The process of puddling was the occupation's chief responsibility. Puddling was an improved process to convert pig iron into wrought iron with the use of a reverberatory furnace. Working as a two-man crew, a puddler and helper could produce about 1, kilograms 3, pounds of iron in a hour shift. The strenuous labor, heat and fumes caused puddlers to have a short life expectancy, with most dying in their 30s.
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You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly. You should upgrade or use an alternative browser. Thread starter sylviasayers Start date Oct 15, One of my g. Built at the mouth of the River Weir in Sunderland this bridge was built of cast iron and pushed the material to its limits with a 73 metre span. If engineers were to built bigger and more versatile structures they would need malleable iron — and lots of it!
From the late s onwards malleable iron was made in a two-stage process which involved first making cast iron in a blast furnace and then refining it.
At first the refining was done in a finery forge in which the pig iron was laid on a bed of burning charcoal and then beaten and worked to remove impurities. This was because cast iron made with coke had a higher sulphur content than that made with charcoal and this made the iron brittle even when heated.
He had to withdraw the rod regularly and dunk it in water to prevent it melting. Pat Quinn went from being a foundryman in the early s to working for four years as a puddler in Coatbridge in the years before the First World War. He was interviewed in the s.
Puddling was the first successful process for making malleable iron from pig iron without using charcoal. Unlike in the Finery the iron was not in direct contact with the fuel of a puddling furnace, only with the hot gases from it. This helped reduce the amount of impurities in the finished iron.
The basic chemical reaction was the same as in the finery but the new method was more effective. Before it could be used, the inside of the puddling furnace had to be gently heated and coated with iron oxides to protect it. Illustration of pig iron after it has been put into the puddling furnace. Puddling involved a great deal of skill, as well as strength.
This was important, particularly in civil engineering where a consistent level of quality was needed. Puddlers were generally young men as the work required a lot of physical exertion.
The production of a puddling furnace was essentially governed by how much weight a man could lift with a ball of puddled iron generally weighing about 5cwt about kg! Puddlers often had to retire and find other jobs due to injury. They frequently suffered eye problems from staring into the blazing furnace. Removing the ball of puddled iron from the furnace took immense strength. When the ball of puddled iron was judged ready, the puddler would lift it out of the furnace.
This was a steam hammer that repeatedly bashed the mass of iron, forcing out small pieces of slag as sparks. The result was a lump of iron with fewer impurities and flat enough to put through a rolling mill. Once the puddled iron was flat enough it would be put through a rolling mill to thin it down to bar iron of consistent thickness and with smoother sides.
The glowing-hot iron was repeatedly passed through increasingly small gaps between mill rolls. Again, the image below shows the Waverley Works in Illustration of a rolling mill.
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