Falcon Bronze Question

[Towntalk]

Youngstown Car Manufacturing Company?

[Rick Rowlands]

This has been so much fun that we should do it again!  Pick another steel related company to learn about!

[Why?Town]

I guess I get the losing horns

The real answer is very interesting.

[Towntalk]

Wow!

Are there any more companies in the industry that can trace their history back to the 1900's or earlier still here?

[Rick Rowlands]

Same company.  They moved to Lowellville at some point.

[Towntalk]

Thanks much Rick. Is there any connection between today's Falcon Bronze and the Falcon Bronze of the 1907 period?

[Rick Rowlands]

Falcon makes copper cooling equipment for iron and steelmaking furnaces.  The temperatures encountered in furnaces are hotter than the refractory can withstand, but if the refractory is kept at a cooler temperature it can hold together and do its job. By inserting copper castings that have water flowing through them into the refractory, it brings down the temperatures to a level that the refractory can withstand.  Copper is used because it has such a high heat conductivity that most of the heat put to it gets transferred to the cooling water. 

I visited Falcon Foundry in 2009:


Blast furnace tuyeres, or nozzles in which 1500 degree air is injected into a 4000 degree blast furnace.  The tuyere is copper and the only thing keeping it from melting away is the massive amounts of water rushing through it.


Copper pigs for melting


Mold ready to pour


More tuyeres and a couple of rather large copper castings.

[Why?Town]

While waiting for Rick to chime in, I'm going to say bushings (bearings). I don't know that bronze is fragile, per se, just somewhat soft.

[Towntalk]

Rick, admittedly I know absolutely nothing about steel making so you can educate me on this.

Falcon Bronze made things for the steel industry but I always thought that bronze was a fragile metal, so how was it used in steel making?