AMAZING STEEL-MAKING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 198, 25 September 1909, Page 4

AMAZING STEEL-MAKING.

A NEW PROCESS. It is rumored that Messrs. Vickeis, Sou. and Maxim arc negotiating for the British rights of a newly-discovered process of converting finished iron into steel. As an instance of what can oe done by this process, the inventor can take a' heavy chain and give one end of it a thin coating of steel, thin as an eggshell. To the other end he can give a coat of half an inch or an inch in thickness, while the centre will be converted into solid steel. He call also work up a fine razor blade out of iron, shaping and grinding it lo the required form, and after this is all done he puts the blade through his steeling proc.iss and converts it into the hardest kind. Steel blades produced in this way arc, it is claimed, equal in every respect to the finest Sheffield makes.

"1 firmly believe," says the innovator, "that our process will revolutionise the whole steel business. Big furnace methods will be superseded. 1 have tested the method in every possible way, and noted European experts haie done the same thing, and always with the most gratifying results. Tlic method is quite simple. Iron is treated with a chemical composition, being subjected to heat at the same time. The chemical fumes have a peculiar property, converting iron into sjteel and iiii./.'riiig it to wonderful hardness. "The best steel is tempered to (ill points. We can temper our steel quite easily to 24:1 points. ThN is almost unbelievable, 1 admit; yet it is quite true.''