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|Item 1: Present situation, technical and marketing on magnesium business in this country. |
|Item 2:Ttechnique of perfect dehydration from MgCl2∙2H2O |
|item 3: Electrolysis technique of LiCl bath |
|item 4: Future tendency toward larger electrolysis cells |
|item 5: Materials of the equipment for electrolysis process. |
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|and Macy |
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|AES |
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|[pic] |
|[pic] |
|. At Chicago Q , there were two molding lines..a machine line and a Pridmore Hand Molding line. There were back to back stations in each |
|system. A molding station had two machines and two molders. They worked back to back, one making copes and one making drags. |
|. (Mert Fleming and Dick Polich were at Mahwah at that time. And that formed the basis for another whole round of msgnesium friendships.) |
|. This program worked well and no complaints were received from customers’ about contamination in the magnesium.. |
|.The doctor that delivered David was Robert Carlyle Miller...hence David is David Carlyle Brown...Miller was the ob-gyn doctor that worked |
|at the Dow hospital. He retired and Ron Paul took over the practice. The Village of Lake Jackson where we lived was designed by Alden B. |
|Dow...the aesthetic son of Herbert Dow....it was a masterpiece of modern living in the old days. |
|/Chem and Eng News Aug 1944 |
|\ |
|““Frog”” started me off by teaching me how to mix clay into the proper composition to make bott sticks. A refractory clay mix in bags was |
|used with water enough to make it pliable. Not too much water. I needed and shaped clay plugs for a day and a half. ““Frog”” was very |
|particular of about the shape and the size and the consistency. On the day to day operation, once ““Frog”” had the cupola running and it |
|was producing molten iron per schedule, he would sit on an nail keg and either Chip the tappole open or close it with a bott stick. He wore|
|a woolen jacket and asbestos apron heavy refractory gloves safety goggles and a woolen winter hat. Needless to say in the summer months |
|when it got very hot he would sweat a lot. However he would also nap a lot and the pourers attempting to get the iron from the from the |
|ladle would yell ““Frog”” loudly and he would automatically jump to his feet grab a bott stick or a chisel depending on the need for iron |
|and open it or stop it up. |
|“For future expansion of the plant of silico-thermic reduction process, I wish and expect to use a fewer number of bigger vacuum reduction |
|vessel (not retort) instead of large number of small retorts. I am considering of such subject now. Is there any idea?” |
|“In the molten salt electrolytic process for the metallic magnesium, it is required that the anhydrous magnesium chloride to be converted |
|to metallic magnesium has an excellent purity and therefore, contains substantially no impurities such as water and magnesium oxide. |
|Generally, the anhydrous magnesium chloride to be converted to the metallic magnesium is industrially produced by the conventional |
|processes which can only reach about 99.4% purity.” |
|“Iron and steel manufacturers face a very unique set of challenges uncommon to other industries,” Posey said. “We are up against unfair and|
|often illegal global trade practices. The jurisdiction here is on the federal level, but the state-level support spelled out in this |
|resolution does not go without notice.” |
|“Iron and steel manufacturers face a very unique set of challenges uncommon to other industries,” Posey said. “We are up against unfair and|
|often illegal global trade practices. The jurisdiction here is on the federal level, but the state-level support spelled out in this |
|resolution does not go without notice.” |
|“Magnesium alloys have been of immeasurable value in the B 36 program. Since in any airplane of this size, a considerable portion of the |
|structure presents problems which are commonly known as minimum gauge problems, no other material could’ve provided the necessary’s |
|structural stability at absolute minimum weight. In addition, the problem of using both magnesium and aluminum alloys in very thin gauge |
|was responsible for the development on a production basis of suitable bonding techniques, without which it would’ve been impossible to’s |
|attain satisfactory fatigue life in such thin gauge structures.” |
|“Magnesium use is growing rapidly in Japan and in the United States. There are two major producers of magnesium in Japan. Both Companies|
|use the ferrosilicon reduction (Pidgeon) process. The market is larger than the production. Ube has built a magnesium plant of 400 |
|retorts. In 1967, production was using a 240 pound charge and producing 33 pounds of magnesium, claiming an 80.5% magnesium recovery. |
|This is not a bad recovery figure; however, there appeared to be problems in operating this plant. Based on these figures, and assuming an|
|8 hour production cycle for each charge, the yearly production should be 6000 long tons. Reported production figures show Ube to be |
|actually producing less than this.” |
|“The above stated object can be accomplished by the method of the present invention which comprises; the step of providing anhydrous |
|ammonium carnallite ammoniate by bringing hydrous ammonium carnallite into contact with gaseous ammonia; the step of thermally decomposing |
|the anhydrous ammonium carnallite ammoniate to anhydrous magnesium chloride, ammonium chloride and ammonia and; the step of isolating the |
|anhydrous magnesium chloride by evaporating the ammonium chloride and ammonia. By the process of the present invention, not only the |
|disadvantages of the conventional processes are eliminated but the resultant anhydrous magnesium chloride is of very high purity, i.e., |
|substantially 0.” |
|“The present entity, American Magnesium, was originally an enterprise of Roger M. Wheeler, which he later incorporated in Oklahoma under |
|the name of American Magnesium. He was the sole owner of both. In 1968, Wheeler formed a Delaware corporation, American Magnesium |
|Corporation, which acquired all the assets of Oklahoma American Magnesium by merger. The present stockholders of American Magnesium are |
|National Steel Corporation, Mr. Wheeler, Bovaird Supply Co., Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma Lines, Inc., and John E. Barry, who also are |
|holders of American Magnesium's promissory notes in substantial amounts which they will cancel under the terms of the plan of arrangement |
|if it is confirmed. Mr. Wheeler is president of Delaware American Magnesium. For thepurpose of this appeal, the term American Magnesium |
|shall apply to all three of these entities because, in effect, they were the same enterprise which simply changed its name and form on two |
|occasions.” |
|“There have been no significant developments in this additional year of service which would detract from the very satisfactory performance |
|record of magnesium alloy components in this airplane. As a matter of interest I would like to review Convair’s most recent estimates on |
|the quantity of magnesium alloys currently employed. In the items furnished by Convair, there are 8200 pounds of sheet and extrusions in |
|the airframe, 600 pounds of castings in the airframe and equipment, and 100 pounds of sheet, castings and forgings in various equipment. |
|This totals 9000 pounds in items furnished by the contractor. In the items furnished by the government, there are 1710 pounds in wheel |
|castings, 3048 pounds in the power plants 432 pounds in the propellers and spinners, and 1480 pounds in the turrets. This totals 6670 |
|pounds of government furnished items. Grand total of these items is 15,670 pounds of magnesium used in each B 36”. |
|“Ube would like to build up the magnesium production. Like any company I assume they also want to make a profit on this operation. It is |
|possible to produce more magnesium in tons and not make more profit. Therefore as part of any program to develop magnesium, profitability |
|will be taken into account. The exact area of most concern in the magnesium is unknown to me right now. I assume production is not up to |
|standard and costs are too high. A systematic approach to the first problem should help the second.” |
|1.0 Introduction |
|1.2. My teachers and subjects at Houghton school. |
|1968 was the last full year of operations everything ran smoothly and the costs were down in spite of an increase in most operating |
|materials and labor. The plant had operated profitably for over five years. |
|2. 1 History of the college |
|2.0 Michigan College of Mining and Technology |
|2.2 Unusual Introduction to Magnesium |
|2.3 Writing A Senior Thesis for Michigan Tech Metallurgical Engineering Degree |
|226 Deer Trace |
|3,0 Extra Curricula Activities and summer employment |
|3.1 Working in a canning factory |
|3.2 Lifeguard for the Village at Beach on Portage Lake |
|3.3.1 Nest Door Neighbor in Tiger Hotel |
|3.3Working in Historic Mining Area |
|4.0 College Sports |
|5.0 College Military Training |
|6.0 First Job After College with American Brakeshoe Company. |
|A firebase is set in the open shaft of the cupola usually using bottom boards and material that will burn easily. It is important to do |
|this carefully using a sand molding sand base that is stamped into place before the boards are put on. A certain amount of leftover Coke is|
|put into the cube below and then fresh Coke added on top of that. Very carefully so the bottom is not disturbed. In the morning the cupola|
|firing is started by setting the combustibles in the furnace on fire and slowly starting up the draft or wind to the unit. As the cupola |
|bed warms up the vupols charges can be added in by a mechanical bucket which drops the charge into the cupola from the charging floor. The|
|charge consists of limestone, Coke and steel and, iron. |
|A huge specialized search for a competent manager with some magnesium and metals plant management experience was conducted. Mr. Richard N. |
|Speer, who was a plant manager at Chromium Smelting and Refining in Spokane, Washington took the position of General Manager in May 196L. |
|Dr. Pidgeon had met him while he was running the Silicothermic (Bagley) magnesium plant in Spokane, Washington during the Korean War. |
|Speer was a graduate of Queens University Toronto. He had run the Chromasco ferroalloy plant in Spokane, Washington. |
|A man cage was three levels It was about 4 foot x4 foot and there were 9 men on a level. The hoist man with help of the Cager (the man who|
|supervised the loading and unloading).Put the bottom level of the man cage at the opening. 9 men went in and the cage was lowered to the |
|2nd level and then repeated one more time. Then the cager rang a bell and away we went down the shaft. |
|A metallurgist from DOMAL along with a reduction furnace foreman would be located at the plant in Selma for six week periods. Peter Gibbs |
|was the first metallurgist and Murray McCollugh was the reduction furnace foreman. Later a metallurgist named Al Froats with melting and |
|casting experience along with a senior melting and casting foreman named Jack Selkirk was sent down for six weeks to help train melt and |
|casting operators. |
|A n o t h e r reduction in production schedules for plants producing magnesium was announced by The War Production Board on July 29. The |
|new schedule calls for termination of production at the plant |
|A plan was developed to transport crude oil from wells on the North Slope in Alaska. The the pipeline would be 800 miles long and require |
|special design and care. The Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) crosses the ranges of the Central Arctic heard on the North Slope and the |
|Nelchina Herd in the Copper River Basin. |
|A process has been worked out by Icelandic scientist Bell door Linda all and uses salt from the steam wells, shall sand for lime and |
|seawater for and for magnesium). Magnesium hydroxide is precipitated from seawater and then passed through an ion exchange resin ties up |
|the magnesium sodium I and is released by the resin and combines with the bicarbonate ion to produce sodium bicarbonate. Magnesium chloride|
|is obtained will need ion exchange resin is regenerated with salt. The solutions – sodium bicarbonate and magnesium chloride – are |
|concentrated by natural heat. Soda ash is produced as the byproduct. |
|A sample pond system was established and the first magnesium chloride(MgCl2) cell feed was produced and shipped to the Henderson, Nevada |
|titanium plant for reduction in a special MEL electrolytic cell. By February 1966, the first commercial magnesium metal had been produced |
|from the Great Salt Lake. After many tests and further investigations, National Lead committed to the project in 1969 and detailed |
|engineering started with Ralph M Parsons company as the main contractor. |
|A. P. Beutel was the GM of the Texas Division.. Nick-named ’Dutch”, or “Stumpy” (not to his face) was sent south from Main Dow offices |
|in Midland to get the mag cells operating as they did not work...(boron) when the plant started up. ..He struggled when it came to |
|speeches and talks. However, he got things done. |
|Accomplishment is much more rewarding than words. Here I was a 21 year old college graduate, who made small sand cores for a day and felt |
|more elated about that than many of my other accomplishments. It also quickly teaches you the importance of any seemingly small job in a |
|foundry and its effect on the total operation of the facility. Like the saying” for the want of a nail a shoe was lost—“. |
|According to the Chairman of the Alabama Iron & Steel Council, Scott Posey of AM/NS Calvert, this type of Legislative recognition is very |
|important to the industry. |
|Actual magnesium consumption in China was said to reached 17,000 metric tons in 1993 during 1993 the actual production of magnesium was |
|said to be 11,800 metric tons. This is about one third of the rated production capacity. One third is very low utilization of installed |
|production capacity oh that’s it okay |
|After the first three flights, we started flying in T 29’s. This was a Convair two-engine aircraft which was more powerful than the TC 47.|
|It also had more navigation positions. A sideline of interest was that the T 29 was a tricycle landing gear aircraft therefore the |
|navigation compartment was parallel to the ground when you entered. The TC 47 in contrast was a tricycle landing gear plane and you climbed|
|in the back and then had to walk uphill to find your student navigation position. |
|After a couple of weeks I had participated in most of the operations and had a rudimentary understanding of the processes besides the |
|actual molding. The main core maker and there was only one. Called in sick one day and I had the opportunity to run the core room for one |
|day, laying out production and actually producing cores that went to the working foundry floor. Needless to say was “observed” by the |
|foundry foreman and the sand foreman which I did not realize at the time. |
|After a period of time, I wrote to Ube to see how they were coming. Mr. Sasaki sent mail a letter on May 1, 1981 where he reviewed their |
|operations in Japan. He said .” Thank you for your letter. So as to keep our magnesium ingot price competitive you know we have been making|
|strenuous efforts for process improvements. We have been producing magnesium for 15 years. The main improvements in our magnesium |
|manufacturing processes are as follows: |
|After about 45 minutes, we started our tour of the plant. It was a relatively small plant rated at 7500 tons of magnesium per year. 10 |
|furnaces with 24 retorts. These two fellows were very intent on viewing all the details. Mr. Kido was the only person I had met that |
|could bend over and almost put his head on the ground to look under equipment to see all the details. It too was exhausting. I had been |
|directed to be very open and to show them all of the operation as the Wolverine Tube was very interested in establishing a working |
|relationship with UBE. |
|After Alamet closed the magnesium plant I went to Bendix Foundries, a magnesium , aluminum, diecasting and investment foundry located in |
|Teterboro, New Jersey. I had written a letter to Dr. Matsuura at Ube, on August 23, 1968, offering my services as a consultant. |
|After arriving at the emergency room the attendance quickly transferred me to an operating room that was not being used. It was fortunate |
|that the company doctors Dr. William Ehlert and Jasper more were in the hospital already operating. They came over to look at me and I |
|remember the glances they gave each other as they went up and down my body Albert was announced the will be the guy in orthopedic and he |
|looked at the smashed parts of the ankle mower look at my general body pulled off some skin and then noted that I had a heavy wedding ring |
|on. He tried to get the wedding ring off but he couldn’t and no one in the hospital had a ring cutter. So they sent a taxi to a jewelers |
|where they located a ring cutter. In the meantime I told Dr. Moore to just go ahead and bandage it up or whatever. And he said I do that |
|today and I’ll take the finger off tomorrow. The ring cutter came they cut off the ring which I still have in the cut off fashion. And they|
|proceeded to work on the ankle once they got it all fixed in place with screws wire and plates they put a cast on and sent me to her home. |
|After attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Notre Dame, Mr. Wheeler graduated from Rice University in 1946 with a B.S. in|
|engineering. In 1949, he formed the Standard Magnesium and Chemical Corporation, which he sold to the Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical |
|Corporation in 1964 for $9.8 million. Roger was made a vice president in charge of Magnesium. Kaiser had announced that they were going |
|to build a primary magnesium production plant in the Pacific Northwest. He continued to work for Kaiser for nine months and then he |
|returned to Tulsa, and soon after began developing an industrial conglomerate. |
|After getting approval from Dudley, Sven took me to meet the National Lead principals he worked with as a consultant on this project. We |
|went to the National Lead offices and I met Eugene Erbin who was the project manager for the National Lead magnesium venture. |
|After graduating from Houghton High School, I enrolled in the local mining college which was closer to my house in Houghton than the High |
|School was. |
|after graduating from primary basic observer training at Ellington Air Force Base, I received orders to report to the 321 Aerial Refueling |
|Squadron at Maxwell Air Force Base. The graduation ceremonies at Ellington included a full wing parade and awarding of wings and diplomas |
|for the graduates. I was very proud of having a set of wings on my uniform and I reported in in full uniform with the wings. I received a |
|bunch of paperwork to fill out and proceeded to get housing at the BOQ (Batchelor Officer Quarter) at Maxwell. |
|After my 2nd year in college was complete, there were announcements posted on the Bulletin Board in the Mining and Metallurgical |
|Engineering departments advertising jobs in the mines and mills of Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mining in the Coeur d’alene region of Northern |
|Idaho. A group of 5 Michigan Tech students got together and traveled from the Michigan Copper Country to Wallace, Idaho. It was a very |
|long drive (before interstates) in a two-door 1946 Ford with a bad clutch. There were five of us with luggage and some spare tires, a very |
|loaded car. |
| After my time in the Air Force was up in March 1957. |
|After several days of watching “Frog” do his job, I started pestering Stanley to let me try to do one tapping- stopping round in the |
|cupola. In my mind I thought, “how difficult could it be ?” . After two days, with “Frog” stopping up, napping, chipping out, and |
|re-stopping up, I finally persuaded Stanley to allow me to take a turn in “Frog”’s place. |
|After several hours of discussion and explanation and touring, the two Japanese visitors were picked up by the plant HR Manager, Jerry |
|Comer, and I was invited to the Selma Country Club for a small dinner in honor of the UBE visitors with the Magnesium plant manager, |
|technical manager, HR Manager. |
|after several meetings, then felt the best move would be to hire me to help him in several varying areas. Immediately the main goal would |
|be to sell a hot chamber die casting machine that would activate a relationship with Frech and use it as a foundation for a separate |
|business. However, since Sven was bankrolled by Dudley, any move would have to be financed and approved by Dudley’s goals. The first step |
|would be to meet at one of our meeting places in New York City do some planning and outlaying and then meet with Dudley at Morgan Stanley |
|bank. We did this. And Sven took me to Morgan Stanley where we walked into a very large beautiful wooden structure within the building at |
|55 Wall Street. Everybody knew Sven. The receptionist for the office let Dudley secretary know we were there. A very pleasant looking |
|businesslike woman met us smiling and exchange some pleasantries with Sven who introduced me to her and she led us back to the office of |
|Dudley. The office was fairly large with carved wooden and the core and windows overlooking the New York Harbor. Dudley was a bit of a |
|surprise to me. It was summertime and hot in New York City Dudley had on a white suit with a string tie, similar to a southern planter. He |
|came around the desk and shook hands a man of medium height with soft hands and a thin but solid looking physique. As Sven introduced me |
|and we discussed a bit of foundry background, Dudley said he had worked in a foundry when he first graduated from Cornell. (It later turned|
|out that Dudley was the captain of the Cornell football team in 1929.). Behind his desk he had a very large brass telescope that was |
|mounted on a tripod. He said he loved ships and could watch them closely from his office overlooking the New York Harbor when he had a time|
|to do it. |
|After spending time with the cupola repair people on night shift, I was advanced to the day shift to work directly on the molten iron |
|production. Stanley had a little meeting with me and ““Frog””, and he outlined the program he had in mind. ““Frog”” was to train me in all |
|the exemplary operations (including all the small secrets and special cupola information). The importance of the cupola operation to the |
|whole foundry was explained to me and I was not to touch molten iron operations, on until ““Frog”” cleared it with Stanley. There was no |
|practice cupola only the main operational unit responsible for supplying all the foundry iron for the total shift. |
|AFTER THE ACCIDENT , SMOOTHING OUT THE PLANT OPERATION |
|After the Bendix foundry was closed I had worked with Frankie Bruno and his small foundry that was making the Vanasil castings for the |
|space telescope program. I got a call in to the personnel office and was fired. Actually I was severed that they did not offer much pay and|
|they had an attorney draw up a clause outlining my severance. It appeared later on that this was the whole idea They wanted to be sort of |
|fair and give me some time to find a job and see if I was going to sue the company. That was never my intention and once they found that |
|out, I was gone. |
|After the building of the first magnesium gondolas, there was a lull in the gondola business in the Dow Bay City Fabrication group and E. |
|Howard Perkins left Dow in late 1933 to start his own company in Detroit. The business plan in 1935 was to make parcel delivery vans with |
|magnesium bodies. The basic unit was a Ford chassis with a cab-over-engine The Vanette line of very light weight magnesium delivery trucks|
|quickly became popular nationally. |
|After the daylong meeting in New York City a dinner was held in honor of Mr. Sasaki and Mr. Nakayasu at the Sun Luck Chinese Restaurant in |
|NYC on May 17, 1971. The conversation was basically in Japanese. One of the Nissho Iwai employees who was fluent in English, kept me |
|informed as to the discussions and topics. There were several chuckles in the midst of some discussions and it was explained to me that |
|the men were joking about Mr. Nakayasu who had not been married very long and was away from his wife for the first long period since the |
|wedding. Nissho Iwai representatives were Mr. S.Takahashi, Mr. Yahiko Yasui, and Mr. Sadashu. |
|After the plant was commissioned in 1972 it struggled to reach nameplate capacity. National Lead sold the plant to Amax in 1980 and Amax |
|found that the installed electrolytic cells were not efficient. Cell technology and support equipment were purchased from Norsk Hydro and |
|the new cells work better than the original cells. Just as things were starting to improve, several years of excessive rainfall overfilled |
|the Great Salt Lake parent which is like a large bathtub, with no outlet except by evaporation. As the lake level continued to rise to a |
|record level of 4211.85 feet, the dikes of the evaporation ponds broke on June 10, 1986 and the feedstock for the plant was instantly |
|totally diluted by raw lake water. Immediately after the dikes were breached the lake level dropped nearly .5 feet ( due to the large area |
|that the solar ponds occupy). The operation commenced to produce metal using MgCl2 from outside sources while repairing and reconstruction |
|of the ponds took place. |
|After the sand was made and sent to the molding floors, the molds were made and then put on small rail cars hooked together in a continuous|
|type of converyor. Each car had a steel plate on it and this was used as a platform for the finished mold flasks sitting on bottom boards.|
|After the war, my father found work in the Venezuelan oil fields, where he learned that pipelines can be kept free of rust and leaks by |
|attaching an anode of magnesium metal. The magnesium anode rusts instead of the pipe. My dad came back to America and started a business |
|melting down magnesium leftovers from the war to make magnesium anodes for oil pipelines. |
|After this letter I did not have correspondence with Ube and I did not complete a further report since it was hard to improve, even on |
|paper, on what they were attempting to accomplish. After a period of time, I learned from media reports that Ube was considering moving |
|magnesium operations to China. |
|Alabama is considered the ductile iron pipe capital of the United States and is a leading steel producer. Iron and steel products |
|manufactured in Alabama are used in construction, infrastructure, and energy production projects, as well as a variety of end use products |
|including appliances, automobiles, firefighting equipment and much more. According to the American Iron and Steel Institute, over 61,000 |
|jobs are supported by the industry in Alabama. |
|Alabama is considered the ductile iron pipe capital of the United States and is a leading steel producer. Iron and steel products |
|manufactured in Alabama are used in construction, infrastructure, and energy production projects, as well as a variety of end use products |
|including appliances, automobiles, firefighting equipment and much more. According to the American Iron and Steel Institute, over 61,000 |
|jobs are supported by the industry in Alabama. |
|Alabama Metallurgical Corporation May 1960\ |
|Alaska pipeline-A wake up to US Steel industry and magnesium. |
|All headers were welded to the furnace frame causing problems as the retorts tended to heat up and expand. Gas firing was two position, |
|On-Off. This was changed to modulating control. The steam jet ejector vacuum system seldom operated as designed. It was a new system and no|
|one understood how it operated much less how to operate it. A steady constant flow of steam was necessary for proper operation and the |
|boiler operation was also not understood. |
| |
|All my best and lets stay in touch, |
|All northern Michigan copper was developed by the basic principles that are traditionally associated with mining. Growing up in Michigan |
|was an adventure in itself. I have very vivid memories of much of this time, but realize that most of the life that I lived was fairly |
|rudimentary. |
|All of the instructions and discussions of magnesium melting cautioned the operators to keep the furnace settings clean. This was normally |
|done by shutting down the operating furnace setting allowing everything to cool, and then removing the crucible and raking out the scale |
|and the bottom. The furnace settings were usually bricked with firebrick and coated with a refractory mortar coat. The bottom was cast |
|refractory and it was sloped to a run out point where molten magnesium leaking from the crucible could run to a collection point where it |
|could be contained and covered with melting flux. |
|All the paper work was in order when we reported to Bunker Hill and Sullivan and we signed all the employment forms, got a quick physical |
|from the Company doctor. We were assigned labor jobs at the Star Mine in Burke, Idaho and given directions and an introduction to a Mr. |
|Bill Vipperman who was the manager of the Tiger Hotel..the miner’s boarding house in Burke. |
|All the valves installed in the vacuum system originally were of the wrong type and had to be replaced. There were 240 retorts installed in|
|groups of four retorts call thanks. There was a 2 inch fell on each retort and to 4 inch valves for each bank. That was 24 2- inch valves |
|and 12 4- inch valves. The number was bad enough, but the physical replacement on hot furnaces was quite a difficult maintenance chore. |
|All these plants are government-owned and the drop in production rates was explained on the grounds that it would bring surplus supplies of|
|magnesium more into line with the nation’s stockpile objectives. |
|Also made a trip to Buffalo New York to visit Earl Attridge who was an engineer with Bell Aircraft where he was introduced to magnesium. |
|Earl was an avid bowler with a 200+ average. Earl developed a private company to produce magnesium bowling pins. By October 1962, the |
|American bowling conference issued its first approval of an all synthetic bowling pin. That pin was mainly magnesium. There was great |
|interest in the pins because they never wore out. The samples in a continuous bowling set up went over 350,000 games and only lost 0.0025 |
|inches in pin diameter. It was estimated that the pin could outlast a wooden bowling pin by 20 to 100 times. |
|Although Dick Polich and his team (including me) had been more or less promised a year to show results on the bottom line the situation had|
|abruptly changed. There was a major Bendix board meeting and one of the outcomes was a review of the potential of the foundry producing a |
|profit of $250,000 in the next year. With the problems we were working on at the time, this result was highly unlikely. The Bendix board |
|made a decision to close the foundry and make the space available to the work that was being done in a rented CW facility. |
|Although its chemical properties are similar to those of Cast Iron, Ductile Iron incorporates significant casting refinements, additional |
|metallurgical processes, and requires superior quality control. |
|AMERICAN MAGNESIUM NEEDS CASTING HELP IN TEXAS |
|Anacast was working closely with General Dynamics to produce castings for the prototypes of the F 16 program. The company was working on |
|developing an investment casting foundry. They had orders for 35 high quality aluminum castings 33 were investments, and 2 were sand |
|castings. |
|And other problem that was being worked on was developing techniques to cast QE 22 magnesium alloy which contained silver. Another problem |
|that was being was the condition of the die casting machines and renovation and upgrading needed. |
|Andy Zachary, the Maintenance head of Mag3, was also a Rock Hound and used to work some with Beutel in his rock shop that was back of |
|his house which was No.2 on the water at Lake Jackson.. Andy told the story about the time when AP was aware of his wife's birthday and |
|promised her a very special present. He, with Zachary's help labored for weeks on the present. Beutel had purchased a large metal ash |
|tray and spent hours cutting and piecing all sort of pretty and exotic rocks from around the world in a special design for his wife. He |
|had a large diamond saw and a lot of tools and was very proud of his work, but his wife, apparently never fully appreciated all the effort |
|and thought that had gone into the design and construction of the gift. |
|Another assignment that was available after navigation school was as an aerial performance engineer (APE). The main duty of this position |
|was to be part of a B 36 crew and take care of in-flight maintenance items. At this time B 36’s would fly for many hours and the theory was|
|a trained APE could keep the plane flying by taking care of small problems such as electronic malfunctions while remaining in flight. This |
|program did not last as the B 36 bombers were removed from service and replaced with B 47 jet bombers. |
|Another extra curricula activity that I participated in was sports. Because Houghton, Michigan is the “home of” or “place of origin” of |
|professional ice hockey, I had been introduced to skating and the sport of hockey as a young boy. So I was on several youth teams and then|
|tried out for the Michigan Tech hockey team when I got to college. I also went out for the college football team one year when the hockey |
|coach thought it would help with our conditioning. |
|Another summer I got a job as a lifeguard at the village of Houghton Swimming Beach on Portage Lake. We had a magnesium metal boat made by|
|Grumman and it was used to patrol the swimming area and take an employee of the Village health department out to dip water samples on a |
|daily basis. Because it was made from thin magnesium sheet, the boat was very light and easy to handle and to row. |
|Anyway as they transitioned to handling magnesium in the torpedo car, one day the magnesium ate through the lining or the lining cracked |
|and it reacted with the refractory and started spewing fire into the air. The molten magnesium had reacted with the silicon firebrick |
|lining and was producing magnesium silicide in huge quantities of blue crystals which is an exothermic reaction. Bradshaw jumped on the |
|back end of the torpedo car where there was a hatch and he loosened up the hatch which was not a smart move in some respects but it did |
|relieve the pressure and stop the spewing and eventually the fire went out. There was a huge pile of deep blue magnesium silicide crystals|
|on the ground for several months. |
|Application of jumbo sized retorts in the reduction process. |
| As a sideline the hockey team would drive to Grand Forks, ND for games against the University of North Dakota. We would pass Superior, |
|Wisconsin which was the home of Major Richard (Dick) Bong another US Air Force ace. There was a P-38 twin-boomed fighter on a pedestal |
|just outside of town. On my last trip, one of our cars went off the road and got stuck in a snow bank. A dump truck full of sand stopped |
|and used a chain to help pull the car out of the bank. The label on the truck said Richard Bong and Son. It was Dick Bong’s father. Bong |
|was also in the Pacific and shot down 40 total Japanese aircraft, many were fighters that contained magnesium parts. He was decorated with|
|the US Medal of Honor by Douglass McArthur, but was killed in a testing program with US jet fighters. |
|As a Special Apprentice I was not permitted to work in any of the normal production positions as these were rated Union jobs. I did have a|
|special molding area on a bench next to the production line. This was where special small order casting molds were made. There was a very|
|large pattern storage at Chicago “Q” and there was a large index with identification and location kept in a large card file. There were |
|patterns for every brake shoe that had been run for more than30 years. The patterns were made from mahogany and were mounted on wood |
|with follower boards. Some were very large. I do remember personally making eight driver brakeshoes for a locomotive in South America. |
|The matching mounted steel backs had to be made in the stamping shop. It was very educational. |
|As a young boy, I lived with my mother and father on 236 West Edwards Street in Houghton, Michigan. A village of 3000 people that had |
|experienced tremendous growth in the late 1880’s and early 1900’s. due to the discovery and development of copper mining in the so-called |
|Copper Country. However, my boyhood times were in the great depression when the price of copper dropped to 4 cents per pound and the mines |
|closed and the county home for indigent families, ThePoor Farm , became a haven of shelter for the destitute. |
|As he was getting started in consulting, he noticed an ad in the local paper by someone who wanted to breed a Norwegian registered dog. |
|They were looking for a registered male of the same breed. Sven and his wife Lucy had brought a male dog of this type from Norway when they|
|moved to the US. Sven called the number and talked to a nice lady who was very interested in proceeding after the conversation. |
|As I drove to the magnesium plant in Selma, I thought about the great people that I had met in the magnesium industry while at Dow. I had |
|interviewed and taken the job in Selma because the magnesium plant needed a metallurgist and it was run by Calumet and Hecla the old line |
|copper company from Northern Michigan. The company where my grandfather had worked as a miner and a stamp mill worker and who my father |
|had worked for as a clerk fresh out of high school. |
|As I said before the Strategic Air Command (SAC) was expanding rapidly and changing their global approach to airpower. When I showed up at |
|Maxwell as could be expected from normal Air Force proceedings, they had a surplus of navigators. I was assigned to a crew initially as a |
|third navigator on that crew. This was to permit me to get flying time and to learn to operate with a group and to get some Navigation |
|practice in a KC97 aircraft. |
|As I said he was a very friendly man and he wanted to know all sorts of small details about the plant and what was happening we would spend|
|10 or 15 minutes finishing our sandwiches after we got Mr. Perkins a cup of coffee. We offered to share a sandwich, but he turned us down.|
|A plant tour with Mr. Perkins was always very interesting. He would shake hands almost anybody and didn’t look at his hand to see how dirty|
|it was after it was shaken. He had something to say for all people and was interested in the minute detail of many things.. |
|As I said, the story no longer has much relevance and I haven’t used it in the talk for some time. |
|As I set up the Assocation office, there certainly was no communication as we accept today. Norsk Hydro had a US office in New York and |
|much of the correspondence was handled through that group. Gisel Hauganes acted as the intermediary between the Selma office and the |
|President in Norway. |
|As I studied the requests from UBE, I was doing some review of the published dats on the Pidgeon Process equipment details. After some |
|looking at the publications made during theWWII period, starting with the Pidgeon and Alexander work.[1] It was notable that non of the |
|technical illustrations showed the key design of the inserted condenser into the retort water jacket. They wanted a complete set of |
|drawings of the retort and condensing equipment. This is what I provided as part of the fulfillment of the consulting contract. |
|As many people find, and it is even more apparent in New York City, the cost of having an office to do business is very expensive. Sven |
|Fougner had developed many business assets by a careful review of various spaces in the city. One of the favorite meeting places was the |
|New York chemical club library. It had a very good selection of technical books and it had small meeting rooms that were available to its |
|members. Sven was a member. |
|As part of college and some chances to make some money I had some interesting summer employment. Before entering College I worked at a |
|small independent canning factory in West Bend, Wisconsin. The West Bend Canning Company did corn and peas. The equipment was quite old |
|and one of the jobs was called “strapping cans”. Clean No.3 cans would go into the machine from top and be filled with the product to be |
|canned which was corn niblets or creamed corn. After the can was filled, the canning machine attached a lid and the can sealed. Sealed |
|cans came out of the old machines standing upright on a clean steel table. One of the labor jobs was “strapping cans”. This operation |
|involved large pieces of old drive belts that wee about 39” long with cut down ends. The ‘strapper” would gather a group of cans with the |
|strap held by hand and with the use of thumbs, firmly grasped and lifted the cans into large steel baskets. When filled with cans the |
|baskets were lifted and placed in steam heated pressure cookers furnaces to be cooked. The cans were backed in cardboard cartons and |
|stacked in a warehouse in large lots. These lots would be sold at auctions to named canning companies. An inspector would come to the plant|
|and go to the warehouse and check certain randomly selected cartons and open it and pick out a can. The food inspector would open the can |
|and dump the contents out on a special white China plate and then stir it around, check the product and taste it before approving the lots.|
| |
|As part of my apprenticeship I worked several weeks with "Running Repair". The maintenance guys. In addition to normal repair work, they |
|also performed small plant improvement projects. They were tasked with making a ladder to climb up from one intermediate floor to the |
|charging floor of the main cupola. The plant engineer sketched a 10 foot ladder and the location. Bob and Eric were the main repairmen and|
|in charge of all welding.. They showed me the technique to make a ladder..using strap steel strips, 2" wide and 12 feet long. clamp them |
|together, drill 1/2" (could have been 3/4") holes through the straps at about 6" spacing. Cut ladder rungs from Rod stock about 15" |
|long. Fit them up and weld them in place to make the ladder. In the mean time, the Bob and Eric left me alone finishing the ladder and |
|went to put up the mounting tabs on both of the steel floor structures in a clear place. I finished my ladder, they hammered on the rungs, |
|etc and asked me if it was ready, I said "Yes". So they took the ladder up to the second floor and took it to the side where the brackets |
|were welded. We hoisted up and fit it in place and they said ...go ahead and put the bolts in the brackets and we did. They checked the |
|general sturdiness of the installation..and then said, "Now go ahead and climb to the next floor." No OSHA...here...just a ladder attached|
|on the outside of the platform..you had to swing out from the floor and get on the ladder and climb up and get off on the next floor. I |
|said, "But it's just been put up, how do I know it’s safe??" They both looked at me and said, "You are going to show that it is safe, who |
|do you think should do it??" Taught me a lesson. I later learned that they had gone behind my back and watched from corners everything I |
|had done and checked the welds when I was away...etc. But I did not know that...It was welcome to the wearing of the Big Boy pants. |
|As part of my training when I was working in Chicago Q, I also spent time in the pattern shop, and a long time in a special area which made|
|expanded metal and steel backs and lugs for the brakeshoes.. As the molds were being made on the molding machines, expanded metal bundles |
|specially trimmed and designed were put into the cavity areas in the drag. And the steel backs and lugs were tied in to the copes and the |
|molds joined to be poured with iron. The steel back was the main mounting design for the cast-iron block that was the brakeshoe. The |
|cast-iron brakeshoes had the expanded metal reinforcements inside them so they would not break under pressure. |
|As part of the background, American brakeshoe company had several foundries in the Chicago area. In Melrose Park which was the next town |
|over from Maywood where I was staying, there was a miscellaneous castings foundry. The Melrose Park foundry had a No. 9 Whiting cupola and|
|a smaller cupola. The company made much larger castings in smaller numbers for a normal routine. They produced gray iron of various |
|strengths and the nickel iron primarily used for grinding balls. American Brake Shoe Company called it ABK metal. It was actually a form of|
|ni- hard iron. |
|As Sven Fougner and I talked with Eugene Erbin it became apparent that my immediate value could be to work with NL on establishing the |
|magnesium metal handling and casting facility. At a meeting in New York Walter McCormack an N L engineer and Walter Shaw the project |
|manager for Parsons who were doing the plant design and construction agreed to use my services. A consulting contract was arranged with |
|Ralph M Parsons and on the next trip to Salt Lake City I accompanied Erbin and Bill Girton of Kemp Corporation to discuss the magnesium |
|refining and casting plans. Kemp was planning to help design and build new magnesium furnaces to handle the magnesium from the electrolytic|
|cells. |
|As the Air Force continued to grow and refine its positions I eventually worked up to be the navigator on a combat crew. This meant that we|
|flew and trained and passed SAC regulations including a full stand board inspection to be certified as a combat crew. We were assigned to |
|a KC97 F aircraft- number 256. From here on out, combat crew T 33 would be assigned to accompany the aircraft through its schedule. This |
|way the planners use the aircraft and its hours and maintenance condition to schedule operations. The crew went with it. In this particular|
|instance we flew missions that were required for combat crews such as so many aerial refueling missions, so many navigational missions and |
|even maintenance time. The crew bonded and did aircraft washing aircraft cleanup and all assigned missions as a group. This was part of the|
|sac approach to achieving a coherent group with high morale. |
|As the cupola heats up and the iron melts a clay plug is inserted in the tap hole. As the iron melts and slag forms eventually molten slag |
|will start coming out of the slag hole which is above the tap hole. In the brakeshoe foundry slag ran into a slag ladle on two wheels that|
|was taken aside as it filled up and another one put in its place. |
|As the industry became more aware of the need for low sulfur steel, many new methods of adding desulffurizer material to the hot metal. |
|Papers were presented in many areas of the world, but in the end magnesium injection in various forms won out. Several prominent |
|businesses were developed for magnesium injection. Magnesium became more and more used until desulfurization became one of the major used |
|for magnesium, next to aluminum alloying. |
|As the population grew, the main focus was on mining and or processing. The Cornish men who were known as Cousin Jacks, came from Southwest|
|England where mining had taken place for many years. The Michigan surface operations were basically designed and built by French Canadians.|
|Many other Eastern European immigrants also came to the area to work in other areas including lumbering, farming, construction, stone and |
|brick masonry. |
|As we all know I thought it was me and “Frog” and Stanley that were doing the procedure. What I had not known, but should have been aware |
|of, everyone in the foundry was watching. When the iron flew it gave them a show and gave me a burn. Suddenly I became the object of pity, |
|humor, derision, and attention. Anybody that did not know me before suddenly saw me at my worst after “Frog” and Stanley recovered they |
|took me to the plant nurse. Audrey, a tough looking redheaded gal who was a veteran of World War II. And she asked, “What have we here?” |
|I was mortally embarrassed and didn’t want to show her and she said take those pants off and let me look at what’s gone on. I hesitated and|
|she said get on with it I don’t have a lot of time and you don’t have anything I haven’t seen before Audrey took some special salve and put|
|a load on my butt. My underwear was burned my pants were burned and my ego was severely bruised. She placed a large Gauze pad over the |
|burn, wrapped the towel around me and said go put your regular pants on. Audrey hung my charred overall pants and underwear on the safety |
|bulletin board. This kept the interest alive for several weeks. |
|As we were permitted to live off base three of us lived in a apartment complex called Patricia Manor which was close to Ellington AFB. . |
|One evening we were shooting celestial shots in the parking lot behind the apartments and one of the new apartment tenants named Hap |
|Arnold, stopped to talk to us. Turned out he was a old World War II B-17 Navigator who had been recalled to be a navigator in B-29’s for |
|the Korean situation.. He had been stationed on Guam in the Pacific. They flew bombing missions to Korea during the conflict and Hap was|
|later assigned to the B 36’s at Carswell.AFB near Fort Worth, Texas. He turned out to be a very helpful neighbor and gave us all sorts |
|of advice on navigational topics. He was married with three children and lived in an apartment across the way from ours. He was recalled |
|into the Air Force from a job in Atlanta Georgia and decided to stay in the service. His wife Barbara (who is now 93 and lives about a mile|
|from us here in Alabama) was from Miami and had a sister who came to visit in 1954. I married the sister Gail and we have been married for |
|62 years. |
|As with any green sand castings, part of learning to be a molder was learning how to use molders tools, to patch and repair small areas of |
|the disturbed sand cavities.if they were disturbed. On the wood patterns, the runners and risers had to be hand cut in some area and then |
|“fixed” with foundryman tools, like lifters and spoons and slicks. Some of the sand molds would be in very bad shape and a good molder |
|could do the “fixes” and produce an acceptable casting by proper work. |
|As you probably know better than I, Dow never made much money in magnesium in the first 55 years of operation. |
|At the 1948 American Foundrymens Society Convention, Henton Morrogh of the British Cast Iron Research Association announced the successful |
|production of spherical graphite in hypereutectic gray iron by the addition of small amounts of cerium. |
|At the same time there was a group in Chicago Illinois that was organizing a world’s fair to be held in 1933. They contacted Piccard and |
|asked if they could display his gondola from the 1931 flight. Shortly after the first contact Picard set the second record and they asked |
|if he would display both gondolas. As they start about this marvelous publicity, why not organize a balloon flight by Piccard from the |
|world’s fair site it self, and attempt to set a new altitude record which would bring great honor to the fair. Piccard came to Chicago in |
|1933 with his record-setting gondola for display. However by September 30 of 1933, the Soviets reported a new altitude record had been |
|achieved by three of their balloonist’s at slightly over 18 km more than 60,000 feet. |
|At the time of Morrogh's presentation, the International Nickel Company revealed their development, starting with Millis' discovery in |
|1943, of magnesium as a graphite spherodizer. Keith Millis of International Nickel Company had just patented a process for production of |
|ductile iron using magnesium. |
|At the time of that discussion, in 1978, Mr. Wheeler owned the Wheeler Oil Company, an oil and gas exploration concern; a one-third |
|interest in Owl Petroleum, which he sold that year; American Magnesium; Certified Appliance Distributor; WJA Realty, a holding company for |
|World Jai Alai of Miami and Hartford Jai Alai, which he sold in March 1977, and Phoenix Resources, a venture capital concern. |
|At the time there were only two companies in the US that were producing and casting magnesium. Not too hard to figure out who and where it|
|might be. |
|At this location there were large deposits of dolomite of suitable quality. Natural gas and electric power were available. In the vicinity |
|of the site there are several Lime plants from which calcined dolomite could be obtained and it was decided to purchase the calcine instead|
|of installing facilities to produce it. |
|At this point, Calumet and Hecla (C & I{), an old line copper company agreed to become a partner, but only on a majority basis. The initial|
|agreement was C &H70%., B & P 30%. Eventually Calumet and Hecla bought out B & P and owned all the stock in the new company called Alabama |
|Metallurgical Corporation. |
|At this time the cells in the Velasco plant were using 22- 8.33"Diameter carbon electrodes. Stan Rice and I used to measure anodes for the|
|size and taper each time they were "pulled' , before they were trimmed. There were 8 prototype louver designs being run. The Production |
|Development group was also working on the M and MA cell. All of the information from the anode measurements was recorded on mimeographed |
|Cell Diagrams and was later reduced to punch card computing. It seems that the profile of the spiral wound louvers (Cathodes) needed to be|
|modified to gain more cell efficiencies. |
|Because of the hazardous nature of magnesium in general special care should be taken to prepare handouts of any emergency planning along |
|with meetings and explanations for the groups. |
|Because TAPS hoped to begin laying pipe by September 1969, substantial orders were placed for steel pipeline 48 inches (122 cm) in |
|diameter.[20] No American company manufactured pipe of that specification, so three Japanese companies—Sumitomo Metal |
|Industries Ltd., Nippon Steel Corporation, and Nippon Kokan Kabushiki Kaisha—received a $100 million contract for more than 800 miles |
|(1280 km) of pipeline. At the same time, TAPS placed a $30 million order for the first of the enormous pumps that would be needed to push |
|the oil through the pipeline. |
|Because the plant was in Selmont slightly east of Selma, Mr. Perkins would be driven up to the front door of the office building on the |
|plant property. The driver would get out and open the door (there was no red carpet rollout) and Mr. Perkins would get out, draw himself |
|up to his full height adjust his suit coat and tie and proceed to the door in Royal fashion. All was an interesting experience for those |
|around the plant site that would watch him when he arrived. He was not pretentious , but very friendly and down-to-earth and made a point |
|to shake hands with all of people in and around the offices including the janitorial staff.. |
|Being surrounded by the Great Lakes, there was access by boat to much of the area. However in the winter the water would freeze and there |
|was no ship movement on the Great Lakes. The Keweenaw Peninsula protruded into Lake Superior. The main copper deposits were located along |
|the Peninsula which earned it the name of “The Copper Country”. |
|Bendix also started the Eclipse-Pioneer division to make aircraft parts. This division became one of the first groups to make parts from |
|magnesium. A small group of research people within the Bendix company were trained by an early Dow group technicians and metallurgists. Dow|
|sold the magnesium alloy to Bendix and trained the employees how to make sand castings from magnesium metal. |
|BENDIX COPORATION IN TETERBORO, NEW JERSEY |
|Bendix reviewed the foundry situation after a major decision was forced upon them. The company had leased manufacturing facilities from |
|Curtis Wright, and there was a negotiation on a new pricing for the rent. Actually Curtis Wright wanted the buildings in the area of back |
|under their control and Bendix had to decide what to do with the work that was being done in that area. |
|Big Louie would not let me use the liner drill until I spent time with the hand crank. He said I had to learn the "feel" of the drill |
|biting the rock and sound of the drill as it bored in. Drilliing would start with a short steel, then a longer steel and then the 11' feet|
|drill steel to finish. Detachable and resharpenable bits. The ore seam was about 18 inches wide. There was a main lead seam (black) in |
|the middle and two zinc seams (white), one on each side. The zinc seams were a clay like material and you could "stick" a drill if you were|
|not careful. The clay would ball up and harden on the end of the drill steel cutter head.. Working with Big Louie, you learned how to tell|
|when you were in trouble and how to get out of it. I never saw a stuck steel that he could not get loose. Several times we had to unscrew|
|the bit to get the steel out. This of course, meant that you had to drill another hole to get the full 11' depth. I heard that some guys |
|would shoot the short hole, but not Big Louie. There was only one way and that was with 11' holes. Poor and lazy miners would not be able |
|to get the steel out in some cases and they would shoot the hole with the steel still in the face ruining the steel. To Big Louie, it was |
|not just economics of losing a steel, but the fact that it was not top-class mining practice. |
|Bill Bradshaw got into the twin roll casting of magnesium in conjunction with Hunter in Riversside, California. Brad worked with Clarence |
|Moser who was the head of Hunter, and struggled to find interest. Now Posco, the 4th largest steel company in the world has built a twin|
|roll magnesium casting plant and used the same basic caster from Hunter in Riverside, California..where the original Dow experiments were |
|conducted...The caster was in a salvage yard and the Posco research group bott it and Hunter...now Fata Hunter,, had it shipped to Turkey|
|for restoration. It was put back into excellent operating condition and shipped to Pohang, South Korea for testing. It was a 600mm wide |
|machine. Now Posco has built a rolling mill plant and set up the smaller machine as the prime producer. Brad would have been estatic |
|about this. Now Posco has purchased a "wide" machine...I think it is in the order of 2000mm and are starting the tests to run the machine |
|in. They see this as the step forward into auto bodies. The old Dow plant at Madison was sold to Consolidated Aluminum and then bought by |
|Bill Barnes, retired Dow marketing guy, and named Spectulite. They continued to cast slabs and roll mag on the large mill complex build |
|there in Madison. It is the old fashioned make a big slab and roll it and roll it to eventually get sheet. Of course, as newspapers and |
|fancy magazines fall by the way side with much of print media being replaced by digital advances...the need for photo engraving plate has |
|decreased. So Bill Barnes died a while back and then his family sold the plant to Magnesium Elektron..the British firm who also bought the|
|powder production operations from Reade Manufacturing. |
|Bill Rave and Henry Roebke picked me up. Wilbur Barrier who was a plant engineer at Mag 3 was supposed to be there, but he was away on |
|his Naval Reserve 2 weeks summer duty. Bill Rave introduced himself and said "call me Bill". Henry introduced himself and said, "Call me |
|Hank". It was mentioned that Monroe Shigley was a a gentleman, it reminded me of this. Roebke was a very straight laced guy and I could |
|never imagine any one calling him "Hank". |
|Bill Rave had been sent down from Midland Michigan and was one of the leaders in the movement to produce the magnesium he became the |
|magnesium manager and was a very nice man. He drove a red pickup truck in the plant and everybody waved and recognized them. As I was |
|getting ready to leave my offices in plant three of the magnesium complex, Bill Rave stopped and picked me up in his red pickup truck and |
|we discussed my leaving Dow. Being a true Dow employee he felt it was a mistake and he told me so. I can still see the dashboard of his |
|truck which was clean and neat and red. Bill reached his hand up to the dash in my direction and moved his thumb over the dashboard and |
|said Bob this new plant is not going to make it. We cam squash them like a fly should we decide to. The thought stayed in my mind very |
|prominently for a quite a period of time. As it turned out, members of Fred Krenzkie’s original magnesium production group, went on to |
|prominent leadership roles in the magnesium business in Texas. |
|Bill Snow wanted to talk for a few minutes about magnesium. Bill said they were working on a project that required melting magnesium and |
|having a pot full. He did say that things had been going alright but that they had some problems. I asked him what the problems were and |
|snow said the melting crucible bath seemed to have something in the bottom of it that was reducing the amount of metal that they could |
|melt at one time. |
|Bob found us a couple of rooms in the Wallace Hotel. They were a bit expensive, but were all tired and had to report to the Bunker Hill |
|and Sullivan main mining office to sign in and get physicals. So we went out to get a sandwich and then went to bed. |
|Bob Miller, the car owner, turned around and went back down to Saltese, Montana, the last big town on the road and where there was a |
|Greyhound Bus Station. We all got out of the car, bought tickets to take us from Saltese to Wallace, Idaho. We took out all of our luggage|
|and the extra tires and waited for the Bus which was due in about 2 hours. Bob Miller took off with the lighter and better performing car |
|and headed for Wallace to find us some place to stay for the night. . I worked the summer of 1951 in the Star Mine while I was going to |
|Michigan Tech. |
|Bob told us the story of trying to find some cheaper rooms in a boarding house. However, being rather naïve college students, Bob saw some|
|signs that said “Rooms” and a long staircase outside some of the businesses in Down Town Wallace, After climbing the stairs to see about a|
|room, he encountered a large heavy door and rang the bell. The door opened up and large fierce looking lady challenged him. He explained |
|what he was looking for and she informed him that they had no rooms and sort of chuckled as she firmly shut the door. Turns out he learned|
|that the “Oasis Rooms”, and “The Arment Rooms” and the “You and I Rooms” were not boarding houses. |
|Both training aircraft used Astrodome’s for celestial observations. During the daytime we could shoot sun lines which was a single line of |
|position. At night you could use three spaced stars for a celestial observation and draw a triangle on the chart to show where you were. |
|About the only thing that was different in our celestial training was the fact that the Air Force had developed HO 249 tables and what were|
|called pre- computation sheets. This permitted the pre-calculation of the celestial mathematics and only required the height observation to|
|enable completion and plotting of the celestial line. In 1954, it was still necessary to learn the star systems. That is the actual |
|location of the stars in the sky so the proper stars could be picked to obtain celestial triangles. |
|Brad experimented with water in one of the shutdown cell buildings. He ran the track with the torpedo car in the basement of the cell |
|building. He filled one of the shutdown cells with water. He then used a vacuum type siphon to draw the water out of the cell up and over |
|and down through a pipe into the torpedo car. After working out the simple dynamics he tried it with magnesium metal in another cell |
|building and it worked. No more manual dipping of cells the metal was siphoned up and over and into the torpedo car in the basement and |
|after the car was filled it was taken out with a small electric motor to a central casting facility. |
|Briquettes conveying and charging into retorts without use of paper bags. |
|Bud was aWWII navy veteran from Guin, Alabama. He went West to Idaho where Dixie Howell was the Football coach. He was in his last year|
|in college at Idaho and had worked at the Star Mine for several summers . Bud’s family were big University of Alabama fans. His brother, |
|Hayden Riley was the baseball coach for a time. His nephew was Major Ogilvie, a U of A football star running back.. |
|But since the energy crisis, prices, especially, of fuels and electricity have been soaring, and so we must keep working toward further |
|reduction of the production cost. For that reason we will wait for the completion of your report with interest.” |
|By 1931 enrollment had reached nearly 600. During the next few years, due to the Great Depression, money was scarce, causing department |
|heads and even the president of the university, William Hotchkiss, to take pay cuts. Grover C. Dillman was president from 1935 to 1956. |
|During this time, the school underwent many notable changes: a few of these include the construction of the Memorial Union Building and |
|purchase of an ice rink and golf course. Around 1948, enrollment passed 2000 students total. In 1956, J. Robert Van Pelt became the new |
|president of the university. He restarted many PhD programs and created a focus on research. |
|By 1968, Bendix had a very large magnesium and melting operation which had sand casting, die casting, and investment casting. There were |
|commercial products being produced in magnesium and aluminum. There were also parts being produced under government contract for aircraft. |
|There were structural parts and also parts made for aircraft instrumentation. |
|By the next afternoon we got a call from Bill Snow who informed us that the that the stuff that was in the bottom of their melting pot had |
|loosened up after several scoops of flux were stirred in and they could take the sludge spoon and dig out the mess. Once they had gotten |
|the pot dug out they added more magnesium and were able to continue with their process to produce Mag Coke. |
|By these efforts, at present our technical level of magnesium production has been elevated surprisingly as compared with that of our early |
|years. Recently, we have received from abroad some letters of inquiry about export of our magnesium production process and been under |
|discussion on it. We expect that the export will be realized in the near future. |
|Calumet and Hecla started as a copper mining venture in northern Michigan. The company created other products based on copper and bought |
|out Wolverine tube which was a copper tubing producer in Detroit area. Wolverine tube expanded and built a copper tubing plant in Decatur |
|Alabama. The officers of Wolverine tube where located in Detroit close to the B&P operations. The president of Wolverine Tube became the |
|president of Calumet and Hecla and his name was Horace Bassett. He talked with Howard Perkins about a metal venture to produce magnesium |
|metal. The location of Alabama looked good and Wolverine Tube already had a plant in Alabama they talked and agreed to do a venture. Mr. |
|Bassett made a trip to the Dow offices in Midland Michigan to discuss the idea with Dr. Leland Doan, who was the chairman of Dow. The |
|meeting was friendly and favorable and Dr. Doan are assured Mr. Bassett that there was room for another magnesium producer. In fact Dr. |
|Doan told Mr. Bassett that having a second source of magnesium production in the US would help create a better atmosphere within the |
|automotive industry to use magnesium. |
|Can you believe that Scanmag is another magnesium process for Norway. Sil-Mag was the group that was exhibiting at the Warsaw meeting of |
|the IMA. So was Gossan. They have been all over for a couple of years pushing the Zuliani process. Now that has come to an end. Crazy |
|business. If only someone could find a way to break off the water from the MgCl2 it would be easy. Dow worked around it...Magnola plunged |
|in and found that the water was going to stay until it was removed and that was not easy. Herbert Dow said, "It is not so hard to get the|
|magnesium from sea water...it is getting the seawater from the magnesium that is hard." 6 million tons in each cubic mile of seawater. |
|Dow did not get through a full cubic mile of seawater in operating the plants in Texas. NH did some sea water stuff also. |
|Capt. Black reviewed several Air Force programs using magnesium and then further commented on the previous that had been presented by D. A.|
|Tooley of Convair at the 1951 meeting. |
|Celestial navigation had moved ahead very slowly. The original B10 sextant was quite small and timing of the celestial shots was done by |
|hand. Because time is so critical and celestial navigation, special master watches were used and set to WWV which gave radio time signal.|
|The next model of sextant was the A14, and it had a timer in the sextant. And the newest sextant that we got to see was a Periscoptic |
|sextant which did not use an Astrodome but had a pressurized opening in the ceiling of the aircraft so it could extend up into the |
|observation position. There were very few of these instruments at the training base so we did not use them regularly. Note even when I got |
|to the refueling squadron the KC97 aircraft from A to F models had Astrodome’s and the G model had a Periscopic sextant mounts. Needless to|
|say, the entire navigation system for aircraft was under rapid advancement so the B 47’s and B-52s and KC 135’s used a much more modern |
|positioning system.. |
|Changing of dolomite kiln feed from heavy oil to pulverized coal. |
|Chemical analysis of the cast magnesium was done by pouring sample magnesium discs in a small deal mold. The discs were stamped with the |
|same heat number as the flux samples and the heat itself. All of the ingots were stamped with the heat number and everything was Segregated|
|until approval on the emd physical appearance was certified. |
|Chicago Q could produce about 11,000 brakeshoes pe 8-hour day. The majority of the shoes were basic freight or passenger [AAR} shoes. |
|There were several special molding floors where lesser used brakeshoes were made. For less frequently used brakeshoes, there was a bench |
|for making the shoes. The special shoe mold making area had two Pridmores in case the brakeshoe had a metal mold pattern in the pattern |
|storage area. It the mold was an old wooden mold or a match plate pattern, these were made on the bench. |
|Chicago Q had two of the cupola’s. One was used each day. I was started on my cupola phase of training on the night shift working 3-11 |
|pm. Normal cupola operation requires that it be shut down at the end of the day smelting. All of the molten iron is run out of the cupola,|
|the slag is drained off, and the bottom doors are opened and the remaining material in the cube below is dropped on the floor This |
|operation is called “dropping the Bottom”. . Good operators learn to run the timing such that the drop is small. This is important |
|because you can save ingredients and recycle the unused material. A water hose is used to cool the dropped charge . The second shift |
|comes in and cleans up under the cupola that wasl run on the previous day. Chips out any slag and iron left in the cupola on the sides, and|
|then closes the bottom doors. These are large cast iron doors two of them on the bottom of the cupola. they are closed and propped back |
|into place using mechanical jack poles, . Prior to closing, a refractory gunning mix is used to coat the protect the cleaned refractory |
|areas. The area on the doors which forms the bottom of the cube below and the edges of the doors as there are closed are heavily dobbed |
|with refractory clay.. From this point on the cupola is worked on by climbing down into it from the charging floor and finishing any |
|necessary refinements to the tap hole and the slag hole. |
|Chromasco had leased this WWII plant from the US government after WWII was ended. They wanted the furnace for production of ferrosilicon. |
|The lease came with the provision that Chromasco would start up and run the mothballed silicothermic magnesium plant that was located on |
|the property should a national emergency be declared in the US. This happened during the Korean War and Mr. Speer had an introduction to |
|starting up the silicothermic magnesium plant. Although the plant in Selma (small retorts) and the plant in Spokane (large retorts) used |
|widely different designs, the reduction metallurgical ideas were similar. |
|Civil Air Patrol in Freeport-Lake Jackson. Sally Brooks, Gail Evans, Gretchen Muelberg. Drill and training. Bob Legett, Dick George. |
|Clarence Haack was a very unique pioneer in the magnesium secondary business...in fact in the magnesium business itself. Les Fine was also|
|an interesting guy. He noted some dripping areas off the end of a conveyor and salvaged them and used them to make lamp bases and anodized|
|them (Dow 17) and sold them in the decorator markets of So. California. They went for high prices when Dow was dropping the primary |
|magnesium price from 36 cents to 31 cents. |
|CLOSING THE FOUNDRY |
|coats and put on special jackets and slippers. The floor was raised and the table was on very short legs. They offered me a place on the|
|back of the table facing the door. As I labored to get my legs folded and under the table, Mr. Suguira asked if I would prefer a standard|
|table and chairs. I declined as I did not want to miss any of this new experience. |
|Cole had visited Volkswagen in Wolfsburg and later met with Fougner to discuss magnesium supplies. At just about the same time, James |
|Macey, an engineer from Salt Lake City, contacted Fougner and proposed that a new magnesium operation could be established using brine from|
|the Great Salt Lake for the feedstock. The byproduct would be strong chlorine, that could be sold to the growing Pacific North West paper |
|industry.[2] |
|Considerations of manpower were given as the reasons for the selection of the plants made subject to Cutbacks. |
|Construction began March 27, 1975 and was completed May 31, 1977. |
|Construction Time: 3 years, 2 months. |
|Construction was started in 1958. One of the difficulties was the loss of detailed technical assistance from DOMAL. Mr. White at a |
|background in electrical design and maintenance but had not spent much time in actual operations. The plant design was basically a copy of |
|the DOMALl plant at Haley with some large and some small modifications. There were 10 gas-fired furnaces 24 retorts per furnace. (DOMAL |
|used electrically heated furnaces). |
|Core Production. |
|Dec 18, 2017 43,063 |
|Dec 22 2017 43660 |
|December of 1959, Mr. White became exhausted and took a medical leave. He did not return to active management but came back as a |
|consultant. |
|DESULFURIZATION OF STEEL |
|Desulfurization has long been a goal of iron and steel production. In the days of the old blast furnaces and open hearts desulfurization |
|was accomplished by treating paths of steel with additives shoveled in the doors of the open hearth. |
| Desulfurization of iron and steel was headed by Bill Brooks and Art Doumas. I injected the first heat of steel with magnesium and burnt |
|lime at the K.O. Steel Castings foundry in San Antonio. This is the first heat of Steel injected in the US using an Airco Feeder. The |
|work was based on the Canadian work done at what was the Canadian Bureau of Mines by Gertsman and Rehder . |
|Details of the deoxidate furnace |
|Details of the retort |
|Developing the Strategic Air Command (SAC) |
|Do you have a PhD. I was told this by someone at the meeting. I googled you and found all sorts of Susan Slade references, but only a few|
|that I could be sure was you..and not a trashy movie, etc...No mention of Doctorate, but did give Rolla... |
| DOW CHEMICAL, Magnesium Operations, Freeport/Lake Jackson, Texas. |
|Dow engineers pressure tested the new flame-welded magnesium gondola by filling it with water and applying 45 pounds of air pressure. Any |
|leaks were quickly detected and repaired. It was also decided to use helium in the balloon rather than hydrogen for safety sake. |
|Dow had founded a magnesium operation in Freeport Texas in 1941. The process designed and built by the Austin company was an electrolytic |
|magnesium plant that was designed to extract magnesium metal from seawater. The plant design was partially the product of the original Dow|
|Magnesium plant in Midland, Michigan which used brine from Michigan Brine wells for magnesium chloride basic cell feed. |
|Dow had just opened a big, new Dow Main office building in 1957. Economic times were very soft and there was a 10% layoff of Salary |
|personnel.. Fred Krenzke and his Magnesium Production Group lost 3 positions. As one of the newer employees and the only metallurgist, I |
|was given the opportunity to transfer to the main Dow engineering department which was located in the new building. |
|Dow had just purchased the Velasco complex...Mag 2 and Mag 3, and started shutting down Mag 3. The plant was not designed for partial |
|operation, so they ran a hodge podge of cables from main lines that went down one building and up the next and then down and up again. By |
|making a very long cable trough from wood and using the copper stranded connection wires that were used from the stub bus bars to the |
|clamps on the anodes, they managed to run the power from the end of the second building back to the main bus...effectively cutting the |
|power to the last two buildings. You can see the cables running to the clamps on the old cell picture attached. |
|Dow quickly agreed that the company would provide the gondola for the Piccard flight at no charge and it became the first of three the |
|company would make for this record shattering balloon flights that took place in 1934 and 1935. Willard Dow called in his magnesium |
|fabrication expert E Howard Perkins and the company immediately began to make a gondola or as the Piccard brothers called it “la carbine”. |
|Dow quit the Magnesium Association because of Roger Wheeler and NL. Gene Urbin from NL kept telling everyone that they would make |
|magnesium at a production cost so low that 25 cents a pound would be the selling price. Dow, who could be very domineering since they paid|
|just about the entire budget for the Magnesium Association, said, "Great, now you can do some research" This was when I coined the phrase |
|of "The price of Magnesium is never cheaper than before the plant starts up." |
|Dr. A. P. Beutel was General Manager of the Texas Division and had a huge new office with a massive panoramic window looking out over the |
|Velasco plant complex. A small kitchen and eating area with some overstuffed chairs was next to and directly connected with Beutel’s |
|office, so he could catch a nap and or use the kitchen,etc. |
|Dr. Leontis went on to say “this product is Mag Coke-a combination of magnesium and Coke - by infiltrating molten magnesium into porous |
|metallurgical Coke. Mag Coke contains on the average 45% magnesium. It is also used extensively for the production of nodular iron, for |
|which it was originally developed”. |
|Dr. Matsuura had worked closely with Mr. Kanichi; Nakayasu who was known as “The Big Man” and who became president of Ube. In Japan, in |
|1928, Mr. K. Nagayasu and Dr. R. Matsuura started research into the development of a magnesium production process at Ube in Yamaguchi |
|Prefecture. In 1931, the Institute of Physico-Chemical Research built a magnesium pilot plant at Kashiwazaki, Japan. The first plant to |
|produce the metal in commercial quantities was built at Ube, Japan, in 1933 by the Riken Metal Manufacturing Co. Magnesium production |
|development was continued through the start of WWII. |
|Dr. Matsuura was a man loaded with a huge magnesium background in all areas of magnesium production. After spending an afternoon |
|explaining the process, I found out that the man who was very quiet and exchanged Japanese words with Mr. Kiddo the translator had more |
|experience in magnesium processes than anyone that I had ever known or even read about. Certainly a great deal more than anyone at Dow or |
|any of those remaining from the World War II plant build up. |
|Dr. Pidgeon was quick to point out that he was not fully up on the latest process control techniques in use in DOMAL operations. However, |
|he also tactfully pointed out that there was an obvious lack of understanding and experience of the total Alamet plant staff. |
|Dr. Tom Leontis made the presentation to Acipco for the development of Mag Coke. Mr. Bill Snow, superintendent of research, accepted the |
|Award for the company. In presenting the award, Dr. Leontis commented, “at the Tuesday session, you will hear about the extensive progress |
|being made in achieving a high degree of sulfur control in steel, economically and reproducibly, by the addition of magnesium. The current |
|acceptance of magnesium would not of been attained without the availability of a product that permits the addition of magnesium to molten |
|ferrous alloys in a safe and controllable manner -at the temperatures involved,-and without the introduction of unwanted metallic |
|contaminants.” |
|Ductile Iron not only retains all of Cast Iron's attractive qualities, such as mach inability and corrosion resistance, but also provides |
|additional strength, toughness, and ductility. It is lighter, stronger, more durable and more cost effective than Cast Iron. |
|Ductile Iron Pipe's improved qualities are derived from an improved manufacturing process that changes the character of the graphite |
|content of the iron. Its graphite form is spheroidal, or nodular, instead of the flake form found in Cast Iron. This change in graphite |
|form is accomplished by adding an inoculant, usually magnesium, to molten iron of appropriate composition during manufacture. |
|Dudley and Sven had a good time during afternoon tea and conversation. Dudley was quite interested in Sven’s company Magnalith and his |
|plans for magnesium in the United States. In some future meetings that followed this visit Dudley took a personal interest in Magnalith and|
|provided working capital to Sven. |
|Due to its spheroidal graphite form, Ductile Iron has approximately twice the strength of Cast Iron as determined by tensile, beam, ring |
|bending, and bursting tests. Its impact strength and elongation are many times greater than Cast Iron's. |
|During the time of reconstruction of the melt and cast area, two of the more experienced foreman were sent to DOMAL in Haley, Ontario, |
|Canada for four weeks to receive on-the-job training in the Haley plant. |
|During these discussions none of us were aware that to achieve the goal of an airplane able to meet these demands, a great deal of |
|magnesium was used in the construction.. In 1951 there were several lengthy reports on the B 36 construction that were presented to the |
|magnesium Association meetings. In 1952, there was a mother report presented to the magnesium Association by Capt. Dale Black, of the |
|structures branch of the US Air Force Wright Development Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio. |
|During this period there was a US patent issued for production of magnesium chloride [3]. The work was directly designed to use ammonium |
|chloride as part of the process to get very high purity (fully anhydrous) magnesium chloride. In the patent, Dr. Kobayashi elaborated on |
|the necessity for “pure” magnesium chloride by saying, “The present invention relates to a process of manufacturing anhydrous magnesium |
|chloride of a high purity. More particularly, it relates to a process of manufacturing high purity anhydrous magnesium chloride usable as a|
|material for producing metallic magnesium by way of molten salt electrolysis. “ |
|During this time, there was much cell experimentation with bottom anodes, diaphragm less cells, molten metal refining, and alloy |
|production. One of the first Americans to recognize the advantages of the improvements in the USSR was Roger Wheeler, U.S. magnesium |
|pioneer and developer of the American Magnesium Company in Snyder, Texas. In 1971, he removed the modified I.G. type electrolytic cells and|
|installed the diaphragm less electrolyzers at his plant in the small West Texas oil town. Technologists from USSR were used to assist in |
|the modifications. (The headlines in the local Texas papers said, "The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming.") These cells were |
|modified over a period of years and after the closing of American Magnesium were used at the MagCan plant in Calgary, Alberta, |
|Canada. Roger had a running battle about getting access to the electromagnetic stirring set up. As I remember the story, he was supposed |
|to have an inspection trip to visit a plant in USSR, but could never arrange it. |
|Earl also had started producing magnesium baseball bats. They were amazing as he had learned a great deal about the science of taking a |
|hollow casting and filling it with plastic resin. When Earl brought in an armful of bats, and dropped them on the concrete shop floor you |
|could not tell the difference between the magnesium and wood bat. They both made a dull “Clunk” . |
|Ed Note: there were a total of 385 of B 36 aircraft produced . 6,032,950 pounds total finished weight. This is close to 10,000,000 |
|pounds raw weight of magnesium total used.. |
|Ed said that they had purchased and installed a continuous casting operation to produce magnesium billet. They had had problems with the |
|set up having had a run out which dumped magnesium into the basement. They had just had a second run out and they wanted someone to review |
|their process from a safety standpoint. I quoted at a price and set I thought I could do the job for them and we set up a time and an |
|appointment to meet and see the operation and to sign an agreement. I went to the company and reviewed the operation which was a standard |
|Dow continuous casting operations similar to the billet production in the Madison rolling plant. This type of operation used several large |
|furnaces for melting and alloying the magnesium then transferring it to a holding furnaces are crucial which then poured into the |
|continuous casting apparatus. They actually had pumps which were quite well the problem was in the pot developing holes and leaking. This |
|was similar to what we had happened at Alamet and that we had learned was the problem with many operations. Large crucibles externally |
|fired would be oxidized, the state Gail from the furnace would fall into the setting, magnesium would leak from a pot into the iron oxide |
|and the reaction would be very dynamic |
|Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama |
|End of assignment |
|Enjoy your weekend, |
|Enough old guy stories. |
|Everyone at Dow was very helpful and everyone at Alabama Metallurgical in Selma was also helpful. I really hated to say goodbye to all the |
|good friends we had met during our time at Dow especially our next door neighbor Roy Hill and his wife Allison. Roy and I had commuted to |
|night law school in Houston for a semester or so we had had a long time to discuss our situations. Roy was an administrative assistant to |
|Levi Leathers at Dow Badische. Levi would go on to become a high-ranking Dow Corporate official. |
|FATAL ACCIDENTS IN MAGNESIUM PLANTS |
|Flux testing description |
|Following the visit of Dr. Pidgeon to Selma and his review and suggestions M r. Petermann set up a program with DOMAL during the last part |
|of 1960. For a royalty of 1/2 cent per pound of crown produced, DOMAL would supply both operating and technical assistance to Alamet with |
|living expenses and wages for a metallurgist and an operation foreman. |
|For anyone who has been in an old sand foundry, the amount of dust dirt and generally accumulated mess is quite large. The engineers |
|decided the best place to put the first equipment that would be moved in was into the pattern loft area. This also is a shock not only are |
|there huge numbers of patterns, many of which were left from World War II,, but there are reams of paperwork involved with the ownership |
|For many years the US steel industry was technologically active. The entire world steel industry was active, but the US was the most active|
|in developing desulfurization and new furnace sing processes. |
|For those of you that have worked in this type of situation, you can appreciate that it is tremendously “wearing” on your nerves. Judson |
|had showed up a couple of times and told me to keep going they were getting the production floor straightened up. |
|Fortunately the equipment for the balloon ascent had been insured by the world renowned Lloyds of London. A new attempt was authorized by |
|the US Secretary of War and plans for an ExplorerII began. E Howard Perkins had left Dow and Arthur Winston was now in charge of the Met |
|Lab and the construction of the new gondola. |
|Fred Krenzke and the main section of Magnesium Production Development was in Mag 2. Both Mag 2 and Mag 3 were nearly identical. Each had |
|four cell buildings with 26 electrolytic magnesium r reduction cells. They were both part of the government built Velasco magnesium |
|operations using reduction cells with 22 graphite electrodes that were 8.33 inches in diameter/ |
|Fred showed us the office where the Superintendent and the Shifters (Foremen) would be in the morning. Cage down time was 7 AM. The Star |
|was not a union mine, but it carefully followed the same rules. I learned firsthand in the morning what “Portal to Portal” pay meant. |
|Fred then issued our basic equipment which was a hard hat of pressed material that looked like cardboard and some one piece safety eye |
|shields that attached to the hard hat. He got us heavy, adjustable webbing belts which had clips to hold the batteries. They were |
|obviously used, but in good condition. The hat was flimsy and Fred said we could see him for other equipment. Turned out part of his job |
|was keeping the dry clean. This included removing anything that was left in the dry basket or on the clothing hooks after an employee was |
|officially terminated. He sold the better stuff to the newer guys like us. |
|from 2,300,000 lb. a month to 1,200,000 lb.; and Basic Magnesium, Inc.. Las Vegas Nev., cut from 6,500,000 lb. a month to 4.500.000 lb. |
|From: magman6@ [mailto:magman6@] |
|Sent: Friday, March 04, 2011 3:22 AM |
|To: sslade@ |
|Subject: Information from your talk.. |
|Funny things happen that created whole new subjects of interest between Alabama Metallurgical Corporation and American Cast Iron Pipe |
|Company (Acipco) in Birmingham. Shortly after lunch on a Wednesday the phone in the Technical Office rang and it was Bill Snow senior |
|engineer at Acipco. We had been working closely with Acipco in the development of HU steel retorts for the Pidgeon process furnaces. These |
|were centrifugally cast tubes of a high nickel alloy and were quite expensive. One of the constant battles in a silicothermic magnesium |
|plant is to keep the retorts full-sized and not let them collapse. |
|FURTHER CUTBACKS ORDERED AT MAGNESIUM PLANTS |
|Gail and I also had an opportunity that evening to be guests at the Selma Country Club with the Comers and Hawthornes. My old Copper |
|Country Choral Club friend A E Peterman.and his wife were hosts. |
|Gail and I had discussed the general situation on the way home and agreed that taking the job would be good for all us. I proceeded to give|
|my notice to Oliver Osborn, actually to Art Dumas’s who was my immediate supervisor but it was a small group. |
|Gerald Bell and the IMA ran quite well. They increased the annual dues, got new members, and were seemingly maturing and growing,, when the|
|major part of the staff at Bell Publicom, including the President of the company was killed in plane accident coming back from a meeting to|
|sign up the Titanium Association. The subsequent analysis showed that while the books looked great there were some discrepancies in the |
|bond funds that were not part of the operating funds. These were supposed to be segregated funds that were separate from the Association |
|operating accounts and untouchable. It was a mess and Kurt Harbodt, who was the new president of IMA had to come to the US and make some |
|rapid and critical decisions. He hired Byron Clow who had recently retired from Kaiser and they opened the IMA office in Virginia...and |
|changed the title to Executive Vice President. Byron did not feel that the title of Executive Secretary actually covered the duties of the|
|head of an International Association. |
|Glenn made a call to Dow about the magnesium and they did not have enough to fill the order, which they would dearly have loved to have. So|
|Glenn called Roger Wheeler and told him that he was expecting the metal and if there was a delay in the delivery, Wellman would sue |
|American Magnesium for every minute they were late and to include the national loss of face by Wellman if they were late in their delivery |
|of magnesium castings, mostly for military related orders.. |
|Good old “Frog”, he cautioned to me again about plugging the running tap hole with the clay bought. He kept demonstrating and standing |
|behind me holding my arms to show the motion needed. Strong for word direct insertion of the clay into the taphole and the running iron |
|stream. He said, “Do not smear the clay, that will create a shadow block and will not stop the iron”. When the time came to stop the |
|running iron stream, “Frog” gave me the big gloves and a facemask and an asbestos apron and told me to get in position. I was wearing |
|overall pants and a denim work shirt. I put on the gloves and the apron in the facemask got into the position to reach the tadpole of. |
|“Frog” got behind me and I realized how big he was and he put his arms around me to help guide the thrust of those Bott stick, and I |
|suddenly felt the heat of the molten iron stream about 10 inches from my stomach. I was trapped. “Frog” was behind me with his arms around |
|me I was jammed up to the trough for the iron was running so the heat was penetrating my shirt and I had to reach to put the bott into the |
|taphole. Needless to say, I panicked. I jammed the Bott stick and the clay into the whole and iron flew everywhere. I had committed a |
|shadow block. The partial attempt of putting the clay into the stream did not stop the iron but it gave it smaller holes to come out of and|
|it flew everywhere. It was like trying to stop the water from coming out the end of a hose with your thumb. “Frog” quickly dropped |
|everything and went to grab another Bott stick. This gave me room to move and I ducked. Iron which blew up in the air came down and filled |
|my back pocket among other things. “Frog” recovered quickly and stopped up the stream. |
|Good words. Pascal Aroule is in Oman at Sohar for Rio Tinto. he was one of the management at Pechiney in Marginac that got imprisoned when|
|the union welded all the gates shut when they said the plant was closing down. Remember that they kept the melting going for a time and |
|used it to recycle. Our friend Bernard Mathieu was there for a time and is now working for JJ Grunspan and Brochot on the West China mag |
|plant..where the NH plant stuff went. The salt lake at Geermu. Now they found out that the NH process and equipment has to be modified |
|because of the vast difference in Altitude that the plant will be operating at. That came from the TMS meeting and I was not there and am |
|tracking that one down. |
|Graduated in 1949, which was a standard 12 year (plus kindergarten) education. I was 17 years old at the time. |
|Graduation from Michigan Tech and first job… |
|Had a long talk with John Haack today and he does not want publicity either. We are going to get together sometime in the future. He says|
|he does not know how Clarence got started in the mag business, but thought it was because Rick Fine's father had some scrap to be melted. |
| Clarence was born in Mankato, Minnesota. Probably explains how he and Kurt Sealander got to be friends. Good Norwegians. Although |
|neither one of them probably knew Garrison Keillor. And Lake Woebegone, "the little town that time forgot" with powdermilk biscuits and |
|Bertha's Kitty Boutique. |
|had not heard of John Haack's plant. That is also clouded. Some say he uses retorts to reclaim mag out of dirty scrap...Others say that |
|he is really doing a thermal magnesium production from Dolomite. I will give John a call. I knew his father, Clarence and also ran the |
|obit on Clarence. John was supposed to supply some information about Clarence and he never did. I think Clarence Haack got his start |
|reclaiming the mag sludge pile at the old Kaiser Manteca plant. He was a very unique guy. Rick Fine's father. Les Fine, was a plant |
|engineer for Clarence. Dave Gable was a partner and Rick Fine's brother is an attorney for Halaco. I met Clarence in 1960 when Alamet was|
|just getting started and the Magnesium Association held their annual meeting in Montgomery and took a plant tour, like they always do. Our|
|marketing guy, Kurt Sealander, brought Clarence and Mike Slovich ( Sr) on a special plant tour. When we blew up the melt plant, they both |
|offered to help us, and we ultimately shipped our crowns to Garfield to be melted and cast into ingots. These were interesting times as |
|Dow tried to chip away at our organization, and we struggled to keep going. A few trailer trucks burned up, a few shook up fire departments|
|between Selma and Cleveland. Real funny. Mike had just bought out another secondary magnesium plant in his area and with the crown |
|melting for Alamet, he paid the new company and facilities off in 4 months. Kurt Sealander was a metallurgist for Alcoa's mag foundry in |
|Buffalo. He worked with Bob Wood who was a legend in his time and also with Big Ed Fertal who was a molder in the thirties for Alcoa's |
|magnesium foundry in Cleveland and later went to Buffalo and then to the big magnesium foundry in Pennsylvania, Rolle. |
|He had unlimited energy, and with some luck and lots of determination, he became an extraordinarily successful businessman. |
|He married his pen pal from Scotland, Alison who was a fantastic typist, once she learned the American spelling she was in great demand |
|because she was very organized and a fast and accurate typist. She also had a great accent. Her son, Alex, and my oldest son, Mark, were |
|the same age and used to run around on stick horses. |
|He replied on September 7, 1968, “Fortunately our UBE magnesium has no bigger troubles and little ones will be settled by and by, I |
|expect. When necessary of your advice or technical help, I will recommend you to UBE Company and communicate to you.” |
|He was always concerned about the chauffeur and his ability to be accepted in Selma and not suffer any indignity. The chief janitor at the |
|plant was a black man named Robert Tate. Robert was very personable, had a good education and an engaging personality and Mr. Peterman |
|would turn the chauffeur over to Robert (and pick up the expenses generated, for Robert to take charge of the chauffeur and his personal |
|arrangements). As far as I know it worked out quite well and there were never any complaints that I had heard of. |
|He would sometimes stop at the Bosch brewery which was on the county road on the way to the copper smelter. He’d have one beer in the |
|small visitor tasting area. They had copper mugs and the beer came out through a faucet over a hammered copper sink. They had very small |
|mugs on a special shelf and grandpa very would give me a small mug of beer. Of course he would have a regular pint of beer. |
|Hello Bob, |
|HELPING AMERICAN MAGNESIUM IN SNYDER, TEXAS Sept 1969 |
|Hey Steve: |
|Hi Bob, |
| |
|First wholeheartedly agree with everything Alex says about you except "old farts". hehe |
| |
|Re China Mg Alex is again speaking the truth. China often has higher nett prices than Europe and definitely has growing demand. Of course |
|not all Chinese companies pay in advance or prompt though like elsewhere and sometimes there are very long payment terms in China eg 180 |
|day Chinese bank guarantee. |
| |
|Please bear with me while I play Devil's advocate again.... |
|It is interesting to compare Mg with Mn another element in great demand for the Worlds Al Industry. When the Chinese Mn production came the|
|Al industry particularly companies like Alcoa rubbed their hands together and screwed the prices down even further. the result was that |
|Eramet and Kerr Mcgee closed their US operations. In the case of US Mag, they didn't accept this for Mg and maybe with the help of others |
|[you know better than me] got dumping duty imposed, but everywhere else Alcoa etc did their best to screw the price down, as did the auto |
|companies on the Mg alloy. The Mg producers elsewhere in the West shut down except Brazil theoretically where dumping duty was also |
|imposed, but don't forget Pechiney actually stopped serious production although didn't announce it a long time before the EU dumping duty |
|was rescinded. The LME has investigated Mg as a possible market on a few occasions, but decided it was not big enough or important enough |
|to add so Mg prices can never be guaranteed to have similar cycles to Al. Mg is in a difficult stage of its market development and in fact |
|has been for sometime. |
| |
|If the market was bigger then an LME style market could be used. Until it is people will always blame the Chinese or some other convenient |
|scapegoat, but ultimately despite the alleged lack of application development, Mg has already made much bigger inroads into automotive than|
|it may have done due to the previous cheapness of Chinese production. Ultimately with Al at USD1900/mt no-one outside the very low cost |
|power areas can afford to produce aluminium, yet the price is what it is and premiums are what they are. |
| |
|Trying to find out more about ScanMag. You sure got me interested again! |
| |
|Best regards |
|Steve |
|Hi Bob, |
| |
|yes I know Pascal but lost track of him when he moved from alcan Int. Personally wish I could get a consortium together for a Mg plant in |
|the gulf. Maybe the cheap energy there could also make a difference. In fact I was intending moving in that direction 6 or 7 years ago! |
| |
|I was in touch with Sohar original parent Oman Oil on behalf of Varomet for a while in 06, but the then CEO of Varomet under Straits then |
|messed it up by cancelling the meeting I'd scheduled with them/him/me which was a complete sign of disrespect to them. I tried to |
|re-arrange but they didn't want to know. |
| |
|Bernard and me subsequently worked very closely together and developed a bond between Varomet [GfE-MIR] and Thermo on sales, then devised |
|the possible take-over of the hydro plants which was carried through and thus became Magontec. We'd already worked together helping Quay |
|get approved at the majors, before they decided to fly solo and the rest is history. Bernard and me also had separate AMC connections too |
|prior to that. Anyhow we were going to acquire Thermo marignac and bring in Bernard to our whole business as well as Magontec, but it |
|became obvious his workforce were shafting him. They also held him hostage for a while. The plant was unviable in that scenario yet |
|seemingly impossible to get rid of the Benedicts. |
| |
|Shortly after we bought Magontec the master plan further fell to pieces as Straits decided rather early that neither Varomet, Magontec, or |
|GfE-MIR were core business, put up for sale. This followed a presentation Guenther did to the Straits board where he told them in his usual|
|blunt manner they had to do a Chinese pure Mg JV otherwise within 5 years they would be closed! In fact he and I were already working on |
|possible alernative JVs. Having just paid for the Magontec business they didn't take this lightly. The sale took about a year for Varomet |
|copper business which was losing money anyhow following the departure a couple of years earlier of the main Cu team to Red Kite including |
|my then Chinese colleague Lisa Chen. Then some years for GfE-MIR and Magontec to be sold. During all that period there was little |
|communication between the different group businesses, ie exactly the opposite of what we planned. As part of the management buyout from |
|Straits the new GfE-MIR offered to take Magontec Xian but not Bottrop so it was refused. Anyhow when the new owners of GfE-MIR continued to|
|show the same lack of commitment to the Mg business and China which they promised they wouldn't, I finally lost patience and resigned last |
|year. Thus ended my 42 year association with Metallurg/former Metallurg Group companies and their sisters. |
| |
|QSLM is most interesting, but I wonder how they will get round any potential dumping suit in the US given the alleged subsidies its |
|receiving from local government? |
| |
|Best regards |
|Steve |
|Hi Bob: |
| First of all thanks for sharing your insights and personal experience. We both are "old farts", and maybe had the fortune of learning what|
|we knew by hands on experience and some bloody good mentors. We did not need know-it-all government agents (NOT know it all) to guide us |
|and prescribe and proscribe what we were doing. |
| |
|Second, it is a privilege and honour knowing you. |
| |
|One of my most edifying experiences was my first job out of school at a defunct company called Peace River Mining and Smelting Company in |
|Edmonton, Alberta. In the lab they had come up with a hydrogen reduction method to reduce low grade iron ores to iron powder. It involved |
|making ferrous chloride, crystallizing and pelletizing it , and then reducing it in a fixed bed reactor. The lab worked well. I joined them|
|to help design, construct and run the pilot plant. The pilot plant did not achieve acceptable results a/c hydrogen short circuiting as the |
|fixed bed shrunk. Then they went ahead with a commercial plant, claiming they could force full reduction. It never happened. They were |
|always left with unreacted cores. I left them when it was obvious from the pilot plant the whole process had a fundamental flaw. That |
|experience left me with a basic skepticism anytime I hear the term "breakthrough". Some do work. But they are the notable exceptions. |
| |
|My 3 years at China Direct's International Magnesium Group were in lots of ways also edifying. The Chinese owners preferred focusing on |
|domestic sales where guanxi played a strong role, and resulted in higher pricing than the highly competitive export market. If we ever |
|meet in person we might have an assortment of interesting anecdotes we could exchange. |
| |
|Cheers |
|Alex |
| |
| |
| |
| |
|-------Original Message------- |
| |
|From: magman6@ |
|Date: 02/28/13 22:38:17 |
|To: anzactwo@ |
|Everyone wants a market. Herbert Dow found out that there was not a market so he started to make one. Learned a quick lesson from Henry |
|Ford. Dow made magnesium pistons for the Model T engine. He tried to sell them to Ford. Too expensive....so he made them anyway and the |
|replacement piston market for Model T engine rebuilds was one of the Dow's largest market in the 20's. |
| |
| |
| I get tons of people wanting me to tell them...for free..what the actual market is and where the growth will be. I guess you have to |
|admire persistence, but sometimes you wonder, was Michael Avedesian and Dave Goldman at Noranda Magnola project, persistent or stubborn. |
|I often think today that we have very highly educated people that have developed and proved a lot of theories on computers...but they have |
|never tested their own ladder hanging out over a cluttered iron foundry scrap yard. |
|Noranda Magnola was a lot of computers and a lot of investment, somewhere along the way they forgot to” test the welds.” |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
|John George Leyner |
|How a tiny long hole saved the mining industry and the lives of miners all over the world. |
|Machinist John George Leyner revolutionized the mining industry with a series of novel rock drills produced around the turn of the 20th |
|century. His drills not only worked better than earlier tools but also dramatically reduced one of the most dreaded occupational diseases |
|affecting miners: silicosis, or miner's lung. |
| |
|One of the great reforms in the history of industrial health and safety was championed not by a physician or lawmaker but by a mechanical |
|engineer. |
|Machinist John George Leyner revolutionized the mining industry with a series of novel rock drills produced around the turn of the 20th |
|century. His drills not only worked better than earlier tools but also dramatically reduced one of the most dreaded occupational diseases |
|affecting miners – silicosis, or miner's lung. |
|Linked to the inhalation of rock dust created by conventional drilling and rock-breaking techniques, silicosis often meant a slow and |
|agonizing death for exposed miners. The condition has been recognized since ancient times, when most of the world's mining was done by |
|slaves and prisoners. By 1700, when the first treatise on occupational health was published, miner's lung was a well-documented phenomenon.|
|It became a public health issue only after the industrial revolution inspired companies to dig deeper mines and hire more working-class men|
|willing to risk death for a steady wage. |
| |
|It's possible Leyner had worker safety in mind with his novel hammer drill design – after all, he himself knew something of industrial-age |
|hazards from losing an eye in a youthful mishap with dynamite. But with business acumen as sharp as any drill, Leyner was above all about |
|outselling his competition. And that he did. |
| |
|Leyner was born in the right place at the right time with the right inborn talents to make a difference in his profession. He was born to a|
|German immigrant father and Pennsylvania Dutch mother in 1860 in the heart of Colorado mining country. Mechanization and the increased need|
|for ores and minerals was driving settlement and expansion in the American West. |
|Pdf Embedded Media Additional Image [pic] |
|John George Leyner engineering works, January 1903. |
| |
|Leyner's formal schooling ended by eighth grade, but his education in the weaknesses of drilling equipment continued into his 30s as the |
|operator of a busy machine shop repairing equipment for the local mining industry around Denver. He saw the need for a lightweight, fast, |
|and powerful drill that could break through rock far faster than the dominant piston-driven models. He created his first drill in 1896 and |
|1897, and then took the technology one step further by adding the ability to blast rock casting away from the drilling area with compressed|
|air. |
| |
|Productive it may have been, but miners would not use the drill after seeing the billowing cloud of potentially hazardous particulate |
|matter the machine created. Leyner went back to his shop to develop what would become his signature breakthrough. |
| |
|By devising a method to fabricate a hollow steel drill bit, Leyner was able to channel a stream of water as well as compressed air through |
|the steel and directly to the point of contact with the rock face. This process converted hazardous rock castings and dust into cool, |
|harmless mud. It was a major victory against the conditions that gave rise to lung disease, and miners embraced it immediately. Leyner's |
|exclusive patents on the process would make him rich. So game-changing was the Leyner water-flushed drill that many mining states soon |
|banned dry mining techniques. |
| |
|Business thrived and he was soon enticed to move his growing Leyner Engineering Works Company to nearby Littleton, where it employed nearly|
|170 workers in a nine-building complex. |
|Top honors for Leyner's equipment at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair generated worldwide fame. By 1912, heavy equipment giant |
|Ingersoll-Rand became Leyner's sole distributor and manufacturer of rock drills under his patents. The agreement ensured him of significant|
|wealth while freeing his adventurous mind for other endeavors in agricultural equipment, food processing, and other industries in which he |
|perceived a need. |
| |
|Leyner died tragically in 1920 from injuries incurred in a traffic accident caused when he swerved his car to avoid a horse-drawn cart – a |
|rare instance in Leyner's life and career when old technology would prevail over mechanized progress. |
| |
Hi Oliver: (Osborn retired Dow head of Electrochemical Engineering.)
His son, Mike, played football at the U of Alabama and also went into coaching. Coached the San Diego Chargers for awhile and was at Oregon State where his father had coached for a time and is now the Head Football Coach of the University of Nebraska football team.
History Of the Location and Venture
Howard told me..".don't let them interview you....go the next meeting of the Board of Directors and meet them face to face and interview them. If there are 10 directors and you can get 4 to have some agreement at what they expect of you, you might make it. 6 or more would be better, but probably impossible".
However he was still excited about the idea of a new magnesium plant and had found a large brine Lake near the West Texas town of Snyder. The brine lake had been discovered by the oil field developers who were working on the Permian Basin.
However in the case of of Selma, a new casting facility was built on the site to the old facility which was demolished. Great care was taken to develop routines and equipment that would not fail. The new equipment worked well the new procedures worked well. During the startup of the new new equipment. All things worked well even knew molten metal pumps or improved so that all casting was done with pumps.. When a 4000 pound pot was melted, refined and ready to pour, a molten metal pump was placed in the metal and a transfer pipe was heated by pumping molten flux through the tube until it was red. The tube was taken from the pump in the flux pot to the pump in the melting pot and put into place on a transfer joint which was near the bottom of the pump. Pumps are centrifugally driven with an intake on the bottom and it outlet up through the pump to the casting machines. The pump was started and the initial metal was cast usually about 200 pounds. 2500 pounds of magnesium was cast after the two cleanouts and then stopped. The first two cleaned out magnesium shapes were remelted into the melting pot after they reached the end of the conveyor. The pump was stopped the transfer tube removed and taken back to the warming position in the flux pot the pump was removed and taken to the flux pot and cleaned and made ready for the next eight to be pumped. The last two castings(ingots or slabs) were placed on top of the stack of finished ingots that were stamped with a heat number as they came out.
However the idea of having a very large circular refractory melting furnace with large tubular combustion chambers extending into the melt was too much to overcome I wrote a long dissertation on what the problem was. One the fact that magnesium was stringy and would stick and hang in the difficult to handle, but the fact that submerged combustion burners products of combustion include water and I could not see putting that under the surface of the magnesium. The basic concept was based on a zinc submerged combustion furnace which was much smaller in scope and hundreds of assumptions said been made.
However, Dow later realized that all of the Dow research was going into die casting and alloy development. They then started the Magnesium Applications group under Oliver Osborn's Electrochem department in Texas. Dr. Lou Nichols headed this effort up for a time in the late 50's. We did magnesium in explosives, anodes (cause Oliver was one of the pioneers of magnesium soil anode development), Chuck Schrieber did the marine anodes both for fixed piers and platforms and the ships. Galvomag was one of the products. The Dow Chemist and the Marine Chem were part of the Dow Chemical fleet and they were a test bed for the ship anodes.
Hundreds of stories about him. I even have a copy of a memo he put out about people spilling trade secrets in places like Frenchies Barbershop and Bodiddles the place where the Dow mag guys drank beer after work.
I accepted the job and went house hunting is the local area and found a suitable house in Arlington, Texas. We moved into the house and I started work while my wife Gail and three kids started getting settled. It was a bit of a drive Kenny Dale and work but the roads were good and the trip not too bad.
I also had a bit more reinforcement when WWII ended,. Tons of military related equipment was made surplus and it was opened to free access by towns, cities, civic organizations and other groups such as the Boy Scouts. Our Scout troop got access to magnesium skis and I had a pair.
I also learned from Rust visit that there were few people who would work to make giant leaps in the existing process technology. Small plodding “Safe” steps were the normal approach. You must remember that Dow in all its years and development of magnesium production, never achieved production of anhydrous magnesium chloride. The Dow process was to dry the magnesium chloride brine to a 72% concentration. These were solid pellets produced in large roasters and transported to the cells by an overhead rattler conveyor. The cells were fed with the 72% mag chloride which created agitation as the water flashed off when the feed entered the cell bath in existence in the cell.
I am Bob....Educated in an old Mining School (Michigan Tech) before the days of electron microscopes and computers, etc. I even had to take pattern shop (wood), blacksmith shop taught by an old Cornish blacksmith who was retired from one of the mines in the area. Make a chain, a hook, three welds of 1/2" rods, point and forge a chisel, temper it. Using a coal blacksmith forge.
I am not sure how the first contact between Sven and National Lead happened. I did quickly learn that National Lead had run the Luckey, Ohio Pidgeon Process magnesium plant which was built as part of the World War II magnesium expansion program. Jeff Rowley, was the plant manager. The plant engineer was Robert Couch, who later worked for Amax.
I am still here and still putting out the newsletter. Seems that the world of magnesium has slowly moved to China, but the uses are still a problem. Production has ramped up and die casting, especially for the 3C industry, has ramped up tremendously, especially Foxconn and Catcher, two big producers of notebook computers. At one time they were adding a new die casting machine each month. Machines came from Italy and from Germany. Lots of hot chamber machines, like Frech and Italpresse..some Idra. One plant site has 300 die casting machines.
I asked several questions one of which was how big is the crucible. Bill said it was 36 inches in diameter and was made from a large piece of centrifugally cast pipe for the sides. They had welded a flat bottom on to the pipe and put a flanged on the top so they could set the pot in a furnace setting. They filled the pot with magnesium ingot pieces that they had purchased from Alabama Metallurgical and melted down the material. They had worked with the pot for several weeks before they noticed it was getting full of something. After some more discussion to define the situation it turned out that Acipco was working on a special product to produce a desulfurization method. Although initially they would not give us details, eventually we learned that they were getting the crucible full of molten magnesium and dipping preheated metallurgical Coke into the magnesium. “The hot coke” tended to act as a sponge and soak up magnesium metal into its structure. They stressed that this was confidential and ,of course, we would honor that with no problem. After the discussions and the answers, I asked them what type of flux they were using and the answer was”What’s flux? We quickly told Bill Snow that we would send them a barrel of melting flux and he should carefully place several large scoops of the powdered choride flux into the melting crucible and use a long steel rod to stir the metal with the flux. We faxed him sketches of a stirring rod and a sludge spoon. We offered to send someone up to help them, but they declined. We felt that they wanted to keep the details secret.
I caged down to 4900 level in the winze and went down the main level to a small room on the side of the main haulage level on 4900. This was where you could have a snack and hang up your wet clothes. The shaft was wet and dripping and the 4900 was wet up to the small room. The lunch bag that I had was beaten up. The lightweight jacket was soaked. Then Big Louie, and Sunshine, the miner said ‘’Lets go”. And we started walking along the narrow gauge rails that led off into the darkness, although there were a few single electric bulbs hanging from the timber on the top of the tunnel. Our stope was between 4900-5100.
I commented on the caster in that situation and asked who the “dumb ass”was that thought this would work. Joe Pitts personally had worked out the concept for the conveyor. Needless to say any potential I had for a job with the company went down the drain fairly rapidly after that statement which I had entered into the notes and sent to Tulsa.
I completed my college courses and graduated with a BS in Metallurgical Engineering at a very subdued position in the Class of 1953 rankings. As one of the recommendations from a professor claimed, “Bob tended to be on time, had a number of other interests and was in the upper section of second quarter of the class rankings. Which was actually stretching things a bit. I think he toyed with the idea of saying that I was very high in the lower half of the class.
I continued to work with Sven, the most pressing matter was to find someone who would purchase a hot chamber magnesium die casting machine from Frech. The National Lead research center at Hightstown, NJ was very interested and we worked with the main research engineer for die casting. We supplied them a large amount of literature and discussons, but there was no machine in the US to be seen, so we worked with pictures and numbers. Alfred Bauer who was very experienced in hot chamber magnesium die casting finally gave his approval. He was working at Doehler Jarvis, a subsidiary of National Lead.
I could relate many other stories about this assignment but it would detract from the magnesium approach.
I credit my recovery to the care of the physicians and Vera Jenkins Booker, RN who was the leader of a group of private nurses and others who took care of my daily care. This is another whole story and I will save it for another time..
I did go back and apologized to Stanley and “Frog”, I think they felt that I had learned a lesson. They helped coach me and I became, not necessarily good at, but capable of maintaining the iron flow as needed.
I did not accomplish much with my comments. There was an answer for every problem that I thought would happen. As with many magnesium projects sitting at a conference table with large sheets of paper is totally different than sitting next to it 18,000 pound refractory lined setting filled with molten magnesium and four large combustion burners extending from top to bottom.
I did not know a lot about the background of how the plant got located in Selma and how it got designed and built in Detroit. At no time during the first few days did I think about great education I would soon get by meeting many experienced magnesium leaders from the worldwide industry.
I did spend several weeks at the Los Angeles offices of Ralph M Parsons, being mainly used for comments suggestions and advice.. I worked directly with an engineer named John Hirvela. I stayed near John in a hotel out of town which was in Palos Verdes area, of California that was developed by Frank A Vanderlip.
I disregarded Howard’s advice because I needed a job. It lasted a couple of years. Nils Hoy Petersen, head of Norsk Hydro Magnesium, was elected President of the Magnesium Association.. He was in Olso and I established the Main Office of the Magnesium Association in Selma, Alabama where I was living. Selma had been the second largest magnesium producing area behind Dow in Texas. The Selma pidgeon process magnesium plant had closed in 1969,
I do write to Ed Ahlrich and he sets me straight on some of my conceptions as to who worked for who way back in the original days of the Mag Chloride Feed section. I also stay in touch with Phil Haddad. I worked with Phil in Fred's group before the cut backs in 57. Remember when Dow acquired the Velasco plant and Fred wanted the last ingots from the government plant and the first ingots from the Dow plant. We sat down and were calculating what cells would be dipped about mid night of the turnover. We figured that we would get ingots from Mg 3..and stop and pouring that was going on in Mg2 and the other areas of Mg3 once we had made a set up for midnight. After making a time table, etc, and finding the cell we wanted...we went to Fred. very quiet guy, with those prism type glasses and he said basically, "Forget it. Go out in the morning after the plant shift turnover and find some ingots that were poured on the shift, make sure that they are good looking and clean and take them to the lab area and we will pickle them and get the shop to make some bases and we will have some plaques made for a couple of sets for the Main offices in Midland (Michigan) and for Dr. Beutel and for some other people. I don't want you to disrupt any operations and certainly not spend all night out in the plant."
I don’t have a PhD; just a lowly ol’ B.S. Metallurgy. Glad you recognized me as different than the trashy movie that Susan Slade is famous for.
I don’t know how long this took but as I was laying in the bed the nurses noticed that blood was soaking the cast and the Doctors brought in a portable X-Ray machine to check the basic bone and incision results. They were o.k., so the doctors cut off the cast and patched up the sutured incision and the bleeding stopped. Because I had little skin on my back they turned me every four hours. This involved rolling me up on one side in pulling the sheet off my back which by this time had started growing into my bag. They would pull off the sheet which was almost like pulling off a layer of skin and roll me back over the other way make sure it was all off and then had a clean sheet put under me. Were rolling me back and forth for several weeks.. I had five or six routine operations. The first was to harvest good skin that could be used for grafting. The neck’s were involved with grafting I spent a total of 47 days in the hospital and the hospital bill was US$1700. I had a full leg cast on for a number of months and then a short cast and then after about six months they took the bolts and other hardware out of my ankle. I had gone back to work on crutches after I got out of the hospital. .
I don't remember if I had sent this exchange to you. Alex and I were talking about the great lack of success in magnesium business.
I entered active duty with the USAF in March 25, 1954 from the AF side of OHare where they had the ready hangers on US45 with the F-94's there to protect Chicago. Reported direct to Lackland AFB, San Antonio, Texas in pipeline status for processing to active duty and then to Observer (Navigator) training at Ellington AFB in Houston. Class 55-02C..
I felt guilty about leaving them in the lurch, but felt the opportunity was good and no one attempted to talk me out of the situation. I gave them two weeks notice and we started gathering to get ready to leave. Close and personal affairs had to be taken care of. We would have to sell the house. And make provisions to move to Selma Alabama.
I finally got in touch with a foundry in Fort Worth Texas who was looking for a metallurgist with magnesium and aluminum foundry experience. The foundry was an old line foundry named Texas Bronze. The foundry business company had been bought by Anadite Inc of Chicago, Illinois. It was renamed Anacast.Division. There are many smaller light metal jobbing foundry’s in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. This is due to the large amounts of aircraft and aerospace industry. Anacast’s biggest customers were Bell helicopter and General Dynamics.
I flew to Lubbock, Texas on Tuesday, Sept 2, 1969. It was about 100 miles from Lubbock to Snyder. As I was driving down the highway, there were suddenly blue and red flashing lights. I pulled over and it was a Texas State Police car. The trooper was very official and told me I was speeding. He got my story and warned me about the long clear stretches of flat highway which can hypnotize you. He gave me a warning ticket and let me go. I got to the motel in Snyder (which had just been designated an All American City) about 10 pm. Got up early on the morning of Sept 3 and met Joe Pitts for Breakfast and then he led me to the magnesium plant.
I got a call from Joe Pitts of American Magnesium during the time I was working with Sven and looking for a job. This was in late August of 1969. Joe was working for Roger Wheeler who had resigned from Kaiser and was running several Businesses in Tulsa. Roger had never forgotten the nagging goal in his life, construct a magnesium metal production plant. He had put together a consortium which included the Pullman Corporation of Chicago. The plan was to acquire the rights for mining the large underground salt lake in Snyder, Texas. The brine would be pumped from the underground lake into drying ponds on the property near the plant. A large spacious area was bought in the cattle farming area of Scurry county which did not even have a county seat. In West Texas magnesium-bearing brines found in the Permian Basin were used as raw material for a Scurry County plant founded in 1969 near Snyder. During the 1960s, the recovery of magnesium and the manufacture of magnesium compounds increased in Texas.
I got a little carried away. John Mezoff sent me an e-mail the other day about some magnesium questions. He was hired by Hanawalt in the magnesium research in Midland in 1942. He and Herb Elliott did a lot of the papers on sand casting magnesium, particularly in gating and risering. He went to Bay City to the Dow plant that was built to produce magnesium products. it was actually not Dow, but was built and operated and directed by the Dow group as a separate business. John lives in Stamford, CT in a retirement home near his oldest son who is an architect. (JOHN MEZOFF DIED RECENTLY AND HIS WIFE, MARION, IS ALSO OLD. SHE WORKED AT DOW MIDLAND IN THE LAB WHERE SHE MET JOHN. )
I got a message in the foundry one day go to the superintendent’s office for a meeting. Tom Wallace was a twinkly eyed Irishman that I had seen and talked with from time to time but never with a specific meeting. I went to see my area foreman at the time to tell him of the meeting, but he was already aware of it. I went to Tom Wallace’s office and there was the district works manager Jim Shepard with Tom.. He invited me to sit down and around Tom’s desk. And Jim said, “Tom and I have been talking, and we have a situation where you could be of assistance to the company and also expand your apprenticeship.”
I grew up in a family that was mixed as to origin and work. My father’s father was a Cornish miner, who went to work in the mines in Cornwall at the age of 12 as a drill boy working with his father and family members.
I guess as I was vetted by some local folks Tony told me that he was looking for a salesman to sell magnesium castings and build up the business. He also told me that in building up the business he had hoped to sell out or to sell off foundry business for a lump sum price. I had no sales background, and did not get a job offer
I guess I had a sympathetic face. As he told be about hearing that the girl was pregnant and her father was coming after him with s shot gun. He ran away from home and got a job wrestling all comers in a small carnival. Jesse had started out wrestling a pet bear, but the bear got old and people booed and wanted their money back, so the owner of the side show “started the wrestle our guy” and win a few dollars.
I guess that I was the last chance. Which they did not tell me, I agreed to go to Texas and look at the situation and do as much as I could do, as rapidly as I could. Here I was sitting in New Jersey, out of work, and this was a great opportunity. Joe Pitts suggested that if I helped them out, there could be a job available. So I quickly made plans to go, as they stressed the urgency.
I had actually known AE Peterman during my time in college, Curtis Glanville, the music director from Houghton High School was part of the Copper Country Choral Club a male group with a long history in the Copper Country. Curtis Glanville was part of the choral club and each year took one senior from the Houghton High School male chorus to sing with the group. During my time I had actually sung with the group for two years and AE Peterman was one of the basses in the music group.
I had been looking for a for a metallurgist job in a foundry. I had experience in magnesium boundaries and was looking for a place where I could use my background. I had a great deal of time in the jobseeking market finding someone who would arrange an interview. Several people contacted either employment agencies or myself, but to go further than a telephone conversation was difficult. Well lo and behold, there was a vice president at Wellman named Robert Brown who had some personal problems and the industry was avoiding him.
I had been making or ordering the powder for desulfurization from Reade Manufacturing in Lakehurst New Jersey.
I had been talking to my friend Bob Regan who was working for Iron Age magazine covering nonferrous metals Regan knew a great deal about the local markets and the local companies and gave me some suggestions. One of the suggestions was to look up a fellow on Long Island that Bob knew was interested in magnesium. This man was named Sven Fougner. It turned out that Fougner had come to the US from Oslo, Norway to open the New York Sales office for Norsk Hydro. It was opened as a chemical sales office, but also handled magnesium from the Norsk Hydro magnesium plant.
I had been working at Dow for about three years. First working for Fred Krenzke in Magnesium Production Development. After the slow down in 1957 I had gone to the engineering group to work on an ethylene purification project. . Dow started up a Magnesium Applications Group in the electrochemical research group that was run by Oliver Osborne. I had moved from the Engineering Groupo to this group and was working on desulfurization of steel. . I also provided support to the Cathodic Protection group in the form of alloy magnesium sticks to be used in tests of electro potential of the alloys. I also provided, either by making or ordering, alloys for the various other programs in the Applications group like, Magnesium In Explosives, Magnesium powder for Magnsium Hydride production, called Solid Hydrogen.
I had filled out an application for flying training when I graduated and was commissioned. After accepting the commission effective 30 May 1953, my records were transferred to the 10th Air Force reserve record center at Selfridge AFB.. The copy of my physical was included.
I had included a resume in the letter I sent to Calumet and Hecla and I received an answer and then an invitation for an interview in Selma. We had recently bought a house in Lake Jackson Texas and had a second son David who was born in the Dow hospital.
I had kept in touch with Brad and realized what he would was doing because he called and asked questions occasionally. So when the Rust Engineering group showed up I looked their Chief Engineer in the eye and asked, “Are you working on the cast house project for Dow?” He hemmed and hawed, obviously surprised. I told him we had no problem showing them what we were doing but if he thought that he could learn anything about casting magnesium from us it would be a surprise. You’re working for Dow who has handled magnesium for years and years and years and here you are in Selma Alabama at a plant that’s been running less than a year hoping to see something that would help you out. You may or may not but I’d be surprised if you did. Then I called Bradshaw and told him the story and I laughed. He promised me that he may have mentioned that there was a company in Alabama that was casting magnesium, but he didn’t suggest they come and see the operations ‘
I had read in the metal news about the new magnesium plant, it was a joint venture between Brooks and Perkins and Calumet and Hecla consolidated copper company. It was a small magnesium plant designed to produce magnesium metal using the Pidgeon process. I did not know much about the Pidgeon process, except that it was a thermal reduction process as opposed to the electrolytic reduction process that was used by Dow to produce magnesium.
I had started seriously to look for a job. I had contacted several folks when I received a call from my old friend Joe Pitts. Joe had worked at Dow in the mag chloride production area and had left to go to Tulsa to work for Roger Wheeler in his magnesium extrusion plant. I had interviewed with Joe when Kaiser had purchased Roger Wheeler’s secondary magnesium plant. I was still working with Alamet at this time, but Kaiser was talking about building a new magnesium plant in the Pacific Northwest. Roger Wheeler had gone to the vice president of magnesium for Kaiser. Plus as he sold his plant. Roger had great magnesium ambitions and he felt he could lead Kaiser to the top of the business. Roger was shrewd, but Dow was also not dumb.
I have a bound copy of the first issues of Magnesium Topics that first came out in Sept 1949. It has the name of C.M.Shigley signed inside the front cover and stamped with a personal stamp inside the back cover. One of my friends from Australia is writing a book on the history of mag and he has acquired everything that said magnesium on it for several years. This was gift.
I have heard MagPro can do both: reclamation from scrap and processing from dolomite. I am just excited to see anything positive happening in the United States. My boys are going to need jobs someday – preferably not serving coffee!
I interviewed for a job in the Calumet division working in the copper smelter in Hubbell, Michigan.. I spent two days meeting people and touring the facilities where my grandfather and my father had worked. Hubbell is a small town adjacent to Lake Linden. The personnel group said they would get back to me, but the next thing I learned was the Calumet operations had been shut down and the entire division closed permanently and moves were being taken to sell off the buildings and the land.
I just returned from seeing the movie called “Black Mass” about the life of Whitey Bulger and the Boston crime gangs. In this movie the murder of Roger Wheeler is covered briefly.
I left the Dow engineering group in about 4 months and joined Oliver Osborn's Electrochemical Group, which was starting a new Magnesium Applications group. I worked with Bill Brooks, Art Doumas, and Tom Hagemier on Desulfurization of Steel with magnesium. Lou Nichols who was in Midland was put in charge of the Applications group. When the slow down came in 1957, it seems that the Dow management at the home office realized that they had agreed to buy the Velasco magnesium plant and all of its facilities with a production capacity of 18,000 short tons per year. The market was not expanding and there was a lot of need to do some long range planning.
I looked for a job in some local areas and visited with American Light Alloys which was being run by Tony Cristello. American Light Alloys [founders of the Magnesium Association] had been one of the satellite Bendix foundries and Cristello who ran the foundry for Bendix purchased the plant and started a small jobbing foundry doing magnesium and aluminum in Little Falls New Jersey. Several of the folks that I had worked with at Bendix were working there and they told Tony I was a good guy.
I met with the foundry’s technical staff and the foreman and started getting acclimated to the working situation. There was an old spectrograph with tubes and stepping switches which was kept working by a local electrician and the operator who learned by handling the problems that came up. I became very familiar with with a local computer and military scrap company. They had many old electronic devices that had enough parts in them supply the tubes and switches needed for the spectrometer.
I personally got the information and saw a lot of activity at the Executive Wing as I was leaving the building at quitting time. I saw “Hoppy” Hoppinggartner who had been a maintenance man at Mag 3 before the cut back,, carrying a roll of copper tubing, a handful of tools dressed in coveralls walking fast toward the Executive offices. I hadn't seen him for several months and stopped to do some catching up. He said, "Bob, I don't mean to be rude, but here's the situation and we are rushing to get this job done". They did accomplish the basic plumbing in time, but the final finishing up the construction of more formal bathroom facilities took a week or so.
I played on the ice hockey team during my time in college. The high point in some cases was the fact that the Ice Hockey team in 1950-1951 made the first “road” trip by airplane. We flew from Hancock Michigan to Colorado Springs in a DC-3. We stopped in Sioux Falls, South Dakota for fuel and saw the flying operations of Joe Foss, famous US Marine Corps flying ace of WWII in the Pacific. I look back on this experience as being exposed to the man who shot down many Japanese fighters which used large quantities of magnesium. We later landed in North Platte, Nebraska because it was getting late and the pilots wanted to fly into Colorado Springs in the daylight because the airport was surrounded by mountains.
I put the trip to Fort Worth, interviewed with the Anna cast management team and was offered a job. There were several major parts of the job that the company wanted done. They wanted an improvement on the metals analysis I. E. A new spectrograph. They wanted a new program for the magnesium cover gas which would eliminate sulfur fumes. At this time, ask F6 yes was being investigated as the answer to many of the molten magnesium production problems.
I ramble. However, in regard to the Pidgeon process. Yes, the retorts are a very expensive and weak part of the process. the retorts we had in Selma, were basically HU alloy..40 nickel, 20 chrome. Very expensive . You have to get them as hot as you can to make the reaction go. Hence the process temperature is about 2170F. With 10 microns vacuum, the tubes, 11" in Diameter tend to collapse. The life of the retorts in Selma in 1965 was about 270 days maximum. We ran the process hard to get three 8 hours cycles per day with a 360 pound charge of briquettes of calcined dolomite and 75% FeSi. We would get about a 60-62 pound crown. Hence a retort, that at time cost about US$1700 would produce 62 x 270 x 3 = 50220 pounds of magnesium or about 3 cents per pound.
I remember after college (1953) and working in the American Brakeshoe Foundry Apprentice program. The old days. I graduated from Michigan Tech in Northern Michigan on May 28, 1953 and reported to work in Chicago, Illinois on June 7th.
I remember stopping there when I was about 6 and going in as we had done before. A large jolly man with a very large leather apron or perhaps it was rubber, smiled and shook hands with my grandfather and said, looking at me, “Who do we have here?” “This is my grandson, Bobby”, Grandpa said to me “This is Mr. Dereksen who is the brewmaster.” We shook hands. Mr. Dereksen said “Let’s drink to Bobby!”. My grandfather refilled his mug and he took my little mug and filled it. I pulled his leg and said whispered, “My mother will be mad”. My grandfather said, “We must drink with the brewmaster that is good manners.” We toasted and drank and left. I fell asleep in the front seat of his 1935 Chevrolet coupe on the way home and my mother was mad. It was quickly forgotten, I think, but I have not forgotten that day even for a minute..
I reviewed the situation, did analysis of hazards and wrtote procedures to eliminate many of the problems areas. The main points were to get melting crucibles which were overlaid with stainly steel welds, provide loosely bricked run out boxes to contain a magnesium leak, to clean up the basement area. After about a week, working with the group with full support of the plant owners and leaders, we had addressed all of the concerns and established written procedures. I left them to proceed and stayed in touch with Ed as the contact and went back for a review in about a month.
I sent a reply and notified Mr. Sugiura that I was now living in Midland Park, New Jersey and that I would be happy to meet in NYC. We ultimately set up a meeting for March 26, 1970 at 6PM at Saito’s steak house on 57th Street between 6th and 7th Avenue.
I sent out a number of resumes and got an interview with Bendix foundry division. Bendix was an old line magnesium caster which had been built by Vincent Bendix. Bendix was an innovator and a creative inventor. One of the most famous inventions, was the Bendix starter used for starting automotive engines by the use of electricity. The famed Bendix throwout spring allowed a gear driven by the electric starter, to engage and turn the motor over until it started and then the starter motor gear was removed from contact by use of the Bendix spring.[4]
I soon learned Calumet and Hecla was a late comer to Alabama Metallurgical Corporation. I would also learn that the major person behind the magnesium plant was E Howard Perkins head of a magnesium fabricating company named Brooks and Perkins. Mr. Perkins, as I quickly learned, was a steel industry man who was recruited by Dow in 1931 to develop fabrication methods for magnesium. One of the first major challenges was to produce magnesium gondolas for Piccard and the National Geographic Society. Most of the original work was done at Dow’s Bay City small magnesium fabrication plant.
I started three stories down in the Brake Shoe and Casting Foundry (built in 1911) sand room on West 26sth Street in Chicago on :June 8th,1953, I learned what molding sand was and learned how to mix it ...easily said...but this was the old days and molders were prima donnas, so each team of molders making copes and drags for railroad brakeshoes had their own idea of what exactly the sand should be like. It was delivered on belts to bucket elevators to more belts with diverters to put the sand in the hopper of a molder. The big guy that was the main leader of the sand room, could do this. He automatically adjusted for the atmospheric humidity and the length of the sand travel, so a molder smiled when he got some "fresh sand" and it was to his liking. I learned to tell by the feel of the sand, as is it started up the elevator...by smelling and squeezing, just about what the moisture and clay content were. The difference between 'just about" and the actual moisture were the difference in a trainee and a man who made the production of foundry sand on a daily basis for year after year, "A CREATION". You can not find any of these men in the dark sub basements of today's foundries. Too demeaning of a job. In fact there are very few green sand foundries. Foundries today use chemically bonded molding sand.
I was assigned to a shifter named Mandy Lundell who I was told was in charge of crews in the Winze. I did not know what a winze was, but quickly learned. He had a Shifters book and wrote my name on the bottom of a list of names. In his book, I was number 15, Mandy told me I would be in a stope with a man named “Big Louie”. I would learn later that most of the older employees had pet names.
I was both a little shocked and surprised. The Ube people outlined the subject matter that the managers wanted to discuss.
I was living in Danville, Indisna and looking for work again. I got a call from fellow named Ed who was the chemist for Magnode in Trenton, Ohio. They were an extrusion company that produced magnesium anodes. I remembered the name from our sales reports while I was at Alamet. I remember the owner was named art Bidwell. As I remember company they use to buy pure magnesium and alloy it themselves and pour it into permanent molds to make the billet.
I was nominated to show and explain the process to the visitors. Of course, the plant had only been running about six months and we were literally up to our “asses in Alligators”. There were several stuck condenser sleeves with burning crowns (magnesium deposits) in them. My job was to explain the process in Selma and also delay any walk around plant visit until the excitement on the production floor could be cleared up.
I was part of a totally new program to take already commissioned officers, either Military Academy, ROTC or enlisted graduates of Officer Training programs in the Air Force.
I was there as a “Magnesium Melting and Handling Expert” to review the safety situation and advise the management on how to create and guarantee eafe operations. Fortunately while they had major damage, no one was killed or badly injured.
I watched from across the street as Dad and some of his workers raced through the gates and into the plant. I watched as Dad came up to two firemen preparing to start spraying a big hose; they refused to listen to his loud, urgent warnings. Dad stole their firehose. That was my Dad; he was my hero.
I wrote a column on magnesium for Australian Journal of Mining for about 7 years. I still contribute to Light Metal Age and have made a trip to China for magnesium of some sort for many years. I did not go last year or this year as I could not find a sponsor. I stay in touch and use information from my Chinese friends for the newsletter.
I wrote a long letter to Gene Erbin about the situation that I saw in the engineering and construction planning and he said he was alarmed the. I had hoped to work with them and get a job in the cast house when they started up. I was told by Walter McCormack that they had planned to run the casthouse with a foreman on a shift and they didn’t need any managers or supervisors outside of that. My association with Parsons and NL industries ended rather rapidly. They had a terrible time getting started and it turned out that they had no experience in handling molten magnesium on a scale of an electrolytic production plant.
If you are operating and magnesium industry or a magnesium plant or for that matter any industrial plant, you should be prepared for unusual things that can happen. One major thing is communication and awareness. A study of the plant, its general layout, and general equipment should be assembled on a map. A plant committee of management operations engineering should be held and assignments made to study and identify potential hazards. The information should be very complete with clear identification both in manuals and in location on the bulletin boards and walls of the plant. The local emergency groups such as fire utilities transportation and access should be included in the planning hospitals and emergency clinics are particularly important a review of the local facilities and level of experience should also be evaluated.
In 1943 in the International Nickel Company Research Laboratory, Keith Dwight Millis made a ladle addition of magnesium (as a copper-magnesium alloy) to cast iron and confirmed that - the solidified castings contained not flakes, but nearly perfect spheres of graphite. Ductile Iron was born!
In 1947, the US Air Force placed orders for the giant B 36 bomber. The B 36 bomber used a large amount of magnesium sheet in the construction of the actual aircraft. Brooks and Perkins had extensive B 36 contracts under the General Electric Company for several years and the use of lightweight magnesium expanded rapidly. Much of it went into the equipment of various kinds, particularly in connection with new radar and fire control systems. Much of it went into equipment of various kinds, particularly in connection with new radar and fire control systems and in the wide variety of land-based apparatus required to be transported by air. The greatest activity was during the Korean War went for two years B&P did an annual business of about 10 million per year.
In 1948, the partnership was dissolved and a corporation, Brooks and Perkins Inc. came into existence with E Howard Perkins as president and chairman of the board.
In 1951, the mill was installed in the new building on company property purchased in Livonia, Michigan. The demand for magnesium sheet and plate was extremely high due to the Korean situation.
In 1994 it was reported that China has a magnesium production capacity of 34,500 metric tons. Approximately 70% of the capacity is of the Pidgeon or silico thermic process. This process uses ferrosilicon to reduce calcined dolomite. The new plant is apparently another Pidgeon process plant although the initial the announcement did not mention this. It is been stated that somebody from Canada familiar with the Pidgeon process went to China in the 1980s and explained the simplicity of the Pidgeon process to the Chinese coupled with the simplicity in the low cost at getting into business. One of the biggest problems with the Pidgeon process was difficulty in achieving process automation. A basis Pidgeon process plant is very labor-intensive. At this time China had a great deal of labor and not much capital, so the installation of Pidgeon process plants made a great deal of sense.
In a jobbing foundry the patterns are supplied to the foundry. In many cases the foundry is supplied with blueprints and has to quote on the pattern production, and then either farm it out or make it. In either case, the pattern is owned by the company ordering the castings, but traditionally is stored in the foundry so re-orders can be quickly done. As most of the patterns were quite old a whole group had to be set up to research the pattern background and to send legal notices to the pattern owners. I say legal notices because many of the companies had gone out of business. The patterns had to be sent to an address supplied by the owner or discarded if there is no legal reply.
In February 1933 Willard Dow had been contacted by Irving E Muscat, a young chemist on the century of progress science staff. Up until this time all the gondolas used in record-setting a sense were made of aluminum. Muscat was still looking for help in a balloonist sent and he asked Willard Dow if Dow would be interested in making a magnesium gondola for the Picard ascents.
In January 1950, the National Lead Company and Allegheny LudlumSteel Corporation announced the formation of a jointly owned corporation, the Titanium Metals Corporation of America, formed for the purpose of marketing and distributing titanium. Originally headquartered in New York, the company was headed by H. C. Wildner, the vice president of National Lead. Laboratories at the National Lead Company had been producing and studying titanium for several years at its Sayresville, New Jersey plant. Allegheny Ludlum was a leading producer of stainless steel and began conducting intensive research in the areas of melting, alloying, and processing of the metal. Titanium had been recently developed as a metal prized for its noncorrosive qualities, resistance to acids, and tensile strength. ANew York Times article from the period stated that "the armed forces are experimenting with titanium and call it strategic." Strategic applications included areas within the defense department, where titanium was increasingly used for aircraft, submarineparts, jet engines, rockets, guided missiles, and chemical and pharmaceutical equipment. An engineering and construction company was hired by Titanium Metals to build the first large-scale plant for the production of metallic titanium at Henderson, Nevada, located about 15 miles from Las Vegas. The plant would use the Kroll processs for titanium production. The company had already leased major onsite components of the former Basic Ma gnesium, Inc. plant built by the government during World War II. The titanium metals project would use the existing magnesium reduction plant as part of the titanium recycling facility. The titanium metal would be produced by reducing titanium tetrachloride with magnesium metal which would produce titanium sponge and anhydrous magnesium chloride. The magnesium chloride would be recycled to magnesium metal by using the electrolytic cells installed at basic magnesium.
In looking back, we never realized what an experienced and interesting man Mr Perkins was at the time. We did not know anything about his personal activities within the magnesium community. We knew he was head of a large fabrication facility, but did not realize things like his experience with the Piccard’s and the altitude race. I don’t think we even knew that he had been so instrumental in developing the US magnesium sheet fabrication business.
In my hand written notes I painted a picture of several folks working hard to pump one 50 pound pig at a time. The handwritten pages of notes in the old 29 cent lined spiral bound note book bring back smells and scenes of daily chaos and confusion. There is an occasional note of success which was usually small, but necessary to recognize.
In my initial letter to Mr. Suguira, I had said,”The key to a satisfactory relationship between two parties to any agreement is a clear understanding of what is expected of each party. I am not clear as to exactly what Ube is looking for from me: however, I’ve made a few assumptions based on our talk. Business is basically similar in all parts of the world, so my assumptions should not be too far from correct.”
In New Jersey looking for a job
In part Capt. Black told the Magnesium Association, that the paper presented by Tooley “presented coverage of observations associated with the utilization of magnesium on our largest bombe that I can only add limited comments on the additional one year of service of the B 36.”
In practice, samples representing top of each cast is exposed and inspected visually. Any flux that is exposed on the faces of the samples will react with the sodium thiosulfate fumes and create a large whitish spot. If the sample is acceptable, the material is released. There was a visual aid made which showed acceptable and non-acceptable samples. The decision was very subjective, so one person was normally responsible for this operation. If the sample was rejected, two more samples were cut from the same material and a second test run is made. The acceptance is based on the results of the letter to samples. Particular care should be taken that ingot samples being placed in the cabinet are at or higher than room temperature. Otherwise condensation spots will confuse the investigation.
In retrospect the part of the journey of over the river into the hospital was on the highway that has become an extremely well-known portion of Highway and a bridge that will live in infamy,. The Edmund Pettus Bridge. I don’t know where you are right now and I don’t know if you are alive in 1961. But the bridge as appeared in international media has been seen or could’ve been seen by anybody in the world that has access to television. Yes, I rode over the Edmund Pettis Bridge before it became internationally famous, but it made the route to the hospital short and probably helped save my life. I went over the bridge in a severely beat up and injured condition. Who would know that a few years later people coming over the bridge from the other direction would also become injured and beaten..
In retrospect, we were a bit in awe of the man, and missed many great opportunities to have learned more about his background and business. I’m sure he would’ve told us if we had merely open to subjects and talk to him. In 1960, the plant operated as a segregated facility under Alabama law with separate showers drinking fountains and lunch areas. Mr. Perkins never commented on this subject however he never differentiated between his greetings or black or white employees.
In spite of getting things repaired, the world’s fair ended and the weather remained bad. The Navy was taking over the piloting of the balloon flight and they wanted to launch from the Goodrich-Zeppelin Air Ship Dock at the Akron, Ohio Municipal Airport. All the equipment was moved from Chicago to Akron and on November 20, 1933 the U.S. Navy recaptured the altitude record the Soviet Union had set two months before. The new record was 61, 237 feet.
In the 1930’s there was little economic structure like we know it today. There were no governmental programs either state or federal to support workers without jobs. There was no unemployment insurance or social security. There were few mortgage loans and many families lived in company housing which was lost when the mines closed.
In the accident review and the developments of reports for the state authorities and the local authorities, it appeared the company had done nothing to help with this type of situation. We never had time to do formal planning, but after the disaster we had lots of time.
In the August 1971 issue of Modern Metals, there was a major review story titled “Magnesium – super marketing needed to sop up super supply”. I made a trip to Detroit and visited several automotive companies to discuss the future of magnesium. As you might imagine the story was the same as it usually is magnesium prices are too high.
In the post war period, the UBE management started looking into producing magnesium metal. They chose the Pidgeon Process based on their past experience and the available mineral resources. Dr. Matsuura and Mr. Sasaki of the UBE Cement plant started to investigate the method that would be needed. Furakawa was already working on the Pidgeon Process using calcined dolomite at a plant in Oyama.
In the sampling in the flux testing work magnesium turnings and saw chips were collected in in a special deal drum right outside of the flux testing room. When the drum was full, the shavings were added to a pot of molten metal as it was being mailed. The drum outside the building was protected with a water resistant top and the shavings collected by the removing the top and putting them into a large plastic bag to take to the casting area. One day there was a’s rainstorm, and someone had left the top off of the drum. So when the technician went to gather the shavings he noted the water was in the drum. As I was the plant metallurgist and theoretically the most sought after person or unusual situations, mainly because of my Dow magnesium background and because I had been in charge of the melting and casting area for several years. I went and looked at the problem and the drum was definitely filled with water and shavings and chips. This was a situation that was loaded with potential problems what magnesium shavings and chips. It was also an area where small amounts of logic and knowledge can be good or bad.
In this 1970 period, many steel mills in the US were seeing the success that Japanese steel mills were having lowering the final sulfur content of their steel. The lower sulfur had increased both the tensile, ultimate, and elongation of the steel.
It took a long time to find and locate all the people. Three of the most severely burned who were taken to the hospital received excellent treatment, but one man died and two spent a long period in the hospital having the burns treated.
It was a very nice letter and I treasure it to this day. However, in spite of the very concise reply and excellent consulting offer, it was still a “NO”. I filed it away and did not expect to hear from UBE again.
It was also about this time that the new company entered the magnesium printing plates and graphic arts products field. It also entered the industrial nonpowered materials handling business.
It was at this time that Perkins started to expand his company to create its own magnesium production facility. A 50-50 joint venture partnership was formed between the Canadian silicothermic primary magnesium producer, Dominion Magnesium Ltd (DOMAL) . DOMAL operated the original plant built to produce 5000 tons per year of primary magnesium using and under the direction of Dr. Lloyd Pidgeon. DOMAL would supply the technology and Brooks and Perkins would be the outlet for most of the magnesium.
It was clearly known that you do not want water around molten magnesium. I also remembered, somewhere in my training that this situation called for magnesium to be spread upon the ground in an isolated area and ultimately burned. We disconnected the drum from the saw inside the wall and took the drum with which shavings and chips out into an open area of gravel. I dumped the drum over by pushing it with my foot and water came out with magnesium in it. This is where small amounts of knowledge can be very dangerous. I looked at the amount of water and realized that it would never burn. Rather than waiting for the material to dry or for any other reason, I took a cigarette lighter out of my pocket and picked up a small amount of the wet shavings let the lighter and was immediately consumed by a huge hydrogen explosion.
It was decided that a standard 4000 lb melting crucible would be designed for Alamet furnace setting. One test crucible would be metalized with a No. 11 Metco aluminum based coating. The goal was to increase the crucible life by 30%. The crucible circular section would be rolled from heavy steel plate and welded to form a cylinder and a flanged and dished heavy steel head welded to form the bottom. The estimated capacity of the finished crucible was slightly over 4000 lbs of molten magnesium.
It was during the latter part of 1971, when I was working with Sven Fougner, that I realized there was a great lack of magnesium knowledge generally available. I started reviewing technical magazines as well is talking to some people that I knew and I started putting it into a newsletter.
It was exciting to be working in this famous foundry and addressing upgrading techniques. In fact it was very exciting to be in this area of New Jersey just outside of New York City, which had been a major center of magnesium casting and magnesium casting development. There were several smaller foundries such as American Light Alloys in addition to Bendix and Curtis Wright. The pattern loft at Bendix had hundreds of beautiful mahogany wood patterns for military aircraft parts.
It was May of 1961 when Judson Hawthorne, Technical Director, came into the three desk office in the Lab Building at the Selma Pidgeon Process plant. He told us (Chemist, Metallurgist, and Process Engineer) that the Wolverine Tube Division of Calumet and Hecla was talking to a Japanese group about licensing some copper tubing technology to the company. The company was known as UBE Industries. It was an old line Japanese company that was located in Ube City.
It was reported that the Liberty World Corporation of Japan will set up a joint venture with the government of China’s Henan province to produce magnesium. The new primary magnesium plant will be located in Heibei, China. The new company will be called the Heibei Four Seasons Metal industry Corporation and will be capitalized at $420,000. The announcement says the venture plans to refine 1500 metric tons of magnesium in the fiscal year beginning in April 1995. The output is expected to increase to 3500 metric tons by fiscal 1997/98. The primary magnesium project will be sold mainly in China, where demand is reported to be surging. Magnesium will also be exported to Japan as the output rises.
Item 1: An electrolysis process facility now operating. Selection of the operator is dependent on your arrangement.
Item 2: A magnesium raw material producer around the great Salt Lake area.GSL Mineral and Chemicals is considered by them.
Item 6: Present anti-pollution facilities in magnesium plants from economical point of view, cost calculation, etc.
JAPAN
Japan has operated a number of smaller magnesium production’s over the past 30 years. However, the last operating silico thermic reduction plant, Ube industries in Yamaguchi Prefecture was closed in 1994. Recent reports attribute the closure to a fall in sales due to the appreciation of the yen and cheap supplies of magnesium metal available from China and Russia.
Japan was the leader in developing low sulfur steel production at times it went to great lengths to accomplish this using calcium carbide. There were injection methods stirring methods, and shaking ladles. This is why the Japanese steel industry was able to supply the large order of of pipe for the Alaska pipeline.
Jean Piccard and his wife Jeanette got the balloon from Dow and made an ascent from the Ford Air Port in Dearborn, Michigan. It was actually Jeanette Piccard that was the pilot of record because she had a valid US Ballooning liscense. It was a one flight in the old gondola and made news, but no national or world records. Jean Piccard could brag that he reached an altitude higher than his twin brother Auguste had done.
Jeff Rowley and the plant crew at the Luckey, Ohio plant produced Pidgeon process magnesium for the lowest cost during World War II. The plant reached 125% of capacity and the cost per pound of magnesium production was $.18 per pound. The enthusiasm and energy and performance of the National Lead group had a strong influence on their decision to proceed with the magnesium plant at the Great Salt Lake.
Jerry Comer with Alamet agreed to find us a place to rent so we could move directly from our house in Lake Jackson into the rental house in Selma. The Dow personnel group had handled many of these situations and had a checklist that needed to be signed off on before they would give you your final check. All of this was accomplished in the two weeks and we moved to Selma, Alabama. We had a small three bedroom one bath house on McDonald Street. We moved in and Gail stayed to supervise the movers unloading and I went to Alamet to meet the employees and see the plant. Mr. Yow who lived across the street was very helpful because we had one car and I was using it. As the house was being occupied ,deposits had to be made for water and gas etc. Mr. Yow helped tremendously.
Jesse had a son named James who was a young boy. Jesse was worried that not being able to help him do homework. Here we were working to develop a low heat method of making magnesium silicide and running experiments on deoxidation of copper with magnesium. Jesse quickly adapted to most any assignment, so I was able to spend time counseling and assure him that it would not be a problem. Years later when I met some guys from Dow at some meetings, no one remembered Jesse Tipton.
Jesse who was from East Texas, got a job at Dow doing labor work and liked it. He was functionally illiterate ( could sign his name and so some basic reading). One day the foreman came to Jesse and said, “I heard that you carry a pistol to and from work and leave it in your locker.” Jesse reportedly said, “Doesn’t everyone carry a gun??”
Joe had outlined the plan as he and Roger saw them. Joe was going to be out the plant for several days, so the first thing we would do is meet with the plant staff and he would put me in touch with his second-in-command. Each day I would write a report by hand (this was 1969), Joe’s secretary would type it up and send it by the rotating disk on the telephone the pre-runner of the fax machine. A copy would go directly to Tulsa and Roger so he could keep track of what was happening.
Judson said as part of the talks in the Wolverine Headquarters in Detroit, the technical visitors had asked to visit the Wolverine Copper Tubing plant in Decatur and the magnesium plant in Selma. So here they were, in the main office building. We had a large hand drawn poster showing the production steps of the magnesium process in Alabama.
Just as I was getting accustomed to the new routine and responsibilities, I received notice from the US Air Force that I was being called to Active Duty as a second lieutenant based on my ROTC commission that I had received at Graduation from Michigan Tech.
Just as the plant design was getting under way, the 1957 recession was felt and Dominion Magnesium was forced to leave the agreement. Mr.. White was left in Detroit with no project for eight months while Brooks and Perkins attempted to find another partner.
Just before I was ready to leave, I got a job interview with the magnesium/cacium production plant run by New England Lime at Canaan, Connecticut. The was a 10,000 ton per year Pidgeon Process plant that had been built and run by NELCO as part of the WWII magnesium plant build up. The plant had not reached its rated output during the 3 years that it operated. It was restarted during the Korean War and then shut down after a short period of operation. The NELCO group was run by C.C. Loomis. I met a man named Pozzi. The metallurgist was leaving and it was a job that could lead to Asst General Manager. I met the group and the Metallurgist took me around showing me the old Pidgeon process plant and discussing the production of calcium metal in the retorts.
Ken Kirgin wanted to stabilize the design of gating and risering by modifying the mold it self. However, most of the rigging was in the eyes and hands of the molders. So, by using some of the latest technical equipment available. I was assigned the task of recording the gating and risering with a Poloroid Land Camera.. The pattern ready to pour would be photographed before the mold was closed. After the mold was poured, the casting wss photographed after shake out and cleaning. Temperature of the pour and other details were recorded on a card, along with the picture of the rigging and shook out casting. Comments on the quality were recorded along with detailed observations of the raw casting. The original plan was to follow the casting to the customer and take pictures of the machining with comments on the quality.
Knut Wasberg of Norsk Hydro presented a paper to the International Magnesium Association in 1984 which covered the global desulfurization industry [5] And estimated the use of magnesium for Ductile Iron production and the removal o sulfur from hot metal to be about 20,000 metric tons in the Western World. Wasberg also estimated 15,000 MT for ductile iron per year. He developed several explanations which ended up predicting a maximum of magnesium used in Global markets could reach 200,000 MT.
Later Dow quit the Magnesium Association and shut down the Magnesium research efforts in Midland...laid off Tom Leontis, Bob Busk, Foster Bennett, and Don Hanawalt retired. 71 metallurgists lost their jobs. Dow gave a special magnesium research contract to Battelle and outside of selling copies of the Dow Magnesium Research Library, I don't know that they ever made any money, or reasonable discoveries. Russ Ogden who was the manager of the Magnesium unit at Battelle was a Mich Tech guy, class of 41. BS in Met Eng from Tech and MS from Ohio State.
Later in Wood Shop in High School we had to make a project such as a coffee table or a cedar chest. Same routine: start with rough wood and plane and use animal glue in a large cast iron pot on a gas burner to get the glue ready to use on the edge of 8-10” boards and clamp together. This would be the top of the coffee table. The wood was plain hard wood called ‘gum wood’, no one could afford mahogany. Hand made mortice and tenon joints for the legs and sides of the table, with more glue.
Later, I had the opportunity while at Alamet to work with Bill Snow at Acipco and the development of Mag-Coke. A product for ductile iron production that was taken by some steel companies such as Dofasco and used for steel desulfurization.
Later, Mr. S. Sasaki from the UBE cement plant came to Selma, to see the plant operation. By this time Alabama Metallurgical had signed an agreement with Dominion Magnesium in Haley, Ontario for assistance and had hired a new Technical Manager and Production Manager from Dominion. This was some of the first actions after the hiring of Richard N. Speer as the new plant General Manager. There was no plant tour or information permitted for Mr. Sasaki during his visit. I again had the chore of being thej escort and telling him of the situation. I did drive him around the plant perimeter so he could see that the plant was running smoothly and retorts were operating and magnesium was being produced in a stable fashion.
Learned about Ferdinand Porsche...the 15 year old tin smith apprentice that was sent in 1890 to repair some drains in a carpet factory in his native Austria and saw a plant that was wired for electricity. It was an amazing experience, so he started to work with electricity and built a car using electric motors that were mounted in the hubs of the vehicle. He recognized the importance of light weight throughout his early career and built magnesium engines in 1928. So what do we have today. Electric cars with possible use of magnesium for light weight.
Learning the Cupola and Melting Iron
Liberty World is classified as an office machinery sales company in Japan and is also involved in trade and investment in China. The new venture will be the second magnesium plant operating in Henan province. The Dan Chang Ferro alloy factory is listed as having a primary magnesium production capacity of 1000 metric tons.
Listening to your paper, I was reminded of the words of Lou Nichols to the Magnesium Association in the 70's. He got on their case and told them how lazy and misguided they were as an association. He said that the major successes that magnesium usage had enjoyed was not through any efforts of the Association. He said the biggest market which had become aluminum alloying was given to the magnesium industry by the aluminum companies developing beverage cans. Another big market was desulfurization of steel and the IMA had done nothing to develop this market either. I think of how little the industry has changed...alloying with aluminum is still the major market and hope for the future of magnesium sales is in the idea of aluminum developing auto body sheet. Amazing.
Long before Russia’s Dr. Voronova ever thought of this. It was injected in a 500 lb basic electric melting furnace and it was heat of 1020 steel. We also did 310 Stainless and ran a large test program on low temperature charpy impacts, high temperature tensile tests, etc. The improvement of properties was astounding. Shortly after this the Japanese started using carbide to desulfurize large heats of steel for commercial production. They did the hot metal approach on their blast furnace iron on its way to the converter. A lot of this was published in the late 50's and early 60's.
Lookout Pass is a mountain pass in the Rocky Mountains of the northwestern United States. In the Coeur d'Alene Mountains of the Bitterroot Range, the pass is on the border between Idaho and Montana, traversed by Interstate 90 (which was Highway US2 in 1951) at an elevation of 4,710 feet (1,436 m) above sea level.
Lookout Pass is also a time zone border, with northern Idaho on Pacific Time and Montana on Mountain Time. So we gained an hour while going to Wallace.
Made the patterns for a screw jack , make the molds and cast the jack from a small cupola.. Then machined the cleaned casting with old lathes powdered by overhead drive wheels to pulleys on the lathe. Calculate the cutting rates by using gear combinations, made by matching the proper gears based on the number of teeth on the gear. Set up and cut tapers.
Mag Coke from American Cast Iron Pipe Company in Birmingham Alabama was widely used by several steel companies to achieve desulfurization of hot metal. The Magnesium Association at its 1973 annual meeting in Cherry Hill, New Jersey presented the magnesium the design and application award. This was the 29th annual meeting of the magnesium Association, and it was the second meeting that I had organized as the executive secretary of the Association. It was also at this meeting that the board of directors with approval of the members voted to change the name from “magnesium Association” to International Magnesium Association to recognize the expansion of the activities of the group.
MAGNESIUM PRODUCTION IN ALABAMA 1956-1969
Magnesium boils at 1100 o C while iron melts at 1500 o C. It is very difficult to inoculate a crucible of molten iron with pure magnesium. The new industry first adopted the nickel-magnesium master alloy, later modifying the inoculant to be a magnesium-ferrosilicon alloy. This was cheaper and more efficient.
MAGNESIUM EXPLOSION AT ALAMET IN MARCH 1961
Magnesium hydroxide was produced by UBE Chemical Industries and quick lime was supplied by Nippon Lime, both UBE affiliates. A synthetic dolomite mix was made for the plant. The net capacity was listed as 6,000 mtpy.
Magnesium Monthly Review
MAGNESIUM MONTHLY REVIEW
MAGNESIUM OVERCAST—Large bomber with use of large amounts of magnesium
Magnesium Ramblings by Bob Brown
Maintenance Project
Making Railroad Brakeshoes by Sand Molds
MANAGEMENT CIIANGE
Many a Saturday when Grandpa Berry was working in the smelter. My mother would drop me off and I would stay in the timekeeper’s office in the smelter powerhouse. Grandpa Berry would get off of work at 3 o’clock. He would drive home in the summer. He walked to work most days ( about 4 miles) until he retired at 75, especially in the winter as he would put his car up on blocks in the garage and drain the radiator.
Many unique things in all industries happen by chance. In 1920s and early 1930s, there was a space race going on between the Russians and the US. The basic records being sought were altitude records. Two Belgium adventurers who were twin brothers and scientists, the Piccard Brothers. Auguste Piccard had persuaded the King Albert I of Belgium to establish a research fund. The Fund was used to finance a attempt to set a new altitude record in a gondola suspended under a large hydrogen filled balloon. In 1931, Auguste set in altitude record of 51, 775 feet. In 1932 he established the new record of 53, 512 feet.
Many years ago I was called to the Telex Corporation offices in Tulsa in 1972 to meet with Roger Wheeler, a past Magnesium Association president and Joe Pitts, incoming Magnesium Association president. They asked if I would become the association paid administrative head with title of Executive Secretary.
May 8 56,250
1. Mechanization of briquettes charging and discharging its operations.
MEETING THE EXPERIENCED MAGNESIUM EXPERTS
Melting and casting had been running for over a year. The conversion of the crown to ingot was slow. Originally it was thought that the melt room would run for five days a week. This turned out to be totally wrong and we were running at seven days a week 24 hours a day. We had many problems, one of which was leaking melting crucibles. The heavy Dow cast steel pots often had porosity or inclusions in the walls and after some time of operation magnesium would leak from the pot. The cast steel pots were 4 inches thick at the top and the bottom were tapered to be 7 inches thick. The heavier thickness in the bottom was apparently to give a longer pot life as the outside was affected by oxidation.
Memories of old times tend to fade and get obscured as people grow older. Great thrilling experiences and sad painful experiences are often remembered. I have a memory that tends to remember a lot of facts from most ages of my life. Why or how, I am not sure. I remember a great deal f rom my first 5 years. Of course, these are the times when many first time things happen in your life.
Michigan Tech was a land grant college and it was mandatory for students to participate in at least two years of military training. I joined the Reserve Officers Training Corps as a freshman and spent two years in the basic Air Force program. Approval was gained for the two year advanced AF ROTC training which was a paid program and included attending a summer camp at Selfridge AFB, near Detroit, Michigan.
Millions of them..my next door neighbor in Lake Jackson, Roy Hill, was from Montgomery, Alabama and had served in the AF as a gunner on B-29's. He told me about the first bombing mission in the Korean War where they got jumped by Migs and 9 of 12 B-29’s were shot down. He was o.k. for the rest of the war and then got an honorable discharge when his four year enlistment was completed.
Miss Nye had taught my mother and my aunt as it was a small town. Everyone knew everyone else’s business and we did not have a “town drunk”, the younger men took turns.
More later,
More later..
Most of the activity in the area that I remember as a boy was related to the mining industry. There were several major areas of work which started with prospecting (or geology), mining, or preparation, smelting, transportation, activities to supply services and material to the other industries. A small number of farmers and later lumberjacks also developed businesses in the area.
Most of the AF flying training up to that time was held for cadets. Young guys who enlisted in the AF and passed a compressive and thorough physical and appitude aexam…called a Staynine test. The cadet candidates were segregated by the test results to pilot or navigator training. During theier training they received full Military training as well as flying training. The end of WWII and the winding down of the Korean War, suddenly cut the demand for new officers trained into rated positions, i.e. pilot or navigator positions. There was both a commissioned and a cadet group in class 55-02C.
Most of the regular brakeshoes were made by a two man team. One would made the copes on a machine and the other would make the Drag. The molds would be stripped off and put together on a small roller conveyor. Most brske shoe finished sand molds would have two cavities that with in gates to receive the poured iron from s single down sprue. . The mold flasks were placed on the steel plates on the small conveyor cars. There was room for three molds to a car. Cars were assigned to a molding station with a number.
MOVING FROM DOW IN TEXAS TO ALABAMA METALLURGICAL IN SELMA
MOVING TO TEXAS BRONZE (ANADITE) FOUNDRY IN FORT WORTH.
Mr. K. Nakayasu was the father of Michiharu Nakayasu who became president of UBE and President of the Japan Magnesium Association for a number of years.. Mr. K Nakayasu loved to play golf when he visited the New York City office of UBE. He made a gift of a number of Japanese Cherry trees to Baltasrol, the famed golf course , in Northern New Jersey..
Mr. Perkins was quite a bit different in his approach to the plant he did not drive. He was a bit eccentric in the fact that he had a Lincoln limousine and a black driver when he was in Detroit. I think he liked to show off his large car and be given great service of having a large black car and a large black driver.
Mr. Perkins would fly to Montgomery Alabama and be picked up there by his car and chauffeur who had driven down the day before his flight. Although I never saw it personally those who did said it was a very attention gathering occassion when Mr. Perkins would fly into Montgomery and be met with his driver. He was a tall man and wore tailored suits even into the plant and a Homburg hat. This, of course, was in the older days when a man could be met at the airplane by his car with special permission from the airport police. The chauffeur did not wear a uniform but he did have a dark suit with a chauffeur’s cap. He would open the rear door and get Mr. Perkins seated, open the trunk and get the bags and place them in it he would get in and they would drive out of the airport to highway 80 west and go to Selma.
Mr. Suguira faced me with his back to the door and Mr. Hironaka who was to act as a translator sat on the side of the table facing between us. As we relaxed, Mr. Suguira turned out to be a director of the Ube Company and in charge of UBE Office in New York. He said his second language was Malaysian and English was his third language. Par t of the duties of the translator were to take notes and consult on words that might be difficult for Mr. Suguria since he was a Chemical Engineer and not familiar with magnesium.
Mr. White's replacement was Mr. A. E. Peterman from the Calumet and Hecla organization. He quickly assessed that help was needed. He contacted D r. Pidgeon concerning the many plant difficulties. Dr. Pidgeon visited the plant and reviewed both the technical and analytical procedures, the general plant operation and
My apprenticeship in the core area was very similar to that in all areas. I was introduced to the various materials and the core compositions. I was introduced to the tools that were used to make the cores. Then I spent the time learning to operate the equipment. This included a basic understanding of the core oven and the importance of temperature and time on core baking.
My apprenticeship makes a course change.
My copy of the commissioning orders were accompanied by a general statement saying that I would not serve as an officer until I received an appointment to an active duty post in the USAF by competent authority.
My family had developed from two basic roots. All related to copper mining, since the UP of Michigan contained many mineral deposits. The major mineral was native copper. The other major mineral was iron ore.
My father joined the Navy during WW II and later met my mother, then a student nurse from Kansas, at an ROTC tea dance. The jukebox had broken down, and my mother asked him to fix it. A year later, they were married.
My father wasn’t much for watching television; the time spent with us kids was mainly reserved for the out of doors: Hiking, water skiing; fishing — one day we caught the same fish, on separate hooks! — and working together, outside. But there was one television program we wouldn’t miss; we’d watch it together: it was called — “The FBI.”
My first work would be in the Pressure Vessel design section with Glenn Lipmann, famous Texas schoolboy football player who attended Texas A&M and went on to play professional football for a time in Canada. A group of the engineers that were on the lay-off list and could pass an interview were put in a special task force.. If you got picked, and I did, were assigned to working on a new Ethylene Purification plant. This made space for a number of people. I had no clue about pressure vessel design and asked Fred what I should do. He said, "Take the job until we get the situation straightened out".
My introduction to magnesium was perhaps a little unusual. Many people find the first introduction to magnesium visually exciting, because the teacher may burn a small strip of magnesium in a chemistry lab usually in high school. I actually was first introduced the magnesium in a bit of an unusual way. The village of Houghton Michigan, bought a new fire truck in 1942. The fire truck was an FWD ( Four Wheel Drive) and it had magnesium ladders. The truck was massive compared to previous 1923 truck, but the ladders were the hit of the first unveiling. They were very light and everyone wanted to try picking them up and carrying them around. Hence my first introduction to magnesium and its lightweight was when I was still very young. I think that the chemistry teacher in high school did burn a piece of magnesium. I remember little about the other properties. But I at least had reinforcement of the use of magnesium as a structural material. I do not know if these ladders were produced by White Metals in Brooklyn. I got to meet and work with the owners: Harold Lamberg and Clayton Lawson at a later time. They were founding members of the Magnesium Association in 1944..
My mother’s family came from surface roots. Her mother was named Evan’s and my grandfather name was John Berry. John Berry worked in a smelter where he was known as a stationary engineer. He met his wife while working in copper mill operations where her family were leaders and equipment builders.
My next door room mate and good friend while I was living in the Tiger Hotel was Edward Joesph "Bud" Riley. He went on to be the high school football coach in Wallace, then to Oregon State as football coach and eventually ended up with the Winnepeg Blue Bombers and several other Canadian Football League teams as their coach. . Bud died several years ago.
My next exposure to magnesium came during my college days. The English department had a course on report writing which included research methods. Of course there was no computer available, so research was done in card catalogs and the information and references were recorded on index cards. This course was taught in conjunction with the senior thesis that we had to present in the metallurgy department. The research topic was developed with an advisor in the metallurgy department. It was 1950 and the production of nodular iron was flooding the technical business and the metallurgical media. I thought it would be good to do my thesis on ductile iron. My advisor said this is a very large subject and maybe you should be more selective in the subject.
My parents had moved to Iron Mountain, Michigan where my father became manager of a recently acquired dairy for Consolidated Badger. The dairy business was undergoing rapid transformations and many smaller local dairies were selling our to larger groups.. My father was managing a local dairy branch in Hancock Michigan. This branch was part of a company called Bridge man Russell. It was basically located in Duluth, Minnesota and had several small dairies in Minnesota and Northern Michigan. Foremost Dairies acquired the milk business and the Wisconsin co-op Consolidated Badger acquired the novelty ()i.e. popsicles, etc) and ice cream business. My father had elected to join the Consolidated Badger group and he was transfered to Iron Mountain to run the local Asselin Dairy which was located in a large building shaped like a milk bottle in Norway Michigan.
My personal reaction to standing in the midst of a huge magnesium fueled explosion was to run and scream. Normal safety procedure says if you are in the fire you should get clear and drop and roll. I don’t know what kind of fire that is, but the fire that I was in was unreal. I took off running as I recounted ran right off the shipping dock fell into the truck well and was screaming and trying to get up and run some more when help arrived. It must’ve been an interesting sight because a worker on the shipping dock immediately grabbed the CO2 extinguisher to put the fire out. Fortunately he could not get the pin out to activate the extinguisher, when several other the workers arrived. It must’ve been a messy looking scene because I kept getting up trying to run some more, but after dropping off the shipping dock on a stiff leg the ankle on my left leg was driven up through the bone structure and the bones came out the side of my ankle it but I was still getting up trying to run I felt no pain at the time.
Needless to say the total development and installation of the system took nearly a year. The design and development of the total system with a receiving furnace and a casting machine was done by Rust Engineering of Birmingham Alabama. One day some engineers from Rust Engineering came to the plant in Selma and asked if they could see our SO2 system because they were working on an SO2 system for a paper mill..
No exact figure on his worth could be obtained, but business associates said it ran to hundreds of millions of dollars. He once told Stephen Weinroth, the managing director of Drexel Burnham Lambert, that his 10 percent share in the Telex Corporation, worth some $11.7 million, was the sixth major holding among his assets. The Telex Company designs and makes products for computer processing. It grew out of a smaller electrical company called Midwest Instruments.
Norsk Hydro and Macy established a working relationship in December 1961 and conducted a project feasibility study. A list of potential partners was submitted to GM that included national lead. This work continued on until 1963 when Norsk Hydro withdrew from the project. National Lead bought out Macey’s interest and proceeded with research and development on the magnesium production idea. Fougner left his job at Norsk Hydro and was retained as a consultant to National Lead. Hooker Chemical and HK Corporation were brought into the venture for a time, but both left after relatively short periods.
Northern Michigan does not have a long swimming season. June 1 to Labor Day. When I was a boy, we had a summer cottage on Portage Lake which was in the middle of the Keweenaw Peninsula. My mother insisted that we wait until the temperature reached 70oF before we could go in the water for swimming.. We would blow on the thermometer to help it along.
Not only was this to be done, but it was to be done rapidly in order to clean the whole area and move the equipment from the rental facility to the main Bendix plant. The magnesium and aluminum sand castings that were due to be made in the foundry were transferred to other foundries. The die casting work was mainly done for Boeing’s own navigation equipment construction, so it was also subcontracted out and the existing machines were moved to the new company. The lost wax or investment castings were also transferred to other companies.
Not really a Big Boy...but big enough. this is 4-8-4, Big Boys were 4-8-8-4
Now no one knew what to do! One of the foreman said get the company station wagon, and get a stretcher. They got a steel basket type stretcher which had the separated legs and it and carried it out and laid it next to me. I do not know what I looked like, but from the reaction I realized it must be bad. No one wanted to reach to pick me up to get me on the stretcher. So I was aggravated and said I’ll crawl on the stretcher. And I did. I crawled on and laid on my stomach. The station wagon arrived, ther crew picked up the stretcher and put me in the station wagon back and took off for the Selma Baptist Hospital emergency area. Someone called ahead and notified the people that we were coming.
Now that the wraps were off, I learned that Dr. Matsuura spoke better English than the translator and that he had worked in magnesium for many years. In fact he was known as the “Old Soldier of Magnesium” in Japan. Matsuura had started working to get UBE into magnesium production using the electrolytic process while experimenting at the sprawling plant site in UBE.
Now we went to the Dry although we only had the blue jeans and a work shirt and safety shoes. I had a cloth jacket from Army Surplus. We went down some stairs to the light room, got our Edison Pack lights, Checked and cleaned them. Went down a few more stairs to the Shifters office and went in. Mr. Messerly was the main underground superintendent. He had our paperwork, checked it out and asked us about our mining experience (NONE).
Of course this reaction produced week chlorine gas and reacted with the carbon electrodes so there was a constant carbon consumption which was expensive.
Oliver, I have always wondered if you were related to the Osborn family that helped Herbert Dow get his business going. The book, "Herbert Dow, Pioneer in Creative Chemistry" by Campbell and Hatton, said that Herbert went to the National Carbon Company in Cleveland in 1890 to see Mr. J. H. Osborn. Osborn backed Dow in the Midland Chemical Company.
Oliver, I have two things going for me. I have had some great associations with the magnesium industry and some of the pioneers. I have taken a lot of time to gather historical materials and have been asked to write papers, columns, etc for many publications, from Australian Journal of Mining (a monthly column for 7 years), covered magnesium for Light Metal Age for a 20 years. Did the world magnesium review for Mining Journal (London) for several years. I have a native facility to see a big picture in a lot of stuff. Many people get real involved in the details, I find the nuances to be intriquing. For instance, my grandfather was a Cornishman who went to work in the mines of Cornwall at the age of 12 with his father and uncles. He emigrated to the Copper Country of Northern Michigan at the age of 17. The only place on earth where native copper was found in huge quantities and where the mines were 10,000 feet on the incline...about 6600 straight down. See for a web site from the area.
Oliver, it is so good to hear from you. Often think of the good old days in 1220. we were on the cutting edge of a lot of stuff. Some which came to fruition and some that did not. I still tell the story about Joe Hradel and Vetadet and the iron range and Don Kahler moving up there to develop the metallized ANFO explosives only to find out that Hradel's success was not any great secret after Dow paid him $250,000 for his notes and business. He was using shaped charges to initiate the charge. It worked, but was very costly. Later it was found that aluminum powder would work and magnesium was displaced and Don Kahler came back to Dow at Lake Jackson to work in Chlorine. All of your corrosion work, with Hillary Humble and Chuck Schrieber, was great stuff. Jesse Tipton and Frank Patrick were super guys. Bernie Young, the only guy that I met that had graduated from Slippery Rock and played golf against Arnold Palmer in High school. JJ Shotwell and his Mag Hydride experiments. Now mag hydride in various forms is the object of all sorts of research work around the world. John Ambrose, Bill McCutcheon, Fran Olstrowski, who used to have the longest line on the chart in the Secretarial area outside your office, above where Lu Lu sat..The chart was for patent disclosures. Paul Muelberg, Your side kick, Jack.Newport. Can see him very close as he interviewed me for a time and the idea of why the carbon in cast iron drew up into little balls when you added magnesium was a big mystery, which at the time no one really knew for sure.
On 02/04/2013 18:01, magman6@ wrote:
On 03/04/2013 14:06, magman6@ wrote:
On a hill about four miles west of the Village of Houghton there was a large tract of land owned by the county. There was one very large brick and stone building with several floors containing various sized room connected by institutional type of halls.
On account of a corrosion threat, the pipeline was outfitted with the greatest corrosion-protection features of the era. Its principal protection was its coating: paint. As a backup, a zinc strap the size of a wrist (a giant anode) was buried under the pipe. Though TAPS was, boldly, called rustproof, the defense proved insufficient. Like all coatings, the one on TAPS proved vulnerable—but Alyeska didn’t learn quite how vulnerable for a dozen years. When it did, the company beefed up the pipeline’s corrosion protection with 10,000 twenty-five-pound bags of buried magnesium anodes and a cathodic protection system consisting of a hundred-odd rectifiers spitting a low voltage into the pipe.
On February 25, 1970 I received a letter from Mr. Hiroshi Sugiura of Ube Industries in the New York Office at Chase Manhattan Plaza. Mr. Sugirra mentioning the visit of Mr. Sasaki to Alabama Metallurgical “about two years ago”. He went on to say that “Since then we have been very much interested in the Pidgeon process. We are currently very keen to if you are prepared to provide us with the information concerning said process:
on Jan 25, 2017..
On November 11, 1935 a two man crew (Capt. Albert Stevens, Chief of the photography group at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio and Lt. Orville Anderson, an experienced Army balloonist) piloted the Explorer II as it rose out of the Stratobowl with a 6800 kg payload. 3 ½ hours later they were 20 km off the ground and they reached 72,395 feet and stayed at that height for an hour and a half taking scientific readings. This was the New World altitude record and it stood for 21 years. It was finally broken with the new space-age dawning when the Soviets launched Sputnik.
On one of the road trips to Grand Forks we were staying in a hotel and were waiting for an elevator that seems to be slow in coming. We pushed the down button several times. Suddenly a long black clad arm came down over our shoulders and a huge hand added a few hard pushes on the down button. I turned around as did several others, and we were staring at the chest of a very large man. It was Primo Canera the famous heavy weight boxer who was now older and featured in a wrestling match in Grand Folks. He kind of grinned with a big white toothy smile and elevator came and we were so startled that we said nothing he gave a little push and said, “Let’s go”
On Sun, Jul 6, 2014 at 3:34 PM, wrote:
On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 10:23 PM, wrote:
Once the plan has been organized and reviewed and proofread, it should be kept on hand and communicated to new employees and reviewed to be sure that it stays current with the plant situations.
Once the venture was started, Les White, who was originally from Dominion Magnesium, restarted the design and construction efforts. The Pidgeon process was ideal for the newly contemplated joint venture. The capital requirements were low the product was a high purity metal and construction time was short. No plant of this type had ever been built as a new commercial venture in the US. There had been six Pidgeon process type plant’s built during World War II. Most of these plants had been closed. The New England Lime company plant in Canaan, Connecticut was producing calcium metal.
One corner of the lab was a stand up foreman’s desk with a couple of drawers and files. This is where the charge schedule and details were calculated. So I was in the Lab each day when the lunch gang would take turns being in a lunch for the five. Stored the perishables in the lab refrigerator and cooked or warmed food on the lab burners or ovens. Used to put out a great aroma around noon time. It was right after lunch that the pouring of the iron would start. The higher strength and more critical castings would be poured first and the iron produced would break to the next lower strength and then to the lowest strength. The ABK grinding ball molds were poured in a scparate area from the No. 3 Whiting, front slagging cupola.
One of the interesting problems that occurred after moving the diecasting business to a small diecaster in southern New Jersey, was the problem for Bendix to get their diecastings for aviation instruments. These were very small volume orders. A typical diecasting order for Bendix might be 200 pieces. The new jobbing foundry suddenly realized that producing the castings was difficult, and the orders were too small. It was necessary to go and find about a dozen of the experienced diecasting group who had now been assigned to other jobs in Bendix and send the people to the to the new diecaster to help them to produce the castings to Bendix Aviation specifications. This of course was done at no cost to the new vendor. I don’t know the size or volume of the costs or where they put them but it had to be part of the cost of moving the business.
One of the major supporters and coaches of the youth league was Elwen “Doc” Romnes. Doc was a noted professional player with the Chicago Blackhawks and Montreal Canadians. He was hired to be the hockey coach at Michigan Tech, but World War II caused the cancellation of the sports programs at Michigan Tech. Doc became the manager of the Amphidrome a large in-door skating rink with natural ice. That is the rink surface was swept clean after public skating or a hockey game and a water hose with hot water was used to “flood” the rink, and the cold atmosphere caused a new smooth ice surface to be formed. Doc had six of us local kids as a regular “crew”. We got into all the games and public skating events free. We scraped and swept the ice and cleaned the stadium. No Zamboni and no refrigeration system.
One of the many interesting happenings was the fact that Frank A. Vanderlip and First National City Bank of New York (Rockefeller) had once planned to invest a large sum of money to develop the magnesium containing ores in the Perm region of Russia. Dudley knew about this work and was very interested in learning that National Lead and others were interested in developing magnesium metal from the Great Salt Lake.
One of the many secrets of producing good quality castings is in the design of the gating and risering. Most of the larger patterns were “loose wood patterns” on a backing board.. Most of the larger patterns would take a large flask and be rammed up on the floor. The gating and risering was often developed by the molder and the foreman. Certain patterns were reserved for a lead molder to fully supervise the complete mold making and set up for pouring.
One of the very good friends that I made at Dow was Bill Bradshaw. Bill was the assistant superintendent of plant 2. Monte Thompson was the superintendent. Brad was a rather unique kind of guy and very innovative. He developed the metal collection system so they could take the molten magnesium from the cell houses to a central casting area. Brad designed a torpedo type of car. It was refractory lined and had a mild steel welded lining to keep the collected magnesium from reacting with the refractory.
One situation that worked in favor of the new plant. There was an abundance of strong, hard working,unskilled labor that was happy to receive regular wages for only 8 hours per day. (Many of the first workers were field hands who were used to working from sun-up to sun-down all summer in the cotton fields..Temperatures in the fields would be up to 110 F and wages were as low as $4.00 per day. Initial wages paid by Alamet were $1.05 per hour for an 8 hour shift. There was 20 minutes paid lunch period in the 8 hours.)
One time, Dad’s magnesium plant caught fire. I was eight years old. I went with him as he raced to save his business, our livelihood. The firemen had just arrived, and were unraveling their hoses. Dad reminded the chief that spraying water on a magnesium fire is just like throwing gasoline on a paper fire. It’s the last thing you want to do.
operated by the Dow Magnesium Corp., at Marysville, Mich, and reductions in the output schedules of four other producing plants. The plants affected and the reductions prescribed are at the Dow plant in
-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Spooner
To: magman6
Sent: Wed, Apr 3, 2013 8:48 am
Subject: Re: General: Some words shared with Alex Markin.
-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Spooner
To: magman6
Sent: Wed, Apr 3, 2013 7:04 am
Subject: Re: Fwd: General: Some words shared with Alex Markin.
-----Original Message-----
From: Susan Slade
To: magman6@
Sent: Fri, Mar 4, 2011 6:55 pm
Subject: RE: Information from your talk..
Originally I had called at his home in Garden City Long Island. After leaving Norsk Hydro, Sven established a small company called Magna-Lith for his consulting activities. As many strange things happen in my stories, Sven also benefited by a strange happening.
Originally I was supposed to go to Mahwah NJ for Special Apprentice training after college graduation, but because of the mandatory AF Active duty hanging over my head, they let me start the Special Apprentice program in Chicago so when I was called I could go home
Our Curricula called for standard courses in algebra, geometry, physics, reading, writing and geography and civics, and physical education. Diagram sentences in English. .I played snare drum in the band, sang in the glee club and played football. No Social Studies in these times.
Our emergency planning was rudimentary and had not taken in to account evacuation of the personnel. The entire plant was rocked by the blast and the subsequent burning of the magnesium was varies backpack dealer and created huge amounts of dense white smoke. Even with the roof off the building it was difficult to see into the area and to determine if there were any people still there. A good emergency evacuation plan should call for all employees to go to a certain point if they are able. The shock of the explosion and seeing badly burned people with their close on fire, caused a reaction where several victims of the blast were hustled two cars and taken direct to the hospital in Selma. This this meant that the local group had no actual knowledge of the extent of casualties for 15 or 20 minutes. This is a very long time in the middle of a turmoil and the lack of a gathering place created local panic.
Our first flight was in a TC 47. This was a model of the famous Douglas DC -3 which was fitted out with navigational stations on both sides of the main aisle. Each station had a set of instruments and a drift meter. One student would be designated as the lead, and the others would follow with their own calculations. We would take off from Ellington Air Force Base near Houston Texas, and fly to various points in West Texas or Oklahoma. A single training flight was planned to be about four hours..
Our first meeting was in the chemical club library there was a back entrance that made it easy to enter there was very little security in this area but Sven had a membership card so if there was any challenge that was taken care of. We had several long discussions over a period of three or four days, during which time I learned of other Sven meeting places including the offices of the Norwegian shipping company which was run by a friend of his. This was the main area to make copies and get small supplies.
Owenership Change and Delay
People that had lost their jobs and had no money would be picked up and taken to the Farm and assigned rooms for their family and belongings. The men would work on the actual farm producing crops and tending cows, etc. The women would help in keeping up the main building and tend to their families. My good friend and classmate in high school was Leonard Christofferson whose mother and father ran the whole operation.
Perkins and the specialists at the Dow Met Lab fashioned the spherical gondola of 10 pieces of magnesium each 3/16 of an inch thick eight slices that fit together like an orange peel with the circular piece at each end. The first gondola was a sphere 7 feet in diameter. It weighed only 360 pounds as a bare unit. When it was completely outfitted it weighed exactly 700 pounds.
Perkins had learned a great deal about magnesium fabrication while operating the Dow facility. He had a vision of many commercial applications and decided to leave the security of Dow to become an entrepreneur.
PERKINS LEAVES DOW AND ARTHUR WINSTON TAKES OVER.
PERSONAL ACCIDENT AND INJURY OCT 13, 1962
PLANNING FOR PLANT EMERGENCIES AND CATASTROPIES
PLANT FACILITY AND PROCESS REVIEW
Plant Tour was mentioned and I was asked to help set up this visit for the Ube personnel.
Please bear in your mind that they are visiting with no definite plan to get licensed on any process, but purposing a general investigation of the industry..
Pomona was one of eight Brake Shoe and Casting foundry locations. I worked at Chicago "Q" on 26th Street, which serviced Proviso Yards (1953-4). On a good day in an old 1911 foundry with a No.9 Whiting cupola , with a thin lining ...back slagger, front tapping with a large bull ladle, using green sand molding we could do a total 10,000 brake shoes, some locomotive driver shoes and both passenger AAR-1A and freight car AAR-3A shoes. Controlled the chemistry of the charge by using chill block cores on a large carbon block. Broke the chill and measured the white zone. Used modified jolt squeeze machines on one line and Pridmore' hand machines on the other. Overhead sand hoppers, I never did personally make driver shoes the size of the Big Boy’s wheels main driver wheels which were 68” in diameter.
Possible production sites were reviewed nationally and a location in Alabama was tentatively chosen as the best place, due to the quality of dolomite available. In 1956, samples of dolomite from an Alabama quarry were run in the Domal plant in Haley Ontario and proved to be satisfactory. Land was optioned and plant engineering was started. The 1957 recession hit, Domal, withdrew from the venture and B&P found another partner in an old line northern Michigan copper company Calumet and Hecla(C and H). The new venture was formed which had C and H with 70% and B&P with 30%.
Prattville, Alabama 36067
Primary basic observer training
Primitive by the standards of today, but being forced to work with simple equipment forced a student to learn a great deal more about the subject than just punching buttons or looking at scenes.
Prior to Mr. Speer accepting the job as plant manager, the melt plant suffered a disastrous explosion. A steel magnesium melting pot failed, dumping hundreds of pounds of molten magnesium into a red hot furnace setting which contained oxide scale that had fallen off the crucible during the firing cycle... The explosion killed one man, badly injured two more and demolished the inside of the entire facility.
PRODUCTION IMPROVEMENT AND PLANT CLOSURE AND SALE
Projected plans for magnesium plant.
Recent news [Feb 2018] about iron and steel in Alabama says According to the Chairman of the Alabama Iron & Steel Council, Scott Posey of AM/NS Calvert, this type of Legislative recognition is very important to the industry.
Remember well, like it was yesterday, the great times in Mag Applications. Bill Brooks and Art Dumas with the desulfurization program. Tom Hagemeyer running the testing program on the desulfurized ingots that we made at K. O. Steel castings in San Antonio. High and low temperature charpies and high temperature tensiles, what a program. Bill was a bit ahead of his time. Could not get even the learned steel industry people to understand that magnesium could remove sulfur. The explanation of Chipman, Sims, and Briggs who were the leading authorities was that the mag boiled and creating extra stirring and that made the burnt lime more effective. Took the Acipco people and their mag coke originally developed for ductile iron to really make the breakthrough. Now the magnesium powder and the desulfurizing mixes are a big part of the usage of magnesium throughout the world.
Remember, one of the Dow concessions to the die casting industry was to sell mag at 5 cents a pound less for die casters. This price variance stayed and was met by NL and American Mag. At the time, because of the cell daily maintenance activities, buffed copper from the anode connections would get in the metal and an occasional heat was contaminated. This was converted to AZ91B for the die casting industry (before the specs for lower trace metals were established).
Reporting to Assignment with 321st Aerial Refueling Squadron at Maxwell AFB
Reworked and added to on 12-4-17 Start 36, 884 words
Robert E. (Bob) Brown, Publisher
Roger got very upset and stopped paying the USSR. Needless to say, when he was killed, the USSR with local representation sued the company/estate for a million dollars and got a settlement.
Roger was easy to work with and an extremely rapid learner. Each day usually achieved a goal or at least made progress. The internal goal was to ship 30,000 lbs at the end of a two week peiod. Actually we got about 17, 500 lbs on Saturday Sept 13, 1969. This was put on a Bob Tailed Truck.. using some steel plates on the bed of the truck and a firehose to cool the last couple of heats. The load was shipped to Wellman and helped save the day with a Monday delivery.
Roger was very excited about getting into the magnesium business but quickly saw that Kaiser is not going to move ahead with the new plant based on the modified economics. Roger re-signed from Kaiser and moved back to Tulsa where he purchased the company called Midwest instruments. Roger put a great deal of effort into this new plant renaming it TEL EX. His timing was excellent. The hippie generation was starting up, and sound and music were very important. Roger went to work modernizing improving and inventing at telex. He developed all sorts of modern sound equipment and the business was very successful.
Roger Wheeler
Roger Wheeler was a “squeaky clean” Presbyterian. He spent Sundays with his family and then worked on the Wheeler businesses on Monday-Tuesday and then fly down to Snyder and work in the magnesium plant. I do mean “Work”. He had a pair of coveralls and he would check out the problems that I had identified on the reports and we would brief him and show him what we were doing. He always had innovative ideas as to how to help out the situation. And when he was there the whole plant worked hard on everything. I still have the handwritten copies of the day’s activities that were used as a basis for the daily reports.
Roger Wheeler was a unique man at a time when the postwar primary and secondary magnesium industry was trying to expand and stay alive. Roger was born in Reading, Massachusetts, A curious fact that could be loosely connected to his murder. Roger attended MIT and several other colleges eventually earning an engineering degree.from Rice University in Houston in 1946.
Roger Wheeler, who was 55 years old at the time of his death, was born in Reading, Mass., into a middle-class family. He once described himself as a staunch Presbyterian who ''felt comfortable surrounded by former F.B.I. agents,'' and employed several of them. He was a family man with five children, two of whom worked with him.
see:
Sent: Thu, Feb 28, 2013 10:15 pm
Subject: Re: General
Several of the workers from the melting and casting area heard the commotion and came out and managed to pull off my burning clothes and put out what fire there was. When they saw the condition I was in, it was sort of funny. At this stage I had gotten my senses back and was laying there looking up partially at several people who were standing there with startled looks on her face. One of the old time melt room workers, Ernest Plummer, reached down to take my watch off of my burned arm. And he took the watch, which had an expansion band, and he said the skin on my hand came off like a glove as he removed the watch.
several specifc problem areas. The one area that was reviewed concerned the difficulty in getting all the metal into the Condenser. Pidgeon's questioning pointed out that the condenser was a length of l0-inch standard wall pipe. The difference in the diameter caused a one inch gap when the condenser was placed in the retort. .A pipe size one inch larger in diameter was recommended. This turned out to be 11" standard wall pipe which was a special order, more expensive, but it immediately solved the problem. The quality of the magnesium deposits improved.
She got an older fellow named Fred to show us the “Dry” and our baskets that matched the employee numbers. He showed us the battery room for our Edison light packs also by employee number, and how to remove the packs from the charging station and how to clean and test the lights. He stressed the cleanliness and testing. The miners light went on your hard hat. It had two filaments.
Sid Norwood knew of the work being done at Acipco in the development of Mag Coke. However, to take this small desulfurizing operation to use in Texas created a very large puzzle. In all other aspects of the new plant they were ideally suited to produce 48 inch line pipe for the Alaska pipeline. But by not being able to remove the sulfur with calcium carbide or magnesium they could not meet the tensile strengths required for the stringent weather conditions in Alaska.
Signs of the times were that there were no intensive care or burn units. They put me in a private room and made restricted visitation. I was diagnosed as being 40% second and 3rd° burns there were no special burn unit beds. They rigged a tent over me and put a light in a tent for a warm and dryness. I was laid on my back on the standard bed.
Sincerely yours, R. Matsuura.
Singmaster and Breyer of New York were engaged as the architect engineer. United Engineers and Constructors of Philadelphia were hired as the constructors. Construction was started in June 1942. A production control unit, housing a furnace with four full sized retorts and small scale auxiliary equipment was completed in October and initially was operated to train personnel. Actual plant production was started on December 30, 1942.
Sir Humphrey Davy was a Cornishman and discovered both aluminum and magnesium and Michael Faraday. Go to the Data section of and read some of the stuff I have written for this Russian sponsored site. The Cornish were not thought to be very bright...hence the Twits on Monty Python, guys with the knotted handkerchiefs on their heads were thought to be Cornish. By the way, I also was later exposed to the background of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who is not a magnesium guy, but was way ahead of his time in inventions.
1. Size, specific gravity hardness and packing size, etc of the bricket (sic).
Small Group of “Doer’s” in the Magnesium Business.
So I picked for my senior thesis, “Production of Ductile Iron by the use of Cerium and Magnesium”. Then I started the research of the existing technical literature. .
So my exposure to the oldest magnesium jobbing foundry was short lived as the foundry closed. Dick Polich went on to become a major player in the art foundry business. Poirier went to Hitchner and I am not sure where Dr. Nereo went.
Some 420 miles of the 800-mile-long pipeline is elevated on 78,000 vertical support members due to permafrost. Air temperature along route: minus 80 F to 95 F.
Some day I will write stories about Dow Magnesium and my association with it. It was fascinating and now looking back realizing the history that was made. Oliver is still alive and Ed Ahlrich is also still lucid, but quite old. Even I am getting older.
Some time around Thanksgiving of 1953, there was a metallurgical apprentice at Melrose Park who calculated the cupola charges needed to produce the daily products. This included the cupola charges with varied materials to produce different grades of iron. The most important part of the job was to calculate the nickel in the charges for the ball metal in the smaller number three Whiting. The metallurgist had made a major mistake on the Ni-hard calculations. He had calculated twice the amount of nickel that was required. Before the error was found a large amount of very expensive metal was melted, poured and had to be scrapped.
Sometime I will tell you how I could see the transition of Dow from an inorganic company to an organic company to an international company, when Barnes moved to Midland and took Levi Leathers with him.
Stanley told me that after several days during the end of a shift when the wind had been turned down, they would let me open and st and learn to stop up and tap out the cupola and Stanley op up the iron flow. I immediately thought how difficult can it be? All cupola activities revolve around the single molten iron tap hole. The cupola’s at Q were designed and built to be worked at waist level. There was a platform to work on because the cupola was high to allow the iron to run into a bull ladle.
Statement from Roger Wheeler’s Son, David, at Whitey Bulger’s Trial
Steve Spooner
Aura Metals Limited, 9 Beauchamp Place, London SW3 1NQ
M +44 (0) 7921 059 891 T +44 (0) 20 7052 0049 F +44 (0) 20 7052 0112
aura.co.uk
Steve Spooner
Aura Metals Limited, 9 Beauchamp Place, London SW3 1NQ
M +44 (0) 7921 059 891 T +44 (0) 20 7052 0049 F +44 (0) 20 7052 0112
aura.co.uk
Student Record (appendix)
Suddenly Louie and Sunshine stopped walking and reached down between the narrow gauge tracks and lifted up a three foot long section of 2” thick timbers in an s steel frame. The wooden door was removed and put aside and first Louie and then Sunshine disappeared down in the hole. They told me to come on down and close the opening with the door as I entered what was a “raise”. No one had mentioned anything like this. I thought the “stope” would be a side tunnel that you walked into. It wasn’t. It was a vertical compartment formed by a heavy timber 4’ x 4’ chute and a platform section with ladders in it.
Susan
Sven Fougner and the magnesium business is an interesting story. The story began in 1961, when the general manager of GM’s Chevrolet division, Ed Cole, contacted Sven Fougner, the US representative of Norsk Hydro AS.
Sven had worked establishing the outline of a magnesium project that would use magnesium chloride from the Great Salt Lake as the feedstock for a magnesium metal production plant. Norsk Hydro was going to be in on the deal.
Sven often told the story of driving up to an address on the Hudson just North of New York City. The Address turned out to be a large estate named Beachwood at Briarcliff Manor that was owned by Frank A. Vanderlip. They stopped at some large gates and identified themselves on an intercom. They were given instructions on where to drive on the road from the gate to the house, the gates opened automatically and Sven and his wife drove to a large porch with steps. They were met by a man who appeared to be a chauffeur he helped them out of the car and led them up to the front door and opened it. Inside was a maid in a conservative black dress with white apron. She took their coats and miscellaneous cloths and took them and hung them in a closet. And then said to the Fougners, “Follow me”. She led them down a long hall which had a very high ceiling and large part traits of what appeared to be family members on the wall. At the end of the hall was a large door and a tall man dressed in a suit stood by it. The maid introduced the Fougners to the man (perhaps a Butler). He told them that Mrs. Vanderlip was waiting for them, so he opened the door and led them in to a very large library type of room announcing them as they entered. Sven said that at the end of a running rug was a small platform with a straight-backed chair sitting on it. In the chair sat a very well-dressed older lady who stood and welcomed them and showed them to some prearranged chairs.
Sven was very involved with National Lead and also was working with the Saudi Arabian government research group, Petromin, and with Otto Frech who was developing hot chamber die casting machines for zinc and magnesium. Wolfgang Frech who was running the company was interested to develop the US market for hot chamber magnesium die casting.
TECIINICAL AND OPERATIONAL ASSISTANCE
Telluric currents caused by the same phenomenon that generates the Northern Lights can be picked up by the pipeline and zinc/magnesium anodes. The anodes act like grounding rods to safety return these currents to the earth reducing the risk of damage to the pipeline.
Thanks for answer. I calculated as much. As I have long told everyone, "Magnesium people either lie or withhold the truth. Everyone wants to know what the other guy is doing, but does not want to publish anything they themselves are doing. MagCorp was probably more open than most in details of the new cell development." Everyone lies about the price, Chinese traders like to brag about low they buy and how high they sell. The Russians don't talk, and the Israelis are very secretive about the actual profits of the plant. And I loved the idea that dropping the tariff would cause US Mag to close. Amazing stuff going around. Now we have to see if the anti dumping tariff drop for Tainjin is the "proverbial Camel". When I see what is being done by the lawyers, I shudder to see what the price per pound for that payoff amounts to.
The production layout with troughs and launders was scrapped rather quickly. After throwing out the submerged combustion plans, special new large furnaces with installed in the refining and casting area. Up until this time the largest magnesium melting crucibles were the cast steel, Dow pots. The largest fabricated magnesium melting crucibles would contain 5000 lbs of molten magnesium. The new furnaces were refractory settings in steel cases with tangentially fired burner systems. Special large crucibles were designed and built by xxxxxx . These crucibles could contain and process 18,000 lbs at a time. Metal was removed from the electrolytic cells by vacuum carts and taken to the crucible furnaces for refining and casting. Residue from the refining went to the bottom of the cell and was dipped out with a special clam sshell unit, placed in large tubs and taken out to the sludge dump.
The work force from old guys, many of whom came to the area to work in construction and stayed., Jesse Tipton..illiterate white guy that got a gal pregnant while making it in the woods where she stood up after church on the walk home and put her leg up on a stump to facilitate entry. Jess was 55 when I met him and as he said, "Bob, I think I am abnormal..I have to have some about 3 times a week.."
The 1996 International Magnesium Association (IMA) meeting was held in Ube. Dr. M. Nakayasu, son of Mr. K. Nakayasu was the Chairman of Ube Industries and the president of the Japan Magnesium Association.. A record attendance of 401 was recorded. A major reception was held for all attendees at the large home and gardens of the Nakayasu family.
The 321st Aerial Refueling Squadron was part of the Strategic Air Command, and was actually a tenant organization at Maxwell. This meant that the squadron with 22 KC97 tanker aircraft was temporarily assigned to fly and operate from Maxwell Air Force Base while arrangements were being made to accommodate the refueling squadron with the 321st Bomb ing at Pinecastle Air Force Base in Orlando, Florida.
The actual course consisted of both classroom and flying. The content was basically very similar to the class is taught in world war two training. After signing in to the training squadron at Ellington Air Force Base, we drew two types of supplies. Academic supplies and flying training equipment including flight suits. We all had a briefcase with training manuals and basic navigation equipment. We also drew oxygen masks helmets and sextant’s. Astro compasses were also used but they were kept in the training aircraft. The idea of navigation training was to learn the basic dead reckoning (DR) procedure and then to learn how to support the basic dead reckoning. The theory of dead reckoning was to set the airplane course from one point to another and measure the distance from leaving to arriving. If there was no wind or atmospheric conditions the plane would fly from point a to point B directly with no problem. However the major modifying factor in this equation is wind. To plan a flight from point a to point B drew the line and then added on the wind. When planning the flight the wind was forecast and was plotted on the chart which would give a triangle to take into account the heading of the airplane from point A to point B. Total hours in the prescribed course were 857 for academic training and 165 flying hours.The class started on 22 April 1954 and completed on 4 March 1955. Final week was completed with a formal parade and a graduation ceremony with issuing of certificates of completion and shiny new flying wings.
The actual hand crank feed drill mounted on a post was the descendant of the one-man drill that was the main cause of the strikes in the copper mines in Northern Michigan in 1913...the so-called "one Man Drill". Think about what IR and compressed air have meant to mining over the many years...It is fantastic.
The actual physical removal of the patterns was done by removing all the windows in the second floor pattern loft. Rented large dump trucks were backed up to the area below the windows and patterns according to lists were thrown out into the dump trucks. They were hauled off to a dump in the New Jersey Meadows. Those patterns that had received a response were disposed of according to the desires of the owners, either shipping directly to the owner or to his other specified foundry.
The American Brakeshoe Company used a special Osborn molding machine.. It had a peculiar design which was developed especially for producing railroad brake shoes. It was not in use in other foundries nor made by other molding machine company. A conventional Osborn machine is a jolt strip squeeze machines and in brake shoe manufacturing the molds cannot be jolted as they would jar the chill box off the pattern. Therefore the company went to a machine with the double head whereby the molder can peen, squeeze and then strip.
The Army attempt was made on July 28, 1934 from the Black Hills “Stratobowl” a large natural depression near Rapid City, South Dakota. The balloon which was filled with hydrogen started to tear at an altitude of 60,000 feet and the crew bailed out with parachutes. The balloon exploded and the gondola crashed. No one was hurt
The association had operated with no full time head except Merle Blakely that Roger hired to do a newsletter after the total collapse of the Association when Dow announced that there were withdrawing from the group in 1965 (the only year without an annual meeting in the History by Byron Clow...which is not totally complete as the early part does not make note of the twin meetings. Each year there was a technical Session in the fall and administrative meeting at a resort, etc. in the spring or summer...or sometime in the fall.
The attached certificate shows a summary of the training and the grades.
The Bendix Corporation management was working to upgrade the facilities to meet modern industry demands. They had tapped into several of the advanced degree metallurgists from MIT who were part of the premium casting program that was overseen by Dr. Merton Fleming. Richard Polich was the General manager at the Teterboro plant and Ernie Porier was the technical director. Dr. George Nereo was the Chief plant metallurgist. The plant manager was to be over the three major departments. Each department had a department foreman.
The biggest accomplishment was the fact that my Senior Thesis was considered to be very good, technically accurate and readable. I smiled and reflected on the kudos I received, it never occurred to me that part of the success of the Thesis was due to the subject being quite new and the process and product were relatively unknown and little understood.
The British government invested money in the magnesium cells to get magnesium metal for their war time programs. The torpedoing of the ships carrying magnesium in sight of the Freeport harbor.meant the buildings were designed to work nights under blackout conditions.
The canning factory had a large summer employment during the canning season. After the season was over. the companies that had purchased the lots would send in labels and the full time canning company’s employees would label the cans and ship the lots to the destination given by the purchaser.
The chain consisted of two links and a hook. The links were forged out of the steel rod stock as was the hook. The test was a visual inspection and then, after it was visually approved, Mr. Opie had a block and tackle hanging from a overhead rafter. There was a hook cemented into the concrete floor. Opie would hang your project chain and hook from the block and tackle hook and hook the project hook into the floor hook and hand tighten the chain and see if the submitted sample would remain intact or if the chain would come apart or the hook would bend.
The Chinese have retort companies that rent retorts to the new Pidgeon Process plants. These are 10 " retorts and have 2-12 hour cycles per day because they have fired with coal and then coal gas and the response time is slower than firing with natural gas. It is also cheaper. The bottom line is to make money. As we can see , the Chinese put all of the world powers out of the magnesium business over a relatively short period. At one time, when China had 500-600 Pidgeon plants, all very small, they were selling magnesium for under US$1200 per metric ton.
The college course consisted of making 3 to 5 acceptable welds. This required preparation of two pieces of I/2” in diameter steel rods and forge welding them. The weld had to pass the scrutiny of Bill Opie, who would grind the weld section down to remove all the outside metal and check the fusion of the center of the weld. A chain had to be made and chisels pointed and heat treated to the proper temper. This was checked by Mr. Opie taking the processed chisel and putting it up right on the large anvil that we had at our work stations. He took his heavy smith’s hammer and drove the chisel edge into the steel. If it survived and did not break or chip your chisel project passed. .
The company bought s crap computers and fragments in remnants from Texas Instruments. They reclaimed the steel cases for scrap metal. They reclaimed the insides of the computers and electronic panels, mainly picking out the parts that were goldplated and recovered the gold. In a special and high tech processing area. All the reclamation facilities were in an old feed mail, the gold plant was located in a separate part of the largest mill building and it had a steel door with a very large radiation triangle and cautionary sign on. I ask about this and they quickly explained that the people who prowled those areas at night to look for something valuable to steel woods stay far away from anything that might have radiation.. They sold the rough picked through electronic scrap in containers for ten cents per pound. They also had a contract to take the silver soldered scrap clippings to ecover the silver solder. This was when the silver market was very active because the Hunt Brothers were attempting to gain control of the sliver market. This material was received in heavy cardboard containers called barrels. One day I noted that a barrel had gotten wet in the side was open and the clippings were falling out. I told that I’m sure that they were losing the clippings is
The company expanded rapidly due to World War II wartime requirements and it had business success due to shrewd financial management. The company developed a competent staff which helped develop modern efficient fabrication procedures and equipment. When the war was over there was a small drop off in business,. but Perkins continued to gain business by making magnesium developments in the communications and electronics industry.
The company had a fairly new employee who was an experienced Dow retiree and he was leading the operation. It was the traditional Dow continuous casting operation. The casting area had a short watercooled copper pipe type mold. There was a flying saw which clamped onto the the main cylinder which lowered the cast extrusion billet. Once the plant was operating, they could cast 10” in diameter magnesium billets until the pit ws filled with billets.
The completed production plant had 20 furnaces with 20 retorts per furnace. These were standard 10 inch ID retorts about 10 feet long. The charge was about 235 pounds per retort in the average recovery of magnesium was 32 pounds per retort. A retorts cycle was 10 hours. The total time under vacuum was 9.5 hours.
The completed report with drawings was sent to Ube in August 1970. There was a nice response which said, “Your Magnesium report has been very much appreciated and studied by our head office. We have questions on your report and have attached them. Please let us know your answers at your earliest convenience. For your information, we are also enclosing data on Japanese Mg market.”[6]
The courses were so basic that they included a blacksmith course, using a standard charcoal fired forge, taught by an old retired mining company blacksmith, named Bill Opie. He was a Cornishman who served an apprenticeship and worked his way up to being the leader of the forging operation for a mining company. Blacksmiths were very important and skilled workers. Special mining equipment was designed and produced and a good blacksmith would forge and form parts. A good blacksmith could weld broken drill steel.
The cupola operation is started before the molding operation so that the iron will be ready to be poured into the molds when they get to the pouring area. In Chicago the iron would be tapped out into a large holding ladle which was automatically tilted to pour iron into smaller levels. The smaller ladles were on overhead tracks that paralleled the mold conveyor and the poor errs would fill their ladle from the bull ladle and then follow the mold conveyor pouring the molten iron into the down Sprues. This was a semi-continuous operation.
The cupola operation was supervised by a foreman Stanley Zabraskis. He was over the charging operations pouring operations and the maintenance of the cube below operations. The main cupola operator was a large black man nicknamed ““Frog””.I don’t remember ever knowing his real name.
The deal was pretty much assured, but Dudley had gone out of the country to visit some mining properties in the South Pacific. No one knew when he would be back. Of course, there was not modern methods of communication easily available. Ed result, I arranged to move back to Selma, Alabama and establish a consulting business and to continue to publish the newsletter.
The Defense Department had set an annual production goal of 35,000 tons of titanium by 1956, which was later cut to 22,000 tons. In 1953 annual overall production was at 2,000 tons, sparking a senate debate over the importance of the metal in relation to the security of the country. As a replacement for stainless steel in aircraft engines, titanium was recognized as tough, 40 percent lighter in weight, and essential to supersonic, high-altitude warplanes. The chairman of the Wright Aeronautical division of Curtiss-Wright Corporation told senators that if war came, his company alone would need 72,000 tons of titanium to build warplanes capable of competing with enemy aircraft, estimating that use of titanium would save from 400 to 4,000 pounds per engine, depending on aircraft size. It was feared that a drastic shortage of the metal would reduce the country to "second best" status. The Secretary of the Air Force recommended that "the Government should offer aids to potential producers of titanium at once so that they could begin increasing their output"--a position strongly supported by Senator George Malone of Nevada, who felt that the country should not have to go abroad to buy the metal ores. Most of the titanium ore processed in the U.S. was imported from Australia and India. E. R. Rowley, president of Titanium Metals, testified as a witness in the debate, conceding that "his company had tough production problems" but expressing optimism about the future.
The desulfurizing alloy Mag-Coke at Acipco.
The details of the case shows that American Magnesium was short of money to keep operating. One of the problems that they had in 1969 was a mass of problems with the operation of the electrolytic magnesium production plant. The main reason for the call was a dire emergency. The company had gone out and sold the magnesium that they would produce when the plant started up. The plant start-up was extremely slow and the amount of magnesium was much less than the plan.
The Detroit based design firm assumed that Alabama was always hot. It was not. The basic buildings were covered with galvanized steel sheeting, except for the bottom 8 feet on the entire plant. The shipping dock and storage areas had open sides and the rain blow in and water gathered on the stored metal causing it to corrode. The entire building was later fully closed using concrete block to fill the lower portion of the production building and using corrugated metal for the storage areas.
The die casting machines were disconnected and actually pulled out into the parking lot to make the space available for cleaning. There were hundreds of miscellaneous desks and chairs and related equipment that were put into one room and made available to the other parts of the Bendix company. Most of the equipment was so old that no one desired it and it was sold on a first-come first pay basis. The first sales were to employees and then to the public.
The entire process was to stand in the middle of a mess and misdesign and attempt to correct many problems simultaneously while working with very intelligent and ambitious labor force that knew little about magnesium handling. Day by day, step by step, it was find a problem, diagnose a possible solution and move ahead. Roger was aggressively supportive and helped more than hindered.
The existing literature seems to say that the US pipe Mills turned down a chance to bid on the order. Actually this is not quite true they did not bid on the pipe because they did not have the capability of making steel that would meet the specifications for service temperatures of -100+100°F. To reach these points, steel had to be the desulfurized to a very low point of .010 S.
The first ascent was made from Soldier’s Field in Chicago piloted by a Navy pilot with a great deal of flying experience. He got up to about 5000 feet and met with heavy side winds, had several control crisises and then balloon valve failed and the balloon crashed in a railroad yard not far from the launch site.
The first pipe of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System was laid in 1975.
The first press release was put out from my home office in Midland Park New Jersey. We did a four-page introductory copy and sent it out with subscription applications. For starting from cold we did get a favorable response and started publishing on a regular basis in September 1971.
The flux solved one problem. It also created many other problems. If there was flux on the surface of the magnesium when the Coke was plunged in the Coke absorbed the flux.
The foundry had to take a day to make half sand molds with large hand cut in cavities and to remelt all of the castings and related runners and risers and cast them in handmade pigs which were analyzed as they were poured. . A “pigging day” is a very expensive proposition.
The foundry was located in Teterboro, New Jersey and started producing magnesium sand castings in 1938. It was one of the first magnesium foundries that were expanded to provide castings for the US defense industry in 1942.
The furnaces are placed in two lines, back to back in a long metal roof wing with no walls. Five furnaces faced North and five furnaces faced south. All of the supporting piping both process and utility was located behind the furnace. This included the vacuum system, gas firing systems, instrumentation, controls, recorders, combustion air systems,.
The government stockpiles ( 10 of them) were actually.miles of magnesium stacks in rural atmospheres ...also miles of aluminum ...and warehouses of barrels of titanium, nickel, etc.
The hydraulic press which was used to press the condensed magnesium from the condenser was seriously underpowered. The melt and cast facility was very poor.
The interview was over and after some comments in generalities we were taken back to our motel and arrangements for the return flight completed. We flew back to Houston picked up the parked car and returned to Lake Jackson to pick up Mark and David. They were being attended to by Mr. and Mrs. Robinson who were running a private daycare in their home.. And Mr. Robinson worked for Dow in the personnel group and rode in a carpool with me.
the iron oxide in the setting reacted with the molten magnesium and there was a small explosion. The pot was pushed up in the air about 12 to 14 inches and all the dippers around the pot dropped everything and ran for the doors. The small explosion was immediately followed as the airport into the setting with a huge explosion blowing off the trans site roof.. The fasteners holding the trans site sheets were severely rusted and as they failed the roof blew off and relieve the pressure within the casting area this sunlight the lay allowed most of the workers to exit the casting area. However one last dipper had just made it to the door when he was hit with the force of the explosion and badly burned. The melting crucible it self had been throwing up in the air and over on to the conveyor with molten magnesium flying everywhere in the room, but this actually hit no one. The major problem was the explosion which was a hydrogen explosion and quite devastating.
The Japanese steel mills had been developing desulfurization methods basically using calcium carbide to reduce the sulfur levels in finished steel to very low values. The specification when it came out surprised the US steel industry. US Steel Corporation had just built a new pipe mill in Baytown Texas. Sid Norwood was the chief metallurgist at the US Steel rolling mill in Birmingham Alabama. He was going to be the new chief metallurgist at the pipe mill in Texas. I saw him at a metals meeting in Birmingham and he told me of the problem that they had in the existing plant in Texas. There was no room to put in any desulfurization equipment. Actually US Steel in the Chicago area had done desulfurization work on the hot metal using calcium carbide.
The Jeffery Company was located in Columbus Ohio. It also had produced many ingot conveyors for the World War II magnesium industry. The conveyor was covered with sheet metal. It had to opposing sprockets at each end and a roller chain with brackets ran through each rocket. The ingot molds were fastened on each side of the sprocket were poured through an opening on one end of the conveyor. Conveyor had a pan for powdered sulfur and piping from a large SO2 cylindrical tank. An SO2 atmosphere was used within the conveyor to prevent the molten magnesium from reacting with oxygen in the air. For some reason, which we never actually determined, the burning of sulfur in a pan within the conveyor made the ingots shiny. The S02 gas would keep them from burning, but the powdered sulfur would make the solidified ingot shiny.
The kindergarten was part of the large “new” high school built in 1924. It was designed to combine the old East Houghton School and the West Houghton School in a Central school with all grades from K-12. It has since been torn down and is a vacant lot.
The last paragraph was a high point of my magnesium life. Dr. Matsuura said, “I am also a registered consultant on light metals, rare metals and light- and dead-burn magnesia from magnesite or sea water. Let us cooperate together on job of consultant.”
The machine molding floors at Chicago Q, used two modified jolt squeeze Osborn machines in eah position There was also a similar molding line with Pridmore hand strip molding mahines. All madines on the production floors. Used metal patterns.
THE MAGNESIUM ASSOCIATION
The magnesium bowling pins were made in permanent molds with a shell core using AZ 92-T61. The magnesium bats were provided as rough castings by Doehler-Jarvis and finished by the same basic machining steps as the pin.
The magnesium plant was on the old road to Montgomery in an area called SelMont. From the Alamet plant it was about 3 miles to the bridge that crossed the Alabama River. All the way to the bridge and over the bridge and to the Baptist hospital I was on the basket stretcher backwards and the leg split was hitting me in the chest. In spite of the Burns and all the other problems the most irritating thing was being poked in the chest as we drove along, every bump becoming painful.
The magnesium plants were built on a very fast track schedule, often in terrible rainy weather..pouring concrete foundation in the mud with portable sump pumps attempting to keep the holes cleared out....
The magnesium project meeting in Salt Lake City was nothing like I expected it to be. The rough layout for the reduction plant had electrolytic cells that were designed by Frank Love. The cell design was roughly based on the design of the I.G cells that were part of the Basic Magnesium Metal Production facility designed and built during WWII. The plant was located at Henderson, Nevada and wss the largest magnesium plant built using German Technology which was licensed by Magnesium Elektron of Great Britain. The plant had a design capacity of 112 million pounds annually, and was built and operated in 11 months.
The main drill was a big IR (Ingersoll Rand) with compressed air feed called a "liner", I thought that meant "streamliner". Actually it was referred to by the name of the design engineer that worked with Jackling at developing the compressed air drills. His name was John George Leyner. Reference..Bio.
The major key to production of Ductile Iron had to do with removal of sulfur. There were many mistakes made in the introduction and production of Ductile iron castings within the Grey Iron foundry business. It was a revolutionary development and many foundries leaped into the field. International Nickel Company used the new process for a market to sell nickel-magnesium master alloys.
the major meeting was held in the Salt Lake City project office. The first thing I noticed on the drawings was the fact that the electrolytic cell system had launders (refractory lined troughs) taking the metal as it was made to a large collection furnace on the ground floor. The metal would then be pumped up to the casting first floor for a height of about 17 feet. I was astounded but was assured that the collection system would work and that they could pump the metal from the collection cell to the casting floor. I challenged the idea of pumping magnesium metal 17 feet in the air, and they showed me a pictures of a laboratory set up where they were pumping magnesium 17 feet in the air. It was done with a long insulated pipe that ran up on about a 30° angle so it took quite a link the space. The test results showed they had pumped metal through the pipe but only a very small amount.
The mass of the crucible was smaller because of thinner walls, and it would melt faster than the large cast steel crucibles. We were rushing to get orders out the door and the fabricated crucible started leaking. The standard procedure of dipping out the crucible was started and there was no panic because we had seen this before. A group of men or ladling out the molten magnesium when the l eak seemed to get heavier. No one took into account the fact that the walls on the fabricated crucibles were much thinner. With a quick and unexpected shocked the bottom dropped off the crucible several hundred pounds of molten magnesium were dropped into the setting
The material to be charged is calculated based on the requirements of the iron from the cube below. In the brakeshoe foundry the control on the iron was done by measuring the weightage chill area. This was determined by pouring a sample into a chill mold sitting on a carbon block. The more steel the wider the white iron so the charge was adjusted as necessary based on that.
The melt cycle called for sludge removal from the crucible after 2500 lfs of magnesium had been cast. After the sludge was removed and dumped in a heavy cast steel sludge pan. The crucible was filled with magnesium rowns which were lightly dusted with melting flux. The crucible had a 1500 lb molten magnesium ‘heel” which accelerated the transfer of heat to the crowns. .
The melting and pouring of molten magnesium has always been dangerous. One of the major areas of danger is the failure of a melting or casting crucible. Magnesium does not attack steel melting pots. But the standard magnesium melting furnace consisted of a steel crucible sitting in an internally heated furnace. Gas or electricituy was used to heat the crucibles to the melting temperature of magnesium slightly above 1200°F. Well resistance heating can be used, it was cheaper, simpler, faster to use natural gas to fire the furnace setting. The main problem was the design of the gas heating system and the potential erosion of the outside of the steel crucible.
The metallographs used bellows with a plate holder on the end. Used glass photographic plates and made tests by focusing (moving the bellows and plate holder on a track) and taking a number of timed exposures on the plates and then developing them to pick the best exposure for making the negative and then the plate.
The metallurgical apprentice was made aware of his error and his performance was considered job ending if not corrected. The meeting we were holding at Q was because the apprentice had repeated his error. The cost of another pigging day caused his apprenticeship to be terminated but they suddenly needed a metallurgist or someone similar to calculate the charges for the foundry. I told them I would consider it. That was not the right answer. They wanted someone at the Melrose Park foundry the next day. So I answered “yes” and they shook my hand and I reported to the Melrose Pauk the next morning at 7 AM. I was told to report to Thomas Cunningham, the plant metallurgist.
The Mining school was founded in 1885 as the Michigan Mining School. After much agitation by Jay Abel Hubbell, the state legislature established the school to train mining engineers. Hubbell donated land for the school's first buildings. The school started with four faculty members and twenty-three students. It was housed in the Houghton Fire Hall from 1886 through 1889.[8] A few years after the school's creation, enrollment grew to such a point that its name no longer reflected its purpose. The name was then changed to the Michigan College of Mines in 1897.[9] This name lasted through World War I until 1925, but by this time the school had begun offering a wider variety of degrees and once again decided to change its name to the Michigan College of Mining and Technology in 1927.
The mold cars of the conveyor which ran continuously would go past the molding stations to where the iron would be poured into the mold. In the brakeshoe foundry molten iron was made in a cupola. The particular cupola in Chicago Q was a number nine Whiting. A number nine Whiting was a large cupola 84 inches in diameter and lined to 66 inches..
The new gondola was nine feet in diameter but weighed less, only 637 pounds compared to 700 for the 1934 gondola the manhole openings were enlarged to 20 x 22” 2 inches larger on each side than Explorer 1. The balloonists of the Explorer 1 had had difficulty getting out of the balloon wearing parachutes. Previous balloons had a shelf structure built for technical and scientific instruments. The new ExplorerII gondola installed the instruments directly to the walls.
The new more international leadership of the group did change the name to the International Magnesium Association in 1973.. My last meeting as Executive Secretary was the Paris meeting in 1974. Byron Clow of Kaiser Magnesium along with support of the IMA Board voted to improve the Association image and move the IMA Office to Bell Publicom in Dayton, Ohio. This was an association management firm. Gerald Bell and Byron had known each other, I don't think I ever knew how. As my friend John Mezoff once said, "Bob was the last of the old heads of the IMA that ran a rickety one-horse shay operation."
The new venture was called the Alabama Metallurgical Corporation ( Alamet). The plant was the first privately funded silicothermic plant ever built in the United States. When completed it was the second largest producer of magnesium in the US. (Dow being the largest and only producer of primary magnesium.
The next surprise was the fact that came to the furnace design which would be fired by submerged combustion burners in the center of the furnace. The magnesium settings were to be built of refractory and the heat put in through these very large tubular burners that would extend from the top of the pot to the bottom of the pot. I was not there to challenge the electrolytic facility which seem to have been geometrically scaled up from the electrolytic cells used in the Basic Magnesium plant at Henderson, Nevada.
The other main problem was the casting design and operation. There were large crucible furnaces as heart of the plant. A large casting conveyor was badly missed designed and no use of thermal heat flows in the design. They had a large outstanding order to be filled and a misdesigned mess to do their melting, refining, and casting. The Sales group called up the customer and told them they could not fill the 100,000 lb order. It was suggest to the customer, Wellman Dynamics in Creston, Iowa that they could go to Dow and get the metal. .Boom, the reaction was thunderous and rapid. Wellman was a large magnesium casting group with many magnesium parts for the space and aerospace industry. The head of Wellman was Glenn Ihrig, a very energetic and talented magnesium foundryman.
The parent company of Alabama Metallurgical, Calumet and Hecla, was acquired by Universal Oil Products. This company was mainly interested in getting the tubing technology from the Wolverine Tube Division, especially the zirconium tubing experience and knowledge.
The pass separates the communities of Mullan in Shoshone County, Idaho, and Saltese in Mineral County, Montana. It is the highest point on Interstate 90 between Seattle and Missoula.
The pilot was shaken up, but more embarrassed than injured. The magnesium gondola, in spite of severe drop and beating, it had surprisingly little damage. A fact later attributed to good fabricaton techniques and excellent welding, plus some recognition was given to the damping characteristics of magnesium as compared to aluminum.
The pipeline project involved some 70,000 workers from 1969 through 1977.
The pipeline starts at Prudhoe Bay and ends at the Valdez Marine Terminal which is the most northerly ice free port in Alaska.
The plan that I had conceived in my thinking was to go to the UBE magnesium plant and watch the operations. To offer suggestions as I watched and reviewed the paperwork data (after all, numbers were in the same language. I should have been tipped off to the general situation by having a better understanding of the problems that I would have faced. A tip was perhaps in the acceptance letter of part of my proposal with no mention of a consulting visit to the UBE plant in Japan. Mr. Suguira accepted a report with the cryptic words, “Please note that your service in this case is being termed as ‘Marketing Survey’ in order to keep our study subject a secret.”
The plan was for Roger to work in the main Kaiser headquarters in Oakland and establish a magnesium group. Roger would call on Joe Pitts to be the lead man on the new magnesium project in the Northwest, and I was interviewed in 1965 in Tulsa. A Kaiser personnel man named Bob Shader, came to Tulsa and met me and tested me. The plan was that I would move to the Tulsa plant as an assistant manager learning the business from Joe Pitts so he could leave and behead of the new magnesium project. It was worked out and seem to be moving well, except Dow decided to lower the magnesium prices for metal sold to alloy with aluminum. The book price was $.36 a pound, but Dow would give an aluminum company who would buy more than 50% of their requirements from Dow a graduated contract lowering the price to $.31 a pound over a three year..
The plant design and construction was completed in 1959 and the plant started producing magnesium from Alabama dolomite in October of 1959. This was the beginning of many trials and tribulations that proved to be educational for the entire Pidgeon process community.
The plant design proceeded with a small concession from gene Urbin that I had him worried. The final decision on the on the melt furnaces was dictated I Dr. Alfred Bauer. Dr. Bauer had been the major leader of the development of magnesium casting for German industry. He wrote the chapter on diecasting for Becks book. Reportedly, he looked at the layout using the submerged combustion system and had it thrown out.[7]
The plant was built near the Chewelaw dolomite deposit which was just North of Spokane. A ferrosilicon production furnace was built along with a silicothermic magnesium production plant that used very large retorts invented by Glenn Bagley of Union Carbide. The plant was part of the Defense Plant Corporation magnesium construction program. (See Klagsbrunn report which summarizes this program).
The plant was started in October of 1959. The lack of trained personnel and experienced management was the biggest problem. The shift foremen were all college graduates, but had little production experience of any sort.
The pouring team was directed by Tommy and consisted of “Fat Joe” who was the pyrometer man, “Stosh:” who was a DP (Displaced Person) of which there was a large group in Chicago area, mostly Slavs. Stosh had a small sample ladle on a long handle and he would take and catalog the analytical samples from all the major pours. When the pouring started, Little Tommy would sometimes run off to run off due to his nerves and spastic colon. Eventually the doctor put him on a very bland diet. He wanted to get out of the Lunch Bunch. I was offered a place. Since I had no way to bring a cooked meal from home, the group agreed that I could join and bring in food from a store or diners on my day. This worked out great. Little Tommy could eat a special diet and I got to eat 4 home prepared meals each week, with buying and bringing in stuff that the group did not normally have such as Ice Cream for dessert..
The product which contained MgCl2 and KCl flux was hygroscopic and absorbed moisture from the air. Part of the problem was solved by canning the Coke. Small thin walled steel cans about the size of a large coffee can were filled with Mag Coke.
The production of the van was successful and in 1942, Howard Perkins and Oliver N. Brooks (Paul Day was a limited partner) formed a partnership called Brooks and Perkins. The group began manufacturing operations in February 1943. The total timing of the venture development was excellent. There was an immediate requirement for magnesium fabrications for military and aircraft applications.
The samples that were cut from the heat’s were exposed in a humidity cabinet containing saturated solution of sodium style sulfate made up by dissolving, hot, 10 pounds of sodium style sulfate per gallon of water. Sample exposure time was four hours for pure magnesium and 4 to 8 hours for magnesium alloys..
The school offered geology courses to train students to find metal ores and identifying the type and accessibility; developing a mining practice to get the ore. Mineral Dressing was taught as methods and processes to get the metal from the ore. Metallurgical Engineering was used to train the graduates as to how to use the metal recovered. In spite of being located in the midst of a large copper producing area the major metallurgy classes at Michigan Tech were based on the more traditional iron and steel metallurgy. Magnesium was only briefly touched in the total curricula, and then as part of s non ferrous course.
The second problem was the plant design. No formal review had been made by the Dominion Magnesium staff. Old memories and old blueprints were relied upon. Many small, but extremely costly mistakes were made.
The short history of the Pidgeon Silicothermic process plant in Selma Alabama was an example of what can be done by taking a basic plant and no experience, study, training and isolation of the process items with knowledge and improvement applied. The plant was originally planned to be a 5000 ton per year plant. By the end of its operations which were drastically cut short by several external factors, the company produced over 10,000 tons of magnesium cast metal in 1968.
The Silicothermic reduction process required a vacuum system. After charging, the retorts were closed and evacuated to 10 mmHg for one hour.. This was called ” roughing vacuum” and it was used to draw gases out of the charge and air out of the retort while the charge was heating. After roughing, the 10 mm vacuum system was shut off. The retorts were placed under “holding vacuum” of 50 µm of mercury, until the end of the eight hour cycle. The element vacuum system was designed with steam jet ejectors. Three stage ejectors were used for roughing and six stage ejectors were used for holding.
The situation suddenly opened the eyes of the US steel industry as 600,000 tons of the pipe was sold to the project by the three Japanese firms for over US$100 million.
The stack of ingots was taken to a cooling area in the shipping dock and the two loose ingots were taken to a testing area to be tested for internal flux contamination. The contamination testing was done by sawing a slice from the middle of the casting which was placed in a tank of sodium bio sulfate solution. The ingot itself was placed on a layer above the sodium thiosulfate solution which was contained in a gasketed tank. The cut faces of the ingot pieces were inspected each day to see if any flux was present.
The Star mine was designed to mine a vertical seam of lead and zinc. The miners worked over timber. The main shaft was sunk and then there were haulage passages every 200 feet on the vertical. So in the Winze we got off at the 4900’ level and went down into the stope.
The Star was a newer lead zinc mine that you entered thru the old Hecla mine shaft and went under a mountain. The 2000 level at the cage down area became the 4000 level under the mountain
The story behind the story of the Ube meeting was quite interesting. When the location of the annual meeting was being discussed it was reported that Dr. Nakayasu, as Chairman of the Japan Magnesium Association. wanted the meeting to be in Ube. A previous successful meeting had been held in Tokyo in 1987. It has been reported that the International Magnesium Association management discouraged this idea. Dr. M. Nakayasu persisted and it was finally made clear that meeting was used to generate sufficient funds to keep the Association operating and pay the expenses for the year. A large attendance was required. Reportedly Dr. Nakayasu asked how many registrations did they need. It was estimated that 250 minimum would be needed. He asked the IMA group how many they would be able to guarantee. They said 100 to 150.. Nakayasu said that he would get the rest and proceeded to come up with over 200. It was also reported that Dr. Nakayasu put pressure on the Japanese magnesium community to support the meeting and they did.
The summer I worked at the beach was cold. There were only about 15 days when there were more than 10 people swimming. Easy job, but boring summer.
The superintendent told me, " We know you know about the foundry from your college training but we assume you don't know anything practical and we have a two year Special Apprentice program for new grads that will teach how a grey iron foundry works and how to do each and every job in the foundry".
The Tiger Hotel gave you a small private room with a wash basin in it. Showers and bathrooms were in a central location on each floor. Room and meals were $90 per month. This included linens and maid service once a day. Wake up service was provided by Mr. Vipperman banging on the door at about 5:30AM. He pounded on the door with a rubber mallet and waited until you answered. A second call was made at 6 AM if you had not shown up and signed the breakfast roster. The breakfasts were overwhelming. Huge amounts of food put on the table in true boarding house style, Fruit and Fruit juice. Small steaks, scrambled eggs, sausage links, Coffee and water, china plates, etc. Canned fruit, jams and jellies and toast and biscuits. Hot cereal, cold serial and lots of milk in pitchers. The first day was startling for college boys who had an opportunity to eat all they could. Many of us overdid it. Then the lunch to take to work. For new comers it was two sandwiches wrapped in Waxed paper. Some cookies also wrapped, coffee for a thermos and fruit. There was a table with catsup, mustard, mayonnaise, leaf lettace, salt and pepper, The first surprise was that we had no lunch buckets. So we went to work with a paper bag.
The union workers in the foundry and related areas were given jobs in the main manufacturing plant if they had sufficient seniority and the skills needed. Most of the management staff was terminated. I was given a small job in the Bendix group that was working on a space telescope. There were several aluminum castings of a Vanasil aluminum alloy that were being poured locally. I had a job to expedite those castings for the telescope project. Vanasil alloy was used for the proper coefficient of expansion. It is a hard alloy to cast and it is hard to get porosity free. I worked on this, but it was made readily apparent to me that I should be working hard to find another job.[8]
The upgraded navigators had actually been doing many of the jobs they were upgrading for so they did not attend classes but only took the exams. The this left them free to get flying time as assistant Navigator instructors. So our group was very fortunate to have the older groups to train us in actual aerial navigation. Some of these reservists had been transferred from duty in the famous B 36 bomber which was formed from tons of magnesium metal. One of the main B 36 bases was at Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth Texas. This was where the famed movie strategic air m, was filmed with Jimmy Stewart and June Allison.
The upper Peninsula award to Michigan was often likened to Seward’s Folly; the purchase of Alaska from the Russians. It was a vast area of rock and forest and very cold in winters. It turned out to be an excellent acquisition for the economy of the state of Michigan as the timber had great value. Copper was discovered in large quantities in the native form. Iron ore was also present on a large scale. It was hematite the red ore similar to that in northern Minnesota on the Mesabi range.
The upper Peninsula of Michigan was quite different than the lower Peninsula. It became part of the state of Michigan as a negotiated settlement of a misunderstanding between Ohio and Michigan over an area called the Toledo strip. Variations between surveys showed a discrepancy of 60 miles on the bottom of Michigan. The 60 miles trip included the Toledo or the area that is Toledo Ohio. Both governors wanted the strip both with the city and access to Lake Erie. When it appeared that the two states would have an armed conflict over the ownership of this strip. The Federal government of the United States in Washington, DC sent a emissary to meet with the two state leaders and work out a compromise. Michigan agreed to give up claim to the 60 miles strip. For this concession a portion of the Northwest Territory not yet divided into a state or states was given to Michigan making it a state with two peninsulas. It also incidentally gave the state long shorelines on three of the Great Lakes.
The US Army Air Corps decided to make an attempt to set an altitude record that would beat the record set by the Navy. The National Geographic Society agreed to sponsor a new flight to be called Explorer and contributed $25,000 for its expenses. Dow agreed to build a somewhat larger Piccard type gondola 100 inches in diameter. Goodyear built a new balloon is capacity was 3,000,000 ft.³.
The US war production board signed the contract for National Lead to construct and operate a plant for the government to produce magnesium. Capacity of the plant was rated at 5000 short tons of magnesium per year equivalent to the average production of about 14 tons per day. The National Lead research group selected a location for the plant which was on the New York Central Railroad at Luckey, Ohio about 14 miles southeast of Toledo, Ohio.
The use of cores in producing railroad brakeshoes, is quite small the main part of the core in the molding of the standard passenger and freight car brakeshoes, is to keep the area around the attachment point open.. The core room made large amounts of cores, basically all similar. Core sand was a porous sand and mixed in a small muller with small amounts of oil. No heavy binders were used. And the texture of the sand was not too important since it would only appear on the railroad car and an area not easily seen. It had to be functional, it had to be proper, so it was mixed especially in batchs and the cores were made by placing and compacting sand into malt multiple openings on a core plate and then placing on a drying board on a rack to go into an oven.
The use of magnesium in the world desulfurization industry has been predicted by Roskill to reach 148,000 mt in 2017 and 79,000mt in production of ductile iron which validates the predictions made by Wasberg. Alan Clark of C&MGroup The use of magnesium in the world desulfurization industry has been predicted by Roskill to reach 148,000 mt in 2017 and 79,000mt in production of ductile iron which validates the predictions made by Wasberg. Alan Clark confirms an estimate of about 130-136 MT for global desulfurization in 2017 and XXX MT for global production of nodular iron.
The women employees from WWII that were still working in the magnesium cell buildings. They were called “plasterers”. There were 26 cells to each magnesium cell building. The chlorine off the cells was gathered in large Haveg piping systems behind the magnesium cells. In the Dow “E” cell this was weak chlorine as Dow cell feed was not fully anhydrous. The chorine was taken to a Chlorine concentration plant at the end of each building. It was concentrated and sent back to treat the Cell Feed system..
The year 1971 showed signs of excitement for the magnesium industry. Dow started a new 25,000 ton primary magnesium production plant in Texas. There was talk about the Icelandic research Council planning a new chemicals complex using geothermal steam, seawater, and lime(from oyster shells) as wrought materials. Main output 250,000 metric tons per year of salt and 107,000 tons per year of magnesium chloride.
There is a published results of a legal suit that has a lot of good explanations of the situation at the Plant in Texas. [9]
There is an old foundry joke, that I use to tell when I talked to groups about magnesium. Over the years I have found that there is a lack of understanding of basic foundry principles and the jokes were not appreciated. So I stopped them.
There was a great deal of talk, as usual, about the great future of magnesium. George Campbell who was the president of the Institute of metals and Great Britain delivered an address titled “an exciting future for magnesium?” This was the first magnesium address to the Institute since major ball delivered his talk “the history of magnesium” to the Institute in 1956. Among other things Mr. Campbell said was “the future for magnesium is exciting, and with in the foreseeable future it should progress away from it special, almost mystical, image to that of a well established engineering metal.”
There was a tariff situation with 48” steel line pipe. There was sort of a voluntary restriction agreement….If the US could not make the product that was ordered, the sale would not be restricted and there would be no limit on the amount shipped to the US.
There was an Executive wing down the hall from the Main office where the Assistant General Managers had offices. There was an Executive Washroom for all of the offices of Dr. Beutel and the Assistant General manager. There was a story that Beutel felt his morning move coming on and walked to the Wash Room and the stalls were occupied. He went back to his office. In a few minutes, made another trip. Still Occupied. He called the main Maintenance engineer for the area (Stan Cutshall) to his office and told him of his uncomfortable wait and took him to the small attached suite. Shaking his arm with a pointed finger, he reportedly told Stan, "I am going to S__t in that corner about nine tomorrow morning and there had better be something there to handle it."
There was no special meeting held with Mr. Perkins, however he would come up to the plant and stop in the laboratory Bldg which was outside the plant main building and come in this was done informally and often he would come when we were eating lunch. They would warn the technical secretary from the main office that he was on his way so we would be ready to take him on a plant walk-through. However if we were eating he would drop the chair in the small office which was occupied by Leonard Hermann, chemist: Salim Zabana, process engineer, and Bob Brown plant metallurgist.
There were many problems such as the proper rock size to produce the best calcined dolomite, the proper way to measure the calcining process, the proper grinding process and size, the proper mixture for most economic recovery' the proper briquetting methods, the proper charge size for a retort, the proper cycle time, the best vacuum techniques, and best way to remove the condensed magnesium from the condensers, the correct melting and refining techniques for highest recovery.
There were three men in a stope. A timberman who was the crew leader, a miner and a mucker. Naturally I was a mucker, Big Louie Hockstatler was the timber man, He took me under his wing. He was a Big Man. He asked me what I knew about mining. I had originally planned to try and act experienced, but caved in under his direct stare into my eyes as he waited for an answer. I said..”Basically nothing”. He smiled and said, “O. K. that gives me some idea of what I have to teach you.” The miner in our stope was a Missouk (a man from the mining area of Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas). Big Louie was a fascinating man and very experienced working underground.. He had worked below sea level in the Aqueduct tunnels in New York City to the Molybdenum Mines of Colorado where you were 8000 feet above Sea Level when you were down in the mine.
There were two types of melting crucibles that could be purchased on the open market. One was a cast steel crucible. The other was a fabricated steel crucible. The original plant in Selma had to melting furnaces and used cast steel crucibles. The crucibles contained about 4000 pounds of molten magnesium, there were specific standard sizes, however we used what was known as the Dow crucible. In fact it was known as the Dow “titty crucible” because of its elongated sloping shape
These crucibles were available from General Steel Corporation which had made them for Dow and the many other companies during World War II. The casting area was 50’ x 50’. The walls were constructed of concrete block and were quite high. There was a large steel structure including a slanted roof with steel framing which was covered with sheets of corrugated transite. Transite was fireproof and would not rust..There were two furnace settings and one flux pot. The basic operation was to melt the magnesium crowns from the reduction furnaces and refine the molten metal and then hand pour the molten magnesium into a Jeffery ingot mold conveyor that ran between the furnaces. The main product was 20 pound notched ingot.
They had no interest in the copper mining operations in northern Michigan which were on strike at the time of the acquisition. UOP also had no interest in a magnesium production plant in Selma Alabama. They attempted to settle the strike in northern Michigan and were turned down so they closed down the hundred year old copper mines scrapped out everything and sold off the property. The magnesium production plant was closed in Selma and the Ferro alloy furnace and local land was sold to a Northwest alloy producer called Lechinbee. The furnace was eventually converted to produce silicon metal by Globe Metallurgical Corporation.\
They shared introductions and it turned out that the lady was the widow of Frank A. Vanderlip who had achieved great fame (and wealth) in the New York banking area with the Rockefeller family. They shared pleasantries and had a discussion about the dog breeding details, and were introduced to Dudley and Virginia Schoales. Virginia was the daughter of the Vanderlip’s and her husband was DudleySchoales who was a partner in the Morgan Stanley bank. The Schoales lived in a separate house on the estate.
They stopped at the 2000 foot level and we all got off in reverse order of levels and Louie showed me that we had to get seats in a train with man cars The train was finally loaded and electric engine tooted a horn and we ended up in a rocky tunnel and eventually stopped at a station which was near two more hoists. We waited while an operator took a small one man cage with an air hoist up to the hoisting control room. He ran the hoists up and down and then started loading the man cages like before. We were now on the 4000 foot level.
They were young and enthusiastic. Unfortunately, this was not enough to make up for the lack of experience. Mr.. White was the only employee that had ever worked with the Pidgeon process. He was forced to work around the clock, supervising construction, equipment installation, furnace start-up and personnel training. In
They would heat the Coke in a vertical furnace and then drop it into the crucible containing the molten magnesium. They used a steel basket and after the magnesium reacted in the molten magnesium they lifted it out and let it cool. It was a cumbersome process that they kept working to streamline. The magnesium Coke was plunged in two molten iron to produce ductile iron which was then centrifugally cast into pipe.
Things were all quiet from Ube over the next several years. I met Dr. Waichi Kobayashi of Ube at a Metals Meeting in 1974. We discussed Ube and magnesium industry. The company had been investing a great deal of money and time to improve the operations, both technically and economically. Dr. Kobayashi was a driving force for the magnesium research program.
Think that Dow sponsored the die casting at Delco for fuel pump bodies and there were 18 small die casting machines running...all cold chamber. Dow also sold die casting alloy at a nickel under the going price...to promote die casting. Pure mag was 36 cents for ingot and peg lock (42 pound) slabs were .3575 ...supposedly for the need for less banding on the interlocking slabs. All metal was still being dipped from the cells by 20 pound, tea pot pour buckets into ingot buggy that were pulled up and down the floor of the mag cell buildings. The step forward there was putting an air motor drive on one of the buggies and moving it by motor drive.
Thinking back to Dow.
This may be a bit of the blind to this story of the new melting facilities. I am putting this in at this point to illustrate problems that could occur in injuries that could happen. In the case of the original explosion in the Alamet casthaus, it was the first time that a worker was killed in Selma. It was not on common during this period of time to have major melt room accidents which took workers lives.
This turned out to be a very impressive place and was done with a what I assumed was a touch of old Japan. Met Mr. Suguira and Mr. Hironaka in the lobby and we were taken to an area with rice paper walls and designs. It was Japanese dining style. We removed out shoes and
This was at a time when Dow was lowering the magnesium price from 36 cents to 30 cents over a 5 years period. This move was the major reason for the closing of the magnesium plant in Selma. Later, Dow people said "We did not do that to put you out of business...we did it to keep the aluminum companies (primarily Kaiser) from building their own magnesium plants." Small consulation. Once Alamet closed, Dow raised the prices very quickly to over 70 cents. It made a profit for Dow, but really hurt the die casting of magnesium parts for Detroit autos.
This was noted on the labels with the reference, “Specially processed and packed for Stokley (or Lesurer or others) by West Bend Canning Company..
This work was carried out. A meeting was held when the UBE managers arrived in NYC and deep discussions were carried out above the items that were included in the original report. These meetings were held in the Nissho Iwai offices at 80 Pine Street in lower Manhattan because they had a large conference room. A tour of several facilities in the US was set up in both the Bureau of Mines in Salt Lake City and Great Salt Lake Minerals was part of the tour. I did not accompany the tour.
This would have been extremely interesting in great condition, but there had been a “ground shift” and about two 10’ levels down the stairs section was partially crushed and we kept going to the bottom, Big Louie and Sunshine got down on their hands and knees and started crawling between the heavy timber chute and the rock wall. As their lights disappeared I was alone as they yelled “Come in”. I quickly got on my hands and knees, afraid to be left along and followed the other two past the 4’ wide wall and into a dry, open “tunnel”. Louie could see that I was totally disoriented and said “Welcome to our work area!”
TIME FOR THE AIR FORCE ARRIVED
TIME WITH SVEN AND MAGNALITH IS RUNNING OUT
To give you an idea of what I was talking about, is the story about an apprentice molder who worked with a very old and experienced man. Every day the experience molder would come to work open his toolbox where there was a small wooden box. He would open the wooden box and look inside Bowers said for a few minutes close the box, closed his toolbox and then start molding. This went on for about seven years, the apprentice finished his apprenticeship and was being awarded his molders citation. He was asked by his mentor the old molder, was there anything else that he desired. The new molder said I would like to know what is in the little box that you look at every morning. The old molder thought, then he said I will awarded to you when I retire. A couple of years later the old molder retired. The first morning that the new molder came in there was a small box on his workbench. A small note from the old molders was attached and he said this is the box that you wanted.. The new molder quickly ripped open the wrapping grabbed the box open debt and looked inside. There was a very small piece of paper and he opened it up and lock in the paper said “Cope is top and Drag is bottom”.
To keep Dow from dropping out, many changes were made to the Association. The first major move was made that all paid activities would stop, Jim Kirkpatrick who was executive Secretary, was fired, the Chicago office closed and all Association equipment and records were moved into Roger Wheeler’s Telex Chicago Warehouse and later transported by his expense, to his Telex Headquarters Tulsa office and Merle Blakely's garage. Dues were dropped to $150 per company. They would pay me $600 a month and $25 for office rent. Office expenses such as copying and postage and telephone would be paid for. It was considered a part time job. My first Annual meeting as Executive Secretary was at the Cloisters Resort at Sea Island, Georgia in 1972.
Tom was a short smiley man known affectionatly as “Little Tommy”. He was in charge of the coordinating the production of the iron of the proper grade and then to work out the pouring schedule with the general foundry foreman, who in this case was Kenneth Kirgin, a real rising star in the company. (Ken went on to become a leader in the development of ductile Iron along with Keith Millis.) Tom Cunningham was the metallurgist in charge when the mistakes in the charges were made and he was living with a bunch of nerves. Developed a spastic colon which turned out to offer me an opportunity to join the “lunch club” at the foundry. A group of 5 guys shared the duties to furnish lunch for the group. The center of operations was in the analytic lab on the scond floor of one end of the foundry.
Turned out that pressure vessel design at Dow basically consisted of taking preprinted paper sheets of the various vessel designs and entering all design numbers supplied by the chemical engineers and then adding foundation data and nozzle locations. This was all packaged into a RFQ and sent out to vessel manufacturers and they did the actual drawing incorporating the design data on the sheets and they were basically checked by chemical engineers from the design group when they were submitted. It was pretty standard. I learned the mechanics of the process and went on to do some basic drafting on the vessel installation and piping design. At this time all permanent drawing for the projects was done on large coated linen sheets.
Turned out Dr. Beutel was a rock hound and used to get small drums of geological samples from a guy at Michigan Tech. I can't remember his name, but we always thought he was strange as he spent a lot of time running in the woods around the Copper Country with sample bags and his geologists pick. I also think that he ran track. Turned out Beutel paid him for the samples and if there was an unusual one, he got a bonus. I learned that Beutel was not a great speaker and he read his speech directly word for word from large index cards. I enjoyed the meeting and his invitation to drop in to see him if I was near the office. (Like that would ever happen).
Two Japanese gentlemen wearing nice suits appeared and we were introduced. Dr. Matsuura and Mr. Kido from the Central Research Labs of Ube Kosan Limited. They were nice, quiet folks. What is the first thing that you forget in this type of situation. No one asked them directly, but we figured that they communicated in English. They did, but it was not their first language, so I was told to go slow and enunciate. I did this and started with the large chart and some basic Pidgeon process information. Matsuura was an older man and Mr, Kiddo was probably in his 20’s. From the initial dialogue it appeared that Kiddo was acting as a translator. I would cover a topic and they would put their heads closer together and discuss the point in Japanese and then ask some questions for clarification.
UBE had evaluated the situation for magnesium and had started up a Pidgeon Process type plant. They had sufficient power to produce ferrosilicon using hydropower from the dams in the mountains near the plant. It was surplus power at the Cement Factory and could be used to produce ferrosilicon in the rainy seasons and thus was stored as a product.
UBE Industries Inc.. announced in 1994, that it would close its 8500 ton per year primary magnesium plant in September 1994. The announcement said that this will be the third magnesium plant closed in Japan within six years. Japan Metal and Chemicals closed its plant in 1992, and full of, magnesium close its plant in 1992, and Fuwalawa Magnesium closed its plant in 1989. With the closure of Ube industries plant, Japan will have no primary magnesium production capacity. High production costs and the appreciation of the yen were cited this reason for the closure. In July, Ube Industries announced that it would import magnesium from Timminco of Canada and Norsk Hydro of Norway. Ube plans to market the metal under its brand name and will melt and cast some of the metal to the users’ specifications. Total level of imports was estimated to be 7000 tons per year, about the same level that Ube was producing before shutdown.
UBE Industries personnel.. Dr. R. Matsuura, Mr. Kiddo
UBE SEEKS SOME ASSISTANCE
Various Other Jobs
Velasco, Texas, cut from 6,600,000 lb. a month to 6,000,000 lb.; Magnesium Reduction Co., Lucky, Ohio, cut from 1,050.000 lb. a month to 833,000 lb.; Electro Metallurgical Co., Spokane, Wash., cut
Vipperman, who was an avid checkers player, showed us our rooms and gave us keys and showed us the way to the Star Mine offices. We went and signed in and got worker numbers, mine was “150”. They told us to report to the mining superintendent, Mr. Messerly. In the morning. The pretty gal from the office was named Lois.
Walter Couse Construction of Detroit was retained as the prime contractor to design and build the plant. The final location for the plant was in Selma, Alabama. Selma was the capital seat of Dallas County whose major industries were agricultural. The plant site was 420 acres chosen on the Alabama River just East of town in a small community of Selmont. It was near major gas and electrical transmission lines and the local labor posture was non-union and the wage structure relatively low.
We also learned English grammar, diagramming sentences, out lining papers, Most of the teachers in grade school had two-year teaching certificates from “Normal” Schools. Later known as Teacher’s Colleges and today, Universities.
We attended the same training, but not in the same physical class. The cadets lived in barracks and marched to their scheduled activities. There was a lack of housing for the many student officers coming to class, so many of us were given Non-Availability of Quarters certificates. This permitted us to live off base and draw a quarters allowance.
We developed a refining method for the magnesium and a sledging operation to clean the pots after their use. One of the basic problems with the pump was the fact that the pipe froze up. It was again the same story of a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. For several years when Roger was running his secondary operation at standard magnesium, he was producing anodes which were alloy magnesium. He also had a billet casting operation which cast alloy magnesium round the billets. Casting alloy magnesium through a tuba requires less free heating because the alloy metal has a freezing range. The product that was being cast at American magnesium in Snyder was pure magnesium. It does not have a freezing range. When pure magnesium freezes; it freezes rapidly so the pipes would get stopped up as the metal froze in the pipe.
We did not know much about Northern Idaho. So we set out to cross Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana a 1700 mile trip. This was before Interstate highways, so the highways ran directly through each town and many were two lane concrete highways. We had to follow lots of in town street signs and many traffic lights. Up until Montana, most of the land was flat. However as we got into Montana we realized that there were hills and mountains between us and Wallace, Idaho.
We discussed the potential venture and Dudley agreed to fund our work and my salary for three months. A probationary arrangement where we would review the situation at the end of the three months. Dudley at this time was a full partner in Morgan Stanley, but funded Sven, and therefore me, as a personal investment. There was a loose relationship between Dudley and Sven, but Sven kept him well-informed on anything that was happening.
We exchanged letters with questions and answers. Then on February 16, 1971, I received a phone call from Mr. Hironaka at the Ube office in New York City. A written summary followed that said that “ Mr. Sasaki and Mr. Nakayasu, both of them managers of our magnesium factory, will visit this country sometime between the end of March and early June for observation of magnesium business here. Though their itinerary has not been decided yet, it will be very helpful if you could arrange following items. Will you please inform us of your consulting fee for this matter.”[10]
We had a long talk about the general situation. The drive to Northern Connecticut was very rural and scenic. The trees and the colors and white frame churches with lots of green fields made a very warm, homey, and appealing place. The metallurgist explained that the people are very close and leery of accepting outsiders. Part of the reason he was leaving was because his wife was very unhappy and felt unaccepted even after two years. I did not get a furtherresponse about the job except a nice letter and expense check.
We had a meeting with the principals from American Tank and Fabricating Company located in Cleveland, Ohio. The company had fabricated melting crucibles for a number of years. John Ripich, President and Ken Humberstone came to Selma to discuss magnesium crucible production and safety.
We had a traditional Japanese meal. We had many small cups of Sake and some toasting. Mr. Hironaka did not drink any sake. Mr. Suguira noted my hesitant approach to the use of chop sticks and asked if I wanted a fork. I felt it would be better to learn to eat Japanese style. They both gave me some instruction as to how to eat with the sticks. It seemed to go well until they served what looked to be oysters on the half shell. This was a daunting experience. I learned to pick up peanuts and got quite confident. They told me that it was not a problem for one peanut, but to do two at one time was more of a challenge. They were right.
We had discussions with Hap about the air plane, During the time that happened was at Carswell Air Force Base and flying in the B 36, he had the opportunity to act as one of the background cruise when the movie strategic air command was filmed. The movie featured Jimmy Stewart and June Allison. It was about a pilot recalled to the Air Force and how he was introduced to the B 36 bomber. Hap had discussed the long training flights (from 20 to 30 hours) which were practice for delivering weapon loads at long distances. The initial idea was to deliver bombs deep into Russia and return.
We had had several leakers and had developed a system to handle the leaking. The metal would be ladled from the crucible and poured into the ingot conveyor as normal, with additional dry steel drums being filled at the same time by extra tippers. There was a lead time to order the melting pots and one day we had a leak and no replacement pot was available. We ordered a set of new cast steel crucibles, but but our casting capability was cut in half. To overcome this problem we borrowed a smaller fabricated crucible from Garfield alloys. The crucible was smaller and that it contained less molten magnesium when melting.
We had kindergarten for a half day when I was five.. The teacher was Miss Anna Nye. It was the middle of the depression. What did I learn? The Color cubes. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Black, Brown. Think about that…the basic of printer color systems to reproduce color photos. Amazing that Miss Nye anticipated color printers even in the middle 1930’s. The times were so old we had a velocipede, not a tricycle. I also learned that the nice little old lady did not like you messing with the piano keys when she was teaching us some singing. Had to sit in a corner, but I was just trying to help.
We had lengthy discussions about the operation of a silicothermic (Pidgeon) magnesium plant and we adjourned and I was to make a proposal to them as how we could address the concerns they had originally asked about. I sent a letter to Mr. Suguira which covered the total magnesium situation with some general and specific proposals. [11] Many of the words and thoughts in 1970 are the same ones that I use today when making suggestions to new magnesium producers.
We made it to Butte and then to Missoula and we were going up long hills and the clutch was slipping. The 1946 Ford two door was struggling and smelling and running hot. After a look at the map, we were climbing to Look Out Pass and at the rate we were going, the car was not going to make it.
We talked it over at home and my wife who had been born in Georgia was interested because moving to Selma, Alabama would be a lot closer to her home area. We found a babysitter who would take Mark who was three and David who was nine months and keep them for several days. We flew to Selma and had a good interview and discussion with Jerry Comer who was the personnel director. And Judson Hawthorne who was the technical manager.
We used lots of dynamite with black powder fuses. I remember cutting the fuses and tying them up so the middle (burn) would pull first and then the top would shoot down and the bottom holes (lifters) would shoot last and lift the previously broken rock.
We walked to place near where the main hoists were located.. “Portal to Portal” meant that you were paid once you started to go to work and that time was 7AM, No one moved toward the hoists until few minutes before it was starting time. I noticed some jostling and some guys counting people in line and then moving to a different position. Turns out the hoist operator came in early and ran the “man Cages” up and down the shafts to determine if the shaft was open.
We would load the lifters with extra sticks of powder to make powerful blast so the muck pile would be away from the face. There were two shifts, one drilling and blasting, the other barring down, timbering, and removing the muck pile with air slushers. The main reason for loading the lifters heavy was to be able to climb over the muck pile and put the slushier bucket pulley on the back wall and remove all of the muck pile without having to use an Idiot stick (shovel).
Went through the grade school and then the junior high School. In the 7th and 8th grade we took “shop” and mechanical drawing. In shop we learned many practical things such as the four cycle engine operation, Intake, Compression, Firing, Exhaust. We made cookie cutters out of tin cans, using large soldering irons heated in a gas fired oven. Learned to “Tin” the iron, using a sal ammoniac block. Make wiring hook ups for door bells and electric light sockets and soldered the wire connections. Installed glass panes in windows and puttied them in place. Made a Tie Racks and wall plaques from rough wood. Hand planes and squares. Hand saws and wood working benches.
When I attended the local college it was small and basic and had moderate amounts of facilities and equipment. For example, the curricula was still basically pre World War II. The school had a originally had a major emphasis on mining and metallurgy. Mechanical Drawing, Machine Shop and related subjects such as blacksmith shop and pattern making and iron foundry.
When I first worked for Dow in 1957 after getting out of the AF...I worked for Fred Krenzke in Production Development. I worked with Bob Woolsey and Gerald Braschre on the mechanics of the M cell. Getting 4140 rods that were used to hold the large anodes together. Couldn't understand why they were not working, but were stretching. Learned that the rods were purchased and then cut and threaded for the assembly. There were purchased in the “as wrought” condition and needed to be heat treated to get the strength that was needed. I still correspond with Phil Haddad who was one of the cell feed experts. Ed Williams was also one of the leads. Stan Rice and I worked with Jack Hayes on the special anode project and louver project. We used to measure the carbons from the 9 special louver designs when they would be pulled during the cell cleaning. 8.33” anodes and we would caliber every six inches down from bath line to the point. They would not trim the bottom until we had the measurements for the profile. This information lead to the program that Lee Clarke developed using punch cards that showed the normal louver, the 1" x 2" steel rods that were made into spirals were not properly shaped for the greatest efficiency. LeRoy Cervenka, Frank Lever, Al Dauer, Lee Braden were all part of the group. They had the M- cells in building 2, and Electrochem with George Dean, Bill McCutcheon had the cells across the road from B-1210. Dick George worked there for a while before he went into aviation. I only remember the Lithium Chloride bath cell as having the metal go to the bottom.
When I got my "new hire" dinner at the Dow Lodge located at the actual Lake Jackson in 1957, I was picked up at the Mag 3 office complex where Fred Krenzke's Magnesium Production Development group had a back office. Jack Hays was the senior guy for Production Development at Mag 3, Monte Thompson was the Superintendent, Lionel Fourier was the Asst, and the plant was running. Curtis Charlton and Wilbur Barrier were the Engineers. Andy Zachary was the Maintenance head. Ralph Owens was the electrical and instrument head. Betty Weatherford was the secretary.
When I started my first inspection walked through, I saw the conveyor and was astonished at the design. In order to get enough moles on the conveyor still make it fit in a fairly small area, a ferrous wheel situation was designed. The molds would pass through the conveyor and be filled with magnesium they would then continue on and go up a 60° incline and over the top and back down the other side where the worthy ingots would be removed from the mold. Two quick problems the ingot molds were designed to go up and over the top of the conveyor and back down the other side staying level as a ferrous wheel seat. They did not stay level. The molds would bind up once the conveyor started heating up and the ingot molds would jam. The string of molds would go to the top of the conveyor where the heat was going up in through the stack it was there, over the top and back down again. About every fifth mold stocks so wanted one over the top and dump the magnesium metal down inside the conveyor where there was a sulfur pan which then would spit and fire and pop fire. All of these problems had to be identified rapidly in order to get enough molds continuously passing the pump to keep the pump operating to fill the molds in producing a product. My handwritten notes give a very vivid description of all this happening
When I was back in the plant, there were two major areas that needed attention. The reduction furnace production, and the melting and casting operations. My first work was to get the new casting operations working smoothly. The redesigned melting operation used three large gas-fired magnesium melting furnaces with 4000 pound crucibles. There were two casting conveyors, one conveyor for 20 pound ingot and one conveyor for 50 pounds lapse. There were two 1000 pound flux pots the melting furnaces said been redesigned with larger combustion chambers so that flame impingement on the pots was eliminated. The melting furnaces were set on structural steel foundations to get them up off the floor. Under the furnace settings were run out steel boxes lined loosely with rec and Case any pot started leaking the metal could run into this containing area. The new cast house had a completely poured concrete floor you could go downstairs and work around the furnace settings where the burners were with the plant in operation. Large doors were installed in the furnace settings so they could be opened and scale raked out. It was a policy for a number of years to rake out the scale once a day and weigh on a scale in the basement to check out how much scale was coming from the pot.
When Mr. Peterman was addressing the many plant problems he decided to have both Dr. Pidgeon and his wife and Mr. Perkins to come to Selma for a meeting to discuss the situations in early 1960/. I had not met either of these gentlemen, so it was a great privilege and an exciting time. Dr. Pidgeon and his wife were guests of Mr. and Mrs. Petermann. Mrs. Petermann arranged several social functions so the plant manager’s wives could meet her. Plus sightseeing was arranged for the Selma area.
When my Special Apprentice career path, which was overhung with the potential call to active duty, took the turn that it did, I became curious and wrote to the headquarters of the 10th Air Force at Selfridge AFB, Michigan. This may have been a big mistake, although sooner or later, I had to know. I told them of my personal situation and asked “When will I be called to active duty??” They said that I had applied for flying training, but my eye sight was not 20/20 so I had been placed in a general file. Actually when I called and talked to one of the airmen clerks, he suggested that my file had actually been buried in a large stack of candidates for potential Technical jobs, since my degree was in Metallurgical Engineering. Actually, he suggested that if I wanted action, I could reapply for flying training Class IA. Class I was pilots, Class IA was navigators. Due to the growth of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) he said they had a bigger demand for navigator candidates than they did pilots. I reapplied and was sent a form to report to OHare AFB in Chiciago for an updated physical. I passed the IA physical and soon had orders to report for active duty. .
When one of the furnaces started leaking, magnesium ran out into the basement and molten magnesium hitting the water in the pit caused an explosion and a fire. This had happened once and they had cleared up the damagg and it happened again within three months. The Magnode plant was in a small residential area. The local residents were scared and had filed petitions with the local town council. The firemen were certainly with the people because they had gotten extremely startled by the two fires. Note: Anyone who has been near one of these fires can appreciate real fear and confusion.
When the first foundries started to produce ductile iron on a production basis, it was difficult to insure that the castings were fully nodualized. It was slowly learned that there was magnesium “fade” if the prepared ductile iron was delayed in being cast. Practical experience quickly showed that the replacement of grey iron with ductile iron was much more technically challenging and much more expensive. The uncertain results and the costs quickly killed much of the soaring enthusiasm of many of the initial users..
When the training started we had classes of very basic navigational significance. The main chart used was a blank Mercator with lines and numbers on it so we could locate the starting point and draw a course line to the ending point. The recognized wind could be plotted and the course flown.
When we finished our navigation school and got our wings many of the navigators were assigned to aerial refueling squadron’s. I was assigned to the 321st aerial refueling squadron which happened to be stationed at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery Alabama.
When we got to No. 1, the Dow Club house at Lake Jackson, I couldn't find any name card. I struggled around the long arm of a "T" table set up. I decided I should slip into Wilbur Barrier’s place when Don Duguid, the main Dow Texas personnel man, waved at me...and lo and behold, I was sitting on the right hand of main speaker and host, Dr.A. P. Beutel, General Manager of the Texas Division. Duguid was on the left. We had a nice chat at lunch. "Dutch" which we never called him to his face seemed to be a nice short guy with a limp.
When we graduated, we were commissioned as 2nd Lieutenants in the USAF reserve. The Korean War was still going on and we expected to be called to active duty at any time. I was the highest ranking cadet (Colonel) as a senior and served as the Cadet Commander at the main review of the combined Army and Air Force cadets in 1953.
When World War II was coming to a close there were concerns about aircraft delivering bombs to targets at long ranges. Hence the idea of a very large bomber was discussed with Pres. Roosevelt and the Air Force general staff, rough dimensions were drawn up for a plane that could fly 10,000 miles without refueling and could deliver 10,000 pound bomb load. It was to fly at 40,000 feet or higher and at 350 to 400 mph. It would be heavily armed to defend itself on these long flights.
When World War II was over, Mr. Perkins concluded that additional facilities for the rolling of magnesium plate and sheet would sooner or later be required. As a result B and P purchased a complete three stand rolling mill from Alcoa. Perkins had the mill shipped from Alcoa’s Edgewater works to Detroit in 1947 and started awaiting an appropriate time to install it. The total cost of the mill was little more than scrap value, although the equipment was in excellent condition and was ideal for the relatively small production of magnesium sheet and plate demanded by the market at that time.
While I was in Tulsa, Roger set up a lunch for me with the head of the Petroleum Equipment Institute, Howard Upton. The PEI was an association of the companies that supplied the gas industry.i.e....gasoline pumps, tanks, gasoline handling equipment.
While the cans worked well in a specially designed plunging unit they actually were quite small and complicated the additions that were made. About this time the need for desulfurization in steel production was becoming apparent and several companies started using Mag Coke.
While the magnesium portion of the foundry received a great deal of attention, one of the major projects was to produce premium quality castings based on work done at MIT. The product of the casting was the 50 – 40 – five aluminum casting. This translated to 50 tensile strength 40 yield strength and five elongation. The subject casting that was the major reference was a pylon to go under the wing of a jet plane and had armament the attachment points. In other words the pylon could carry rockets or bombs into combat. To get the specified properties into the casting turned out to be very difficult. It was difficult to quench the casting and get a good distribution of the grain structure. This was done with chills in the sample casting but the actual casting was too big and the chilling could not be accomplished.
While we were traveling to Selma and I was doing miscellaneous things I thought about my short time at Dow and how informative it had been in magnesium in general the management at Dow at the time was basically left over from the group that was assembled during World War II. They had been young guys who had to staff, manage and start up a large new electrolytic magnesium plant under severe pressure to produce magnesium metal they had run across many difficulties and they had learned to overcome them. Much of the equipment was new designed especially for the world war two plants and the managers had to learn to start up and cast and handle tons of molten magnesium each day
While working in Iron Mountain he met several old friends from Houghton who worked for Goodman Lumber Company in the dimension lumber business. This group had been bought by Calumet and Hecla. One day after they had been to visit us in Texas my father mentioned it and said I worked for Dow in the magnesium business. The folks from Good man Lumber Company were part of Calumet and Hecla. They told my father that Calumet and Hecla was building a magnesium plant in Selma Alabama and that they were looking for a metallurgist. I expressed an interest to my father and he got the name of the person at Calumet and Hecla Main offices in Chicago and I contacted Mr. A. E. Peterman. He was to be the general manager of the new magnesium plant in Selma.
Who are the four new die casters??
Who was the guy in the pipe shop that did all the work with the Solaramic coatings for the Mag Cell Tubs. I remember that his Assistant was Bobby Phillips who was from the U of Alabama.
Will help. As you know I relate to everything either through people or through things like magnesium. I would go tht other way...Dow to Alamet...that is the way I went. The shock of the South in 1960. I knew many of the favorite folks like Jim Clark...met Dr. Lloyd Pidgeon at the magnesium plant in Selma..
With major production orders placed by the Air Force, fabricators expanded mill facilities in preparation, expecting to double 1955 performance levels by 1956. Titanium Metals operated at full 3,600-ton capacity during this period. Nondefense use of titanium increased, especially in the chemical process, pulp, paper, and electronics industries. The Japanese expanded their 1955 output, exporting most of their estimated 500 tons of sponge to the United States--double the amount from the previous year. Of interest to government and industry officials was the report, made late in 1955, that the Russians were designing sizable quantities of titanium into their advanced military aircraft, thus enhancing their travel speed.[12]
WORKING WITH MAGNODE ON CONTINUOUS CASTING..1974
Working with National Lead.
WORKING WITH SVEN FOUGNER
World War II was over. The Korean situation was over. The Air Force had made many rapid moves to man the aircraft that were used in Korea. After the world war many pilots and navigators were removed from active duty and assigned to the Air Force reserve. Many of these reserve flyers or call back to staff the aircraft mainly be 29. After the combat in Korea stopped. Many of the recalled reservists decided to stay in the service. In the case of the navigators who had been recalled and immediately placed into service there were gaps in their training records. So there was also a group at Ellington Air Force Base that were entered into up graded training.
2. Yield of actual operation
You are correct in that I am not passing out my presentation – not because of you, but for the same reason that I don’t present at the IMA. Because I don’t need to do my competitors’ job for free. I sure enjoyed seeing the pictures in your presentation.
You are interested because you have worked on the cutting edge of technology for many years and have had time to be associated with many talents that were ahead of their time..such as Bill Brooks. Strange guy, but today the sale of magnesium on a world basis for desulfurization is the third largest market. At the time we were running the tests at KO Steel Castings in San Antonio, Bill was about the only real steel metallurgist in the world (outside of Gertzman in Canada) that believed in the ability of magnesium to desulfurize. Remember the time we hired that guy from the U of Alabama, Chet Wright, who said that the magnesium volatilized and created turbulence in the melt and that made the burnt lime more effective in removing sulfur. Spent hours with Tom Hagemaier cutting and polished specimens from the small ingots that we produced in San Antonio, working under oil and trying to keep the surface from water or from air. We looked and looked on the metallograph in the lab for magnesium sulfide inclusions. But never found any. High temperature tensiles and low temperature charpy impact tests all showed that something had improved the properties. Also the sulfur prints that we did the ingot surfaces showed the distribution and reduction of the sulfur.
You did good. Would like to get a copy of the graphs you used and a statement about auto body sheet that you gave. I know that you will probably not be able to do that, but I am just asking.
You have more old guy stories than I can keep straight – love it!
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[1] L.M. Pidgeon and W. A. Alexander, Thermal Production of Magnesium-Pilot Plant Stidies on the Retort Ferrosilicon Process, Transactions of AIME, Vol 159, 1944
[2] Howard-Smith, Ian, “Hisotorica background to Magnesium Production – MagCorp” private communication from an unpublished manuscript 12/09/2001
[3] US Patent 3798314A, Process of Manufacturing Anhydrous Magnesium Chloride" W. Kobayashi, S Ohtaka, Y. Suzukawa, K. Uehon, K. Yosida, Assigned to Ube Industries, March 19, 1974
[4]
[5] The Status pf Magnesiuim as a Desulphurizer and Refining Ageent in the Irton and Steel Industrtry, IMA Proceedings of 41st World Conference, June 1984 Dayton, Ohio.
[6] Personal Correspondence, Y. Hironaka to R. Brown , September 30, 1970
[7] “The Technology of Magnesium and its Alloys” Adolph Beck, FA Hughes Ltd, Abbey House, Lnodon 1940
[8] Englehaupt, E, Optical “Fabrication Methods” Optomechanical Engineering Handbook, Boca Raton, CRC 1999
[9] 488 F.2d 147 (1974) In the Matter of AMERICAN MAGNESIUM COMPANY, Debtor. OZARK-MAHONING COMPANY, Appellee, v. AMERICAN MAGNESIUM COMPANY, Debtor, Appellant.United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.January 14, 1974.
[10] Personal Correspondence, Y.Hironaka to R. Brown. February 16, 1971
[11] Personal Correspondence..R.Brown to H. Suguera UBE Industries, April 9, 1970
[12] Corporation,
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