Most of our trucks require some level of repair to steel parts when we get them. We cut, heat, bend, weld and patch parts that have deteriorated. In the end we learn more about working with steel than we had ever probably intended.

I found this link on YouTube today that shows how thoroughly modern the Rouge Steel Plant (Severstal since 2004) has become.

In comparison look at this video of U.S. Steel's Gary, Indiana plant. I'm guessing that it is from the 1970's?

And then here is a video of the Carrie Furnace of the famous Homestead Steel Works in Pittsburgh that provided steel from 1907 until 1978. These are the type of processes that were used to make our trucks.

I just thought it was an interesting comparison.

 

It amazes me that we have such impressive steel facilities in the US and yet when a new Bay Bridge is contracted to be built in San Francisco the powers to be pay the Chinese to build a special plant in China and ship the steel for the bridge to CA.

 

It's worth noting that between 1940 and today, the labor that goes into steel dropped by a factor of a thousand. From 100 man hours per tonne of steel to .1 man hours per tonne.

River rouge even up until the late 60's was using open harth furnaces, teaming, soaking pits and "manually" shaped slabs for the rolling mill. With the open harth, teaming and soaking pit steps of the process taking around 16 hours per step, whereas today you simply tap the blast furnace, slap it in the automated BOF vessel for 45 minutes, maybe pass by a degasser and take it straight to the continous caster, with the last of that heat coming off the rolling mill after about 3 hours after tapping.

Makes me feel awful whenever i pull some awful unusable bolt off my truck, and know that it's literally more costly than any other bolt by a factor of a thousand. Then on stuff like the beam axle, add in good old fashioned drophammer forging, and boy howdy i feel awful about wasting any of it.

For a short time i worked at a small foundry, and even on something as 'clean' as an induction furnace, that was hot and heavy stuff. I got nothing but respect for the guys who worked steel back in the day, with those massive open harths and 300 tonne ladles gliding by overhead, and not a refractory suit in sight. And "safety' procedure so lax, that at river rouge they tapped their open harths with a dynamite charge. Frankly i don't know why they'd do that when they could just drill out a clay plug like everyone else, but i would not want to be the guy who's job it is to stick a charge of unstable explosives into the side of a 300 tonne bath of steel all day. Nor do i want to be the guy that has to rebuild the still warm tapping wall of the furnace after every heat.

 

Thanks, Pete.

 

My father worked at Inland Steel in Indiana for over 30 years as a truck driver. I went through the field trips they had in the early 60s and 70s before they stopped having them and it was interesting. I was raised in Gary Indiana and I had many friends work at the steel mills.

 

I toured that plant Pete, grade school, early 60s. I remember being on a cat walk above a rolling process.
Ended up working with metal my whole life, still doing it.
thanks
Greg

 

good videos, Pete... I worked 38 years at USS Fairfield works here in Alabama...we were the red headed step child of USS. While I wasn't in the production side of the operation I was in all the areas that were. Been on top of the blast furnace to 4 levels under the Cold Mill and did Mechanical Alignment for the machines at the pipe mill they built in the 80s. When I started, there were over 30K working at FFW, Now sadly there is only the pipe mill and one finishing line operating, probably less than 2k.. That place fed probably 4 generations in some families. Sad to see it go this way.

john

 

In 1990 and 91, I worked in the Rouge Office Building and had to drive through the factory several times to access I-94 going towards the airport. That was a scary place even from the inside of a vehicle. Lots of sparks and noise everywhere. Interesting to note was that the Rouge Office Building was built as an experiment in construction. First the top floor was constructed then raised up and the lower floor was built underneath. Don't see that too often.