Show the fin fink k sm smelter e ite r at the boston consolidated BY CORYDON W HIGGINS the science of metallurgy is thousands of years old and its advancement to its present state of perfection has been truly wonderful and yet during the past decade or so this advancement has practically been at a stan standstill astill not that there has been no decided progress along these lines but the improvement has been along mechanical lines and toward commercial efficiency among the Of different ferent branches of metallurgy is this particularly true of the smelting smelling sm elting industry very few new methods have been brought forward or old processes improved and applied in different forms among the new departures in smelt ing but one which still makes the use of the well chown metallurgical laws is the fink smelter and from actual tests on a fairly large scale it would seem that this field of industrial en deavor is about to be I 1 completely revolution iced when anew a new method or a new contrivance in ill any line is put before the public it is always subjected to a very severe test there here is ig always an abundance of criticism and doubt and but very little encouragement aven aven after success has been attained there is 18 a host of sc offers who are slow to give credit to a truly great achievement the world often shows great reluctance to give UP the old and proven for something new and often infinitely better the fink smelt ing process has proven no exception to this modern show me and then some spirit it has ha been scoffed and ridiculed from its inception and its success which now seems assured will rest on its own great merit this process has been invented and worked out by mr edward fink and the test plant V W r A 4 4 IM fink smelter showing revolving cylinders and connecting chamber aboto by corado ap eggl 1 at garfield utah constructed under his direct supervision mr fink interested samuel newhouse in his enterprise and together they form a combination which should spell success the process itself the details and metallurgical principles of this new method are best given in mr air finks fink I 1 s own language as he is assuredly more familiar with it than another could possibly be the following statement was made by mr mf fink in a recent issue of the salt lake herald during the last tw two 0 months or more much has been written arille n about the experimental plant which was then being erected near garfield by mr newhouse A great many mandof of the statements published were far from accurate some absolutely sol ridiculous although often requested to make a statement I 1 did not feel justified in doing so at the time and even now I 1 hesitate about giving any definite information for publication the fink furnace is not a cure all for every metallurgical difficulty nor can it smelt every ore known to scientists as was reported the principles underlying the present lay day smelt ing operations are the same as were employed a hundred years ago the improvements pro prove ments b being e I 1 n g largely in the different manner of apply ing those fundamental principles the improvements prove ments made from time to time have been made first by altering the construction of furnaces second by changes in the manipulation of the charge to be smelted smelter smelt ed to read some of the statements made by leading metallurgists only a few years ago relating to the smelting smelling sm elting processes as conducted at the time one can hardly realize that in the present day smelting smelling sm elting methods operations are performed which were regarded as absolutely impossible for example dr peters in the earlier editions of his most valuable book on copper smelt smelling smelting sm elting ln states emphatically that it is impossible to enrich matte to any extent by putting same sama through gli the furnace two or more times bri or sintering wintering sint ering the product the idea being to render it sufficiently dense before introducing same into the furnace to prevent disintegration while these experiments helped in a measure the results up to the present time leave much to be desired moreover they entail a separate le opera 0 4 11 i R V 7 nr ac front view of the new fink smelter aboto by corydon TV higgins today this is successfully done and this fact has done much to make the smelting smelling sm elting process a success not many years ago a furnace smelting smelling sm elting twenty five tons per day was considered a large furnace today verber atory furnaces are built having a capacity of tons per day and blast furnaces are by no means uncommon smelting smelling sm elting tons per day the epoch making discovery d sc overy of bessemer converting pig iron into steel by forcing compressed air through a colbi column nn of molten iron which while used in the iron industry for many years did not find application in copper smelting smelling sm elting until quite re recently centY when the difficulties encountered were wholly overcome the practice of bes semer izing became quite as common in copper smelting smelling sm elting practice as in the production of steel the furnace which has been erected near garfield as well as the process of smelting smelling sm elting conducted therein were designed to meet certain conditions the bugaboo of the blast furnace operator ope ra has been fine ore for the tremendous blast forced in at the blows a considerable sid erable amount of this product out ot the furnace before it can reach far enough down to enter the zone of fusion to overcome this difficulty a great many experiments have been conducted and much money expended in preparing the fine ore or concentrate for blast furnace smelting smelling sm elting most of oe the tests were along the lines of tion which is not only expensive but wasteful it does not require a scientific mind to discover that a small particle of matter will fuse much more inore readily than a large mass a handful of snow if exposed to heat will melt more rapidly than the same weight of ice fins F ine concentrates are obtained from massive ore through a process of grinding and subsequent washing such a product is ideal for rapid smelting smelling sm elting because of its fineness it A becomes evident that to try ard and bring it back to its original state of hardness and size even though this could be successfully accomplished is a step backward providing it could he be smelted smelter direct A blast furnace is certainly not adapted to smelt fine ores or products of this description and if smelted smelter in a reverberation be furnace a preliminary roasting operation is necessary to remove a portion of its sulphur an operation which also yields considerable flue dust clearly then to smelt such a product cheaply it becomes necessary to break away from the well established methods and change the furnace as well as manipulation li of the charge so as to be able to take advantage of the fineness of the ore without danger of losing too much in flue du dust A second and most important consideration is the fuel consumed many ot of the more common minerals contain sulphur under proper conditions this will ignite and burn giving off heat just as coal of or wood will do on burning in ordinary blast furnace smelting smelling sm elting a good portion of the sulphur is volatilized and escapes from the top of the stack in smelt ing in much of the sulphur is removed before the ore in introduced into the furnace As stated above sulphur is a fuel and to obtain the maximum heat effect its combustion should take place in the furnace where the heat is required in the ordinary blast furnace smelting smelling sm elting as conducted conducted before the advent of the so called smelling smelting sm elting process it was customary 7 MA team V 7 the fink aioo ton smelter at garfield utah patao by corydon IV to roast the ores in order to remove the ex V cess of sulphur which operation was feces sary to produce a matte of sufficient rich J ness for further refining the fuel value ol of the sulphur given iven off in roast roasting illk the ore wai wa I 1 absolutely lost in the process which has of late years assumed deserved prominence the ores are fed into the blast furnace in their crude state enabling t the utilization of considerably III more ore sulphur as fuell fth an t in the old method of smelting smelling sm elting the mattan r deuced however bein being t much lower in grade than when the ore was previously roasted this low grade matte is again put through ah the furnace and the operation man mail insulated inu in such a manner as to burn off considerably more sulphur finally proc tue in ing a product of the required grade of richness the zone of the furnace where the air blast is introduced is where the smelting smelling sm elting takes place and is the only portion of the furnace where any sulphur is utilized as fuel above this zone the sulphur is only volatilized and escapes from the top of the furnace the ore upon reaching id the zone of fusion at the tu yeres melts immediately and rapidly runs out of the furnace so that it is impossible to enrich the matte without repeating the operation one or more times it occurred to me that if it were possible to retain the molten matte in the zone for any desired time it would be possible to obtain a product of any desired concentration to accomplish this end it would be necessary to construct a furnace differing differed considerably from those now in common use and to meet this end the fink furnace has been des designed ned in practice the coal is generally burned on a grate at one end of the furnace the heat being deflected downward and concentrated onto the charge to obtain the full efficiency of the fuel same should be burned at a point where the heat is required in the furnace itself and as in the caze case of the fusion of the ore the maximum efficiency is obtained when the e coal oal is ground to a powder the finer the better tor then the combustion is practically instantaneous blast furnaces require coke a product which is not always available and more oper it is expensive as compared to coal oil has never been successfully used in blast furnace smelting smelling sm elting though some has been used in work in th the e pink furnace coal oil charcoal or sawdust way may be used the heat obtained being augmented further where the ores carry sulphur by the combustion of this element in the furnace in many instances when once the smelting smelling sm elting operation is underway tile the sulphur alone is capable of supplying most of the heat required for smelting smelling sm elting the plant at a garfield consists of two barrel shaped receptacles capable of revolving at differ ent speeds and in opposite directions the fuel el is blown into one and the flame is re turned into the second furnace while the charge in the first furnace is being smelted smelter and refined the charge in the second fur nace liace is roasting the heat being supplied I 1 from the gases escaping from the first fur nace the construction of the furnace a al lows of a bessemer smelting smelling sm elting as well as refining operation and the crude ore charged into the furnace is discharged as a finished product blister copper 1 1 fresh ore is fed into the furnace either continuously or intermittently being introduced into the bath of molten slag and matte causing the fine particles to fuse immediately thus preventing prevent in g th their e ir e escape s C ape as flue dust the revolving of the furnaro hastens the smelting smelling sm elting action very materially and makes possible the bessemer izing operation in it A permanent refract refractory oty lining is used thus differing from the regular converter which must be lined with silica sili which lining is consumed in a very short time although the fink furnace has been designed primarily for treating fine ores and flue dust it may also be employed for smelting smelling sm elting ordinary ores it being only feces of oil for fuel which was unavailable at the time this necessitated a change to coal dust causing considerable delay and annoyance no other mechanical details the inclement weather and the non arrival or material all contributed in making the first installation slow and aggravating most ot these little troubles have now been overcome and the pla will soon be in first fi class running order we believe that the chief merit of the fink smelter lies in its simplicity and this necessarily means economy in the main the smelter consists of large steel cylinders which revolve at any desired speed upon a horizontal axis the cylinders cylinder s are lined with brick which is a permanent fixture and does not require attention for a long period piar iod these cylinders are usually built in series there being two in the gar r 4 K j A 1 another view showing the main working parts of the smelter aboto by corydon IV higgins sary to r reduce educe the size of the larger pieces b by y passing same through suitable crushers the blast furnace is preeminently pre eminently a furnace of great capacity and will continue as a most economical reducer of ores suited to that style of smelting smelling sm elting yet its usefulness hardly extends to plants of small capacity moreover the product obtained is always a matte which requires subsequent treatment to bring same to blister copper to be successful such a plant must be operated continuously a condition which is often difficult to meet where the ore simply is irre irregular the experimental plant backed financially by mr newhouse mr fink has constructed a ton plant near the boston consolidated mill at garfield utah while only of crude design and nd constructed ted under trying conditions this little smelter has performed some wonderful fea feats t s the original plan included the use field plant between the two is a connect connecting I 1 chamber of brick through which the gases smoke and fumes pass from one to the other the stack for each is built at the outer end the fuel oil coal dust charcoal or even sawdust is blown in at one end and the flame passes through into the second cylinder while the charge in th the e first I 1 furnace is being smelted smelter smelt ed that in the second chamber is being roasted by the hot gases and fumes generated in the first cylinder when the fusion is complete the heat is shut off and air forced through the charge from flexible tu yeres the rotating action of the cylinder makes a zone of the entire furnace instead of a restricted strict ed area as in the ordinary furnace the operator can at all times see within the furnace and when the action accio n is complete the product is drawn off through a tappet in t the he cylinder the apparatus is electrically daiv en and requires but little power this in the main is all there is to the fink smelter comparisons in cost A few comparisons with the usual smelt in ing operations will prove interesting over has been expended by the american smelting smelling Sm elting refining company in the erection of its plant at garfield utah the small fink plant with a capacity of tons daily cost about it is estimated that a fink plant with a capacity equal to the american plant would cost in the neighborhood of a quarter million dollars even double or this estimate and the comparison is a revelation expert smelt ermen termen say that it costs about to sinter a ton of ore ready for conversion into matte and 2 a ton more to reduce the matte into blister copper just what the cost per ton will be in the fink process has not yet been determined but it will surely cut under these figures first because all of the operations from ore to blister copper have been combined into one and secondly because of the cheap construction another desirable feature in fuel low power and low initial cost of connection with this smelter is the elemin aaion of the freezing process the plant may be shut down and |