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Steel MakingQuality And StructureThe quality of high-speed steel is dependent to a very great ... Knowing What Takes Place How are we to know if we have given a piece of steel the ver... Furnace Data In order to give definite information concerning furnaces, fu... The Modern Hardening Room A hardening room of today means a very different place from ... Robert Mushet Robert (Forester) Mushet (1811-1891), born in the Forest of D... Separating The Work From The Compound During the pulling of the heat, the pots are dumped upon a ca... The Forging Of Steel So much depends upon the forging of steel that this operation... High-chromium Or Rust-proof Steel High-chromium, or what is called stainless steel containing f... Oil-hardening Steel Heat slowly and uniformly to 1,450 deg.F. and forge thorough... Detrimental Elements Sulphur and phosphorus are two elements known to be detrimen... Protective Screens For Furnaces Workmen needlessly exposed to the flames, heat and glare from... A Satisfactory Luting Mixture A mixture of fireclay and sand will be found very satisfactor... Hardening Carbon Steel For Tools For years the toolmaker had full sway in regard to make of st... Compensating Leads By the use of compensating leads, formed of the same materia... Brown Automatic Signaling Pyrometer In large heat-treating plants it has been customary to mainta... Effects Of Proper Annealing Proper annealing of low-carbon steels causes a complete solu... Hardness Testing The word hardness is used to express various properties of me... Machineability Reheating for machine ability was done at 100 deg. less than ... Highly Stressed Parts The highly stressed parts on the Liberty engine consisted of ... Forging High-speed Steel Heat very slowly and carefully to from 1,800 to 2,000 deg.F.... |
ConclusionsMartien was probably never a serious contender for the honor of discovering the atmospheric process of making steel. In the present state of the record, it is not an unreasonable assumption that his patent was never seriously exploited and that the Ebbw Vale Iron Works hoped to use it, in conjunction with the Mushet patents, to upset Bessemer's patents. The position of Mushet is not so clear, and it is hoped that further research can eventually throw a clearer light on his relationship with the Ebbw Vale Iron Works. It may well be that the "opinion of metallurgists in later years"[119] is sound, and that both Mushet and Bessemer had successfully worked at the same problem. The study of Mushet's letters to the technical press and of the attitude of the editors of those papers to Mushet suggests the possibility that he, too, was used by Ebbw Vale for the purposes of their attacks on Bessemer. Mushet admits that he was not a free agent in respect of these patents, and the failure of Ebbw Vale to ensure their full life under English patent law indicates clearly enough that by 1859 the firm had realized that their position was not strong enough to warrant a legal suit for infringement against Bessemer. Their purchase of the Uchatius process and their final attempt to develop Martien's ideas through the Parry patents, which exposed them to a very real risk of a suit by Bessemer, are also indications of the politics in the case. Mushet seems to have been a willing enough victim of Ebbw Vale's scheming. His letters show an almost presumptuous assumption of the mantle of his father; while his sometimes absurd claims to priority of invention (and demonstration) of practically every new idea in the manufacturing of iron and steel progressively reduced the respect for his name. Bessemer claims an impressive array of precedents for the use of manganese in steel making and, given his attitude to patents and his reliance on professional advice in this respect, he should perhaps, be given the benefit of the doubt. A dispassionate judgment would be that Bessemer owed more to the development work of his Swedish licensees than to Mushet. [119] William T. Jeans, The creators of the age of steel, London, 1884. Kelly's right to be adjudged the joint inventor of what is now often called the Kelly-Bessemer process is questionable.[120] Admittedly, he experimented in the treatment of molten metal with air blasts, but it is by no means clear, on the evidence, that he got beyond the experimental stage. It is certain that he never had the objective of making steel, which was Bessemer's primary aim. Nor is there evidence that his process was taken beyond the experimental stage by the Cambria Works. The rejection of his "apparatus" by W. F. Durfee must have been based, to some extent at least, upon the Johnstown trials. There are strong grounds then, for agreeing with one historian[121] who concludes: The fact that Kelly was an American is evidently the principal reason why certain popular writers have made much of an invention that, had not Bessemer developed his process, would never have attracted notice. Kelly's patent proved very useful to industrial interests in this country as a bargaining weapon in negotiations with the Bessemer group for the exchange of patent rights. [120] Bessemer dealt with Kelly's claim to priority in a letter to Engineering, 1896, vol. 61, p. 367. [121] Louis C. Hunter, "The heavy industries since 1860," in H. F. Williamson (editor), The growth of the American economy, New York, 1944, p. 469. Kelly's suggestion[122] that some British puddlers may have communicated his secret to Bessemer can, probably, never be verified. All that can be said is that Bessemer was not an ironman; his contacts with the iron trade were, so far as can be ascertained, nonexistent until he himself invaded Sheffield. So it is unlikely that such a secret would have been taken to him, even if he were a well-known inventor. [122] Later developed into a dramatic story by Boucher, op. cit. (footnote 97). Previous: William Kelly's Air-boiling Process
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