[TheForge] OT, but I Just have to ask...

[Hochewa at aol.com]

To All,
Being a native of Bethlehem and having toured and worked at the Bethlehem 
mill, I can attest to the massive capability that the Forge and the #2 and #8 
machine shops had. Some of the largest turnings were rotor shafts for hydro 
plants.  I was a Co-op in the summer of '68 and in the #  2 machine shop which was 
the largest in the world, I saw four horizontal boring lathes turning 155mm 
barrels side by side.  Also at that time the New Jersey was off the coast of 
Vietnam and they were running down the stocks of Korean War era 16" projectiles.  
I got involved in making tooling for the forging press.  The process for 
making 16" projectiles is as follows:
heat an 8" square billet to 2200*F along with 30 other billets in a rotary 
hearth furnace
remove the billet from the furnace with a mechanical manipulator and drop it 
into a vertical cavity that is the shape and size of the rough forging
bring down a 16" plus ram and press the billet into the die 
Bring down an 8" diameter piercing tool and back extrude the billet until the 
back end of the projectile sticks out of the die
extract the rough forging from the die and begin the cycle again
Total Elapsed Time: 90 seconds
The forgings were then "normalized" to relieve the forging stresses and a 
band was turned on the OD to check for soundness
They were then shipped to one of the arsenals for final turning, heat 
treatment and loading with explosive.
The weight of the rough forging was just a little over 2200 pounds or more 
than a VW bettle
Also for consideration, the New Jersey displaced something like 45,000 tons 
and when all nine 16" guns were fired in a broadside, it moved about 3 feet.  

Hochewa 

In a message dated 1/13/05 10:49:38 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
gblacksmith at alamedanet.net writes:

<<  Much of the large forging capacity is still there and still in use.  The 
 > 10,000 ton and 3000 ton open die forge press that used to be Bethlehem 
 > Steel, then Bethlehem Forge in Bethlehem PA is now Lehigh Heavy Forge. 
 > The total Bethlehem Steel operations in Bethlehem used employ about 20,000 
 > folks and started with iron ore and coal made everything.  What is left is 
 > just the heavy forge shop and heavy machine shop.  (Under different 
 > ownership.) They buy in their steel now and still handle 300 ton forgings. 
 > Last time I was there in 1999 they were making very large prop shafts for 
 > the Navy and also for large turbines.  Most of their business is the 
 > forging, heat treating and finishing of rolling mill rolls.
 >
 > Dave Smucker >>