Metal Industry Collection (page 3)

Puddling furnace and mechanical hammer, Krupps Works, Essen, Germany, 19th century. Pig iron is being puddled to remove carbon and oxygen, after which the ball of hot metal (bloom) was then hammered

Grinding needle points, Redditch, England, c1830. A grindstone driven by water or steam. Needle grinding was well-paid work but the lives of grinders were short owing to the inhalation of dust

Die-stamping the channel and eye position on needle wires, Redditch, England, c1835. The operation used a foot-operated 13.6kg hammer

Needle-making, 1751-1780. Securing needles in polishing roll (1), polishing under a lead weight (5, 6), washing (2), drying (3), inspecting (4), and grinding points (7)

Needles: equipment for needle making from shears to cut wire (14) to polishing roll (13). From Diderots Encyclopedie. (Paris, 1751-1780)

Greenfield Brass Mill near Holywell, Flintshire, Wales, 1792. Artist: WC Wilson
Greenfield Brass Mill near Holywell, Flintshire, Wales, 1792. Illustration showing industrialisation in the rural landscape

Copperworks near Holywell, Flintshire, Wales owned by the Mona Company, 1792. Artist: William Watts
Copperworks near Holywell, Flintshire, Wales owned by the Mona Company, 1792. Illustration showing industrialisation in the rural landscape. Copper was mined on Anglesey (Mona)

Bellows supplying draught to a smelting furnace, 1556. The bellows are operated by a camshaft powered by a water wheel (just visible at extreme right)

Forge with bellows driven by an undershot water wheel through cranks, 1673. From Theatrum Machinarum Novum by Georg Andreas Bockler. (Nuremberg, 1673)

Rolling mill and forge powered by hot gases from a furnace, 1629. An idea proposed by Giovanni Branca in Le Machine. (Rome, 1629)

Smelting iron and hammering bars with a mechanical hammer, 1556. From De re metallica by Georgius Agricola. (Basel, 1556)

Refining copper: removing cakes of copper from the crucible and quenching in a tub of water, 1556. From De re metallica by Georgius Agricola. (Basel, 1556)

Smelting of copper, 1683
Smelting of copper: making liquation cakes by reducing copper in furnaces and alloying with lead, 1683. From an English edition of German metallurgist Lazarus Erckers Beschreibung allerfurnemisten

Crushing gold bearing ores in mills similar in principle to flour mills, 1556. At bottom left goats in a treadmill produce horizontal power which is transferred to a mill (A)

Steel production: a forge with bellows to produce draught, 1556. In the foreground bars are being hammered with a mechanical hammer

Artists reconstruction of casting weapons in the Iron Age, 1889. In the left background metal is being heated in a furnace, while at the right molten metal is being poured into a mould

Artists reconstruction of a late Iron Age forge, 1890. In the centre a smith is hammering iron, while in the background another is working at the furnace

Casting cannon, 1751-1780. Drying clay patterns which would be used to produce a mould into which molten metal would be run. From Denis Diderots Encyclopedie. (Paris, 1751-1780)

Phoenix Iron and Bridge Works, Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, 1873
Putting ball of white-hot iron into a rotary squeezer to remove the slag and cinder, and force the metal into the shape of a cylinder or bloom

General view of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, 1833. Showing smoke pouring from the chimneys of the numerous foundries and rolling mills. From Scenes of American Wealth and Industry. [Boston, 1833]

The Tilt Forge, c1845-1866. Artist: Godfrey Sykes
The Tilt Forge, c1845-1866. Iron workers at a battery of mechanical tilt hammers

Using bellows to increase the draught in a furnace, 1540. Woodcut showing a workman using bellows to increase the draught in a furnace for refining copper

Miners hammers of various sizes, 1556
Miners hammers of various sizes. From De re metallica by Agricola (Basle, 1556)

Roasting copper ore in a furnace at C, 1556.. A are cakes of smelted copper, B wooden faggots for heating the furnace. On right a man is using wooden wheelbarrow. From De re metallica by Agricola

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