Steel mill manager turns down a free machine shop

This thread isn’t so much about helping me understand this, but more to I guess put it out there to fellow people who would probably be the last on earth to actually care about this. It might start some interesting conversation.

So about 1.5 years ago, I was working in a roll grinding shop at my local steelworks. I was working in the heavy roll assembly and stripping bay, mainly doing bearing chock maintenance of the large Babbitt bearing bushes for the mill backup rolls, and also dabbled in the roll grinding from time to time.

The building, built in 1955 and some 300 meters long (900 feet approx) was originally one of 10 machine shops in our steelworks, which employed 367 people at its peak in this “plate and strip mill machine shop” alone.
It was in addition to the;

No. 1 machine shop - still operating under a private company but it is running into the ground.

No. 2 machine shop - Long gone
Tin mill machine shop - long gone, this is now my workshop at my casual day job where I am the only fitter and Machinist with a bunch of boilermakers. I still have an Asquith OD1 radial and a Russian lathe and a few other radial drills etc.

Plate mill machine shop - now only roll grinders

Apprentice machine shop - long gone

Cold and temper mill roll shop - long gone

Coating and galvanising Machine Shop - recently closed

Coating and galvanising roll Shop - still operating

Materials testing machine shop - still operating

The PSM shop prior to 1988 handled ALL the repairs and machining work for that department, same as how the other machine shops maintained their own departments. 1988 the order came down that all machine tools are to be removed from the PSM machine shop, leaving only an Asquith OD1 radial drill, the 2 biggest Craven lathes for ancillary roll turning work and 1 of the old manual Farrel roll grinders (1.6 meter swing, 10 meter centres). From my research some 30 years after this happened, I found this was a serious shop, Giddings and Lewis Floor Borer, Scheiss vertical borers, 4” spindle Richards borers, 12 lathes, shapers and slotters, a vertical spindle Niles grinder, 9 roll grinders ranging from small to large, the biggest slotter in the area ( a large Ravensburge) and some cincinatti mills. The boys tried to keep a small 60” centres Lang lathe, but management said no. That Lang lathe eventually found its way back years later, and I witnessed it loaded on a truck in 2017 destined for the steelmaking Shop where it would be tipped into the furnace as scrap. In fairness that Lang was only good for the furnace anyway.

Fast forward to 2018, I began to mention the concept of installing some machining equipment to do repairs in house, as it was getting quite costly sending every job out and waiting for the parts to return (sometimes we wouldn’t have bearing chocks finished due to missing parts still out being repaired at outside contract machine shops, and we had to do “hot changeovers” of the bearing chocks straight out of the rolling mill straight onto freshly ground rolls).

We had an opportunity to Aquire some machines from the recently closed down Coating and Galvanising machine shop. I went all giddy eyed and got excited about what we might find in there. The management of that machine shop said to take anything we wanted.

We toured the shop. Kearns and Richards 4” borer, Webster and Bennett 48” vertical borer, 3 large VDF Boeringer lathes, Kellenburger cylindrical Grinder, Colchester and mazak small lathes, Huron Bed Mill, large surface grinder, 400 ton horizontal press, another Asquith OD1 radial, Fromag keyseater, and of course all machines had lockers full of tooling.

I wanted it all, we had room to spare at the roll shop, and I had jobs I could do on every one of those machines. But I guess I let myself get a little carried away.

Management of my shop said 3 small machines only, no borers and no presses or surface grinders.

I picked my 3
- Huron Bed Mill PU77
- VDF Long bed lathe (120” centres)
- Bandsaw

We booked a date to go and remove the machines

Management changed their mind. Now only 1 machine allowed.

I wanted the Huron Bed Mill, as we already had a victor lathe at my shop that I brought over from my old department (I wish now I had just put it on a truck and taken it home on a 6am shift change when no one was around)

We attempted to remove the Huron, but it was grouted into the floor, management said no you won’t jack hammer the grout away, forget about the mill and leave it.

We came away with nothing (not entirely, I did rather well out of INT50 toolholders for my cincinatti mill).

That my friends is the story of how someone declines the offer of a free, fully functional machine shop.

Corruption, union issues and I guess the desire to remove any liabilities from their operations is what brought about the closure of the coating and galvanising machine shop in 2017, and as far as I know, those machines are all still in that shop today with clear plastic over the ways and beds, collecting dust and dirt as the remaining two boilermakers dwindle down their last days before retirement. The remaining machinists that were sacked have long gone.

I’d love to hear similar stories as it just completely baffled me, the entire process.

Sounds Familiar, What about hiring asshat manager who then hires a brown nose asshat foreman who doesn't know much you can see the progression.

Best to leave them with the mess they are creating, the loss of goodwill, the loss of expertise, the future added expenses etc so they don't pin anything on you go find another job with a better firm life is short.
I have seen managers use up goodwill for short term things they want.

Moving around only gains you new skills which is good for future employment or go start a shop with the gear they rejected. don't get drawn into their issues.
Especially don't offer opinions, complaints, advice to asshats just leave them holding the bag.

do more training at night if your unsure of moving to another place, don't tell anyone your doing it, then move.

I have used a od1 asquith they are a bit of a beast.

if this particular company is a asx listed company ( a spin off) and they are hiding the details of the health of it i may like to know who it is just in case if i have them i can sell the shares in the sucker before it goes into a freefall.
Pm the name if you like.
Cheers.

I’m glad you wrote that, prompted me to add that I do now run my own shop, I have been doing so for the last year full time, as well as work casual 1 or 2 days a week for the best foreman I’ve ever had, in the old tin mill machine shop (as I said before nothing left but a few radials and a lathe) where there is plenty of materials and fabrication gear for all my fab and welding jobs, and I’m currently giving the Asquith OD1 a birthday so that will be my go to radial for any of my own jobs that I need it for.

The roll grinding shop that I left is going to shambles now, more jobs to go and more work sent out to the contractors.

I left just over a year ago, but the concept of passing on the offer of a free machine shop just had to be vented to like minded individuals.

When that kearns hori bori and Webster vertical come up for sale, I had better clear some room for them

Steel Mill technology keeps changing- and although I have never worked in one, so I dont have your experience, I do know that most of the modern, profitable steel mills globally would not have even considered those machines. Steel is a commodity product- which means the lowest price mill wins, especially if its backed by a big company.
In the USA, Nucor, for example, which is currently running around 25 to 30 million tons a year, is building a new plate mill- at a cost of $1.35 Billion USD.
They have been buying new state of the art, very expensive lathes and grinders from Herkules. The cost savings from using new machines to regrind rolls outweighs the very high prices for new machines- and, of course, the new stuff is more automated, meaning less need for really experienced machinists.

Even the Mexicans are springing for new high tech machines- this Mexican mill will run 2.5 million tons a year of hot strip, and they are spending them big bucks for new machines- Herkules delivers complete roll shop for Mexican rolling mill

It sounds as if the mill you worked at is owned by somebody who is unable or unwilling to invest in current technology- which, to me, means the russians, the indians, and the chinese, who are all building state of the art mills around the world, will be soon eating their lunch.

Not that I am not sad the old machines got scrapped- I am. I have taken pilgrimages to the old Mesta Machine site- once the home of the largest machine shop, and the producer of huge amounts of steel mill rolling stands and other gigantic machine tools and plant machinery. Whemco, which occupies it now, is still a viable maker of large mill parts- but its a shadow of Mesta.

Here in the USA, fewer and fewer of those big old machines exist- for a lot of reasons- money, number one. And steel, in general, is used less, and in different ways, than in 1955, when I was born and your mill was built. We use plastics, aluminum, carbon fiber, even hemp gluelam beams, all of which have replaced steel in many manufacturing applications. A lot of the big manufacturing in the USA is still using really old machines- like the 50,000 and 100,000 ton presses Mesta built- but steel mills are, more and more, continuous casting, and even Direct Reduction, as the technology changes.

Ries said:

Steel Mill technology keeps changing- and although I have never worked in one, so I dont have your experience, I do know that most of the modern, profitable steel mills globally would not have even considered those machines. Steel is a commodity product- which means the lowest price mill wins, especially if its backed by a big company.
In the USA, Nucor, for example, which is currently running around 25 to 30 million tons a year, is building a new plate mill- at a cost of $1.35 Billion USD.
They have been buying new state of the art, very expensive lathes and grinders from Herkules. The cost savings from using new machines to regrind rolls outweighs the very high prices for new machines- and, of course, the new stuff is more automated, meaning less need for really experienced machinists.

Even the Mexicans are springing for new high tech machines- this Mexican mill will run 2.5 million tons a year of hot strip, and they are spending them big bucks for new machines- Herkules delivers complete roll shop for Mexican rolling mill

It sounds as if the mill you worked at is owned by somebody who is unable or unwilling to invest in current technology- which, to me, means the russians, the indians, and the chinese, who are all building state of the art mills around the world, will be soon eating their lunch.

Not that I am not sad the old machines got scrapped- I am. I have taken pilgrimages to the old Mesta Machine site- once the home of the largest machine shop, and the producer of huge amounts of steel mill rolling stands and other gigantic machine tools and plant machinery. Whemco, which occupies it now, is still a viable maker of large mill parts- but its a shadow of Mesta.

Here in the USA, fewer and fewer of those big old machines exist- for a lot of reasons- money, number one. And steel, in general, is used less, and in different ways, than in 1955, when I was born and your mill was built. We use plastics, aluminum, carbon fiber, even hemp gluelam beams, all of which have replaced steel in many manufacturing applications. A lot of the big manufacturing in the USA is still using really old machines- like the 50,000 and 100,000 ton presses Mesta built- but steel mills are, more and more, continuous casting, and even Direct Reduction, as the technology changes.

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I have to say that was an excellent reply, and I guess made me think a little as to why I would want to bring such old machines into the shop to continue their life. I guess we as the maintenance workers are so accustomed to working in poor house conditions. We barely have the tools we need to work, our fabrication equipment is beyond a joke and machining gear is a luxury. Some departments run their maintenance workshop on an oxy torch, a stick welded and a few old weathered souls that can’t afford to retire.

Seeing that Mexican mill install new Herkules machines almost makes me a little embarrassed considering how the current state of affairs is across the last of the roll shops here.

Most of the repair jobs we would do if we had those machines would be simple skim this, drill that, weld and remachine this shaft type of stuff. But I guess when you get others to do it and not worry about finding them work to do after all the machining is done, well I guess there’s my answer.

It’s funny though, the machine shops we send the big work to run machines of the same vintage, run the same way by the same old blokes day after day.

The amount of times I’ve been told to slow down by the old folks, to a crawling pace I guess is my answer about the future of the mills.

We are all counting on a reline of #6 Blast Furnace, to continue iron making after they close #5, but even if they do reline #6, the BOS shop, the coke ovens, the sinter plant, the Hot Strip Mill, the casters, the plate mill etc. it’s all just about rooted so maybe it’s time to accept what is to come? A closure of the plant that has operated here for nearly 100 years. Decades of budget cuts to keep the shareholders happy are catching up to them, or us I should say. We see barely any reinvestment in plant, loyal protection of the older generations so wickedly stuck in their work dodging ways. A lot of young people don’t hang around after their apprenticeship, maybe I should take off the rose tinted glasses and accept that there is a reason why.

Very thought provoking reply, I thank you for your time to write that!

Wasn't that many years ago they went cap in hand to the government for a hand-out if I remember!

Friends who did their apprenticeships down there in the 60s and 70s can't believe the vast changes. Nearly 1000 pa apprenticeship intake of sparkies, boilermakers, fitter machinists, glass blowers, tech staff, etc back in the day, to virtually nil, and used to supply both their own and industry requirements as it was important to be seen to be a good community citizen. Now it's just about serving the company bottom line. Making virtually all grades of steel too, but now an ever shrinking range. We're such useless dickheads now, this State government even imported basic rail line for a tram, eff me!

they are not serving the companies bottom line or the shareholders capital input nor are they a good corporate citizen.....

State gov here imported chinese made trains that need rework, imported tunnel borers, signed a belt and road agreement with them against the federal gov wishes.

Fish stinks from the head down, needs a cleanout to correct things.

M

BillE said:

Wasn't that many years ago they went cap in hand to the government for a hand-out if I remember!

Friends who did their apprenticeships down there in the 60s and 70s can't believe the vast changes. Nearly 1000 pa apprenticeship intake of sparkies, boilermakers, fitter machinists, glass blowers, tech staff, etc back in the day, to virtually nil, and used to supply both their own and industry requirements as it was important to be seen to be a good community citizen. Now it's just about serving the company bottom line. Making virtually all grades of steel too, but now an ever shrinking range. We're such useless dickheads now, this State government even imported basic rail line for a tram, eff me!

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They don’t even take their cap off for politeness anymore. Our rogue government lets them off the hook to pay 0 tax. And I mean 0. $0 paid in company tax. $5.7 billion earnings and 0 paid in tax.
Nice company. Love that community spirit.

Themanualguy said:

M

They don’t even take their cap off for politeness anymore. Our rogue government lets them off the hook to pay 0 tax. And I mean 0. $0 paid in company tax. $5.7 billion earnings and 0 paid in tax.
Nice company. Love that community spirit.

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Corp tax on revenue like that is likely north of 20%. If that economic burden collapsed the mill, would you still find govt to blame?

And as to the free machines- no machine is free.

i have seen that many times normally its management or boss wants to
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1) reduce tax paid on assets. literally many governments tax more if you have more shop equipment that you got for "free", tax could be 4% a year of assessed value and taxman might say the free equipment worth $100,000 (tax $4000/year)
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2) there is moving, installation and maintenance costs of any equipment. can easily cost over $10,000 to install "free" machines and could more for tooling. they looking at a end of year cost of over $20,000. there is also building maintenance and heat and electrical costs. i have seen perfectly ok warehouses torn down cause of these costs
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3) labor. the ideal anybody might be full time working on "free" machines is not wanted by many bosses being told to reduce employee count.
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4) any machines they sell or scrap they get scrap value AND a reduction on yearly taxes cause they can prove they got less equipment or asset value on machine shop equipment
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only way I have seen it work is maintenance machinist already has a job on the books doing maintenance. if maintenance has free time left after doing their weekly maintenance work, sure boss says go to machine shop and make some spare parts for free. that is they looking at a spare part being $1000. or more on the outside that their maintenance guy can do in his spare time for less than $100. in metal and tooling costs AND hopefully only $100. in taxes and utility costs like electric, heat, building costs like fix roof etc.
.... also took a few years to prove to bosses that parts i made were good enough. boss might worry their maintenance people not able to make acceptable parts. when boss also saw possibility to improve parts design so machine worked better or had lower operating costs the were very happy. often maintenance people had better ideals on machine part improvements based on what they saw every week
..... i used to work 1/2 the week doing weekly maintenance work and 1/2 the week making parts in the maintenance machine shop. i had the 1/2 week of free time cause i had over a few years improved machines (better part design) so i had less maintenance work to do. i once had opportunity to upgrade my older 2 axis CNC Prototrak mill with a less older one. after a week bosses said no. could swap equal age / value mill but couldnt get a better and less older mill. i definitely had limits on what equipment i could get like tooling even though i was saving a lot of money. used to have a 4" pile of drawings of parts they wanted me to make in my spare time. literally had a year of work to do if i had any free time after doing my normal maintenance work.
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there was no way they would hire a full time person and buy newer machines to make spare parts in house(literally little bosses were hiding it from bigger bosses that ANY spare parts were being made in house, it was saving money but too much trouble to convince bigger bosses on what they were doing to save money) if any possibility of news of getting newer "free" machines and extra yearly costs got to the big boss he would have a "talk" with the little boss

One thing everyone seems to have missed so far is that the machinery from the 1950's, 60's, and 70's in all likelihood was never upgraded to the current OSHA safety standards. If they don't meet the current standards they have to be upgraded to meet the standards and signed off by an OSHA inspector.

We had several machine shops that were originally outfitted in the 1940's and 50's. When OSHA came along they didn't meet the standards, but were grandfathered in as long as the company covered all the open gear trains, power transmission belts and shafts. As the rules got more strict they had to implement a safety training program for each of the grandfathered machines, and certify that all operators had passed the course, and were qualified to run those machines. Some machines required the installation of light curtain guarding, operator restraints that wouldn't allow the operators hands or body parts into dangerous areas, dual controls that required the operators hands to out of the danger area, and needed to be activated simultaneously, and limit switches on all removable guards.

All these upgrades in many cases were either all but impossible to install, or were so expensive they were cost prohibitive. In some cases the upgrades would have cost more than the machine was worth. Almost no one but the scrappers were interested in buying them, because any new owner would be subject to the same expenses before putting the machines back into production.

The last piece of the puzzle that caused the demise of many of the machines was the inconsistent interpretation of the rules by the OSHA inspectors. What might be perfectly acceptable to one inspector is a blatant violation to another.

Very interesting thread. All the observations presented are true. I love this trade and the knowledge necessary to perform within it, but as the economics are and the attitude of corporate managers is, I'm very happy to be a hobbyist. It is very difficult to earn a decent crust in this trade today. Amazingly, the demand is still there. It has not gone away. We are watching history in the making and I have no idea where this is going.

Variants of that story are all too familiar. It's all part of the deindustrialization of America.

Edit: Oops! Just read the latest post and realized that the OP is in Australia. Still, there are many parallels not only with the U.S. but many other western countries.

The mill in question is in Australia. OSHA is a USA agency.
The Australian version is called Safe Work Australia.

But- there are only 2 steel mills in Australia, and they get extraordinary treatment from the government, as manualguy mentioned above.

Steel Mills are a funny thing- they get built, and subsidized, not for capitalist reasons alone, but, in many, if not all countries, as a sign of national pride, a defense and military safeguard, and for other less easily described emotional reasons.

Every country WANTS a steel industry, regardless of whether it makes economic sense.
The Chinese, under the communists, and inspired by Mao, peaked out at 3000 steel mills. Many were really just pig iron puddling plants, but the IDEA that China had 3000 steel mills, 20 years after being a country largely unchanged for a 1000 years or so, had enormous pyschological and propaganda impact.

We probably, in a super rationalist world, get by, globally, with maybe 50 or so very large steel mills- but nobody is going to give up their steel industry.

So, the Australians have been propping up their two, extremely old and patchily updated mills, which, from what I can tell, make about 1.5 million tons a year. There are quite a few mills, worldwide, that make double that.
We have a mill in Seattle, which is new and state of the art, which cranks out a half million tons a year, for a state with only 7 million people in it.
But all of all Australia is only, what- 24 million people?

So what are the economics of somebody throwing up a $2 Billion dollar state of the art EAF continuous casting mill there? I think it would only work if they exported, and they are so close to China, which is down to maybe only 1000 steel mills- stiff competition, unless you built a special alloy mill- stainless, or car body sheet, or tool steel- which is probably even more than a measly 2 billion. The germans built a stainless mill in the USA about 10 years ago, and it ran $5 Billion in 2008 dollars.

The result is, the Australian government is basically allowing these two mills to run paying effectively zero taxes, as much for nationalistic reasons as because the steel they make is essential to the economy. And my guess is the old machines would not be red tagged for safety reasons either.

But I do think it costs a lot more than a measly ten grand to move and install a 30 foot lathe or a big horizontal mill or a 400 ton horizontal press. At least where I live, my buddy who is an industrial electrician routinely gets up to triple that from Boeing to run the circuit, including breakers and a few hundred feet of wire, for a new major machine tool. 400 amp 3 phase breakers arent cheap. And foundations, here at least, can easily run double or triple that when you are talking machines that weigh 100k to 300k pounds. Plus rigging. Multiple 25000 pound forklifts, etc. I know a few blacksmiths who have paid well over 10k to install a measly 25,000 pound power hammer, which doesnt even require precision levelling.

Cole2534 said:

Corp tax on revenue like that is likely north of 20%. If that economic burden collapsed the mill, would you still find govt to blame?

And as to the free machines- no machine is free.

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I guess this is where are stuck in the middle. The company is perfectly happy to boast billions in gross income, pay out massive dividends to shareholders, staff get their bonus's and wages based on performance. But after 5-7 years of not paying tax on earnings, yet stagnating the wages of their workforce as our cost of living and housing is on the upward trend as always, deosn't it get to a point where we ask "OK now its time to pay a little bit of tax, or re-invest in capital equipment either made in Australia, or to the benifit of Australian's?"

But this doesn't happen.
Oil Companies operating in Australia paid $0 Tax
Car Importers (they don't manufacture here anymore) poaid $0 Tax
Some airline companies in Australia paid $0 Tax
Some mobile phone companies in Australia paid $0 Tax
And the biggest kicker of all, as now one of last remaining heavy industries, several Mining companies have also paid $0 Tax, after raping our country areas and towns of their resources, leaving the towns in mortgage arrears (mining boom in these towns causes house prices to sky rocket, mum and dad investors move in to make a quick buck and fail catastrophically) and as they dig out the last shovel load of coil or iron ore, leave the town to spiral into meth epicentres.

So yeah, I do think something is wrong here.
If it weren't for the "jobs", we'd alomost be just as well off without these industires destroying our environment.

And as for preparing the country for self defence, we don't even have the gear anymore to make the big gun barrels anymore, because those big lathes went into the furnace a long time ago

Anyone can argue that a 1950's Craven lathe "won't compete with a modern large cnc lathe", but what the hell does that matter when the bombs start dropping. Although this situation is a little far fetched at thing point in time.

Ries said:

The mill in question is in Australia. OSHA is a USA agency.
The Australian version is called Safe Work Australia.

But- there are only 2 steel mills in Australia, and they get extraordinary treatment from the government, as manualguy mentioned above.

Steel Mills are a funny thing- they get built, and subsidized, not for capitalist reasons alone, but, in many, if not all countries, as a sign of national pride, a defense and military safeguard, and for other less easily described emotional reasons.

Every country WANTS a steel industry, regardless of whether it makes economic sense.
The Chinese, under the communists, and inspired by Mao, peaked out at 3000 steel mills. Many were really just pig iron puddling plants, but the IDEA that China had 3000 steel mills, 20 years after being a country largely unchanged for a 1000 years or so, had enormous pyschological and propaganda impact.

We probably, in a super rationalist world, get by, globally, with maybe 50 or so very large steel mills- but nobody is going to give up their steel industry.

So, the Australians have been propping up their two, extremely old and patchily updated mills, which, from what I can tell, make about 1.5 million tons a year. There are quite a few mills, worldwide, that make double that.
We have a mill in Seattle, which is new and state of the art, which cranks out a half million tons a year, for a state with only 7 million people in it.
But all of all Australia is only, what- 24 million people?

So what are the economics of somebody throwing up a $2 Billion dollar state of the art EAF continuous casting mill there? I think it would only work if they exported, and they are so close to China, which is down to maybe only 1000 steel mills- stiff competition, unless you built a special alloy mill- stainless, or car body sheet, or tool steel- which is probably even more than a measly 2 billion. The germans built a stainless mill in the USA about 10 years ago, and it ran $5 Billion in 2008 dollars.

The result is, the Australian government is basically allowing these two mills to run paying effectively zero taxes, as much for nationalistic reasons as because the steel they make is essential to the economy. And my guess is the old machines would not be red tagged for safety reasons either.

But I do think it costs a lot more than a measly ten grand to move and install a 30 foot lathe or a big horizontal mill or a 400 ton horizontal press. At least where I live, my buddy who is an industrial electrician routinely gets up to triple that from Boeing to run the circuit, including breakers and a few hundred feet of wire, for a new major machine tool. 400 amp 3 phase breakers arent cheap. And foundations, here at least, can easily run double or triple that when you are talking machines that weigh 100k to 300k pounds. Plus rigging. Multiple 25000 pound forklifts, etc. I know a few blacksmiths who have paid well over 10k to install a measly 25,000 pound power hammer, which doesnt even require precision levelling.

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Excellent reply.

The notion that they allow the two mills to run tax free as a way of atleast keeping a few blast furnaces hot incase of war or some such is valid, but if that is the case, why are the profits allowed to go into the hands of those who will not benefit the australian people at all. I mean at least if someone along the line pay's tax on these earnings the Australian people might get some benefit from it right?

The mills are just as you describe, patched together, they always were. Our original blooming mill came here in 1932 after already serving in Lithgow, NSW for a lifetime before that. They were using old electric motors etc to get the place running. I guess it shows how things sometimes just don't change.

We had a considerable upgrade in 1985 to 1987. The rolling mills were the focus of the upgrades, all new motors and electrics, foundation work re-done, some new mill stands installed etc. The government would match whatever amount the company wanted to re-invest into the mills to keep the place going. And then away she went for another 30 years, making great profits until the GFC, when it was time to cry poor again. We never 'really' upgraded since then , and they closed a lot of departments and reduced our capacity to 2.7 million tons a year. We no longer produce any of our packaging products (Tin Plate, Strapping Band etc).

They are trying now, with my absolute blessing and support, to modify and tune the plants through labor re-destribution, re-structures, limited automation and energy savings projects, to make record tons of steel daily. It is always great news when the blast furnace makes 10,000 tons in 24 hours. The more steel we produce with the same amount of labor makes the steel cheaper per ton and makes us more competitive right?


As for these machine tools. The largest (boring mill) weighs probably 10-12 tons. Probably cost $1000-$1500 in truck time per machine to move. A few days work done by mechanical and electrical employees.
The floor of the new shop already has the footings underneath where each machine used to sit in the old times. From what I can tell all the hard stuff was already done. Circuit breakers and switchboards were all there, the foundations were all there, the cranes fully functional in both buildings.
We routinely struggled with getting machining work done due to our strict budget. Often times we would have to defer jobs to be done in the next quarter, due to budget limitations, but of course by that time another major failure would occur and then we had even more machining work to be done that we didn't have the money for. Of course then to get the work done, we used our capital money to get the parts repaired and had nothing left over for upgrading.
When I saw machining work, i am talking repairs to rolls and chocks weighing up to 20 tons. Some of that work obviously couldn't be done on the machines I mentioned. But the small stuff (lots of ring type parts from 500mm OD to 1200mm OD) could be repaired in house and allow the money to be spent on the work we just couldn't handle.

I don't believe the notion of "why would they pay you to machine stuff, they can reduce numbers and save $$ if they get others to do it". I don't believe that because there are hundreds if not thousands of people on that plant daily doing "busy work". Online computer module training about the same old shit year after year. Promoting using workplace facebook. Hosting BBQ's for management visits. Cast's of engineers looking busy and drinking coffee. At least someone on a free lathe doing repair work in his spare few hours a day contributes something to the running of the mills?

I also just want to make clear, I never envisioned this to create a full time position in the roll shop. It was more or less just to have the available capacity to repair some of our components with a quick and cheap turnaround, as most were relatively easy to repair. Re-claim a bore or shaft diameter, build up a latch with pad weld and remachine to thickness etc.

A lot of my desire to install these machines was due to having a lot of free time while the other workers watched football on tv during work time, and then knocked off after the game finished 2 hours before the end of the shift.

I used to hope that management would get involved and stop this crap from happening, but night after night I was left the only one at work until the end of my shift, so I guess running an old kearns boring mill would end the night on a good note, instead of cleaning up after everyone who had bailed well before shift change. Please note these complete injustice’s are why I now run my own machine shop, as I just couldn’t bring myself to stoop to their pathetic level of work ethic, and I couldn’t go on trying to keep the dream alive when watching the injustice unfold was making me a bit mentally sick.

I guess I’ve answered my own question of why they want to outsource all the work, because it’s all good and well to install this equipment for someone who enjoys working them and working efficiently , but who knows who the next guy would be if I got hit by a bus one day. Such a shame how we’ve ended up how we have, but there exists some excellent opportunities once you take off the road tinted specs.

I honestly don't know shit about steels mills but what I do know is I would give up my wife and both my shriveled cojones for that Huron mill. Those babies are non-existent in the states. They look big and beefy and very versatile and I would love to have one in my shop.

Stuart

atomarc said:

I honestly don't know shit about steels mills but what I do know is I would give up my wife and both my shriveled cojones for that Huron mill. Those babies are non-existent in the states. They look big and beefy and very versatile and I would love to have one in my shop.

Stuart

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Obviously you don't understand the divorce process. If you give up the wife you automatically loose the shriveled cajones, and you'll never again have enough cash (or credit) to afford the Huron mill, even if it's free.