Salt Lake Mining Review | 1909-06-15 | Page 1 | A Description of the Tintic Smelter, Silver City, Utah

A description of the tintic gintic smelter silver city utah WRITTEN FOR THE MINING REVIEW BY LEROY A PALMER the new smelter at tint c having successfully cess fully passed through the trying period which always follows the starting up of a plant of any size eize is now well started toward a successful career the first lead furnace was blown in august 28 1908 and was followed a few days later by lead furnace no 2 27 and the starting of a large independent smelter was hailed with joy by the mining industry then trouble came and first one furnace and then the other was shut down and started up again and rumors of one ednd k ind or another were s set et afloat at this time a change in s u per was made and under the new head things began to shape themselves and give an appearance pe arance of successful operation lead furnace no I 1 was blown in october 29 no 2 on november 1 no 3 on january 9 and the copper fur nace on march 22 there is a fourth lead furnace which is used 1 1 as an auxillia ry as road connects it with wita several of the mines it covers a large acreage and is served by three sampling mills two of its own and one owned by the taylor bunton brunton ore sampling company which is the largest of its several plants the spacious yards are well supplied with combination tracks both standard and narrow gauge large ore beds stock piles reserve bins etc in fact all that goes to make up an up to the mills it is shunted to a bin near the oxide mill and split shoveled that is it is shoveled fr from m the car to the bin every tenth being put in a separate pile this lot containing one olae tenth of the whole is further cut down by quartering and constitutes utes the sample on the basis of which the whole is purchased but all ore containing pieces of any size is sent to the proper mill crushed and cut down by machinery wr lit in py A tr A general view of the gintic tintic smelter photo by leroy A palmer the nature of the water throughout the mountain country makes necessary frequent shutdowns for the cleaning of the water jackets X the plant is located in the T gintic tintic antic district A whose ores it was primarily designed to treat between robinson and silver city utah it is reached from the outside by the san pedro los angeles salt lake and the denver rio grande railroads i while the narrow gauge eureka hill rail date lead and matte plant is to be found here the two sampling mills are used for the oxides and sulphides sulp hides respectively the sulphide mill also being used merely as a crushing plant to reduce the matte from the lead furnaces before if a shipment is found to be sufficiently fine as to do away with the necessity of crushing before sampling as in the case of cone concentrates estrates en instead of going to one of the tracks to the oxide mill run up a wood trestle with stringers of 24 inch I 1 beams and the cars are dumped to a receiving bin from this the ore is fed intha into a gates gyratory crusher after which a bucket elevator raises it to the top of the mill at the elevator dump a vezin sampler swings across the stream of ore and t takes akes out one tenth of it this sample is passed through a set of rolls to further reduce it and a second tenth cut out which is passed through another and smaller set of rolls and a third cut of one tenth made thus the final sample contains only one one thousandth of the original bulk or two pounds per ton and yet so accurately does this macai machinery nery do its work that this sample shows the general average of the entre entire shipment the rejects from the sample run hy by gravity to a bin from which they are crammed in push cars to their proper place the sample goes from the last set of rolls to the bucking room where it is round ground to five sixteenths of an inch in a set of rigid rolls passed through a gates laboratory crusher and finished to mesh ina in a braun pul the latter is a comparatively new new device which takes the place of the old time muller andrack and backing board the ore already fine is fed between two ve vertical steel discs one of which revolves these are set the required distance apart and the ore is discharged from between them when it has reached the des sred red fineness the shovel samples and lime rock samples are reduced to five sixteenths of an inch in a dodge laboratory crusher and finished in the gates crusher and A 75 horsepower horse power bullock motor drives the mill and a 10 horsepower horse power westinghouse the bucking room the dodge A N le I 1 6 4 7 4 between furnace building and ore beds showing Down comers and baloon flue chote bj will C crusher was furnished by the tha mine smelter te supply com camany adny of salt la lake ke city and tle the by the F W braun company of los angeles ang eles all of the other equipment in the oxide millway mill was supplied by the allis chalmers company of milwaukee at the gulp sulphide hide mill all lead matte land and such ores as carry sulphur in quantities requiring roasting boasting are reduced to five six inches or less the ore is fed from a coppered hopp ered steel bin to tb a shaking grizzly which discharges its oversize over size to a large blake crusher the crushed ore with the undersize under size from the grizzly goes to a set of gates high speed rolls from which it is elevated and passed through a set of davis rolls from these rolls it goes to a pair of with five inch perforations whose oversize over size goes to a second set sei of davis rolls thence to the elevator the matte is not sampled buethe but the ore which screens through the is cut down one tenth in a brunton sz sampler ampler this sample is passed through a small set of davis rolls and again cut down one tenth maeng the final sample one one hundredth of the whole ali the e sample is taen to the oxide mill for finishing and the reject goes to a bin from which a conveyor belt takes it to the roast ers A horsepower horse power allis chalmers mo tor drives all of the machinery in the mill near the sulphide mill are the transfer bins so called because the cars from the taylor find and brunton sl sampler ampler are unloaded there all oxidized ore is also taken here and fed into an elevator which dumps to a taking out all pieces five six of an inch or less for cinter ng as described later these transfer bins have two compartments each of a capacity of forty tons and adjacent are four 50 ton stock piles these latter are use used i d to store special kinds of ore until such time as it is desired desi red to io treat breaf it the roaster building is between the sulphide mill and the blast furnace e baulding bul bull ding it is a steel frame structure feet containing two ro asters and a wintering cint ering furnace each has ha s daily capacity of twenty tons and the wintering cint ering furnace will treat forty to sixty tons a day according to the character charach er of ore the ies were built by the provo foundry machinery company of provo utah the colstr construction action is of br brick I 1 ck with firebrick fire brick lining well stayed at intervals of four feet eight inches by two five inch I 1 beams tied across the top by buck stays in the space between the I 1 beams is a inch door through which the charge can be reached the fire box is on the end and so placed that the hot 9 gages ases thrown against the arched are root roof of the th furnace and deflected downward on to the charge the ies les are used to reduce the sulphur content conten t of the matte before ret retreating relating it in the blast furnaces the crushed matte as it comes from the sul bhide mill is charged into a hopper at the hack back of the furnace the furnace men insert long handled scrapers into the doors in the side and turn the charge over exposing all portions to the heat and at the same time drawing it forward by the time this has been repeated until the charge reaches the end nearest the fire box the sulphur has been reduced to about four per cent and under the action of the intense heat at this portion of the furnace the charge centers or bakes tode together flier so it will fake the form of a mould actual melting or fusing is avoided the cantered cint ered ore is drawn into slag pots hauled out of the building and allowed to cool the wintering cint ering is the design of mr vivian the superintendent and was built on the ground along lines which he s successfully u applied in old mexico it is for sulphides sulp hides the oxides which pass the five sixteenth inch and flue dust the action of the blast in the ordinary blast furnace tends to force the fine particles of ore into the flues in the shape of flue dust the usual recourse especially in copper smelting smelling sm elting is to the furnace but ies require more attention and the slag loss is higher A certain amount of flue dust is unavoidable and ana the usual practice is to briquette it with a binder of lime in a special bri plant the wintering cint ering furnace obviates the use of both ies and bri machines it operates on the principle and combines the preliminary stages of smelting smelling sm elting with the roasting proper the ore or flue dust is charged into the furnace and the arsenic and sulphur expelled by the first action of the heat and the ore einterz as the charge rapidly comes canies to the temperature of the furn furnace lace after which it is drawn off into the slag pots the dust chambers are feet long in the shape of a U to give the required red length before discharging into the stack they are provided with steel doors for the removal of the dust and where it is 19 necessary to change the grade they have been bee en ell barged into spacious chambers this latter feature prevents eddying of the gas which would tend to carry the dust onward instead of allowing it to settle the cones of cantered cint ered ore and matte are and an broken up w ati sledge hammers wheeled to a self dumping skip which a 15 horsepower horse power general electric company 1 tor hauls to coppered hopp ered steel bins b back ck of the furnace building and near the ore beds abre the ore beds are six in number of 1800 tons capacity each for lead ore and three 1200 tons each for copper ore between them and the furnace building are the bins for coke lime and iron oxide with a total capacity of 1000 tons the blast furnace building is a steel frame structure feet containing one copper and four lead furnaces each has a capacity of tons of ore and flux per day but the clapa capacity city of the copper furnace is to be doubled the lead furnaces are inches at the tu yeres with four water jackets on each side and one over each end each side jacket has two four inch tu yeres making sixteen in all they have individual valves and metal connection to the eighteen inch bustle pipes which are supplied with air at thirty two to thirty four ounce pressure from a thirty six inch main line the water jackets are held in place by tw two 0 o rows of railroad iron tied by heavy bolts at the corners comers they rest on an elliptical brick base enclosing the lead well which is tied by four three inch square rods the brick shaft is tied by six six inch I 1 beams held by heavy brick stays giving a staunch structure capable of withstanding a very high degree 1 l of heat the various proportions of ore and flux are charged into hand buggies and weighed on multiple beam scales so arranged that the sees only the balance and not the amount that he is weighing A heavy iron door in the shaft of the furnace is raised and the charge dumped into the fiery mass A siphon in the brick work draws the molten lead from the bottom of the lead well where it is the purest into slag pots these are wheeled to the bullion house the slag is tapped to a steel settler with a fire brick lining in which the matte settles to the bottom and is tapped off as it accumulates the slag overflows the settler into two ton cars which are hauled to the dump by general electric locomotives co As the fumes from the slag are both annoying land and injurious a large steel hood terminating in a stack rests over the position the slag cars take while being filled this slag contains a certain amount of metallic values which because of their gr greater weight settle into the points and outer edges of the cones this is of use in making up the furnace charges so the shells and points or buttons as they are called which chill first and remain in the cars are saved these are dumped on an eight inch grizzly to a self dumeng skip which a thirty s seven even horsepower general electric motor hauls to a bin at one end of the charging floor the lead furnaces were the product of the denver engineering works the copper furnace is inches at tu yeres with two water jackets on each side and one over each end it sets five feet above the flowron flo floor oron on eight screw jacks on each side are ten four inch which receive air at twenty ounces these have the same arrangement as those on the lead furnaces individual valves and all metal connection to the bustle pipes which are twenty four inches in diameter fed by 36 inch main air line the shaft of the furnace is tied by a row of heavy railroad d iron which was furnished by silver bros of salt lake tapping is carried on into a large circular settler of steel with a fire brick lining there is a matte and slag tap on each side and a spray of water over the sides of the settler tends to relieve the intense heat all copper slag is wasted shells and buttons with the rest copper smelting smelling sm elting as practiced here is different from the matte smelting smelling sm elting of the valley smelters shelters sm elters to recover gold and sil each lead furnace pass through a to the balloon flue this latter is ten feet deep by feet long with dust doors every ten feet and discharging into the dust chamber proper this divides into three parallel chambers feet long so arranged that fumes pass through two port portions ons while one is cut out for cleaning for this latter purpose doors are are provided every ten feet in th the e power house are two duplex fair banks morse company pumps geared to fifty horsepower general electric company motors used to raise the water from the hot well to the cooling tower on the hill there are also two root and two cannels ville blowers with capacities from to cubic feet per minute one of these is used as an auxiliary and one has a two speed motor so that just the re ak 14 AA tal ta 91 7 lead blast furnace gintic tintic smelter photo hy will C higgini ver from the ores some other metal as lead or copper must be used to collect the precious metal in the copper smelting smelling sm elting at tintic gintic the real object is to save the gold and silver in certain ores that carry good values in these metals but not lead and only a small percentage of copper adjoining the blast furnace building is the bullion house a steel frame building feet where the lead is prepared for shipment it is dumped into 50 ton pots built in the re melting furnaces the crosses dr skimmed off and the lead cast into pound bars marked tintic gintic Tin tic the lead goes to grasselli Gra indiana fo refining and the matte to chrome new jersey for converting and refining the fumes from the copper furnace go through a flue to a large concrete chamber where the dust settles out before the gases discharge through an elbow to the balloon flue the fumes fume s from quiren amount of air can be furnished for any combination of furnaces that may be in operation A chicago pneumatic tool company compressor furnishes air for the shops and for dusting du stings in the oxide mill and two 35 horsepower horse power generators the direct current for the slag haulage system nearby is the carpenters shop where all of the wood work is done including timber framing for the knight mines and th machine shop which serves the smelter the knight mines and the eureka hill railroad power is received from the Tl luride power company at volts