That ill winds at times blow beneficially is borne out by the history of the Heppenstall Forge & Knife Co., Pittsburgh. In 1893, four years after its predecessor company, the Trethewey Mfg. Co., was organized, it received a cancellation of an order for a 7,000-pound double frame steam hammer. This, thereupon, was installed in its own plant and from such a humble beginning sprang the large forging business of the Heppenstall company which today amounts approximately to 25,000 tons of forgings annually.

      The present president of the Hepnenstall company, Sam Heppenstall. the fifth generation of a family of steel men, learned to be a sheet roller with the John Brown Co., Sheffield, England, whose converter plant was in charge of his father. At the request of Henry Disston & Sons, Philadelphia, the son came to this country in 1867 to become their superintendent of rolling mills, where he was the first man to roll saw steel successfully. Ten years later, he located in Pittsburgh, assuming charge of the rolling mills of Howe, Brown & Co.

      In 1889. He, with others, organized the Trethewey Mfg. Co. for the manufacture of rolling mill machinery, specializing in rolling mill shears and single as well as double frame steam hammers. This company was the first to produce a successful steam drop hammer and a few years later, attracted considerable attention by taking up the manufacture of shear knives, being the first exclusive producer of rolling mill. shears in the United States.

      Five years after the Trethewey Mfg. Co. had taken up the making of forgings, or in 1898, the name of the company was changed to the Pittsburgh Shear & Knife Machine Co. In 1902. it sold the hammer and shear portion of its business to the Erie Foundry Co., taking up the exclusive manufacture of forgings and shear knives. Two years later the name of the company again was changed to the Heppenstall Forge 8 Knife Co.

      Rotary shears were manufactured as well as sheet and tin plate shears and the standard sheet and tin plate mill shears of today carry but slight modifications of the shears as then produced by the Heppenstall company. It built the first rotary shear for shearing boiler heads up to 1½ inches thick. The company's forging business commenced to develop along general lines although it made a specialty of die blocks, wheels for turbines, electrical machinery, shafts and rolling machinery forgings.

      As a result of an investigation of steam hydraulic presses in England in 1907, this company installed one at its Pittsburgh plant, which was said to be the first in the country. Six presses of this type, the largest of which is a 1500-ton press, now are operated in this plant in connection with its forging operations.

Information Sources

• The Iron Trade Review, V71, 28 Sept., 1922, pg. 846