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24 Forging - Stamping - Heat Treating
E c o n o m i c a l H a n d l i n g o f M a t e r i a l *
Material Handling, Comparison of the Electric Truck and Gaso­
line Tractor and the Design of Tote Boxes, Racks
T H E Forge Department as usual, when a department
of a manufacturing plant, was placed in the
farthest corner of the property, away from the
main buildings. The heat treat was added later near
the machining departments as at that time most of the
forgings were heat treated after being rough machined.
The steel shed is located next to the forge
shop with a 5-ton overhead crane which serves to unload
cars, the shears under the shed and to deliver
most of the heavy stock to hammers. The grinders
and punch presses for cold trimming are in the forge
shop, the die room and forge department machine shop
are at one end, the tumbling room, inspection department
and die storage at one side and the shipping department
at the other end of the building.
The steel yard under the crane is 57 ft. wide by 352
ft. long, has held 3,000 tons steel stacked at random
leaving no room to get around. At present racks are
being built which will increase the capacity of the yard
over 100 per cent allowing space for railroad track to
run full length of shed and room to get around each
pile for inspection or checking purposes. The racks
are built of pipe placed in a concrete base. The pipes
have about 4 ft. centers. The racks are laid out to
take steel 20 ft. long leaving an open space of 4 ft. between
each end of piles and vacant space has been left
for steel that comes cut in short lengths and other
wide enough to stack without racks.
Stock for forgings. Most of the heavier stock is
delivered by crane to the large hammers in the row
next to the steel shed, the stock being placed on skids
under the crane slides over to the hammers. The balance
of the stock is delivered on tote racks by electric
lift trucks direct to the hammers and upsetting machines,
the heaters working the stock from the racks
into the furnaces.
The flashings are handled in wheel barrows, a
wheel barrow being placed at each hammer. When
hammerman handles flash after forging is trimmed, he
throws it in the wheelbarrow, if the flash and forging
are pushed through the trimming press together. The
checker when counting forgings throws the flash into
the wheel-barrow. One laborer on an average handles
the flash from six hammers.
After the stock is forged or upset the forgings are
handled in different ways, depending on the size and
shape. Stock up-set for hammers is loaded on tote
racks by the operator ready to move to the hammers.
Forgings such as transmission gears, spiders, bevels
and other small parts are counted into the tote box
by the checker at the hammer. Levers, windshields
and long light weight forgings are placed on tote racks
as checked. These forgings are moved in tote boxes
and racks by two electric lift trucks from the hammers
and upsetting machines to the punch presses,
and Trailers Comprehensively Discussed
By E. TONKINf
January, 1925
tumbling room, inspecting department and to the shipping
platform. At each operation that may be required
on the forging, the operator works from the
loaded container performing the operation, then placing
the piece in an empty container. In this way,
handling of forgings except in performing some operation
is eliminated. In addition to the two electric lift
trucks used for moving racks and boxes there are hand
lift trucks with same capacity and lift as the electric
trucks located at the trimming presses, tumbling room
and inspection department for use of operators to
move containers short distances in case no electric
trucks are available.
The heavier forgings such as truck gears and steering
knuckles are counted by the checker into tractor
trailers equipped with boxes. Crankshafts are loaded
on special crankshaft tractor trailers. Axles both
front and rear are also loaded on special axle tractor
trailers. These trailers are moved by the gasoline
tractor. The gears are taken to the punch presses
if there is a center to punch out, then to the heat treat
where they are worked from the trailers into the
furnaces for heat treating, after heat treating and testing
they are pickeled. From the pickling tank they
are loaded directly into trailer and moved back to
inspection department. The crankshafts go from the
hammer to the upsetting machine then to the heat
treat. At the heat treat they are loaded from trailers
into furnaces, then from furnace to furnace, to testing,
pickling, centering, straightening and as inspected, are
loaded on trailers ready to ship. The axles are moved
to the bulldozer for stretching to length after which
they go to the heat treating; from the trailers they are
loaded into furnaces, heat treated, and tested as loaded
onto trailers then moved to forge shop for straightening
and inspection. An inspector works with the
straightening gang and loads the axles as inspected.
In this way all the heavy forgings are delivered to
shipping platform on trailers ready for shipping gang
to load.
The loading of cars is done by piecework. Thirtytwo
and one-half cents per ton for automobile gears,
levers, windshields and small parts. Twenty-four
cents per ton for truck gears, knuckles and medium
sized forgings and 15c per ton for axles and crankshafts.
These prices include openng the car doors,
cleaning out the cars, placing and fastening the truck
plates and closing the doors after the car is loaded.
The loading gang consists of three men with one electric
lift truck. One man looks after the gang and lines
up the material to be loaded according to his list, while
the other two, one of these driving the electric truck
move the tote boxes, racks and trailers into the car.
1 hese two men count the forgings off at the same time
being checked by the gang leader. The rate of pay is
*Paper presented at a meeting of the American Drop divided Forg­ among the three according to their responsiing
Institute held at Pittsburgh. October 2 and 3. 1924. bilities The checker gets 36 per cent of tonnage, the
tEngineer of Production, Union Switch & Signal Co. truck driver 33 per cent and the laborer gets 31 per