Cranes driven by shafting, or by mechanical power, have been largely superseded by electric cranes, principally on account of the much greater economy of transmission.
Recently the practice of driving rolls by electricity has been growing, the advantage being that each pair of rolls can be driven independently without the intervention of cumbrous shafting.
The driving power is applied by shafting through a number of cams. In the Royal Mint both light and heavy coins are returned to the melting pot.
The combination of ductility, which lessens the tendency to break when overstrained or distorted, with a very high limit of elasticity, gives it great value for shafting, the merit of which is measured by its endurance of the repeated stresses to which its rotation exposes it whenever its alignment is not mathematically straight.
C. Greenhill treated the problem of the centrifugal whirling of an unloaded shaft with different supporting conditions in a paper On the Strength of Shafting exposed both to torsion and to end thrust, Proc. Inst.
