08-03-2019, 01:33 PM
(08-03-2019, 12:45 PM)ezdays Wrote:
Nice description Wayne, it almost sounds like how they build swimming pools here.
All joking aside, that has to be a tedious and dangerous job. Are those mills still active today? There are some jobs that I've never gave a thought about doing, but admired others that did. Working in a mill is one and miners are another that I believe some of my ancestors.
That mill, which rolled ingots into slabs, was torn down after the company installed a continuous caster, which made slabs directly from molten steel. Also torn down were the five remaining open hearth furnaces (a capacity of about 1700 tons every four hours-or-so), three of the four remaining blast furnaces, two stripper buildings (keep your eyes on the road - they used cranes to strip moulds from the hot ingots - nothing to do with scantily-clad Arizonans).
Those changes also precipitated the end of most of the in-plant railroad, which was quite extensive.
A couple of other mills were closed - the strip mill, as it wasn't capable of handling the bigger cast slabs, and the plate mill, as the continuous caster was not suited to producing some of the high value specialty grades made for plate. At one time, we produced a fair amount of that for the U.S. military, but pipe orders were what had kept it rolling - some single orders entailed up to three years of continuous production.
As for mining, no thanks - I'd rather be digging bottom, which was claustrophobic enough. I do admire those who can work in such conditions, though, along with those who work at heights.
You're also right about other jobs being mostly obscure to people not working in those fields. I was fortunate in that respect, as my father had worked in a wide variety of jobs and industries, so I have a little knowledge of at least some of them. I always enjoyed plant tours whenever one of those companies offered them.
Wayne