[TheForge] the plate outsmarted me

Sat Sep 28 14:34:00 2002

In a message dated 9/28/2002 10:35:15 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
[email protected] writes:

> Well, we allegedly learn by our mistakes...here are a couple....more.
> My attempts to flame straighten the 1" thick pavement plate ended in a 
> warped mess. 

Pete, I wouldn't feel too bad about not being able to master the art form of 
plate straightening in one effort.  A ways back in the iron and steel plate 
making mills, there was a very highly skilled job called "straightener".  
This guy would study the camber in the plate and decide after some time 
exactly where he would hit it with his round mushroom shaped peen hammer 
(often over 10# in weight with a very long handle).  I can remember seeing a 
guy lay a plate 4ft wide x maybe 12 or 14 ft in length, straight with just 
one carefully placed blow of this large hammer (on the concave side).  Just 
that slight stretch of the skin on one side, in the right place was enough to 
lay it flat.  I last saw this done in the mid 1960s and I'm sure that this 
guy didn't learn his craft overnight!  A long lost art for sure, as the new 
plate mills do it right in the production line with Gamma type AGC (Automatic 
Guage Contol) that contols and adjusts the rollers as the plate or strip is 
reduced to size.  
Cheer up!
Michael

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