For domestic dishes they also made wooden tubs, plates, spoons, ladles and the like.
In fact, the molten iron is heated so far above its melting point that, instead of being run at once into pigs as is usual, it may, without solidifying, be carried even several miles in large clay-lined ladles to the mill where it is to be converted into steel.
The glass is taken from the furnace in large iron ladles, which are carried upon slings running on overhead rails; from the ladle the glass is thrown upon the cast-iron bed of a rolling-table, and is rolled into sheet by an iron roller, the process being similar to that employed in making plate-glass, but on a smaller scale.
The former contains a mixture of semi-solid and molten metal, which is raked out into iron ladles and cast into plates of 66 to 77 lb weight, to be sold as "spelter."
In foreign mints the molten metal is generally transferred from the crucible to the moulds by dipping crucibles or iron ladles covered with clay.
