25 High Quality Pictures from Chase Copper and Brass Productions in Euclid, Ohio Circa 1942

Because it's important to keep dirt and moisture from refrigeration tube, it is packaged in individual envelopes.

These men are pushing a factory platform truckload of coiled brass and copper strips to the shipping platform of the mill.

As extruded rod comes from the extrusion machine, it is too hot to handle. It is put under a cold water spray, then sent to the saws to be cut to shorter lengths for further operations.

When "slabs" (brass or copper castings in the form of long flat cakes) are being passed rolls, the first step in making sheet metal. A series of passes back and forth through various rolls reduces the "slabs" to thickness desired.

Strip copper and brass is usually passed through rolls many times before the desired thickness is obtained. This is placing a roll of strip into a feed box at the entrance to the rolls for intermediate rolling.

. Large rolls of sheet brass and copper ready for the slitting machine, where the roll edges will be trimmed off. These unfinished rolls will all be slit into even-edged, uniform width rolls.

These bundles of finished seamless copper tubes are ready to be shipped. The Army, the Navy, and our vital industries use corrosion-resistant copper tube for pipelines that must not fail from the rust.

This is the busy shipping platform of a brass mill. An electric crane is lowering a case of tubes on a truck. Other finished brass and copper rod, wire, and tubes are on the platform packed and ready to ship.

Coils of brass and copper metal are loaded into a freight car and shipped to factories where it is fabricated into thousands of metal parts needed for our war program, or to our airplane submarine, or ship-building industries to become parts of their production.

Here is a freight car load of copper and brass on its way to our industries, where it will be manufactured into parts for airplanes, tanks, guns and ships.

When "slabs" (brass or copper castings in the form of long flat cakes) are cast, the upper end of the casting, the last part poured, is apt to be slightly blown and drossy. This end is cut off by large shears before the casting is sent to the mill to be fabricated into sheet metal.

Copper tube is made either by extrusion or piercing. In the piercing method, illustrated here, a hot round billet, or solid piece of copper, about fourty-five inches long, is rotated between tapered rolls and forced against a pointed mandrel which pierces the center of the billet. The billet then emerges in the form of a tube about eleven feet long.

Intermediate rolling operation on strip. Strip brass and copper, cast as thick heavy cakes, is reduced by successive rolling to lighter gauge sheet, strip, bar, plate, wire or foil. Here's one of the intermediate rolls used in the production of strip. The man is coiling the strip as it comes from the rolls.

Gaging copper rotating bands. These bands are sawed from long copper tubes, machined to size, serrated and applied like a collar to projectiles. These copper rotating bands fit the serrations inside gun barrels, and make the projectile rotate as it is shot from the gun. The man in this picture is checking the diameter of the bands as they come from the saws, before they are machined.

An inspector in a cartridge case shop examining cartridge case blanks or discs for flaws in metal structure. Any flaws in the blanks can be easily detected in the freshly- cut edges after they are wiped clean. These circular blanks, which are cut on a press from heavy sheet brass, are drawn and formed into shell cases.

This man is the operator of a tow motor--the jitney of the brass mill. His electric motor tows trucks of brass and copper, in between operations from one machine to another, and then pull cars of finished products to the loading platforms, where they are loaded into motor freight trucks or railroad freight cars for shipping.

Stocks of partially completed lengths of seamless copper tube in many sizes. These have still to go through several more draws through dies on drawbenches. Each draw reduces them in diameter and wall thickness, and lengthens them out. Then, before the tubes leaves the mill, the ends will be sawed off straight and clean.

Bundles of various sizes brass, copper, and bronze rod in the shipping room of a brass and copper mill. These will be manufactured into shafting for boats, or sawed into short lengths and machined to make fuse components or any of hundreds of solid brass parts for guns, ammunition, instrument vehicles or vessels.

Gaging drawn brass bar. Brass or copper supplied in bars finds many uses in the Navy. Most frequently it is cut to short lengths and machined to form parts of machinery, guns, and other implements of war. While dimensions are apt to vary, even slightly, close tolerances as to width and thickness must be observed. Here an inspector is checking dimensions with a micrometer.

Coils of copper water tube. Large quantities of copper tube are needed by our Army and Navy, and vital industries. The smaller sizes are used for oil lines on equipment producing defense products and for fuel lines on tanks and other mechanized equipment. Single lengths up to sixty feet are coiled for convenience in handling and shipping.

This sample of brass strip is being tested on a Rockwell Hardness Testing Machine. This test is based upon the depth a steel ball penetrates the metal. A minor load is applied first to hold the ball in position, and then a major load is applied. The dial on the machine measures the depth of the penetration. This test is made to check the physical properties of the metal.

Drawing seamless copper tube. Rough cast tubes tapered at one end to fit through a die are gripped in the tongs of the electric motor-driven vehicle on the drawbench and pulled or "drawn" through the die to be reduced to the desired size. Tubes usually are redrawn many times; each successive "draw" reduces the diameter, and increases the length. Brass tubes need to be annealed or softened between each draw, but copper tubes can be drawn several times without intermediate annealing. The tapered nose of the tubes may be seen just behind the drawbench operator.

Pickling lengths of copper water tube in a brass and copper mill. After annealing, or softening by heat to reduce brittleness and allow further drawing, tubes are "pickled" in a sulphuric acid solution to remove oxide and scale that result from the anneal. Bundles of the tubes are picked up by electric cranes and transported from the pickle to a rinse bath of water. The tubes are then returned to the drawbench for re-drawing down to smaller diameters.

Many parts and products used by the Army and the Navy must stand up under severe service conditions. Here the strength of a specimen of brass is being determined. The results of these tests enables engineers to select metals that have the strength and stiffness needed for various machined parts for guns and equipment. This testing machine records the tensile of yield strength of a metal specimen--its resistance to being pulled apart. A specimen in the machine is pulled until it breaks, and the load necessary to break is recorded. A meter attached to the specimen measures the amount of stretching.

Drawing seamless copper tube. Rough cast tubes tapered at one end to fit through a die are gripped in the tongs of the electric motor-driven vehicle on the drawbench and pulled or "drawn" through the die to reduce them to the desired size. Tubes usually are redrawn many times; each successive "draw" reduces the diameter, and increases the length. Brass tubes need to be annealed or softened between each draw, but copper tubes can be drawn several times without intermediate annealing. The tapered nose of the tubes may be seen just behind the drawbench operator. The tube is checked with a micrometer after being drawn, to make sure it is the right diameter. The man looking through the short section of tube is inspecting the inner surface for flaws.

Photographer: Palmer, Alfred T.

Source Collection: Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress)

Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print