[TheForge] Big Stuff

[David E. Smucker]

Don are you sure it was at TRW and not at Alcoa -- forging the impellers for 
TRW.  Besides aluminum Alcoa forges a lot of special alloys, titanium etc 
for jet engines.  And Yes the big press was built by Mesta, and the smaller 
35,000 ton press was built by United if I remember right.  Cleveland works 
has a lot of smaller press too.

I think the confusion on the size is that the Mesta press is a 100,000,000 
pounds or 100 million pounds.  In Alcoa it was common to refer to both press 
and rolling mills in terms of millions of pounds.  The ton usage seems more 
common in steel.  The biggest plate mill in aluminum worldwide is the 220 
inch wide mill at Davenport, IA.  It has a separating force of 20 million 
pounds.  The work rolls are 43 inches in dia. and the backup are 84 inch 
dia. Weight of the backups are over 500,000 pounds and cost a bit over $ one 
million each.  For a long time it was the largest mill in the world -- still 
is in width but a larger steel plate mill in terms of roll size and force 
has now been built in Germany.  The roller bearings for those big rolls, 
were made by Timken and are the largest roller bearing ever made.

For many years Mesta and United were the major US mill builders and most of 
the older mills in Alcoa USA were from these two builder.  Neither is a 
force in mill building today.  It is a long story about their decline -- and 
I have lots of opinions on why this happen.  They sold their designs in both 
Europe and Asia (Japan) and were very happen to collect the license fees 
from mill builders there.  When they would get a new order they would go out 
and rehire retired engineers to do the design work.  Mean while the European 
builders came up with new technology and developed and trained many new 
young engineers.  I not against retired engineers -- but if that is the well 
you keep going to when you need help soon there are not many middle aged 
engineers with the experience to do the work.  You got to keep developing 
new talent.

Most of the equipment I bought in the 80's and 90's came from SMS AG in 
Germany.  It is not that we didn't want to buy America -- those still in the 
business in the USA just didn't have anything to offer that would meet the 
requirements of the market place for the quality of the metal we had to 
produce.  (Gauge control, surface and flatness.)  Lots of the equipment for 
the SMS mills were built in the USA but the design and all of the critical 
part were made in Germany.  SMS was a great company to work with, which is 
more than I can say for some others we did business with.

Dave Smucker
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <PlumDon at aol.com>
To: <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2005 12:41 PM
Subject: [TheForge] Big Stuff


> In a message dated 1/13/2005 12:22:45 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> davesmucker at hotmail.com writes:
>
> That  50,000 ton press is the largest in the USA.
> About 20 years ago I was watching them forge jet impellers at TRW in
> Cleveland. Way off in the distance of this building was a HUGE forging 
> press  made by
> Mesta. I was told it was 100,000 tons. It stood at least 30 feet tall. 
> Does
> anyone think it was really that big?
>
> Some of the other old fogeys who like me, are of the WWII era, may 
> recognize
> that Mesta name. Pearl Mesta was married to the guy who made this  stuff.
>
>
> Don  Plummer
> Plummer Design Works
> 392 Hallman Mill Road
> Phoenixville, PA  19460
> 610-495-5058
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