Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/891

 Popular Science Montlily

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��An Electric Iron With a Headlight /\N electric iron for pressing fine MX. linen, elaboriite center- pieces and similar articles, where extreme care is highly important, has a small elec- tric lamp in the same position that a head lamp occupies on a locomotove. The lamjD is shielded from accidental blows by a metal cap at- tached to the end of the han- dle, the shield also serving as a reflector, concentrating the light upon the work in hand, and preventing the rays from shining in the eyes of the operator. The lamp is con- nected across the heating coils, taking its current from the cord which runs to the socket.

����This electric iron with a headlight is just the thing for ironing when it is neces- sary to use special care

How Record-Breaking Girders Were Handled

TO erect record-breaking girders weighing up to one hundred and thirteen tons and up to one hundred and thirty-two feet long, in connection with grade-crossing elimination work in Chicago, required a plant unusually sturdy and capable of c|uick work, livery operation had to be known beforehand; for two of the five spans were over high-speed tracks where a maximum of only two hours' interruption ito tracks could be allowed. That the 'calculations of the bridge engineers was

��By planning each move beforehand, these huge girders, weighing over a hundred tons each, were handled easily

��correct is evidenced by the fact that the fifteen girders were all placed without exceeding the allotted time.

A tower was designed which would straddle the track below, its columns or legs resting on wheels which rolled along the rails, so as to enable the workmen to place it at the exact spot desired. The tower was then securely l)locked up on sills and the lower cross-bracing remoN'ed to allow the heavy girders carried on four steel flat cars to run beneath. A huge pair of hooks then took hold of the girder by its upper flange and lifted it to the proper elevation, so that it could be swung around until its end bearings would come over the steel columns, whereupon it was lowered into place. Power to raise the girders was supplied by giant derrick-cars through steel cables, one of which may be seen near the top of the rail in the accom- l)anying illustration.

Removable leg sections or "gates" in the rear of the tower pro\ided for dis- engaging it from the girder just erected and moving it to the next. After the three girders in one span were in place, the tower was jacked up on a bed of greased rails along which it was slid across the tracks to the next span.

The girder, when hoisted in the air, could be moved only a trifle endwise be- cause of its weight, and hardly at all laterally. .

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