Ever wonder where the metal from your gun comes from?

[actaeon277]

Since I posted this in a non-relevant thread...


Anyone familiar with an exothermic torch?
Like this...





So, while being used by someone else, in an enclosed environment, when moving the lance, the oxygen blew into a pool of liquid steel, and blew it back into me.

I looked down for a moment, just before, so my face missed it.
But it got caught in the cuff of my right pant leg, burning the entire pant leg.
The coveralls under saved my leg, thank you old timer that told me to wear multiple layers, of non-synthetic material.
The boot was bubbled up.
Sparks made it down my neckline, burning a dozen or more holes in the tee-shirt.
And the elastic in my underwear melted to my belly hair. Which actually was the worse burn I received for that, so I lucked out.

 

[actaeon277]

Yup. through concrete.

And these guys are silly.
I think they had glasses on.
But no hard hat
and no face shield.

 

[indyartisan]

Surprised how clean the cut was.

 

[Timjoebillybob]

Since I posted this in a non-relevant thread...


Anyone familiar with an exothermic torch?
Like this...





So, while being used by someone else, in an enclosed environment, when moving the lance, the oxygen blew into a pool of liquid steel, and blew it back into me.

I looked down for a moment, just before, so my face missed it.
But it got caught in the cuff of my right pant leg, burning the entire pant leg.
The coveralls under saved my leg, thank you old timer that told me to wear multiple layers, of non-synthetic material.
The boot was bubbled up.
Sparks made it down my neckline, burning a dozen or more holes in the tee-shirt.
And the elastic in my underwear melted to my belly hair. Which actually was the worse burn I received for that, so I lucked out.

First glad you're mostly okay. I'm familiar with them, but not very much. I've only seen them used a time or two. More familiar with air arc.

 

[indyblue]

Anyone familiar with an exothermic torch?
Like this...

Isn't that what James Caan used to break into a vault?

Ahh yes, I actually found the scene in these trailers

 

[actaeon277]

Thermal lance - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Bugzilla]

Googled and copied this Kress slab hauler. Similar to the ones at USS. Does not do it justice. These are huge when you see them in person. They take the on average 30 ton slab from the primay side of the mill where they are made to the slab yard at the rolling mill a few miles away. They take 6 or so slabs at a time. The rolling mill will process 600 slabs a day. It’s amazing the quantity of material the mill makes every day.

 

[marvin02]

Anyone familiar with an exothermic torch?
Like this...

Very familiar, used them many times. They are pretty amazing and scary at the same time. This is something you only want to do with a second person present for safety watch. Very easy to start yourself or something else on fire with these.

If you are going to do this again get a welding hood and put a lens in it for burning, we used a #6 IIRC. You can go darker if you need to.

Glad you're ok.

 

[BugI02]

As far as the 'gun' part of wondering where the metal in your gun came from, I was always sad that the 'from a German battleship' part of the Ballester-Molina story was
only an old wives tale

If true, that backstory would have been très cool

 

[Bill2905]

10,000#



An empty ladle will weigh somewhere in excess of 160,000 pounds, depending on the ladle, and if it has slag in it.
Full they will be 600,000 pounds or a bit more.
Ladle is somewhere around 3 stories tall. So I imagine it might be harder to do the vacuum thing.


Some of our steels are for refrig and washers.. that's the cheap steel we make.

Some is automotive sheet. Still kinda cheap.

Then we get into D&I for soup cans. Well, any steel for food, but we call it soup can, or Cambells. That get's us more profit. More processing, and work, more cost, more profit.

Then we start to get to the big ticket stuff. Steel for Automotive safety cages. That's the big $$ stuff. Most of it didn't exist a couple decades ago. This stuff will have increased wear and tear on the machinery, and people, but it brings in around 10X as much $$

Somewhere in there is armor. I don't know where that falls in on the $$ scale.


We make our money, because of SCALE.
There are other mills to make smaller, specialized stuff. And they probably do a GREAT job.
But they have a hard time with certain metals, just because of the scale vs profit idea.

You want to make a car with a special metal, and there are only going to be 1,000 produced.
Might want to go to a mini-mill.
You want to build 5 battleships, 10 million soup cans, or such, we're you're man.

I work in a completely different industry so this steelmaking process is very fascinating to me. Do you guys produce coiled sheet steel exclusively or does the mill produce other finished items as well?

 

[marvin02]

Do you guys produce coiled sheet steel exclusively or does the mill produce other finished items as well

Depends on the mill. Big plants make a wide range of products from sheet to structural steel. There are smaller mills that specialize in one product range.

 

[actaeon277]

I work in a completely different industry so this steelmaking process is very fascinating to me. Do you guys produce coiled sheet steel exclusively or does the mill produce other finished items as well?

Well, different mill will produce different product.

Here where I am, well normally I don't post it, but since I posted videos with the name... Gary Works, USS..
we produce coiled rolls, armor plate, and slabs. Metals used in car safety cages, D&I steel for food storage. Treated steels.
The slabs can be bought by other mills to be turned into other product.


I'm more conversant on making the slabs.
I've started on the East Side, Coke & Chemicals.
Then, I moved West, skipping over Iron Producing, and I landed in Steel South.
The BOP takes the Iron, and makes an order of Steel to a recipe, and ships it to me at the Continuous Caster.
We have an easy job. We pour the ladle into a bottomless mold, and extrude a continuous slab, which is then cut to length.
We ship these slabs off, further West.

So, while I know a bit of what the entire plant does, I am less conversant on stuff after it leaves us at the Caster.
It is presently 10 square miles (approx) with about 5,000 employees (excluding managers, contractors, etc). Throw in the contractors and managers, probably would double that number.
So, it's a bit of a behemoth.

I know some of our steel goes into toasters and washing machines. But I think that's the lower end stuff. And mini-mills probably can pump that stuff out for comparable $$
We try to specialize in the more difficult or more recent steels. Stuff needed in quantity, but the mini-mills can't produce enough to make it cheap enough.

Mini-mills mostly use electric arc furnaces, which we also have. But it is their sole method, and it is just one of ours.

 

[actaeon277]

Some of the other plants USS has, also makes tubular products, such as the pipe used in offshore drilling. You just don't run to Menards for that type of pipe.

 

[Bill2905]

Some of the other plants USS has, also makes tubular products, such as the pipe used in offshore drilling. You just don't run to Menards for that type of pipe.

I used to drive through Birmingham, AL occasionally and would pass by a USS plant there which I believe was a pipe mill.

 

[actaeon277]

The casting floor at a Caster.

 

[actaeon277]

not sure if that last post worked. my browser won't show links to facebook.
should be water poored on a caster floor,

 

[tv1217]

Those Kress carriers can handle somewhere around 150 tons. Probably more actually but with 150 as a safety limit.

I'm near them every day and they become less impressive when you're around them all the time but they are indeed huge. The wheels alone have gotta be like 8-10 ft in diameter.


Fun fact: The AT-AT walkers from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back were inspired heavily by a futurist drawing of a legged version of something like a Kress in a US Steel brochure back in the 60s or 70s

 

[actaeon277]

Those Kress carriers can handle somewhere around 150 tons. Probably more actually but with 150 as a safety limit.

I'm near them every day and they become less impressive when you're around them all the time but they are indeed huge. The wheels alone have gotta be like 8-10 ft in diameter.


Fun fact: The AT-AT walkers from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back were inspired heavily by a futurist drawing of a legged version of something like a Kress in a US Steel brochure back in the 60s or 70s

Better be careful.
When you start to get used to the dangers, and not being "impressed" by them, people start to get hurt.

 

[tv1217]

I still keep my distance. A blowout from one of those tires would turn me into a grease stain on the wall at a minimum or blow me into another dimension that sucks even more than this one.

Edit: I'm also in the crane most of the time they come around so unless the damn things learn to fly...

 

[Bugzilla]

Edit: I'm also in the crane most of the time they come around so unless the damn things learn to fly...

Now that I would pay to see!