[TheForge] Big Stuff

[PlumDon at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/13/2005 2:17:02 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
davesmucker at hotmail.com writes:

Don are  you sure it was at TRW and not at Alcoa -- forging the impellers for 
 
TRW.


Hi Dave;
 
I find I am increasingly unsure of any and everything anymore. I was doing  a 
lot of consulting work in the Cleveland area at the time. Perhaps I was at  
Alcoa. 
 
But I do recall the process and I could have watched it for hours. A guy  was 
sitting in something that looked like a small fork lift truck. He would pick  
up a bar of (I assume) aluminum and drove it to a nearby gas forge. After it 
was  hot he plucked it out, drove it to a forging press, pressed a button and  
WHAM. The ground around me shook. Just one hit and it was over.  I  looked at 
them after they were done and they looked like they had been polished.  Also 
looked a bit like airplane propellers. Pretty neat operation. 
 
I also did a couple years of consulting at Bethlehem Steel in Bethlehem,  PA. 
Watching 60 tons of hot steel being poured into a billet is pretty exciting.  
You dont get much of a chance to watch big time production anymore. At least 
I  dont. It all seems to have gone elsewhere.