US1221874A - Method of making alloys. - Google Patents

Description

HUNDREIDTHS T WALTER D. EDMONDS, 0F BOONVILLE, NEW YORK.

METHOD or MAKING ALLOYS.

No Drawing. Application filed February To all whom it may concern:

Be it known thatl, IsAnoR LADOFF, a citizen of the United States, residing at Wilkinsburg, in the county of Allegheny and State of Pennsylvania, have invented certain new and\ useful Improvements in Methods of Making Alloys, of which the following is a specification.

My present invention relates particularly to the making of such alloys as that for example known as high speed steel, which depend for their utility and perfection-upon alloy incorporation with a ferro metal of as definite respective quantities and propor-' as possible of a plurality of certain rarer,harder, and more diflicultly workable metals, these being, in this instance, tungsten, chromium andv vanadium, the which respectively contribute to impart to the so called steel final product well known desired characteristics and behaviors, such as superior hardness, tensile strength, resistance, 'etc., and'the objects of my invention comprise provision of procedures whereby a suitable alloy of 'such rarer metals, and, by aid thereof such final products can be produced with greater economy, certainty, and by less highly skilled labor than formerly.

I believe that hitherto in the manufacture of high speed steel for example, it has-been the invariable practice to add to the predominant molten ferro metal bath separately, the preliminarily separately pro- 5 duced binary alloys of ferro metal, iron, for, example, and respectively tungsten, chromium, vanadium in, as nearly as could be thus produced and ascertained, the desired proportions. This procedure has not an only involved three separate preliminary operations .for production of the three separate alloys thus employed, but also dificulty' in uniformly producing successive batches of each of said alloys in desired identity 45 of composition, and consequent difficulty in sufliciently accurately calculating and weighing the respective quantities of each of said alloys to be separately added-to the bath of ferro metal under tlOIlS quired for proper melting ordissolution of these separately produced binary ferro alloys of these rarer, more refractory metals have proved undesirably expensive, and the relatively long time required, and relatively Specification of Letters Patent.

treatment. More- 50 over, the degree and amount of heat re- Patented Apr, 10, 19W.

25,1916. Serial n6. 80,393.

extensive surfaces of said separately added alloys exposed during the relatively long time required to so melt them, has undesirably exposed said rarer metals to oxidation, etc., and undesirably promoted segregation of resulting compounds and gases in the charge and final product.

My present invention is based upon my discovery that the aforesaid, and other difliculties and imperfections of previous practice can be greatly ameliorated, or for the most part entirely overcome, by the preliminary production of a single alloy of ferro metal with all of the said rarer and more refractory metals to be added to the ferro bath in order to produce the desired final product. 1

Thus, in the manufacture of high speed steel, I preliminarily produce a quaternary alloy of iron with tungsten, chromium and vanadium, each of the three last mentioned metals being in the respective interrelated proportions and total quantity required for the particular operation and final product in view, and this quaternary alloy of which the said rarer metals in their aggregate should preferably constitute not less than at least fifty per cent. 1 ferro bath to be treated, in quantity calculated to impart to the latter suflicient of said rarer metals, in required respective proportime I have further discovered that, for the purpose of adding it to a bath of ferro metal in the manufacture of high speed tool steels, the aforesaid preliminary, quaternary, alloy of ferro metal with tungsten,

chromium, and vanadium is more effective, more econom cally made, and with greater certainty as to proportions, effective and superior results by such direct reduction methods at temperatures lower than those of fusion of the respective metals, as are disclosed, or claimed, in Letters Patent No. 1,040,699, and No. 1,042,694, granted .to me respectively on the 8th day of October, 1912 on the 29th. day of October, 1912, and in my pending application for patent Serial Number 55,418, fi1ed October 12, 1915.

Such metals may be summarized as consisting essentially of commingling the oxids of the respective metals and in presence of a carbonaceous agent reducing them at temperatures lower than those of fusion of the said metals.

then add, to the and with more By my said methods of producing my 'peratures than any binary alloy such as forprellminary quaternary alloy, I have much merly employed; and particularly also to better control, quantitatively as well as the fact that the surface presented to oxidaqualitatively, of all the constituents of the t1on by my multiplex alloy 1n comparison alloy, and produce it with less temperature to its weight and volume, is, other things cost, and with less risk of segregation at beln equal less than those of an equivalent any stage of the entire process. num er an quantity of binary alloys.

y said preliminary produced ferro alloy What claim as new and desire to secure containing the said three other 'metals, in by Letters Patent is the following, viz:

' re uired. ro ortions, I incor orate in re- 1. The method of makin hi h s eed tool q P P P g P tained, molten, ferro bath under treatment, mg at a single heat, a quaternary alloy of a and containing the usual more or less purev erro metal with tungsten, chromium and iron, carbon, manganese, etc. (After main- Vanadium, and of which alloy the said tungtaining the usually required temperatures sten, chromium and vanadium constitute, in sufficiently long and high, to insure melting their aggregate, not less than fifty per cent., of the thus ad ed alloy and its dissolution and thereafter melting the said alloy in a 1n the bath, the resulting melt is teamed, bath of ferro metal not comprised in said cast, or otherwise treated as usual to proalloy.

duce the desired final product. 2. The method of making high speed steel y my present invention above described, which comprises commingling with a ferro- I attain, among other things, the followin metal or its oxid oxids of tungsten, chrothe said rarer metals; also economy in heat of the melting points of their respective required, I having also discovered that it metals, and thereafter melting the resulting requires less expenditure of energy to proa loy in a bath of molten ferro-metal.

duce my one multiplex ferro alloy with the 3. An alloy comprising a ferro-metal said three more refractory metals than to tungsten, chromium and vanadium, and o produce a binary alloy of one only of such which its aggregate of tungsten, chromium igetals with]1 a ffero; also avqidance of oxand vanadium constitutes over fifty per cent. i ation, an o orma 10D 0 se egationinducing deleterious compounds ogases in ISADOR LADOFF' the bath treated, and in the final product, Witnesses:

due to my single quaternary alloy melting or A. M. Coos, v

dissolving more rapidly and at lower tem- JAS. E. SWISSHELM.