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Tuesday, May 04, 2021

Another "Aw fuck" moment in time


 

10 comments:

  1. Dirty Dingus McGeeMay 4, 2021 at 9:47 AM

    Feets, don't fail me now.

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  2. How does one go about cleaning that up?
    I guess you wait for hours until it cools, then pull it out what a crane? Any steelworkers here?
    -Just A Chemist

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    Replies
    1. It will shortly be swarmed on by guys with cutting torches and an overhead crane. They'll cut it into sections and get it clear of the machinery as quickly as possible. Repairs to the mill equipment will be made if necessary and the mill brought back online as quickly as possible.

      The cobble will be dragged to a bone yard, cut up, and used as scrap for making more steel.

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  3. I've never worked that sort of manufacturing, but find myself fascinated by videos of the processes and failures. I'm curious - how often does that sort of thing occur??

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  4. Must be Chinese steel. Rail like that all over the NE. Shit don't last more than MAYBE 5yrs.

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  5. Looks like North Star Steel in Monroe, MI.

    A rolling mill. Where round stock comes from as well as rebar.

    That is called a "coble". They happen a lot. Looks like it was filmed from the cabin of the overhead crane...

    There are Oxy Acetylene connections all through the mill to hook in and start cutting it up when they happen. Smaller the diameter the faster the mill is moving.

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  6. At least 1 person had to change their underwear

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  7. The steel manufacture that I worked at made high end steel for the investment cast industry. We had a casting machine that cast a 75mm bar that we cut to 15 foot lengths, then sent to a huge 10 ton sheer press, to cut it to 18" lengths, ran them through a water tank, then a shot blast tunnel, and then packed them into 55 gallon drums. From start to finish, each 20 ton heat took about 2 hours casting time.
    From the beginning of the cast out about 10 feet, sometimes more, the bar was just a skin, with the inside being molten. It was the hardest process to learn in the whole melt shop. Every alloy ran a different way, with adjustments for holding, back stroke, then speed and length of pull all had to be adjusted each time. The back stroke was to allow for shrinkage as the bar cooled and shrunk, over the 15-20 feet before the bar was cut off.
    Our biggest problem was when the the bar ruptured, and molten steel came out, covering everything in the area. Often we were able to cut the end off, and reweld it back to the part sticking out of the part of the caster called the cooler, and milk it back to run again. But the problem that caused the melt down to occur was still there, and you had to figure out what the reason for it was, and fix it, and very quickly, in order to still salvage the rest of the 20 tons of the sometimes 10 dollars a pound metal.
    I ran that job for 3 years or so, then trained my replacement, plus trained a new man on the ladle to learn how to keep the metal flow at the same consistent head pressure for us to cast. I then went onto 3 shift, running a vacuum furnace, and within 2 months, the man I trained on the ladle was killed, when the guy on 1st shift messed up and caused water to get under the some 3,000 pounds of molten steel which caused a huge explosion, covering him from head to toe. I went back and looked at the mess that was made, and could still see his footprints, made by cooled steel. The second worst day in my life, behind the time a man brought his two kids to the shop, and put them into a ladle, and burned them to death.
    I know that service personnel go through much worse things, that cause PTSD, but there is no doubt that I went through that for a long time after each of these instances. Nothing can prepare you for such things.

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    Replies
    1. Pigpen51: it is because of people like YOU who make our current life possible.
      Thank you.

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  8. One reason I was an overhead crane operator. Above it all. Saw slot of accidents.

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