Blacksmiths, Forges and Steel Pressing
Wrought iron and mild steel are both mailable, when heated they can be shaped using hammers, this process of heating and forming with hammers and presses is called forging. A forge consists of a solid base and a hammer, a blacksmith's forge had the anvil and the blacksmith used a hand held hammer. The early 'industrial' forges used water-power to drive the hammer, steam powered hammers were invented in Britain in 1839 by James Naysmith (1808-1890) and further developed in France in 1842. Goods such as nails and chain were produced in 'cottage industries' (the workshop being attached to the rear of the maker home) from iron rod (for chain) or strips of wrought iron cut from sheet (by nail makers). Wire drawing produces better quality lengths of steel and this material has replaced the wrought iron used for chain and nails. By using rollers you can crush the metal into flat sheets, the process is known as rolling, and using hydraulic presses to form metal sheet was developed in the second half of the 19th century.
Blacksmiths and Farriers
Working with wrought iron, which has a distinct 'grain', meant that the blacksmith needed to know what he was doing if the part he made was to withstand the working stress for which it was designed (for example when making rings to be added to the end of tie-rods). To attach the ring to the end of the rod both are heated to bright red heat, brought together and given a gentle thump to weld the joint. For more on welding see also Lineside Industries - Gas and Electric Welding and Cutting equipmentt. A related trade is the farrier, who looked after the horses and was the man who dealt with fitting horn or steel horseshoes. Visually he looks just like a blacksmith, and uses a forge and anvil, but he has a split front on his leather apron so he could lift the horses hoof between his knees when fitting the shoe. This work required a forge (in which the iron was heated) and the anvil (on which the hot iron is beaten and bent to shape), so they tended to operate from premises to which the work was taken (although there was a chap in the 1930s who used a motorcycle combination with the forge and anvil built into t'sidecar'). The forges could be built of stone or factory made from metal as shown below. The anvil cost a lot and was typically raised on a plinth of some kind, at its most basic this could be a tree stump (actually a section of tree trunk) or as shown below a stone or concrete block.
Fig ___ Country blacksmith with his forge and anvil
I built a small forge and anvil for a lad's toy soldiers, these are described in 'Appendix X - Simple, and cheap, wargame scenery and terrain' under Agricultural, Industrial and Domestic Clutter.
Industrial Forges
Given steam power it is possible to heat metal until it is plastic (that is it will flow under pressure) and punch it into a mould, this is known as die forging. Goods produced in this way are likely to be more accurate than those beaten to shape by the blacksmith, although the cost of the plant meant it was only used in large factories. There are two additional advantages to this method, firstly the raw material needs little or no preparation, a lump or rod can be used as it flows into the mould, and secondly whereas the blacksmith is a skilled man the drop-forge operator can be pretty much unskilled, with a single skilled foreman watching over several operations at once.
For practical reasons a forge is typically a single storey shed facing a yard, with some ancillary buildings for an office and stores. The building shown below was a forge in the crowded streets of the Ancoats industrial area of Manchester, there would at one point have been a substantial chimney but this has since been removed (the building is no longer associated with heavy industry). The structure has a pleasing asymmetrical appearance and some nice detailing, a British N scale model would be just under three inches deep and about 10 inches long. For inclusion on a model railway the structure could be on a raised bank with a large doorway or two facing the track and a crane of some kind to handle the loading of heavier items.
Fig ___ Former forge in central Manchester
The illustration below is based on an engineering works in Manchester, note the stubby chimney on the left, which I understand was the works forge. Forges burned charcoal and did not produce much smoke so they often had short chimneys. One odd point to note is the gantry crane giving access to the opening on the upper floor.
Fig ___ Former engineering works with a forge in Manchester
To manufacture very long items such as railway lines forging is generally impractical and a system of rollers is used - See also Lineside Industries - Rolling Mills, Wire Drawing and Pipe Works for details on rolling strips and bars of wrought iron and steel.
Steel Pressing
In 1861 the British developed the hydraulic press which was strong enough to force iron sheets to shape, allowing the development of a range of new products. By the 1870's iron production had peaked and the wrought iron industry went into decline as steel began to become the more significant material. Pressed steel was used for a limited range of applications until the 1930s, thereafter it became much more widely employed (during the Second World War quite a few weapons, notably machine pistols, were made primarily from simple steel pressings for both economy and speed of production). Probably the most important industrial application of this technology has been the production of car body parts. The two largest body panel firms were Pressed Steel Ltd of Oxford (close by the Morris factory at Cowley) and Fisher & Ludlow of Birmingham and Tile Hill (close by the Standard Motor Co works at Canley) but other, smaller, firms existed, notably Mullins of Birmingham (absorbed by Standard Motor Co in the 1950's) and Briggs Motor Bodies. By the later 1920's the body makers had mostly been bought by the motor car firms but they retained their original factories, necessitating the transport of bodies to the car factories.
Steel Drums
Steel drums appeared in Europe in the later nineteenth century but the early types were 'barrel' shaped, had riveted seams and tended to leak. In 1907 welded seams were developed and the modern rolled steel cylindrical drum appeared on the scene. The very early drums had no ribs, making them more difficult to move about and a lot more difficult to lift using ropes. By the time of the first world war most steel drums had ribs, either metal strip welded on or made by adding corrugations to the wall of the drum during manufacture. Between the two world wars there were plain sided drums (usually associated with chemicals such as bleaching powder), drums with a number of corrugations in two groups and the familiar modern drum with two single corrugations on the sides. The modern 'rolled steel drum' is made from a strip of 'cold rolled' steel 1-2mm thick (supplied as a stack of flat sheets or, since World War Two, as a tightly rolled coil of sheet metal) into which ribs are pressed. The steel used has to be a high quality product as it needs to weld cleanly and may be required to take a range of special coatings. By the 1990s a lot of firms switched to using plastic drums and 'intermediate bulk containers' (big fork-liftable bags) but steel drums offer distinct advantages in some applications, the design of steel drums is now a world standard (ISO 15750 part 1-2-3 as well as EN209 and EN210) and they remain the preferred option for most dangerous goods. In Britain the standard size soon became the '45 gallon' drum but in America a 55 (US) gallon drum was adopted, however these must be pretty close in size as 45 UK gallons is 54 US and 55 US gallons is 45.8 UK gallons. There is some slight variation in size but a good estimate of the drum size would be 22 inches (55.9 cm) diameter by 36 inches (91.4cm) long with two rolling ribs dividing the drum into three equal lengths. There are two basic types, those for liquids usually have a filling cap in one end and a bung half way up the side, those for powders or greases usually have a removable end held in place with pressed metal clips around the edges and no bung in the side.
Steel drums are manufactured mainly in the country of use, they are expensive to transport as 'empties' and vulnerable to damage in transit.
Reconditioned steel drums are used drums that have undergone cleaning, repair and refurbishment to meet with the same regulatory and safety requirements (where applicable) as new steel drums. A standard steel drum is capable of being reconditioned up to seven or eight times and that the reconditioned product costs around one third less than a new drum. The supply of reconditioned steel drums into the UK amounts to some two million units per annum in the early 21st Century. Reconditioned drums are not a like for like replacement for new drums, there will typically be visible blemishes and/or residues from previous shipments which may render them unsuitable in some cases. Firms handling this drum reconditioning work are seldom rail connected as they receive drums in part-lorry-loads from a number of sites, clean, re-roll and re-end the drums and sell them as job lots for re-use.
In 2007 the main supplier of rolled steel drums in the UK is Greif, with headquarters in the USA. Its UK subsidiary, Greif UK Limited (Greif UK), had become the largest manufacturer of new large steel drums in the UK. Another major firm in the early 21st century was the Belgium-based Blagden Group NV (Blagden Group), a leading producer of new and reconditioned drums in Europe. Blagden Group’s UK new steel drum operation (Blagden) was the second-largest producer of new large steel drums in the UK and was bought out by Greif in 2006.
Other larger companies who had been engaged in steel drum manufacture were Economic Drums and Tanks & Drums, both of whom had left the field by 2006.
A. W. Stokes and Sons Ltd, based in West Bromwich remains as an independent supplier, originally founded as a wooden barrel maker in the very early 20th Century they entered the steel drum reconditioning market in 1965 (this division trading as A. W. Stokes and Sons (Drums) Ltd.), fairly soon they decided to switch to new drum production.
^
Go to top of page