Cast Iron / Pig Iron Smelting Documentary " Iron -- Product of the Blast Furnace " 18524 (1951)

Synopsis

This short film is on the blast furnace. This is the furnace used for smelting materials into pig iron, lead or copper and is an age-old practice dating back to the fifth century. This particular film will look at the production of iron. It opens with an outside look at a blast furnace and its cylindrical towers (:40). A diagram follows depicting what happens inside, pointing to where raw materials entered (1:13) and the layering in which it was sent in. Footage of actual raw material entering the furnace is shown in the raw materials yard (2:27). The entire car is seen turned upside down to remove all materials (2:58) and these are then emptied into an underground conveyor belt (3:07). The travelling stacking machine (3:23), reclaiming machine (3:49), and large triangular rake (4:00) are all seen at work. Afterwards materials are moved to another conveyor belt headed for storage hoppers (4:10). The second most important material for the iron blast furnace is called ‘coke’ which is made from coal baked in closed ovens (4:24). At the unloading hopper (4:38) the railcars are unloaded and transported to stock piles (4:56). A crane is seen lifting coal onto another conveyor belt (5:12) to be sent to the coal crushing machinery (5:12). A ‘Larry car’ then sets to work delivering the crushed and screened coal to the coke oven (5:12). The gases which are a by product of this procedure are seen emptying out of the collector pipes (5:55). At the end the coke is pushed out in a stream…

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Details

Running time

11 minutes

Collection

Ephemeral Films

Subjects on the Internet Archive

• Stock Footage