My kind of bonfire

[Jeffwxyz 0]

It has been a hard year for my company. We have only operated 2 months so far this year.

So I took these photos as my way of stopping and smelling the roses.

1st. is a view of the furnace looking toward the caster.

2nd (005) is tapping the furnace into a ladle.

3rd (021) is scrap bucket hanging from a crane waiting on furnace to drop scrap charge into furnace.

4th (026) is typical fireball when dropping a charge.

5th (027) shows the srcap bucket over the furnace after the fireball dies down a little.

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1st one, is it real? Unable to beleive,

SO great! What a rose to smell

What goes around, comes later.

[Jeffwxyz 0]

Yes it is real. What part is unbelievable?

[virgin-burner 1]

wow!

reminds me of terminator..

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

[skydiverbry 0]

Can I have one??Can I??Huh,Huh..can I?????

Bry

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Growing old is mandatory.Growing up is optional!!

D.S.#13(Dudeist Skdiver)

[Jeffwxyz 0]

There was a Terminator scene shot in part of Kaiser Steel's plant. That was about 1 mile from my plant. Kaiser steel is gone now and a race track is there now.

We do get some Hollywood action though. A few years ago, we melted a car in "Monster Garage". I guess their car did not win and was destroyed as part of the show.

Here are some photos that that show the sequence.

We first had them prep the car by draining all fluids and puncture the tires so avoid an explosion.

We put the car in the furnace when it was empty, but still hot from a previous heat (batch of steel). As you can see the car did not take long to catch on fire.

Then to actually melt it, we dropped a charge of scrap on topof it and then proceded operating the furnace normally.

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Overwhelmed.
Goes near by some of sunset jumps views.
But this one is man made, wonder-full!

"Almost" unreal in gradient balance.
Usually can be seen over 13000 ft... sometimes

and this isn't even close to fair description of this magnificent photo.

edit: was posting on 1st of the set

What goes around, comes later.

[Jeffwxyz 0]

Thanks, but I can't take credit for that one. One of our engineers took that one back in Oct or Nov 08. The other 4 I took this evening.

I like it a lot too because of how the light from the furnace illumiates the roof of the building.

[DavidB 0]

Wow. If I'm thinking of the place, you're making some specialty alloys (as opposed to cranking out rebar by the mile), right?

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I like it a lot too because of how the light from the furnace illumiates the roof of the building.

To put it in perspective for those that don't understand, that roof is some 40 to 50 meters up. You took those pics from what, about 100 meters away?

This is "the land of the giants" my friends! "Black magic" as it was once called.

When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

[sffudapparel 0]

I did a kickflip varial to feeble grind on that in Tony hawk Pro skater (2?) before ;)

Dream my life, live my dream

[VectorBoy 0]

Hey Jeff I operate the facility just south of your shop the one along your 66KV line next to Etiwanda. I remember in 07 you guys were doing like 4 or more pours a day.

[millertime24 8]

Ok Ill say it...



Was it hot?

Muff #5048

[Jeffwxyz 0]

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Wow. If I'm thinking of the place, you're making some specialty alloys (as opposed to cranking out rebar by the mile), right?

Well, we actually do make rebar. In a normal year we can make 550,000 Tons. This year we will only make about 120,000 to 150,000 tons. There is not much difference in the melting operation compared to a high quality steel shop. The differences lie in tighter scrap quality and secondary processing after the steel has been melted such as vacuum degassing. Also, much more is involved in keeping the steel "clean" while casting.

There are no other steel melt shops like ours left in California anymore. This is down from 15-20 steel plants that existed in the early 80's.

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I like it a lot too because of how the light from the furnace illumiates the roof of the building.

To put it in perspective for those that don't understand, that roof is some 40 to 50 meters up. You took those pics from what, about 100 meters away?

This is "the land of the giants" my friends! "Black magic" as it was once called.

Our shop is not really that big. Some are though. So the scale can be deceving. The bottom of the roof truss is about 60 feet above the floor from where the photo was taken. The building's roof line is about 90 feet above the ground.

[Jeffwxyz 0]

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Hey Jeff I operate the facility just south of your shop the one along your 66KV line next to Etiwanda. I remember in 07 you guys were doing like 4 or more pours a day.

Do you mean Grapeland peaker?

In 24 hours of operation, we can make 26 heats of about 130 Tons.

Right now, we can only keep 2 crews, so we run run the furnace 14 hours a day. Yesterday we made 15 heats, which is damm good.

[VectorBoy 0]

Yup Grapeland,

I was the CO there during construction. I remember watching a few heats a day through the door opening, impressive!

Since commisioning We operate grapeland and the others remotely so I haven't watched in while.

[Jeffwxyz 0]

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Yup Grapeland,

I was the CO there during construction. I remember watching a few heats a day through the door opening, impressive!

Since commisioning We operate grapeland and the others remotely so I haven't watched in while.

Well, Hi neighbor!

I sure wish you guys built Grapeland about 20 feet farther west. Befroe the economy fell apart we were getting ready to sign the contract to build a new substation. We need another 66kV circuit and needed the room for the R/W. We can still get it in, but it will take a lot of outages for them to install the 3rd circuit.

The new sub would have 2x 66-34.5kV 150 MVA banks. This is just to feed the furnace. We are trying to get the short circuit capacity up. It would also have 2x 28 MVA banks for our 12kV auxiliary feeders.

With our furnace the way it melts, you get scrap caving in on the electrodes all the time, causing large voltage drops of about 30%.

You should see what happens when the SCE operations people screw up and leave the breakers closed in the wrong configuration. The furnace will dim the lights in all of Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana . But it also causes havoc inside the plant tripping out auxiliary systems.

[LongWayToFall 0]

I saw that scene on monster garage, my dad and I thought how much all the paint and other junk must have screwed up the crucible. Do you just crank it up and burn it off? What about the aluminum and other metals? Cool job you have.

[Jeffwxyz 0]

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I saw that scene on monster garage, my dad and I thought how much all the paint and other junk must have screwed up the crucible. Do you just crank it up and burn it off? What about the aluminum and other metals? Cool job you have.

Thanks!
Paint is no problem. Scrap comes in all the time with paint still on it. When you are melting, there are many reactions taking place inside the furnace. Stuff like paint is reacting in the high temperature atmosphere and oxidizing. The temperatures are high enough to break-down chemical compounds. Typically something like paint, is going to get turned into CO2 or go into the steel to become part of the steel's carbon content. Any particulate is carred off in a water-cooled duct and captured in a baghouse.

Aluminum (Al) is a bit of a problem. When you melt steel, you need to also make a slag using lime. Slag protects the steel from air, keeps the heat in and can also attract impurities like Al.

The main way we get Al out is to burn it out with oxygen. When you inject oxygen into a steel bath, you oxidize metals in a predictable order. Al is one of the first to get oxidized. It then floats to the top and gets carried off by the slag. This is how we can also adjust the amount of silicon and carbon in the bath.

Having a small Al content does not really affect the strength of the product. The main reason that we have to get the Al out is that Al turns into Alumina and clogs the nozzles at the caster.

[VectorBoy 0]

The new sub would have 2x 66-34.5kV 150 MVA banks. This is just to feed the furnace. We are trying to get the short circuit capacity up. It would also have 2x 28 MVA banks for our 12kV auxiliary feeders.

[Jeffwxyz 0]

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The new sub would have 2x 66-34.5kV 150 MVA banks. This is just to feed the furnace. We are trying to get the short circuit capacity up. It would also have 2x 28 MVA banks for our 12kV auxiliary feeders.

I was under the impression that the emeron 66kv was just for your Aux and the furnace was fed from a 220kv from the north. I'm not a distribution guy, strictly generation.

Right now, we have 2x 66kV circuits feeding us. 1 is from the same 220/66 bank at Etiwanda that Grapeland is also on. That feeds everything here but the furnace. The other 66 kV feeder we have comes from a dedicated 280 MVA 220/66 bank at Etiwanda. That one feeds Ameron sub which feeds the furnace.

Both of our 66kV lines run just east of Grapeland.

Even though the line for the furnace is its only load, it is not enough. They need to run parallel conductors on the 66 line and install 2x 150 MVA transformers for the 66/34.5 to get the SC capacity up. Right now we have about 400-500 MVA short circuit available. We need about a 1500 MVA SC rating.

I want to see if I can break the coupling on your generator