Steel Making by Bessemer Convertor at Workington Cumbria
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- Опубліковано 19 сер 2013
- Sir Henry Bessemer created a new process for making steel and his earliest Bessemser Converters were sited at Workington and Millom Cumbria UK.
West Cumbria is blessed with coal, iron ore and limestone so iron making became well established at Workington and Millom with ships, locos and machines made from cast iron. But brittle iron needed to be turned into high quality steel. Fortunately Henry Bessemer’s invented a convertor the first of which were sited at Millom and Workington and tough flexible steel was then rolled at Workington’s steel works to make rails. Even when the Bessemer convertor closed and steel production ended there were steel ingots brought from more efficient works to be rolled into steel rails and exported around the world. The loading, firing and transport of molten steel in the Bessemer Convertor is shown with workers before health and safety improved dangerous working practices.
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Created / Uploaded by Peter Nicholson - Наука та технологія
This brought back memories. I worked in this Bessemer in the 60's. Working a 3 shift pattern at age 16. My first job was to take samples of the molten metal as it was being poured into the ingot molds. Standing on the gantry above the newly filled molds, the heat was tremendous and reaching out over them to take a sample needed nerve. My next job was to fetch and carry for the 'Stopper man' who built and fitted the stoppers into the ladle after it had been poured. The stopper ( or plug ) only lasted one pour. The ladle would still be extremely hot but needed for the next blow so no time to let it cool. We were in range of the shower of sparks from the Bessemer so needed to move sharply when the hooter sounded. From this job I moved to driving the slag bogie. The slag bogie pushed and pulled a slag pan under the converter at the end of each blow to enable any leftover slag to be poured out. My last job in the Bessemer was to drive the slag mill overhead crane, picking up slag pans and emptying out the solid for disposal. These were all job's filled by boys who became men and were paid men's wages aged 18. Happy Days.
Home Grown Veg I bet far and few could do that job today. Thanks for sharing.
RazsterTW
Hello Razster We worked so close to the process we were just one trip away from being burned
alive and I don't exaggerate. The Bessemer building was open ended, the open
end being close to the sea wall. In extreme weather conditions the sea would
crash onto the sea wall and the strong winds would blow it into the building. I
can recall seeing the whole of the Bessemer floor flooded, with the rail track
submerged, and production carried on! Health and Safety, It hadn't been invented.
Hats off to you dude. That’s some seriously dangerous and hard work. Noticed in the video one of the workers continued smoking his fag during the pour. Work be damned he was going to have his smoke break. I imagine you saw that all the time back in the day.
lived on westfield drive, looked out of mam and dads bedroom, you could only see mossbay, the steelworks worked on the blast furnaces from 1976 til 1980 when it closed sad times, happesed days of my life
To be honest I'm glad that 16 year olds aren't doing that sort of work now. Sounds super dangerous.
I cannot believe they were still using the Bessemer process in the late 60's, early 70's. That is insane.
They still use the Basic Oxygen Furnace now (well, I say that, Electric Induction is actually replacing it in terms of melting iron itself, but this is only quite recently that this has happened). It's all fundamentally the same technology. Impure molten cast iron reacts with oxygen to produce less carbon-rich and more pure iron as well as Heat. The basic compounds react with the biprosucts of oxidation to drive the phosphorus and other impurities into the slag. It's really very efficient, and quite a cheap way of purifying iron vs directly heating it.
@@bilbo_gamers6417 In my locality and at my local steelworks we mined the coal, pits are now shut, we mined the iron ore mines are now shut, we quarried lime stone quarries are now shut, We made coke from the coal to use in the blast furnaces, coke oven and blast furnaces are all gone, we took the molten iron from the blast furnace and converted it into steel in our Bessemer converters, the blast furnaces have gone the Bessemer's all gone. We poured the steel into ingot molds and produces steel billets. We put the billets through our rolling mills and made the best railway lines in the world. The rolling mills are gone. We are now just about totally dependent on imports of everything. Jim.
My Great Granda was a foreman on the Workington Bessemer. My Granda also worked at the steelworks
Dan it is all closed now....the site is currently being cleared and houses being built on the land
andrew newton ..hi Andrew , how you doing ......Vince
Which Vince??
Thanks (eight years later).
Luckily most of the rail steel is eutectoid steel and has enough carbon to be top poured into the ingot without serious re-oxidation. The methods shown would have produced a lot a scrap for other lower carbon (sheet) steels.
Cool, I always wanted to see and hear videos of one of these fire breathers in action
This is the first thing I studied in high school BTHS , NYC 1966
This is fascinating and I wish I could have witnessed it. Thank you for uploading. I'm from Youngstown, Ohio in the states and the last integrated steel mill in our valley closed in 2012. Globalism sucks. So do American democrats. I pray heavy industry is revived in both the U.S. and UK, because the damn service industry is not cutting it for most ppl and we've lost our mojo.
Thank you for your reply and interest. I have been collecting oral history and pics and video since 1998 and have put a lot together in thiswascumbria.uk/ so any links to and from other enthusiasts of heritage industry would be appreciated. Peter
As always spoken by some guy who couldn't last the day on that job and would never even apply for it...The fact is they had to import labor for decades to run those plants I met a guy there in Loraine Ohio who had retired form the steel plant...He had been recruited from Puerto Rico when he was just a 18 year old kid Barefoot and shirtless cutting cane in the field.....not a word of English...The recruiter promised him a job in the mill ...(He was a big strong guy)...put him on a bus gave him a shirt and work shoes and jeans...put him on a plane and he worked there and got married raised a family and retired...
You whiny boys cry but none of you ever wanted to work that hard!
Shane, you're full of Bullcrap.
I think we should have more manufacturing in America too but the sort of work these guys were doing back then was insanely dangerous. Certainly, with modern safety methods, they could make it so not as many people are exposed to explosive vaporized iron?
@@bilbo_gamers6417 The Bessemer shop where I worked was close to the sea. On stormy nights with a following wind the sea would crash over the sea wall and flood the Bessemer workshop floor to a few inches. Production never stopped. Metal and slag slopping over the ladles dropping into the water and exploded, lots of noise, lots of steam. Health and safety hadn't yet been invented.
how to annoy a british politician......show them this video.
How to annoy a democrat in the United States😂
@@ebl89 As always spoken by some guy who couldn't last the day on that job and would never even apply for it...
Tnx
Baldy Bessemer
sChOOl
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