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This is one of the older furnaces at Skinningrove with the crew barring out the tap hole; possibly ”Slaggers and Pig Bed Crew” in Skinningrove works. This must be quite an early photograph as none of the men are wearing a safety helmet. Middle man front row has his feet in ”Sow” channel for the molten iron.
This shows the steel-work being erected that will eventually contain the structure of No. 5 Blast Furnace. In the left hand image, the shape at the bottom right is the hearth structure. This feature was the hardest part of the furnace to remove after it was toppled, being constructed of solid carbon blocks.
This image (pre-1950) shows the left-hand man strapping on his clogs – shaped wooden soles to protect his rocker boots from the heat – before going in to do some hot work on the casting floor.
An image of a stack of pigs being stock-piled. The bar in the labourer’s hand is to break the pigs off the sow.
When the furnace has cast, the pigs are attached to the sow and the crew have to go around and break them off and heap them together in slings to be stock-piled.
Well…not quite. The tip labourer is spragging the wheel of the slag Bogie prior to tipping the slag over Cattersty Cliffs.They were tipped by using a chain and winch system through the hook on the side of the pots (on the other side of ladle). You can just see the chain hanging below the pot, to the left of the labourer. The Loco is one of the Low height types used on the Blast Furnaces. It certainly cast a lovely glow over the scene at night! Image courtesy of Dave McGill (a glass plate negative).
A pig bed with the gate irons in place ready to divert the flow of metal to fill the pigs.
These two men are preparing the sand runners (sows) and moulds (pigs) to receive the molten metal from the blast furnace.
The aerial ropeway which transported ironstone from North Loftus (Skinningrove) mine. Rodney Begg remembers: “This section (without its protective screen over the road) was still in place when I started at Skinningrove – although the roadside pylon disappeared soon after – but the left-most pylon survived to become a lighting tower!”. Thanks to Rodney Begg for that memory.
This image of A furnace first tap with number 1 (75 ton crane), before the main hoist chains were changed to wire ropes. After the 8 (or 12 for the ’Big’ furnaces) hour process of turning a charge of cold and hot metals into steel, the climax usually came quickly after a flurry of samples of steel and slag to the shift lab. The hooter would sound, the bangalore torpedo (more precisely ’the shaped charge’) would blow out the tap hole and the furnace would heel over to discharge it’s first potful of molten metal. Eric Johnson told us: “The scene always reminded me of what I thought Dante’s Inferno would look like – flames up to the rafters, (sometimes bringing a flurry of pigeons down), the furnace hand on the tapping stage hurling the alloying charges of coal, niobium, ferro-manganese etc. surrounded by smoke and light and heat. The furnace tilting further and further with each potful until it was spent. The pots in their turn travelling sedately to the Ingot Shed across the way and charging rake after rake of ingot moulds with the liquid metal. Sometimes a ’flying stopper’ made it more hazardous to empty the pots as it was then impossible to stop the flow of metal between moulds and everybody in the Ingot Shed would get a scorching (if they were unlucky they’d get a lot worse!) – and, as Bob says, a wet pot could create a shower of incandescent metal dancing around the pitside”. Stan Henderson tells us: ”Awesome! Better than any fireworks display I have seen.” Thanks Eric Johnson and Stan Henderson for the updates. |
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