Electricity, Pneumatic Tools & Compressed Air in Stone

["Peggy B. Perazzo" <pbperazzo@zzzzzzzzzzz>]

Hello:  I am sending the excerpt below for those of you who are
interested in historical quarry tool information.  It came from the
USGS Mineral Resources of the United States, 1896, publication
(citation at the end).  Peggy Perazzo

Electricity in Stone Quarries and Yards.

The following is an abstract of an article in Stone for July, 1896:

The transmission of power through the agency of electricity has been
tried at a number of European stone quarries, and notably by the
Hainaut quarries, at Soignies, Belgium. By the present process of
transmitting power by steam there is much loss by condensation of
steam in passing through long pipes, particularly in cold weather. By
the use of electricity this is of course avoided, and the number of
employees needed is reduced. The quantity of fuel necessary is much
smaller, while the ease with which speed is controlled in electrical
apparatus does away with objections made to steam apparatus because
of its sudden, jerky action, and naturally reduces the expense for
repairs. At the plant above-mentioned a single Sulzer compound engine
of 300 horsepower moves saws and runs two generators for mixed
service, such as lighting, running pumps, capstans, and cranes, etc.
Immense blocks of stone are handled by a traveling crane of 60 tons
capacity run by an electric motor.

The success which has attended the innovations of the Hainaut company
is attested by the fact that in 1894 substantial additions to the
original plant were made.

Pneumatic Tools and Compressed Air.

Pneumatic tools,* at first crude and complicated, have been so
improved that they now deliver 20,000 blows per minute at a pressure
of 80 pounds per square inch. The painful recoil has been done away
with by the use of an air cushion. A machine is used for surfacing
granite, and a larger tool is employed, mounted on a radial arm
supported on a post; these are capable of surfacing 60 square feet of
granite per day. Compressed air, as a means of transmitting power for
other machines, seems to be rapidly replacing steam, which, owing to
leakage and loss of heat, is decidedly less economical than compressed air.

(* Stone, September, 1896)

(The above excerpt is from:  Chapter on Stone, by William C. Day, in
Eighteenth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey, Part
V - Continued, Mineral Resources of the United States, 1896,
Nonmetallic Products, Except Coal. Government Printing Office,
Washington, D. C., 1897, pp. 957.)

Peggy B. Perazzo
pbperazzo@-----------
Stone Quarries and Beyond
http://www.cagenweb.com/quarries/