, or he that was the son of Oileus, though perhaps the latter is intended. Standing alongside the oil furnace is the first of the drop-stamper’s forges, and next to that, in a line, are the three drop-stamps themselves. Opposite the Ajax is the foreman’s office — a two-storied building — and a little to one side, straight from the door, is a coal furnace, upon which is superimposed a large “loco” boiler. This reflects a tremendous heat all round, and, together with the furnaces and forges, makes that part of the shed, though near to the door, almost unbearably hot, so that it has come to be called “Hell Corner” by the workmen.

The line of hammers and furnaces is continued up the workshop to the far end under the wall. There also, fixed to the masonry, are the main shafting and pulleys, whirled round at a tremendous rate by the engine in the “lean-to” outside. At the end of the line stand the heavy steam-hammers and, under the wall outside, the blower house, containing machinery for forcing the air for the smiths’ fires. A huge stack of coal and coke is visible through the door at the other end. A small single fan is attached to the oil furnace with the Ajax in order to supply it with air. This travels at a high rate of speed and makes a loud roar, thereby adding to the confused din of the hammers and other machinery. Standing further out in the shed is a second row of smaller steam-hammers and forges with drills, saws, shears, pneumatic apparatus, other oil furnaces, and the American stamping-hammers with their trimmers and appliances. Beyond them is an open space reserved for future arrivals in the shape of manufacturing plant, and towards the south wall are two lines of powerful hydraulic machines and presses with furnaces and boilers attached for heating the plates of metal for punching and welding.

The Ajax machine operates by up-setting. It is worked by youths, one of whom heats the rods of metal, while the other sets them in the dies and presses the treadle that brings the machine head forward. As soon as the furnace is sufficiently hot fifteen or twenty bars are thrust through the brickwork in front of the forge, the lubricators are filled, the belt pulled over, and the work begins. The belts flap up and down on the pulleys with a loud noise, the cog-wheels rattle and clank, the “ram” travels backwards and forwards incessantly, clicking against the self-act, the furnace roars and the smoke and flames shoot out. When the bars are white-hot the assistant hands them along; his mate grips them and inserts them in the dies, then presses the treadle with his foot. Immediately the steel tools close up and the ram shoots forward; in about two seconds the operation is complete. Very often the water, running continually over the tools to keep them cool, becomes confined in the dies as they close. The heat of the iron converts it into steam, and, as the ram collects and forces the material, it explodes with a loud report, almost like that of a cannon. Showers of sparks and hot scale are blown in all directions, and if the operator is not careful to stand somewhat aside, his face and arms will be riddled with the tiny particles of shot-like metal ejected by the explosion. It is not uncommon to see his flesh covered with drops of blood from the accident. The bits of metal will adhere tightly underneath the skin, and must be removed with a needle, or otherwise remain till they work out of their own accord.

Both youths of the Ajax dwell in the town, and are known about the corner by the names of Harry and Sammy. Harry’s father was an infantryman, and Sammy’s parent served in the Navy. There is a little of the roving spirit about both of them — each possesses a share of the paternal characteristic. Harry’s father, however, is an invalid, and he is forced to stay at home and help keep him and his mother, otherwise he would long ago have bidden farewell to the shed, Ajax and all. Sammy, on the other hand, is free and unfettered, but though he has made many attempts to enter the Navy, they were all in vain. First, he was not sufficiently tall or broad in the chest, and later, when, after a course of exercises with dumb-bells, he was able to pass the examinations, he was refused on account of his teeth, which were badly decayed. This was a great disappointment to Samuel. He sulked about for several days afterwards, quarrelled and fought with his mate, and was generally inconsolable. The boys’ chargeman had to intervene as peacemaker and he comforted Sammy, who shed a few tears and finally became reconciled to the forge again, though he often defiantly affirmed that he would not be beaten, not he! He would go to Bristol and get a job aboard ship; he would not stop there in that hole all his life!

Both Sammy and Harry dress much alike, and they resemble each other in their habits. They are both nimble and strong, active, energetic, and high spirited. Both have commendable appetites, and they are especially fond of drinking tea. They have a passionate regard for sports, including boxing and football, but, over and above all this, they are hard workers; every day they are sure of a good sweating at the furnace and Ajax. Both wear football shirts — Sammy a green one and Harry a red and white — in the forge, and they have football boots on their feet. If you should turn out Sammy’s pockets you would be sure to find, among other things, half a packet of cigarettes, a pack of cards, a mouth organ, a knife, a comb, and a small portion of looking-glass. A great many of the town boys and young men carry a small mirror in their pockets, by the aid of which they comb and part their hair and study their physiognomies. At meal-times, as soon as the hooter sounds, they hasten to the nearest water-tap, give their faces a rough swill and, with the aid of a portion of looking-glass, examine them to make sure that they are free from the dust and soil of the smoky furnace.

Though the companions of Ajax work hard and perspire much they do not become very tired, apparently, for after the most severe exertions they are still ready to indulge in some sport or other, and run and play or wrestle and struggle with each other on their way down the yard. Arrived home they have their tea, wash and change, and come back to the crowded parts of the town to see and be seen and be moved on by the policeman, returning late home to bed. In the morning they will often be sullen and short-tempered. This invariably wears off as the day advances, however, and they will soon be up to the usual games, singing popular songs and imitating the comic actors at the theatre, where they delight to go once or twice a week.

Close behind the oil furnace, in a recess of the wall, is the fan that drives the blast for this part of the shed, supplying four forges altogether. The fan itself is of iron, enclosed in a stout cast-iron shell or case, and is driven from a countershaft half-way up to the main shafting. Multiplication takes place through this from the top pulley, and whereas the main shaft will make but one hundred and twenty revolutions a minute, the fan below will, in that space, spin round two thousand times. As the engine is running day and night, for more than twenty hours out of the twenty-four, the number of revolutions made by the fan will be over two millions daily. Although, viewed on paper, these figures appear high, yet, if you should stand near and watch the fan itself, it would seem incredible to you that it would require such a long time in which to complete them. The speed is terrific, and this you may know by the sound, without troubling to look at the gear. The rate of the belts, from the pulleys on to the countershaft, is a further proof of the tremendous velocity of the machine. Although strained very tight on the wheels they make a loud noise, flapping sharply all the while; one may easily gauge the speed of an engine by the sound of the belts alone. The fan itself, at normal times, emits a loud humming noise, like that of a threshing-machine, but when the speed of the engine increases through the relaxation of some other machinery, or the sudden rise of steam pressure in the boilers, it seems to swell with a dreadful fury, and assails the ear with a vicious and continuous hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo, HOO-HOO-HOO-HOO-HOO, like some savage beast ravenous for its prey. The oscillation of the fan is imparted to everything around. The very ground under your feet trembles, and if you should place your hand upon the outer shell, or on the wooden guard around it, you would experience something like an electric shock, strangely pleasant at first, but very soon necessitating the removal of your hand from the vicinity.

It is dangerous to meddle with the fan while it is in motion. A stout wooden guard is erected around it to prevent any object from coming into contact with the wheels or the interior. If a nut or rivet head should happen to fly and be caught in it, the shell would immediately burst. Very often excessive speed alone will cause a fan to explode. The effect is similar to that of a steam or gas explosion; the heavy cast-iron frame will be shattered to bits, and hurled to a great distance. I remember one in the smithy that exploded and blew up through the roof, making a huge rent. For safety’s sake the fans are often constructed underground in order to lessen the danger of explosion, if one should happen.

It is remarkable that while the pulley on the countershaft is travelling at a tremendous speed, so that the spokes are generally invisible, and there appears to be nothing but the rim and centre whirling round, if you look up quickly you will see one spoke quite plainly as it flies over, then it will be entirely lost to view with the rest. The space of time during which it is visible is exceedingly short — it could be no more than a fraction of a second — yet in that brief period the eye perceives it clearly and distinctly: it is something similar to taking a snapshot with a camera.

Formerly, when all the belts were of leather and thickly studded with large broad-headed copper rivets, the boys used to draw near to them and take small lessons in electricity. This could only be done in the case of belts that travelled at a very high rate of speed, such as the one on the fan or the circular saw. Standing dangerously near the wheels they held a finger, or a knuckle, very close to the belt in motion, and were rewarded with seeing a small stream of electric sparks, about as large in volume as the stem of a needle, issuing from the finger-tip or knuckle, accompanied with a slight pain like that produced by the prick of a pin. The velocity of the belt, with the copper, attracted the electricity within the body and drew it out in a tiny visible stream from the flesh. All the belts for high speed work at this time, however, are made of another material, i.e., a preparation of compressed canvas, without rivets. Instead of being laced together they are fitted with a steel-wire arrangement for connection. The ends are inserted, as you would bend the fingers of both hands and thrust them one between the other, and a piece of whalebone is pushed through. Slight as this may seem to be, it is yet capable of withstanding a great strain, and the whole runs much more smoothly than did the old-fashioned leather belts.

A man is specially kept to attend to everything pertaining to the belts. He is known to all and sundry as the “strappie.” Directly anything goes wrong with the connections he appears on the scene smothered in oil from head to foot, and looking very cloudy and serious. He is usually in a great hurry and is not over-polite to anyone. First of all he gives the signal to have the engine stopped. As soon as the shafting is still, armed with a very sharp knife, he climbs up the wall, in and out among the wheels, and unceremoniously cuts away the defective belt. Arrived on the ground again, he draws out the belt, motions “right away” to the engineman, then rolls it up and disappears. In a short while he comes back with it strongly repaired, or brings a new one in place of it. The shafting is stopped again, and up he mounts as before. When he has placed it over the shaft and connected the ends, he pulls it half-way on the wheels and ties it loosely in that position with a piece of cord. As the engine starts the belt assumes its position on the wheel automatically; the piece of cord breaks, or becomes untied, and falls to the ground, and everything goes spinning and whirling away as before. If a belt is merely loose the strappie brings a potful of a substance he calls “jam,” very resinous and gluey, some of which he pours on the wheel and belt while in motion. This makes the belt “bite,” or grip well, and brings the machine up to its maximum speed with the shafting.

Sometimes, if the shafting has not been oiled punctually, it will run hot, or perhaps a small particle of dust will obstruct the oil in the lubricator and produce friction. News of this is soon published abroad by a loud creaking noise that everyone can hear. The workmen take up the cry and shout “Oil, oil,” at the top of their voice; then the engine-driver comes forth with his can and stops the screeching. Occasionally the spindle of the fan will run hot, and especially so if the belt happens to be well tight. This, by reason of its great speed, will soon generate a fierce heat; I recently ran to attend to it and found the spindle of the fan a bright red-hot. Thanks to the warning of the belt, which was slipping owing to the greater exertion required through tightening of the bearings by expansion, I was just in time to prevent an accident. In another moment the fan might have been a total wreck.

Through a doorway in the wall, in an extension of the shed, stand several boilers used as auxiliaries, and, near to them, are two powerful pumping engines and their accumulators, which obtain the pressure for the whole hydraulic plant of the department. The engines are of a hundred and twenty horse-power each, and are fitted with heavy fly-wheels that make forty revolutions a minute at top speed. These draw the water from a neighbouring tank and force it into the accumulators, from which the pressure is finally derived. The accumulators are constructed in deep pits that are bricked round and guarded with iron fencing. They are large weights of fifty tons each — there was originally one of a hundred tons — and are built about a central column of iron or steel standing fifteen or twenty feet above the floor level. Contained in the lower part of the weight is a cylinder; into this the water is forced by the engines and the pressure obtained. The power of the water, when a sufficient volume has accumulated, raises the weights high into the roof and keeps them there, with a little rising and falling, corresponding to the action of the presses in the shed. When the weights have risen to a certain point they operate a self-act, and the engines stop. Similarly, when they sink below the point they displace a second small lever that communicates with the engine valves and re-starts the pumps. The pressure put on the water is enormous; it often amounts to two thousand pounds per square inch. Since the operation of water is much slower than that of steam, however, the power is not nearly as effective. It would be impossible by its agency to drive machinery at a high rate without the use of gear, though for punching, pressing, and welding some kinds of work the system is admirable and unsurpassed.

The engine that drives the lesser machinery of the shop stands in a “lean-to” and is not nearly as powerful as are those that operate the pumps. A little higher up, in another small lean-to, is a donkey engine that drives the “blower,” which produces blast for the forges and fires. This machine is vastly superior to the old-fashioned fan, and the speed of it is quite low; there is no danger of explosion or other rupture. It is a pleasure, since so much manufacturing plant is introduced to us from foreign countries — America, France and Germany — to reflect that the idea of the blower is English. There is a considerable amount of American-made machinery at the works, and the percentage of it increases every year, though it is often far from being successful. At the same time, it must be conceded that our kinsmen over the sea are very clever in the designing and manufacture of tools and plant, and many of their ideas are particularly brilliant. The English maker of manufacturing tools follows at some little distance with his wares. These, though not actually as smart as the others, are yet good, honest value, the very expression of the Englishman’s character. The chief features of American machinery are — smartness of detail, the maximum usefulness of parts, capacity for high speed and flimsiness, styled “economy,” of structure: everything of theirs is made to “go the pace.” English machinery, on the other hand, is at the same time more primitive and cumbersome, more conservative in design and slower in operation, though it is trustworthy and durable; it usually proves to be the cheaper investment in the long run. One often sees American tackle broken all to pieces after several years’ use, while the British-made machine runs almost ad infinitum. At a manufactory in Birmingham is an old beam engine that has been in use for more than a century and a half, and it is almost as good now as when it was new. The same may be said with regard to English-made agricultural machinery. A modern American mower will seldom last longer than four or five years, but I know of English machines that have been in use for nearly thirty years and are as good as ever, generally speaking.

One man attends to the engines that drive the shop machinery and the “blower.” It is his duty to see that the shafting is kept clean and the bearings well oiled, to watch over the belts and to notify the strappie when one becomes loose or slips off the wheel. Dressed in a suit of blue overalls, and equipped with ladder and oil-can, he remains in constant attendance upon his engines and shafts. He will also be required to keep a watchful eye upon the valves, to regulate the steam to the cylinders, and to maintain a uniform rate of speed for the lathes and drills. Occasionally, if the pressure of steam in the boilers should rise very suddenly — which sometimes happens, as the result of a variable quality of coal and the diversity of heats required by the furnacemen — the engine, in spite of the regulators, will rapidly gain speed and “run away,” as it is called. This may also result from the disconnecting a particular machine engaged on heavy, dragging work, such as the saw, or fan, both of which require great power to drive them at their high rate of speed.

Considerable danger attaches to the running away of an engine, especially where it is provided with a heavy fly-wheel. This, if it is whirled round at an excessive speed, is liable to burst, and the consequences, in a crowded quarter, would be disastrous. The danger of bursting lies in the tremendous throwing-off power generated from the hub of the wheel, about the shaft; as the sections forming the circle of the wheel are brought rapidly over there is a strong tendency for them to be cast off in the same manner as a stone is thrown from a sling. If the wheel is exactly balanced, however, and every part of precisely the same weight, so as to ensure perfectly even running on the shaft, the danger of bursting will be small. Grindstones burst much more commonly than do metal wheels. There is not the same consistency in stone as in iron; moreover, there may be a flaw somewhere that has escaped the eye of the fitter or overseer. Consequently, if the speed of the engine driving the stone should be immoderately increased, it will not be able to withstand the throw-off, and will fly to pieces, inflicting death, or very severe injuries upon all those in the vicinity.