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| JaQuay Edward Carter posted HOMESTEAD WORKS' OPEN HEARTH #5 My Great Grandfather sweated and toiled here. |
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| Roz Christopherson posted Homestead Works, US Steel, Homestead, Pennsylvania. 1892, 140 Inch Mill Josh Crosbie: Amazing technology for 1892. Much respect! Dan Brewer: WOW !!! Look at all those open gears on that Mill. |
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| Roz Chrisopherson posted Homestead Works, US Steel, Homestead, Pennsylvania 1895, 90-ton ingot |
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| Rox Christopherson posted U.S. Steel, Homestead PA, large ingot,1950s Tim Soom: Caught a couple turns helping the Millwrights work on this 10,000 ton press in the #2 Forge of Homestead Works. Oh, the memories... Paul Pritchard: What's the large chain for ? Calum Learn: Paul Pritchard it is used to support the ingot and rotate it under the press. This was the process before large manipulators were developed. Brandon Ensign: Sure wouldn't want to have to change a masterlink on that... John Brensinger: Brandon Ensign not as bad as you think. We use water crane hoist chain that size at Lehigh Heavy Forge. Sometimes we have to add a section in for larger ingots, and we have to break the chain to do that. A forklift, some heavy pry bars, a sledgehammer, and a chain ratchet gets it done. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works 10,000-ton press. Doug Majka: Huge ring of steel. What do you suppose they're making? Randal McVaney: Doug Majka forge had many orders for Navy nuclear subs and air craft carriers. Randal McVaney: Press is monster but manipulator was amazing once you see this guy never forget. Michael Batzli: US Steel used to be quite the company! Do they even have any forged products now? James Torgeson: Michael Batzli No. Dave Sakson: I was a Millwright at Homestead Works...100" Plate Mill...mostly at the Shears...from time to time when orders were slow, they sent us to different departments...i worked 45" slab mill...160" plate mill...and Structural...i had friends that worked in Forge division, but i never got to work there... Gregory Palenchar: What yr is this? James Torgeson: Gregory Palenchar It’s from a brochure the original poster received in 1975. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted The caption says, "Anvil Forging." [Brian Olson posted the colored "ring of steel" photo above with the comment: "I'm pretty sure this is the same press at US Steel Homestead works."] Kevin O'Connell: Old and very slow way to make a ring forging. Steve Covern: I would not want to stand by that big chain... |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Unknown mill, 1948 Tim Soom: Sure looks like #2 Forge Dept. Homestead Works... |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works putting the 10,000 ton squeeze on an ingot. Joe Chiodo: Is that the press that is sitting by Lowes at the Waterfront? Tim Soom: Joe Chiodo ...no, that's the 12,000 ton press that was in #1 Forge Dept...the 10,000 Ton Press was down at #2 Forge Dept...I spent my last 8 years at Homestead Works in the Forge Dept. Calum Learn: Looks like they are scarfing cracks. One hell of a big press! [So now I wonder what "scarfing cracks" means.] |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Squeezing a 90-Ton ingot with Homesteads 10,000 ton press. Tim Soom: That press that is still standing is the 12,000 ton press that was situated in the #1 Forge building...the 10,000 ton press was in the #2 Forge building...I worked in the Forge Dept. [Another comment indicates that the 12k press was primarily used to make armor plate for the military.] |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Another view of the Homestead Works 10,000-Ton press. Richard Ryaby: It used hydraulic pumps used to make huge motor, generator and turbine armatures. It was in no. 2 forge. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Cold saw cutting two structural beams at Homestead Works. David James: That was obnoxiously loud. I would have to remove the burrs and ream the piling when they cut 27 piling. Kevin-Marlene Lesnansky: Cold saw at WSX was loud. The screech from sliding the beams across the beds was worse. No hearing protection then either. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works hot saw making sparks. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works, charging an open hearth furnace. [Several of the comments discuss the use of the portable pouring spout.] |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Plasma arc cutting at Homestead Works. The 48-inch universal plate mill produced plated from 0.5 to 5 inches thick, 12 to 48 inches long, and a maximum length of 1,200 inches. The 100-inch sheared plate unit was a seven-stand semi-continuous mill with four reheat furnaces. Products ranged for 3/16 to 1.5 inches thick, 27 to 96 inches wide, and up to 100 feet long. The 160-inch mill had one scale-breaking stand and one four-high reversing stand. It was served by two continuous furnaces and four batch furnaces. The mill could produce plates up to 70 feet long, 42 to 150 inches wide, and 3/16 to 15 inches thick. [Per a comment by Ron Frances on Bending Beams, a slight curve was cut in the plate so that the resulting fabricated bridge beam would become straight under load.]F Thomas Fornaciari: USSteel Supply, Chicago had multi-torch machines like that. They were plasma and natural gas cutting torches with waterbeds. Dial paths converted to Numerical Controlled. Kellen Hodge: I ran a Koinke plasma at ATI. I’d be able to get it within an .125 of the customers tolerance. Ran it up til I retired… My book of secrets came with me as I walked into retirement. Bout 10 years using that and I may have picked up a thing or two. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Stacking yard for the Homestead Works 35-inch mill. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Work 90-T flat car. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Putting the squeeze on a 110-ton ingot at the Homestead Works. Peter Hess: What makes this more remarkable, the crane hoist was originally powered by water pressure. Of course, the press was hydraulic powered by a 6,000 h.p. dual steam engine that served eight pumps and a dual set water powered accumulator. The whole damn thing was run on by steam. Of course, the crane and hoist were electrified in later years. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works 100-inch mill. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works 120-inch lathe. Richard Ryaby: I worked as a laborer on this bad boy, sweeping up cuttings The machinist rode on the tool holders. there was a conveyer belt in the center underneath to carry away the rest. I hope they didn't just scrap it. Jorn Jensen: Richard Ryaby Probably went to China or India. Doubt they scrapped it. |
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| Comments on Bob's lathe post |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works 1915. Rick Rowlands: steel ties for narrow gauge mining track. A rare design. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead open-hearth, 1937. Whatever they're doing, it took six men to do it. Kenneth Treharn: If they were having difficulty lancing/opening the tap hole in the opposite side of the furnace, they'd use a long heavy rod. You only had one shot per rod before the rod melted. They'd have to aim/slam the rod down into the bath at the tap hole, hopefully hitting it. The was before the oxygen lance was used.. Geoff Palfrey: A brick jammed in the tap hole? Roland Camp: Probably a piece of manganese used to block the carbon level. Hated to hear the first helper yell "get a rod.". At YSTX Indiana Harbor it seemed we did this mostly on heats that required adding sulphur in the ladle. The odor of burning sulphur drifted over the top of the furnace. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works 1944. David Martin: Plate shears , mashed my fingers many times till I learned how to keep them clear. Dave Sakson: Looks like the 110" Shear Bay @ the 100" Mill... |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works, 1945 Paul Benson: Reportedly produced more steel than Germany, France, and Japan combined that year. Kenneth Treharn: That's the slag thimble catch the impurities, "slag." The steel ladle goes to the left on the "ladle stand." |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works 1946 Calum Learn: Teeming a large "slingot" or slab ingot. There are several photos of this ingot being teemed and stripped I think it was for a large scientific application. [Some comments talk about "hot top ingot" and killed grades, which I don't understand.] |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works, 1954 Kenneth Treharn: We called that, "hanging the runner." We used chains. Basically you partially tilt the runner downward towards the pit by keeping the rear of the runner on the platform. To clean steel/slag out of the runner. The runner has a thick coat of mud to protect the actual steel runner. After cleaning the runner and preparing the tap hole for the next heat, the runner was re-hung into the furnace lugs and the 2nd & 3rd Helpers "mudded the runner" then put a torch, a gas pipe with small flame and some steel sheeting over it to dry the mudded runner completely. Pete T. Kasich: Looks like hanging or removing the spout for the OH tap hole, but when I did it the crane used a chain. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works, 1948. Laurience Vieira: Hammer base in the making Andrew Bowen: Now that's a planer. Bob Ciminel: Can we still make forgings like that in the U.S. today? R Jim Echlin: Bob Ciminel that was likely a casting. Made many of these at Blaw Knox’s foundry in East Chicago, In. The largest for 50,000 pound hammers weighed in excess of 350,000 pounds. And no, there isn’t a single foundry in the US capable of pouring such massive castings. Bob Ciminel: R Jim Echlin I would think a casting that size would have voids or porosity. Is that why they machine them? R Jim Echlin: Bob Ciminel we produced virtually porosity free hammer base castings at Blaw Knox through the use of electric hot topping to assure proper feeding of the casting during solidification. We only machined the bottom surface, the die seat, and the column seats. The base in the picture is being machined on all surfaces- likely to meet dimensional requirements, not for quality issues. Very unusual from my experience. Perhaps it is in fact a forging????? Laurience Vieira: Bob Ciminel The last two we worked on one was from Poland 🇵🇱 the other from Brazil 🇧🇷 don’t know if this helps. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works 1946. The 54-inch Mill is down for awhile. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works, 1963. Tony Pezzotti: Plate mill work roll. Still have them at algoma steel 166 inch’s for plate. Richard Paterra: The width of that roll is stunning. Michael Dellostritto: Homestead works had 3 Machine shops. This item was machined in number 3 Machine shop. The rail car for shipping was very unique. Not many around. That car always sat on lower rails on left side of the Rankin bridge towards Kennywood. Bernie Bielak: You can see where they had a steady rest in the middle to hold the roll in a lathe.. |
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| Comments on above post |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works furnace inspection. Joe DiPietro: That is a Leeds and Northrop disappearing filament pyrometer. You adjust a light bulb until the filament disappears and then read the scale. Used to fix and calibrate them at Process Instruments on south side of pittsburgh. I expect they still do that. Kenneth Treharn I'll give my "Guesstimation." (Pretty long word for a dumb mill hunky!)  The "furnace" is an operating Open Hearth furnace. The man with the steel rod (actually it probably has a 90° scraper on it to push molten slag away to expose the "bath"/steel) is the First Helper or Boss Man of that furnace. The guy looking thru "something" (early battery powered Pyrometer, a instrument used to tell the temperature by the color of the molten steel by looking at the steel while changing colors of the spectrum to match the colors, and then it has numbers for the temperature) he's a Lab Technician. The guy on his knees is probably the Melter, the Boss of all the First Helpers and the Melter makes the final call on heat chemistry and tapping. Usually a salary position. If anything went wrong, his ass got chewed first. This is probably early 1950's and they got a new toy and they're trying it out. Back before "technology" they'd "cut a rod" to see if it was hot enough to tap. They First Helpers would stick a long rod thru the wicker hole down thru the slag into the bath. Time it the see how long the rod took to melt to estimate the temperature. It was an acquired skill. Later we used a probe with a long cord back to the panel box. It was similar to how this first helper is going thru the wicker hole into the bath. A heavy cardboard tube with a metal sensor on the end. This protected the probe and also registered the temperature on the gauge at the panel board. Whee, like they said a picture is worth a thousand words. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works, 1954. Kenneth Treharn: That's the Open Hearth Melt Shop in the background. I see smoke coming out of #2 #4 #5, I can't see if #1 is running, probably it is. 1954 must have been a downturn in business for them. The Open Hearth Melt Shop I worked at, four operating Furnaces were the least we'd run when business was slow. Btw, nice fire truck. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works ingot reheating furnace. Graham Whitfield: The ‘Rippled’ surface on the Ingots seems to be uniquely American. At British Steel Llanwern Works in the 1970’s we imported Ingots from Spain, Holland, Germany and the USA as our Slabbing Mill capacity outstripped Steelmaking production. The American Ingots when heated to Rolling temperature were terrific to Roll and quality wise were superb. They came from U.S.Steel but I can’t remember which Plant. Memorable times with some terrific workmates. Bill Henry: We called those corrugated ingots. Rick Rowlands: The fluted surface of ingots is indicative of a Gathmann design which reduces surface defects by controlling the crystallization of the steel as it solidifies. Gathmann Engineering would license its patents for the production of ingot molds to their designs until the patents ran out. Now it is pretty much standard practice to design fluted molds for most ingots. [There are several more interesting comments on this post.] |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works 1960 |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works 1915 - caption says pouring from Open Hearth #3. Patrick Klimek: Teeming ingots. Lloyd Hanning: Nice to see everything working correctly, ESPECIALLY the stopper rods! Man! When they didn’t shut off, what a mess! Cleaning up was even messier. Kenneth Treharn: That's the "Steel Pourer" using the lever. That's the job title in the Open Hearth I worked at. Behind him is the "Observer" or possibly the "Platform Man" , we also had a "Platform Helper." I operated a Ladle crane for a few years before taking a Charging Machine job. Later they had a hydraulic cylinder called an "Auto-Pour" to raise and lower the stopper rod. Much later most Melt Shops went to the "Slide Gate" for pouring Steel. Carl Jacobson: At USS Ohio Works we called those open top moulds. You could put hot tops on them. We had 2 types of hot tops; one type was a 14 inch high rectangle of refractory material that resembled a cement block. It was about 2 inches thick and was held in the top of the mould with wood wedges. The ring was about 2/3 in the mould and 1/3 above it. The other type of hot top was about a foot long and looked like compressed cardboard about 5/8 inch thick. There were 4 pieces for each mould. They were held in place by banding material that fit into a slot of the piece and was bent by hand over the edge of the mould. We had a platform with a crew of guys that put hot tops on moulds every shift. My understanding is that the hot tops reduced piping in the top of the ingot. Mark Dinzeo: Love the leather spatz. I had to wear them as a slab burner. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works, 1958. Looks brand new. Rick Rowlands: That was the occasion of the photo. First load in the 150 ton Pollock cars. These cars were specially built to be twice the capacity of the 75 ton Kling cars and to fit the same runner spacing as the Klings. They were 10 axle due to light axle loadings at some of the places these went to as they served all the USS plants in the Mon Valley. Mark Dinzeo: Looks like slag coming out. Must the “burn in” or the first time it was used. Kenneth Treharn: Made by William B. Pollock Co. Youngstown, Ohio. A great manufacturer of Steel equipment. Unfortunately long gone. Joseph Sapienza: Kenneth Treharn Now made in China James Torgeson: Joseph Sapienza Columbiana, Ohio, actually… Butch Fike: Joseph Sapienza. Actually all prints & patents now owned by Reichart Industries in Columbiana, Ohio - like stated above. I believe Reichart was an engineer for Pollock. Met both sons at ET at times they were called in. Friendly, knowledgeable guys. Kenneth Treharn: https://www.ohiohistory.org/the-william-b-pollock-company-advancements-in-the-art-of-iron-and-steel/ Jerry Schaub: Some one busted one up in 1978 with a bulldozer. We cut it up and melted it in OH5. USSteel thought it was stolen. The guards checked lunch boxes for days . LOL Butch Fike: We used 3 types of Sub-Ladles at ET. Pecor, Treadwell & Pollock. The 3 Pollocks were nothing but problems. Fabricated decks instead of cast, always cracking around the 'main centers'. King Pins difficult to remove. Having to dismantle trucks to change wheels. Might have been the series we used but we hated them. Rick Rowlands: When we moved Carrie Furnace's car into the cast house: video1 and video2. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works Open Hearth No. 3, 1947 Kenneth Treharn: The Open Hearth that I worked in, the 3rd Helpers used a small scoop shovel, narrower but a little higher sided. The was so you could hit the back wall of the furnace. (Btw, the third helper was called a "slaggers" and that shovel was called a "slagging" shovel). Getting back to this picture, the First Helper (big Boss of "His"Furnace 😊) always used this kind of shovel just to "inspire" on the Slaggers. It took around 30 years to be a First Helper,$$$. This appears to me, to be a Second Helper because of his age and because he also is using a big shovel. The Second Helper was in charge of the tap hole. So possibly he's throwing some black dolomite back around the tap hole for protection from the next "Bath/Heat. This was back before any real safety equipment and you provided your own work clothes and gloves and shoes or basically Everything. This all is just my opinion and I usually try to explain it for people who never saw an Open Hearth Melt Shop. Every mill was different and terminology was a little different from mill to mill. Bruce Bezon: Kenneth Treharn 40 yr bricklayer. You are correct. That was how it worked at the old republic steel. Central alloy ,Canton ohio. Edward Talmadge: That is one big shovel to use on the furnace. We used to burn off about 6 inches to lighten up the shovel and the load of material so we could hit the tap hole and the back of the furnace and to shovel the mud into the spout before hanging it on the outside of the tap hole . That furnace man must be super strong, YIKES |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Open Hearth #3 demolition. Tom Kennedy: The stacks that are still standing are from the 45" mill soaking pits. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works plate leveler. Larry Bledsoe: We have one about like it still in use at New Castle Stainless, IN. |
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| Brian Olson commented on Bob's post Here is a different perspective after it closed. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works roll shop. Ed Cable: I was there 17 years. Shut the mill down 1984. I was the roll designer and supervisor. Richard van Fossen: made them at MIDVALE PHILA PA ni.cr.mo.va Dorothy Larry Rusnak: Structural Mill ? Ed Cable: Dorothy Larry Rusnak yes 52 mill and 28/32 mill. |
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| Wayne Tindall commented on Bob's post BHP Central Roll Shop late 70s Bernie Bielak: Wayne Tindall I worked as a roll grinder for 30 yrs. Wayne Tindall: Bernie Bielak I've been a roll turner 35 years and still doing it. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works steam engine, early 1900s. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works soaking pit, 1950. Sharon O'Connor Konar: A short story. My husband was a soaking pit craneman at Republic Steels South Chicago plant in the 1970s and 80s. In the summer of 1985 they had a plant tour and my husband took me in his crane when he was drawing ingots. When he opened the pit the heat was so intense it was like being in hell! I said is the air conditioner on? He smiled and said sure is. I looked at the thermometer that was hanging in the cab and it said 118! I had a new appreciation of what he did for 12 hours a day! Its something I will never forget. Peter A Mamula: Eric Stosius The preferred rolling heat was about 2400°! Experienced Heater could just looking at the ingot(s) and tell the ingot(s) were ready to be rolled? Rather than using a spectrometer, or relying on instruments that measured temperature! Some great Heaters could speck 2 languages, whereas, they were 1st generation Americans! Their knowledge was so impressive to a young college student of the 1960-70s who calibrated the instruments! Peter A Mamula: Looks like those were pretty wide ingots that could be rolled on a 46" blooming mill or greater! Joseph Hauzie: I remember working in General Labor at Great Lakes Steel. The forman had sent us to clean a cooled-down soaking pit. The crew had to jackhammer the residue and bring the hardened residue up from the pit to a garbage box. When we started jackhammering we discovered that the floor was not completely cooled down. The section that the worker jackhammered was still glowing orange. The crew climbed the ladder out of that soaking pit real fast. That was in the late 1970's. Richard Allison: That pit is in good shape. I used to have a crew repair those with gunning refractory while hot with a special aluminum lance that blew the refractory on the walls or to repair the jambs. It was horrible during the summers. Peter A Mamula: Jeff Evans They could heat the soaking pits with any kind of gas including Coke Oven gas gas from the Clairton Coke Works! Moreover, the gas infrastructure systems could be changed over liquid fuels! ( At J&L Pittsburgh soaking pits we use many different types of liquid fuels! (fuel tar, crude oil, if it had viscosity one could use it)! I tested many shipments of fuel tar oils from Venezuela! [Other comments indicate that blast furnace gas was used. I believe that was basically CO and it could kill you.] |
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| Graham Whitefield commented on Bob's post I started on the Slabbing Mill in 1965 aged 17 and worked there until 1984 when Continuous Casting was going to make the Mill obsolete. Took these photos in 1975 on a night shift with my new camera. (Against the rules but I was a Foreman so bent them.) Glad I took quite a few photos of those wonderful times.l |
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| Gary Gaines commented on Bob's post Our long gone Blooming Mill at the Granite City Works - USS. When we were owned by National Steel we went 100% continuous cast. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works, men at work Pete Steffey: Holy shinola , I did that job just downriver at the J+L plant . You can tell that’s a section of track that will be near Hot Metal because the ties are I- Beams. The whole unit will be buried to near the rail tops in granulated slag to protect it. I do not miss the heat on a week like we just had, but I miss the guys. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works structural steel storage yard, early 1900s. Rick Rowlands: Homestead Works had a 30" gauge in plant railroad. This crane runway is unique in that it curves. I think this is the only time I have ever seen a curved crane runway. John Slowikowski: I’ll remember this next time load any structural steel and they say all loads must be tarped. |
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| Bob Ciminel posted Homestead Works 140-inch Shear. Paul Jasinski: I wonder how many fingers were “pinched” between the casters and the plates as they moved them about. 🥴 an experienced team would kinda just know where they were, but every once in a while.. Dave Sakson: Paul Jasinski The Shearmen used plate forks...expand the pic and its easier to see... Mark Dinzeo: It looks like a centrifugal shear, I’ve heard of them but never saw one. Doug Vanard: Mark Dinzeo we had a centrifugal shear and iron worker. Once you stepped on the pedal you couldn't stop the cycle. If the piece moved or your hand got in the way you had a hole where you didn't want it.😳 It was the shipfitters shop on a Destroyer Tender and when the crop hit the deck yikes. There was a berthing compartment below. Terry MacDougall: It would take a long time, for shears like that to wind-down, for a maintenance outage. John Simpkins: I sheared a lot of plate on a 12' (144") Cincinatti shear. On occasion we would have to shear 120" wide x 3/8" thk. Core-Ten. It would shake the whole building. |
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| JaQuay Edward Carter posted U.S. STEEL'S HOMESTEAD WORKS ✨️ A finished component for a nuclear power plant, made from a Homestead forging. ☢️ Kermit Beckmann: We cut those forgings back in 1970s with powder and gas oxygen. I remember it well. The cuts were so accurate that it minimized the machining time in a big shop that was worth millions of dollars. Jim DeLong: Probably nickel stainless. These look like the top fixture for fuel rods which require nickel. Very hot stainless in boiler superheaters and nuke vessels, even uranium enrichment and jet engines use nickel SS. Kermit Beckmann: Yes they were stainless and if I recall correctly they were about 40 some inches thick. You must remember that Homestead had one of the two largest forging presses in the world. The other one was supposedly in Russia. Calum Learn: Kermit Beckmann Homestead had a 12000 ton press I believe but today that is one of the small ones. North America only has 2 open die presses around 10,000 tons and one at 16,000 tons. Mark Gallik: Nope. We do not have the capability to mfg. large forgings. Calum Learn: Mark Gallik Yes and no. Only 3 companies on this side of the world have presses big enough to forge nuclear components: North American Forgemasters, Lehigh Heavy Forge and Scot Forge. Between these three we can produce most forgings but the huge reactor vessels cannot be made in the US because we do not have melting or forging capacity big enough. And there is not enough of a market for a stand alone company to support that kind of capital. That is why most if not all of the foreign forge shops are government subsidized. They could never afford to run the capital they own based on their own profitability. Brian Olson: William Moutz North American Forge Masters and Lehigh Heavy Forge both have 10,000T open die forge presses that can match what existed at Homestead Works. |
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| Frank Jacobs III posted Homestead, 1914. Shelton Franklin: Stopper rod,,they used those where I worked till they went to sldegate. Kenny Ozelie: Patty Ashton working the stopper, in pouring that is the only kind of ladle used, no worries about slag,but the craneman and ladleman had to be in perfect sync to spot the ladle. |
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| 1 of 4 photos posted by Jim Prrfan Soaking Pits Homestead works. Jim PRRFan collection |
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| Jim Prrfan posted Ingot Mold Stripper. Homestead Works. Jim PRRFan Collection Bryan Hockenberry: I operated an old open hearth crane with a hydraulic portable stripper attached to the main host. This was in the late 70s at Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel Steubenville, OH plant. It was used for stickers and either the ingot came out or one of the ears would break off the mold. Graham Whitfield: We had 3 Stripper Cranes, unfortunately I never took any photos. Stickers were a real problem, the Stripper Bay looked like a dumping ground. Sometimes they were released later after repeated attempts. The final destination was to an area where the moulds were broken and the ingot returned for cold charging into the Soaking Pits. Ronald Meeley: Good friend of mine ran a stripper crane at Republic Steel in Chicago. I was a crane operator there also in 75-85. I went up on his crane once n was amazed/scared ta death 🤣 Doug Shideler: Inland Steel had 6. |
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| Jim Prrfan posted A Man and his Machine, Dinky Homestead Works. Jim PRRFan Collection |
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| Rick Rowlands commented on the above post Leaving the Porter plant on its way across town to Homestead. |
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| safe_image for Homestead mill The hot metal crane is pouring molten iron into a furnace that has been charged with cold steel scrap. Like adding water to the soup |
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