1907 - Roanoke's Big Rolling Mills

[NW Mailing List]

Thursday, March 14, 1907
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Roanoke's Big Rolling Mills

West End Plant Now Ready for Work - Tremendous Equipment

Work has been pushed with speed for some time on the construction of the
great rolling mills in the West End. Yesterday morning the first trial was
made, and everything seemed to have been constructed and erected with
skill, for the great engine ran smoothly, and all that is needed now for
the plant to go into operation are men. Those who will soon supplied. Mr.
P. H. Mynahan, the general manager, left last night to get mill men. He
stated that the mill will be in operation within two or three weeks. The
material is on hand, the best railroad facilities, the Norfolk & Western on
one side and the Tidewater on the other, and all is now required are men to
run the rolls and puddling furnaces.

On the river bank is a large reservoir. This furnishes all the water
required. It is duplicated by a pumping system with hot and cold water.
There is also a complete drainage system for the plant.

The first building is the puddling mill, which is 78x345. This has ??-teen
doubling puddling furnaces with eight waste heat boilers over eight
puddling furnaces, which enables the company to make steam without cost,
utilizing all the waste heat. The outfit consists of a twenty-two inch
train of rolls, three stands of rolls with one stand, three high, driven by
an engine 28x54 with a thirty ton fly wheel, a feed water heater and two
feed water pumps, also a roll lathe. The mill has a full telegraph system
for carrying iron from the furnace to the squeezer and hammers. The
squeezer and engine where place in the mill by the present company. At the
upper end of the puddling mill there is a ten ton steel furnace with two
gas producers. A short distance above the puddling mill is the machine shop
equipped with a full line of machinery for all kinds or repair work,
latches, cold saw, grinders, and also a complete roll turning lathe for
turning rolls, blacksmith department and engine and boiler.

The Norfolk and Western built for the company an extensive trestle 300 feet
in length on which cars loaded with coal are carried up grade and dumped
out from the bottom at the entrance to the mill. Mr. Mynahan expressed
himself as appreciating highly what the Norfolk and Western had done by the
plant. On the trestle is an up-to-date scales which enables the company to
weigh incoming and outgoing cars.

The next building which is known as the finishing department, 85x305, has
one of the most up-to-date train of rolls, consisting of 17 and 13 inch
trains. This mill is served by four heating furnaces, one furnace being
continuous, used for the rolling of small steel rails. This furnace is 35
feel long and 12 feed wide. The waste heat is utilized. The furnace is
operated mechanically. The iron is charged at one end and carried by a
steam pusher, and slides over pipes into the furnace, and is kept in proper
condition by water dripping on them. The stack of the furnace is 85 feet
high and 50 inches in diameter. There are three heating furnaces for
merchant iron of which two are equipped with wast heat boilers of 200
horse-power each, and with a maximum of 600 horse-power. The 18 and 12 inch
trains referred to above ar driven by 28x28 heavy duty engines with an
immense band wheel, 18 feet in diameter, 44 inch face and weighs 48,000
pounds. The rubber band is 42 inches wide and 115 feet in length, ten ply,
and is one of the largest bands ever made, and a photograph was made of it.
There is a smaller band wheel with 14 inch face, 6 feet in diameter, and
weight 10,000 pounds. In connection with this engine is an engine in close
proximity of 800 horse power, and a feed water heater, two duplicates, a
boiler and feed pumps. There is a full line of shafting which drives the
convener, which takes the rail from the roll to the hot saw, from which it
is taken to a colling bed, where it is cooled off, thence to the cold
straightener press, where the straightening is done, and then to-two
multiple drills where holes are drilled for splice bars. There are
also shears for cutting merchant bars. The general layout of the finishing
mill makes the rail mill part of it, almost distinct and and separate from
the merchant bar department, which only necessitates the changing of the
rolls from rails to merchant iron. The whole lay out of the mill is modern
and up-to-date and it is one of the most complete and economical mills in
the whole country.

The mill would have been in operation long ago but for the delay in the
arrival of machinery. Now there is a foundation grounds for immense shears
for cutting rails and large steel billets. The shears will driven by a 75
horse-power engine. The engine and shears will weigh 100,000 pounds.

When the mill is in full operation it will employ 300 men and has a
capacity of 80 tons of finished iron per day and night. The rails will be
sold to mining companies and the Norfolk and Western will take a goodly
portion of the bar output.

All the work of setting the mill in operation, the planning, etc., was done
by Mr. P. H. Mynahan, the general manager, assisted by Mr. Frank Isom, a
young man from Atlanta, Ga. Mr. Mynahan takes a deep interest in the young
man, who was developed in a very superior and talented designer and worker.
He has been with the general manager ever since he was a boy in knee pants,
spending his vacations at work in the mills and attending the Georgia
Polytechnic College of which he ia graduate. Mr. Mynahan met the boy when
he was constructing the steel hoop mils in Atlanta. "He drew all the plans
for this mill improvement." said Mr. Mynahan, "and no one could have done
better." The general manager is himself of the most expert mill men in the
country, and when he says the Roanoke mill cannot be surpassed it counts
for something.

   The mill is owned by the Louchs Iron and Steel Company, and is officered 
as follows:

   W. H. Fetter, president
   J. W. Grantham, secretary,
   D. S. Loucks, treasurer
   P. H. Mynahan, general manager,
   Executive Committe - Albert Graham, of Pittsburg, Pa ; D. S. Louchks, 
Scottdale, PA;
     W. H Fetter, Scottdale Pa.

Dr. W. H. Fetter, the president, and Mr. J. W. Grantham, secretary, were in
Roanoke Saturday and expressed themselves very enthusiastically over the
outlook for the mill and the splendid work of the general manager and his
young assistant.

The new company has spent over $60,000 on improvements of the mill, while
the former company spent $40,000. The mill could not be replaced today for
$250,000.

But for the efforts of the Chamber of Commerce, Roanoke would have lost
this big enterprise last year, when efforts where being made to move it to
Scottsdale, Pa.

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Puddling (metallurgy) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puddling_furnace

Transcribed from scans by Ron Davis.

- Roger Link