PERRINS'S PROCESS FOR IRON AND STEEL TUBES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12450, 5 September 1902, Page 6

PERRINS'S PROCESS FOR IRON AND STEEL TUBES.

TO THE EDITOK. Sir.—With reference to my Setter on the above process, which appeared in your issue of yiay 10 last, the writer of tlia article at the foot of'it must have been looking through his rasiest'of 'rosy spectacles when he wrote it. I wrote to an okl friend in England, who alfo "i-3 a large tube manufacturer, and knows as ■ much of the manufacture and also of tile ii'on and steel-tube trade as any mail living, and lie replies by last mail: — " Now about the " Perrins's ''process of making tubes. Perrins claimed to make tubes by his process from puddled bars, and on this assumption he sold his patent to a syndicate having- a capital of £305,000. AVhy the odd £5000 in such a sum I cannot- explain; however, the Perrins syndicate ran a works lit Jlonmore Green, Wolverhampton (England), to show would-be buyers of licenses how it' could be done whenever such wanted tr> bee the process in. actual -work. All the English makers (with the .exception of myself), went there to see the process. Some of thorn took the option of using the process —just to.sit on the fence and wait developments. No English or Scotch makers to.ok up the process, but about a year ago the South Durham Iron Company, at Stocktcn-on-Tees, became, through their managers, interested in this wonderful method of tube-making—it iseemed so easy, from reading the papers supplied by the syndicate, and that tubes could be made so good and so cheap that they purchased a license, and put down machinery to make 2in tubes. They found that it was necessary to make from finished sectional iron, and so Perrins's groat saving in making from the puddled bar sections failed. They have simply made the 2in size only, and only work now and again. I hear they have sold what they made in long lengths at £8 per ton, delivered to South Staffordshire, and that they have thousands of ■ short lengths cut from the defective lengths that they cannot market. I expect they will not long continue to make —indeed, if they had been a small firm, they would have discontinued making directly thoy found the difficulties of making as compared with the old, simple process of tube-making, inaugurated by old Cornelius Whitehouse —a process which is still used by the cute American makers, who for tubes up to not yet superseded it, notwithstanding their desire- to lick all creation in labour-saving methods of manufacture. " To make Perrins' s system clear to you I may say that his patent consists of making a tube out of four sectional bars, and then welding 'them together by rolling lengthways through rolls

to diminish them to the required size, and this is the whole patent. The bars are alxwt 2m in Gdcg long, and the sections about lin thick. To make a 2in gas tube this has to be ro!i«l down to 7 gauge (or tlireesixteenths of an inch). This process cannot, as you well know on consideration, be dona so cheaply as making tubes from the strip." I may mention that Cornelius Whitehouso's process is .about 60 or 65 years old. In your issue of July 23 last you have another nrticlo on this subject, in which you mention " gas, water, and steam pipes." They arc all the same article, except that waterpipes are a little thicker or stronger than gaspipes, and stenin-pipce are a, little stronger than water-pipes. As a. rule, gas-pipes are not painted. Water-pipes nro generally painted blue, and steam-piptis a red colour; but many dpalers buy gas-pipes, have them, well proved, paint them a red colour, and sell them as steam-pipes, the steam-pipes realising about 10 or 15 per cent, more an price than the gas-pipes.—l am, etc., J. WICLIFFE EaILIK. Dunedin September 1.