avoided. In some foreign works the webs are swaged in dies in their proper positions at right angles.
Miscellaneous Forgings. Connecting and coupling rods are forged solid out of slabs of mild steel,
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Fig. 12.—Buffer Forging
the middle portions being hammered down to a rectangular section, and the ends, which have to be of special shapes, being swaged
in blocks cut out to suit those shapes. The whole work is done under the steam hammer.
Buffer heads form a good example of forging in die blocks under a steam hammer. They are usually made of wrought iron scrap, piled and heated in the furnace and hammered into “blooms.” Each bloom is then re-heated and hammered in suitably shaped blocks into the form shown in Fig. 12a, with a shank about 2 ft. long having a ball about 7 in. in diameter at one end. The shank is then placed in other blocks of which a section is shown at B, for the steam hammer to flatten the ball and form the head of the buffer. The bottom of the three blocks is firmly secured to the anvil of the steam hammer.
