Electric Cast Iron Pipe and Prepared, or Factory‐Made, Lead Joints

Humble as were the installations of cast iron pipe two or three hundred years ago, today the arteries supporting the very life of every large modern city of the world consist of cast iron. Their important service to the community and the large investment in them warrant a careful study of any improvements that are offered. Piping must be of sufficient strength to resist the practical conditions of handling, transporting, laying in trenches, and such external and internal pressures and shocks as may from time to time arise. The ability of the individual lengths of pipe to withstand the stresses before they are actually put into permanent service depends entirely upon the inherent strength of the metal itself; but, as a finished line, the combined effect of the stresses due to pressure, shock, water-hammer, contraction, expansion and deflection will mostly depend upon the resiliency of the joints between the individual pipes. Joints in service must be flexible, yet remain tight. Factory-made prepared joints? When one considers the rapid strides made in factory processes for eliminating the high cost of doing work, the novelty of a factory-made lead joint for cast iron pipe does not appear irrational. Take, for example, the large amounts of labor that are now saved on shoes, on clothes, on building, and, indeed, on almost everything we use, by making up the parts at the factory instead of in the home or field, and the simple assembling of these parts into the finished article. With lead joints a far greater uniformity is obtained by making them at the foundry and shipping them as an integral part of the pipe to the job. The American Cast Iron Pipe Company ships