Iron Pour

The city of Weirton welcomes you to the “Home of the Mighty Steel Can.” The town is surrounded by Weirton Steel. The blast furnaces and rolling mills fill the narrow valley, homes hug the hillsides.

The steelmaking process begins with making iron. At the far end of blast furnace row, one of the Weirton Steel ALCO switchers has placed a pair of bottle cars 69 and 58 at furnace #4. Workers insert gas lances inside them to heat up the refractory brick lining. You never place hot iron into a cold car.

It’s been four hours since the last cast took place, now it’s getting close to opening the furnace for another heat to be released. The workers are taking up their positions inside the cast house. They’re dressed for the work ahead. Being exposed to 2,800-degree heat means wearing layers of protection. Long underwear and heavy socks, heavy boots, a second layer of mill greens over that, and finally silvers, the heavy canvas leggings, coat and helmet. Silvers have a metal facing to reflect the heat.

A siren sounds, the warning to everyone in the area that hot metal is going to be moving. A dull thump, the sound of a small charge that blows away the refractory clay packed in the iron notch, the opening at the base of the furnace. A blast of smoke and cinders is released followed by orange/white hot iron snaking down the trenches toward the bottle cars.

The glow of hot metal coursing down the trenches lights the cast house interior, reflecting off of the silvers worn by the workers. The men are opening the gates, controlling the flow to the bottle cars. Even at a distance you can feel the heat. Bottle car #58 is filled first, then more of the flow is directed into #69. Smoke rises as liquid iron pours in and flames rise from within, distorting the air around the cast house. Sparks dance out carried on thermal waves of heat. The strong smell of hot metal flows overhead.

A worker walks out on the platform checking the progress on #69, his silhouette outlined by the glow of hot metal. It takes roughly an hour to fill the two bottle cars, they each have a capacity 200 tons. As the cars are filled, the flow of iron begins to slow, workers are preparing the mud gun to fill the opening with a clay slurry. The high temperature inside the furnace will harden the slurry in a few moments, creating the plug to hold the hot metal inside.

The furnace never will be truly empty. It is being fed continuously with layers of iron, coke and limestone. It will take ten hours for the mix to reach the bottom. Because the feed is continuous there’s always liquid iron flowing down, pooling at the base, deep enough that another cast will take place in four hours.

An ALCO switcher is ready to pull the iron, taking the bottles to the BOF shop where the iron will go through the first steps of steelmaking. It will replace 69 and 58 with two new bottles. Another ALCO will pull the slag pots being loaded on the other side of the cast house. The slag will be dumped at a processing pit where it will be graded for a variety of uses.

After the cast is complete the workers will be busy cleaning up the trenches, removing any metal left behind. This is no idle time for them, a lot of prep work must be completed before the next cast. They average two casts per eight-hour shift, the pace doesn’t change. For them it’s just another day at the mill.