Vyisky plant

The plant is based on the Vyya River, a tributary of the Tagil River, 50 versts north of the Nevyansk Plant , 2 versts from the Nizhny Tagil Plant , within the modern city of Nizhny Tagil ^[1] .

Vyiska smelter

Smelters of Vyisky Zavod

By decree of the Berg College on December 20, 1720, Nikita Demidov was allowed to build a copper plant and smelter copper there with the obligation to supply half of (and after - a third) of smelted pure copper to the treasury. By 1722, 6 smelting furnaces were built at the plant, then it became 10. The plant was launched on November 23, 1722, the first copper smelting took place. However, the ore turned out to be poor in copper content and in 1726-1727 the plant ceased to function, and on May 14, 1729 the plant burned down. After the fire at the plant, only 2 smelting furnaces were restored, in which copper was refined in an amount of 200-300 pounds delivered from other plants ^[1] . In the 1740s, black copper was refined from the Kolyvan plant . ^[2] . Behind the plant there were 8 copper mines in 3-18 versts with a low copper content in ore, up to 0.6%, moreover, they were already depleted by 1797 ^[1] .

In 1814, the Copper ore deposit near Vysokaya Mountain with a rich copper content began to be developed. The daily smelting from 425 pounds in 1855 increased to 1,078 pounds in 1862, while the average copper grade in the 1840–1850s was 2.4–2.9%. In 1897, the plant completed an order for the railway, increasing ore production and the number of operating copper smelters from 14 to 34. In 1916, the Mednorudyansky mine was mined, ore reserves estimated at 4 million pounds could yield no more than 124.8 thousand pounds of copper, which could provide a plant for a year, but production costs were greater. The plant did not have any prospective deposits. Due to the complete depletion of the ore base in 1916, the plant was stopped ^[1] .

By a decree of the Council of People's Commissars of January 31, 1918, the plant was first nationalized, and then closed in 1918. The equipment was moved to other plants, but mainly, as scrap metal, it went into smelting at the Nizhny Tagil plant ^[1] .

Vyisk Iron Mill

After the fire of 1729, two blast furnaces were built at the plant, one of which was a spare one, a hammer factory with 3 screaming horns and 2 hammers (live and clapper), and an iron smelting production was launched. However, by 1742, according to the description of I. G. Gmelin, the blast furnaces no longer functioned. In the 1830s, a cupola was just installed, on which cast-iron products were cast ^[1] .

Vyisky Ironworks

Since 1742, the factory had a hammer factory with 8 screaming forges, 5 hammers (3 fighting and 2 beater), which processed the cast iron of the Nizhny Tagil plant . So in 1807, strip iron was forged from cast iron of the Nizhny Tagil plant (3 inches wide and 0.5 inches thick). With the increase in copper production, iron production declined, as did the number of critical hammers from 3 pieces in 11807 to 2 pieces in 1837. In the 1850s, critical iron was not produced ^[1] .

By 1722, an earthen dam was built on the Vyya River, then lined with gray stone, and had a length of 1800 meters in 320, 320 meters wide at the bottom 51.2 meters, 29.9 meters at the top and 9.6 meters high, and the formed pond had a length 1.5 versts. According to the General Description of 1797, the plant had a copper smelter with 2 melting furnaces, a shleizofenny factory with 2 shleysophenes, two hammer mills with 10 screaming hearths and 5 hammers ^[1] .

According to berg inspector P.E. Tomilov, in December 1807, two stone screaming factories were listed at the plant. One of these factories had 4 screaming hammers and 4 hearths with 4 prismatic wooden furs; for copper smelting, there remained 2 smelting furnaces and 2 barber shops, 1 bayonet furnace, but no melting was done. The second factory had 6 hammers, 6 screaming forges with 4 prismatic wooden furs, 4 forging forges. There were also 14 water wheels (10 combat and 4 fur). In 1815, the plant already had 4 copper-smelting furnaces, 1 shleizofen and 2 barns for the hearth, and in 1846 - 32 copper smelters, 3 shlezofenov and 4 barns for the hearth, and in 1860 - 74 copper smelters, 6 shlezofenov and 7 barns for the hearth. The increase in productivity was achieved by increasing the volume of furnaces, increasing the power of blasting, utilizing heat, introducing new technologies, so round copper smelting furnaces with 2-3 tuyeres of the production of the 1830s were replaced by multi-tuft furnaces of a larger volume of production of the 1840-1850s ^{[1 ]} .

In 1859, the Rashet system furnace was launched with 24 tuyeres with a capacity of up to 3 thousand pounds per day, also at that time elliptical furnaces with 10 tuyeres in the rear and front walls were launched. Copper smelting furnaces with a height of up to 2.84 meters and a capacity of up to 4 thousand pounds of charge per day produced from 100 pounds of ore 12 pounds of second grade cupperstein (containing up to 45% copper), which was fired in heaps, and then melted in the same furnaces blister copper. From 100 poods of second grade cupperstein, 12 to 18 poods of blister copper and 30 poods of first grade cupferstein (spurstein) with a copper content of 60% were obtained. Blister copper was refined in double-tuft spleysophenes, the burn-off was 14%. When furnaces operated 3 four-cylinder blowers. At the same time, the energy economy in the 1850s was represented by 2 water wheels with a capacity of 50 liters. with. and 3 steam engines with a capacity of 26 hp ^[1] .

In the 1870s, the plant had 19 mine smelting furnaces (12 small trapezoidal 7-tuyere, 5 elliptic with 10 tuyeres, 1 large rectangular 16-tuyere converted from Rashetovskaya, 1 large 26-tuyere system of Major General Rashet), 6 shleizofenov and 7 barber shops for horns. Air to the furnaces was supplied by 4 horizontal blower cylinders. The smelting process took place according to the "German method": cupperstein and its further processing were carried out exclusively in shaft furnaces ^[1] .

In the 1860s, furnaces were switched over to hot blasting, which resulted in fuel savings of 20%. In 1879, 6 stoves were launched - krumofen, which were heated by Lunev coal, but were recognized uneconomical and were dismantled in 1882. But since 1886, instead of charcoal, ore was smelted using mineral fuel - Lunevsky coal with the addition of coke, mixed in a ratio of 5 to 1. In 1895-1896, two new copper smelting furnaces were launched, for the first time in the Urals, with walls of caissons along which cooling water circulated. In 1897, a new Swedish-type regenerative furnace for copper cleaning and a new steam engine were also launched. In 1898, the dam was completely repaired, the chest was rebuilt in the working slot, and 2 Girard water turbines were installed. In 1899, a new blower machine with an Akme fan was launched. In 1900, an electric slag lifter was built and electric lighting of the plant was introduced. In 1901, a steam engine with a capacity of 80 liters was delivered to 6 cylindrical bellows. with. and installation of two new steam engines and four fans began. In 1900, the plant had 24 shaft furnaces of circular cross section with 10-11 lances for smelting the ore charge, 3.66 meters high, with a diameter of 1.22 meters below, 1.73 meters above. The air in them was supplied by a vertical blower machine with a capacity of 80 liters. s., delivering up to 453 cubic meters of compressed air per minute, and 4 fans of the Akme system, giving 680 cubic meters, which were launched with the help of a steam engine of the Shihau plant with a capacity of 150 liters. with.

In 1820-1840, serf mechanics worked at the plant, father and son Miron and Efim Cherepanov invented, with which they built more than 20 steam engines (sumps, ore-lifting, nailing, screw-cutting, planing, gold-washing) with a capacity of 5-60 liters. with. And in 1834 the first steam locomotive was built in Russia (“land steamer”, “steamboat Dilijan”), transporting iron ore weighing 3.5 tons at a speed of 12-15 km / h on rails at a distance of 857 meters. In 1835, they built a second steam locomotive with a carrying capacity of 1000 pounds (16.38 tons), and in 1836 a cast-iron road was constructed from Vyisky Zavod to the Copper Mine ^[1] .

At the end of the XIX century, it was planned to transport copper ore from the place of its extraction to the Vyisky plant three versts ) by rail. However, horse-drawn carriage contractors and board members of the Nizhny Tagil factories were opposed to the railway, so these plans were not implemented.

According to the second revision of 1747, the plant employed 637 people (352 - laid salaries, 170 - who do not remember kinship, 102 - left before the decree (serfs) and 83 - bought serfs). According to the General inventory of 1797, there were already 839 people at the plant (833 - own factory owners and 6 - data from the treasury, there were no registered peasants). According to the description of Tomilov P.E. in 1807 there were 860 people at the plant (163 - own factory owners, 687 - forever given, 10 - data from the treasury). In 1860, the plant had 1,168 people. In 1910, the number of the plant decreased to 853 workers (mining - 634, auxiliary - 219 people) ^[1] .

The owners of the plant in different years were ^{[1] [3]} :

• Nikita Demidov (1722-1725);
• Demidov, Akinfiy Nikitich (1725-1745);
• Demidov, Nikita Nikitich (1745-1758);
• Demidov, Prokofy Akinfievich (1758—);
• Demidov, Pavel Pavlovich .

Over the entire period of its operation, the plant smelted 135 thousand tons (8 242 thousand pounds) of blister copper from 4713 thousand tons (287 729 thousand pounds) of ore with an average copper content of 2.86%.