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HISTORY


RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS
OF SMC
By John S. Huntington
September 1995
(Please email comments to: gmaurer@dreamscape.com)

Chapter 1 - 1940-1950
Chapter 2 -- The Clayville Lab
Chapter 3 -- The Move to New York Mills
Chapter 4 -- The Early Days at Middle Settlement Road
Chapter 5 -- Special Metals Inc.
Chapter 6 -- Early SMC Days with Allegheny Ludlum
Chapter 7 -- The Decade of the Seventies
Closing Thoughts


Chapter 1 -- 1940 to 1950

Around 1944, the gas turbine engine developed by Air Commodore Whittle in England was brought to the United States, and General Electric started producing the I-40 engine. High temperature alloys at that time were rather limited, and Hastalloy-B and Vitallium were probably among the first materials used for turbine buckets.

Utica Drop Forge and Tool Corp., with a national reputation for its high quality precision hand tools, was one of the first companies to forge buckets for the GE engine. Other forgers included Steel Improvement and Forge Co., (SIFCO) and Thompson Ramo Wooldridge, (TRW).

Dr. Falih N. Darmara had joined Drop Forge as Chief Metallurgist in 1941 after moving east from the copper industry in Utah where he had worked since receiving his Masters and Doctorate degrees at MIT and Harvard. Primarily responsible for the metallurgy of the hand tools, he set up their first metallurgy laboratory and introduced a process for induction hardening of cutter blades. He became interested as well in the challenges of high temperature alloys with respect to their chemistry, forgability and properties.

Falih, known to his friends and cohorts as "Doc," left Drop Forge in about 1944 on leave of absence for The Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory of NACA, (The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics -- now NASA) in Cleveland, OH. At NACA he set up their first high temperature alloy development section for evaluating existing alloys and developing improved materials. He believed that alloys depending on reactive elements such as titanium and aluminum for precipitation hardening could not be reliably made using conventional air melting techniques, and that such alloys must be melted, refined and poured under vacuum to realize their full potential.

He interested the writer who was working in NACA's piston ring and cylinder barrel section, in joining his group in 1945 to build a small vacuum furnace to melt alloy samples. A small furnace was designed and built using two Curtiss-Wright air-cooled engine cylinder barrels welded end-to-end as the shell. Crucibles with a capacity of about 150 grams were slip cast from beryllium oxide and resistance heated by a wound coil of molybdenum wire. The chamber was evacuated with a mechanical pump backing a three-stage all-glass diffusion pump. There was no capability to pour the melt into a mold, and after a heat was made, it was frozen in the crucible which had to be destroyed to reclaim the solidified casting. Despite the furnace limitations, several heats of alloys which were then considered "high temperature" were made and examined metallographically during late 1945 and 1946. It is not known what if any mechanical testing was performed on these heats.

Doc left NACA in the fall of 1946 for an advisory position at the United States Steel Corp. in New Jersey until his return to Drop Forge as Director of Research in 1949. By this time the company was actively involved in forging gas turbine blades and buckets in their Turbine Parts Division. Doc reported directly to the President, Willis V. Daugherty, and was responsible not only for the metallurgical well being of the Tool and Turbine Parts Division, but also for the evaluation and implementation of new processes which could improve quality and/or productivity. Resistance heated upsetters and slow acting presses for forging high temperature alloys were two of the many processes he introduced. He became Assistant to the President in 1950 and Vice president in 1952.

During this period, the turbine parts business expanded rapidly due to the advent of the Korean war, and the company produced parts for not only GE but Curtiss-Wright and Pratt and Whitney. The company's forging facilities expanded into a plant in Whitestown, and an extensive blade machining facility was set up in Clayville. One of Pratt and Whitney's engines, the J-48, used Waspaloy for its bucket material, and this alloy, which has a fascinating legendary history, was supplied to Drop Forge by Allegheny Ludlum, Universal Cyclops and International Nickel as 2" bar stock from ten-ton air-melted heats. The stress rupture specification for the as-forged product was 40 hours at 32,500 psi and 1500 deg. F. A continual state of crisis existed in the Turbine Parts Division, since it was not possible to get consistent properties from heat-to-heat from the air-melted stock. Ten-ton heats were frequently rejected due to their inability to meet the 40 hour stress rupture spec., and this proved not only costly for all parties, but raised havoc with production planning.

Doc felt that the wide variations in the properties of the air melted heats was due to the inability to hold the amounts and ratio of the titanium and aluminum in the heats due to random oxidation. He recommended to Mr. Daugherty that Drop Forge consider setting up a vacuum melting facility to get into the production of improved materials.

In this immediate post World War II period the Air Force frequently provided funding for the procurement of production equipment for installation in plants producing parts for the military. Much of the forging equipment and ancillary facilities for the Turbine Parts Division of Drop Forge had been funded by such facilities contracts. With the support of Mr. Daugherty and the Norris family, (which owned Drop Forge), Doc pushed for, and succeeded in obtaining funds through an Appendix to one such contract in 1951 for the procurement and installation of a 50 pound and a 200 pound vacuum induction melting furnace. The total amount allotted amounted to $135,000. This would give him the equipment necessary to pursue his theories regarding the potential benefits of vacuum melting.



Chapter 2 -- The Clayville Lab


In late 1951, Doc contacted the writer who had returned to the Fairchild Engine and Aircraft Corp. after leaving NACA, and we met for dinner at the Barclay in NYC. He proceeded to describe his plans for setting up a laboratory operation with the aim of evaluating vacuum melting as a viable method of producing high temperature alloys with improved and consistent properties. He indicated that the location and facilities would be somewhat crude with respect to those we had been used to at NACA, but that Drop Forge management and the Air force were in full support of the venture. Doc has always had a persuasive charm, and after minimal deliberation, the writer accepted his offer to join Drop Forge to design, procure and install the vacuum furnaces and ancillary equipment.

On March 17, 1952, the writer started work with Doc in setting up the lab at the Clayville plant. As mentioned above, Drop Forge had moved its blade machining operation to a large vacant textile mill in Clayville. Sophisticated broaches, automatic grinders etc. occupied the most recently built (1920s) portion of the complex, but the original three story mill building (circa 1824) on the northwest corner of the property was vacant. This structure, with 3' thick stone walls and 12 pane double-hung windows, typical of many such textile plants in the area, was available to house the lab and offices. A brick structure at right angles would be used for the machine shop, and another brick building close-by would be the melt shop.

The first item of business was the final design of the 50 lb. and 200 lb. furnaces which were to be built by Distillation Products Industries in Rochester (soon to become Consolidated Vacuum). It appeared that the earliest that delivery could be expected would be in the spring of 1953. After considerable review of the quoted equipment costs and negotiations with DPI, it was determined that cuts could be made to free up enough money so that a smaller 6 lb. furnace could be built by us on a crash basis without exceeding the budgeted amounts on the Appendix.

The design of the 6 pounder started on or about April 1, 1952 and the drawings were completed by early May. Utica Steam Engine built the shell, base plate and cover, DPI furnished the pumps and vacuum parts, Doc scavenged a 50 KW generator from somewhere, and the rest was built in-house by Ray Decker, our versatile machinist, and Si Batson, our mechanic who could "cobble up" most anything from bits and pieces lying around the old mill. We learned how to leak check by squirting acetone on the suspect areas and watching for a minuscule rise on the pirani gage. (we couldn't afford a leak checker), and large quantities of glyptol were used to plug up leaks, (duct seal wasn't invented yet). The induction coil was rebuilt three times until we got a turns ratio that tuned efficiently, but finally we were able to make the first heat, AA-1 on August 26, 1952, only five months after the start of design.

There was an abundance of scrap Waspaloy available as raw material in the form of 2" bar stock from heats that hadn't met stress rupture specs., and campaigns were run wherein this scrap was remelted and poured into tapered copper molds. After removing the hot tops, these ingots were fullered and flattened by Drop Forge and forged into J-48 buckets. Various metallurgical treatments were tried including deoxidation with carbon and the addition of discrete amounts of titanium and aluminum to adjust the hardener ratio. Stress rupture tests were performed on the forged product on the Dennison Leeds machines Doc got from England, set up in the lab over the summer and run by Kenny Vincent who came over from Drop Forge. Wet chemistries were run by Mert Harrington in his new lab set up on benches bought knocked-down from Sears and put together by the whole crew on weekends. Metallography was done by Bob Kniffen and Erwin Deimal in a modest lab with sinks obtained from a garage sale in Whitesboro.

The stress rupture results were truly amazing. Even by just remelting material which had originally failed the 40 hour spec. we were able to get rupture lives of over 200 hours, and what was equally gratifying was the consistency of properties in the remelted product. Doc was in close contact with P&W, and Win Sharp often visited Clayville to follow the progress. It did not take Pratt long to issue PO No. 449769, Req. No. 782624-A for "24 J-48 Blade Forgings coined to size from vacuum cast PWA 675-B Waspaloy" on November 13, 1952, (just 2 1/2 months after the first heat) . This order was filled, one heat per blade commencing on December 31, 1952 and completed in January 1953. Pratt was nearly ecstatic with the properties of the resultant blades and more orders followed for similar product. It then became a matter of "how much can be produced, and how fast".

The 50 lb. furnace was installed in the late spring of 1953 and the 200 pounder followed a couple of months later. These furnaces, despite early problems with pumping and crucibles, ( store-bought monolithic) were producing "double or triple ingots" weighing 12 or 18 pounds from scrap Waspaloy by the end of the summer. The Lab was a true productive unit, albeit small.

A few words are in order regarding the rest of the Lab's activities during this period. Number 1 furnace was kept busy evaluating new melting practices and developing potentially new alloys. The first heats of what became known as Udimet 500 were melted during this period. Doc was also interested in the dynamics of the forging process and had brought over Tony Notaro to run forging tests on a small drop hammer instrumented with accelerometers and strain gages to monitor the stress-strain curve during the forging process. He was also interested in pursuing the potentials of powder metallurgy, particularly in making intricate shapes such as milling cutters from carbides, and he hired Harry Hamjian, a powder metallurgist at NACA in the summer of 1952 to set up a powder lab. Harry made some impressive products in a hot press set up by Jack Haggerty who joined us about that time, and he and Doc obtained patents on some of the techniques. Harry was switched from the powder work to run the vacuum melting production after the 50 pounder came on line because of the demand for the Waspaloy product. Ray Zoeckler came over from Drop Forge and set up an experimental electrochemical machining device to finish blade surfaces. Roger Loofburrow was hired from Merck to set up the Spec. Lab. with a coffin-like spectrograph, Ray Ermacor joined us to help with a library and handle procurement, Bob Kreimeyer, Ted Hughes, Ray Kluska worked with the furnaces, Gil Dodge joined Kenny in the creep room, Ed Rice was our first draftsman and Jean Edick became Doc's secretary.

In addition, Doc retained Dr. E. S. (Gene) Machlin who had worked with us at NACA, (where he started work on his dislocation theories) to assist in alloy development. Dr. Max Gensamer was also retained to assist in mechanical metallurgy.

Typical of the crises that confronted the operation during the first year was the relative lack of water for cooling of the furnaces. The water supply for the Clayville Plant originated in a reservoir on the west side of the valley. During winter and spring, there was sufficient water to supply the town of Clayville plus the Drop Forge operations, but the summer of 1953 proved to be very dry. The first operation to be curtailed was the vacuum melting, which didn't set well with Doc. To keep running, a well was drilled close to the furnace building, and within a week an abundant vein was tapped which provided a real artesian well with water spouting a foot or more above the 6" casing. This was capped and provided all the water we needed from then on, -- we even let the Machining Division use some of the surplus.

Even before No. 2 and No. 3 furnaces were up and running, Doc felt that the potential of vacuum melting was such that more productive equipment would be required. As Supplement IX to an existing Air Force contract, two 500 pound furnaces were included along with support equipment. The total amount for this equipment totaled $675,000. This supplement was initiated in February 1953, accompanied by letters of support from C. R. Skinner of P&W and F. P. Holter of Curtis-Wright. A letter from Mr. Skinner to Mr. Daugherty states"..... Our engine testing results indicate that a superior blade can be produced by this process, and we have entered our order 527600 with you for 10,000 forgings for the J48 engine which will require 30,000 pounds of vacuum melted metal......." Later he states"......Complementing the above program which has resulted in approval of these forgings for production engines, we are now most actively pursuing potential applications of this vacuum cast material to all models of our J57 engine....".

Design work started on these 500 pound furnaces, (soon to become 1000 pounders by the time they were built). F. J. Stokes Corp. in Philadelphia, PA was selected to build and install them. It soon became apparent that the Clayville location was not large enough to accommodate these furnaces, and a portion of the old Oneida Bleachery in New York Mills was selected as a satisfactory site for the expanding operation.

Chapter 3 -- The Move to New York Mills


The design of the furnaces for the new plant was somewhat unique. It was evident that we could no longer efficiently utilize 18 lb. tapered ingots from heats as large as 1000 pounds. One alternative was to pour two ingots of about 500 pounds apiece (the old S-420 molds), but these would have to be forged and rolled into barstock by an outside company. Another was to pour 48" diameter rings centrifugally and cut them into wedge shaped pieces for subsequent forging. To cover both bets, the furnaces were designed to handle either method. Because of the mass of the centrifugal caster mold and poured ring, the casters had to be mounted on massive concrete piers. The caster shafts protruded through the walls of the 8' diameter stationary covers which were affixed to the caster piers and sealed with 2' diameter rotating seals. The furnaces in 8' diameter by 8' long water cooled shells had to move on standard railroad rails to meet the stationary covers. The 6-10" booster pumps were hung on the sides of the shells, and the capacitors were located on platforms at the rear of the shells. Cooling water and electric power were supplied via catenary loops, and the waste water flowed into the rail channels and back to the recirculating system.

Preliminary design work started in early 1953 and continued throughout the year. A major crisis arose when Ajax Magnathermic withdrew their quotation to build the induction furnaces based on their feelings that "there was no future for vacuum induction melting which would warrant their undertaking design of such large equipment." Tocco in Ohio was selected as an alternate. The final quoted amount for the two units complete with power supplies, pumps and casters was about $359,000. Construction commenced in early 1954.

While the new furnaces were being built at Stokes, work was underway to remodel the bleachery at New York Mills to accommodate both the Clayville equipment, the new furnaces and a considerable list of new shop and test equipment, including a direct reading spectrograph. Some 44,000 square feet of production space and 10,000 square feet of offices and labs were involved. The move from Clayville commenced in March and was finished by the end of April 1954.

The first new furnace, No. 5, arrived from Stokes in August 1954 followed soon thereafter by its companion, No. 4. (The numbering was determined by the furnace location in the new melt shop). There were the usual startup problems, the most severe being the need to rework the 300 KW, 3000Hz supply from the capacitor rack to the induction coil, but trial heats were made during the fall of 1954, and by December some 22 heats had been made in No. 5. The 23rd and 24th heats were centrifugally cast 500 pound, 48" diameter rings.

By early 1955, the plant was in full operation. It was now known as The Metals Division of The Utica Drop Forge and Tool Corp. and Doc was Vice President and General Manager. The centrifugal castings had not proven a viable method of supplying forging stock due to heavy circumferential carbide segregation. It was therefore necessary to go the forging/bar-rolling route, and Latrobe Steel was the primary conversion source, although other shops, including Vanadium Alloys were also used.

Scrap high temperature alloy was still the main raw material. This scrap was obtained from low property air melted heats, hot tops from our ingots, flashing and scrapped forged blades and blades retired from engines. This scrap utilization was not only beneficial from the raw material cost standpoint, but also because it salvaged critical elements in alloys whose chemistries were such that they could not be recycled by air melting. In fact this recycling aspect was a prime reason why the Air Force was so supportive of the process. By December 1954, over 143,000 pounds of Waspaloy scrap had been melted in No. 2 and No. 3 furnaces using 114,000 pounds of scrap, or 80% of the total charged weight.

With four furnaces in operation, having a total capacity of 180,000 lbs. per month, alloys other than Waspaloy, including M-252, the Nimonics and our newly developed U-500 were added to the melt list. GE-Lynn, GE-Cincinatti, Allison and Curtiss-Wright became end-use customers using Drop Forge as the blade forging source. No. 1 furnace was in constant use on alloy and process development, and such techniques as shot pouring in vacuum were explored. Vacuum melting had become accepted in the gas turbine industry as the method to produce reliable blade material, and business was booming.

It soon became apparent that the end of the scrap surplus was at hand, and while there would always be some 40% generated from hot tops, flashing and bar ends, virgin melts must be considered. This brought on another crisis as we found that virgin heats did not produce consistently high stress rupture properties. Statistical analysis eventually showed that the best heats were the first melted in a new crucible and that properties deteriorated as more heats were melted in a campaign. This led to the discovery that trace amounts of boron and zirconium were being leached from the new crucibles and giving the better properties to the first heats. We did not know that the air melters had consistently added these elements to their Waspaloy heats, and using this scrap had automatically provided enough to keep the properties up. The answer for the virgin heats, of course, was to add known quantities of boron and zirconium, which led to a crash program using our new direct reading spectrograph and No. 1 Furnace to determine the optimum amounts.

As 1956 approached, it again became evident that the New York Mills plant with its 2,400 pound total melt capacity operated by some 193 people would not be sufficient to produce the quantities of super alloys projected in the next few years, and it was again necessary to consider new melting equipment. Although No. 4 & 5 were cranking out record amounts of material, they had one serious drawback -- the single frequency (3000 Hz) heated beautifully, but the "four-loop" single phase power supply did not stir well. This necessitated heating and cooling several times to adequately mix a heat before pouring, which added considerable time to the melt cycle.

The writer had read of developments in air melt induction equipment by Dr. Dreyfus at ASEA in Sweden wherein dual frequencies were used -- 890 Hz for heating and 30 Hz for stirring. These frequencies could be superimposed to give excellent temperature control plus the ability to stir at any desired rate. ASEA was contacted and visited us at New York Mills, which resulted in a decision to explore the use of their technique. The writer spent the summer of 1956 at ASEA in Vasteras, Sweden, directing the preliminary design of a 5000 pound furnace, to be the largest VIM furnace in the world.

At the same time, The Kelsey Hayes Co., with headquarters in Detroit, MI was negotiating to buy Drop Forge. The purchase became official in mid 1956, and as part of the agreement, the Metals Division of Utica Drop Forge and Tool Corp. would become the Metals Division of Kelsey Hayes. Plans included the immediate building of a separate plant to house the existing equipment from New York Mills as well as the new 5000 pound furnace being designed. A new forging plant was also to be constructed for Drop Forge on Halsey Road in Whitestown, and at first it was proposed that the Metals Division would be located across the road and share the forge plant's substation. Doc would have absolutely no part of such an arrangement. By this time, sales had been developed with other forge shops and our customer and product base was expanding. He felt that a plant in close proximity to Halsey Road would imply a "captive shop" which would severely hamper his sales plans. He literally "put his job on the line" regarding this decision. In a presentation "Proposed Metals Division Expansion," November 1, 1956, Doc clearly outlined the market potential, goals and facility which would be required, and succeeded in convincing both Mr. Daugherty and Messrs. Kennedy and Williams of Kelsey Hayes that we must have a totally separate plant. A search for property resulted in finding the Middle Settlement Road site, and Doc negotiated the purchase of not only the plot presently owned by SMC but the property up to Clinton Road and a swath up to Seneca Turnpike. It was time to plan to move again.



Chapter 4 -- The Early Days at Middle Settlement Road


Brown and Mathews, an architect-engineering firm in NYC was retained to design the building and support facilities on the Middle Settlement Road Site. They were to include a melt shop large enough for the present furnaces as well as the new furnaces, (there were to be two from ASEA), as well as support operations, generous lab and pilot plant facilities and reasonable office space. It was to be located on the property such that it could be expanded as required and include, in the near future, a rolling mill. The work proceeded at a rapid rate, and construction commenced in the fall of 1957 -- it was ready for occupancy by April 1958.

Meanwhile, the 5000 pound furnace had been designed at ASEA. It was novel in several respects. First, it would include the dual frequency power supply. Second, it would operate at over 500 volts on the coil using a special insulation technique developed at ASEA. Third, since it was to be of a two-chamber configuration to permit mold setup independent of the melting cycle, and had to accommodate a wide variety of mold configurations, the writer adapted a design first used by Mars in Hungary in a lab furnace, wherein the melt was poured through a hollow trunion into the mold chamber. Fourth, in order to accommodate the 12 16" diffusion-booster pumps, the writer employed a 48" diameter manifold with 6 pumps mounted on each side which tied in to the hollow trunion.

ASEA was responsible for the final design and construction of the furnaces, chambers, add maker, pump manifold and power supply, and F. J. Stokes supplied the pumping system. We could find no company who would be responsible for the design and construction of the large rotary seals which were vital to the operation. Joe Byrne, who we hired as project engineer for the furnace, designed these seals and tested them on an eccentric jig on a large Bullard boring mill. They have proven to work without problems from their initial installation.

Doc felt that while the proposed furnace would be ideal when fully debugged, we should have a smaller conventional furnace "just in case." Besides, the projected business plan indicated that a 2000 pound furnace could be used effectively. So the Swedes were asked to furnish one in a horizontal tank with no frills except the dual frequency power supply. This furnace was called No. 6, and was installed in early 1958 in the new plant.

Meanwhile, the rest of the new building with an area of about 100,000 square feet was being readied for occupancy, and the move from New York Mills commenced in April. The original departmental arrangement was as follows:

The melt shop contained No. 2 through 7 furnaces located sequentially from south to north. The centrifugal casters were eliminated when No. 4 & 5 were relocated, and hinged covers were used. Assurance. Sales was located where RDH and PAT's offices are and extended back through the present Production Control. Metallurgy was located where the cafeteria is at present. The cafeteria was where the library is now. The library was in the present conference room adjacent to the lobby. A special chelation lab occupied the present Human Resources and Engineering area. No. 1 furnace was located where the computer room is now There was even a pistol shooting range in the present Q/A area.

The move proceeded in a well-coordinated fashion, and Doc remarked later that one could not pinpoint the moving period from examination of production records before, during and after the move.

No. 6 had some problems with insulation technique on a start up, but the Swedes quickly resolved them, and the furnace soon became a dependable source of ingot products until its retirement in the 1970's when 2000 lb. ingots were no longer in demand.

No. 7 furnace was installed during the summer of 1958 and provided its share of startup difficulties. On the first heat a pinhole leak in a water cooled copper wedge attached to an induction coil caused water to seep through the rammed lining to a point several inches below the melt surface. The resultant steam explosion lifted a sheet of molten metal upwards to the cover, causing badly shaken operators and observers on the platform, but fortunately, no physical harm or major equipment damage resulted. After the mess was cleaned up, the second heat was made (without water cooled wedges), and while pouring into two 2000 lb. cast iron molds, one of them split longitudinally when full. The resultant 8' diameter pancake welded to the mold table requiring considerable time to clean up and repair. The third heat proceeded without problems until the pour, when an inadvertently placed 16' step ladder got entangled in the tilt cylinders, which aborted the heat, and raised Doc's blood pressure.

After this rather ignominious start, things proceeded in a more normal fashion, and No. 7 soon became the company's workhorse. It has continued to crank out metal for some thirty-seven years, changing in product from large ingots to remelt stock, and being increased in size along the line. Its dual frequency melt/stirring arrangement has been unsurpassed on any vacuum furnace later to be installed anywhere in the industry, and considering its original installed cost of approximately $750,400, it was one of the best investments ever made by the company.

By this time, billet product was becoming a sizable fraction of the plant's output. At first, statically cast ingots were converted at Cameron, but problems persisted in ingot homogeneity. Elaborate programs were undertaken to produce static castings with better control of solidification, but these did not prove very effective. It was apparent that VAR melting was necessary to obtain an acceptable cast structure, and we reluctantly resorted to toll VAR melting at Latrobe.

As business continued to increase during the next two years, it became evident that new capital investments would soon be needed if we were to maintain our leadership in the superalloy market. The bar business still remained strong, and it was apparent that we would have to have our own rolling facility. An in-house VAR capability was an eventual necessity, and we would soon be running out of capacity again in VIM, particularly for electrode product. Although we had received excellent support from Kelsey Hayes, they were reluctant, for very sound reasons, in providing the capital required for the major expansions necessary in an area in which they had little experience. Doc had an excellent rapport with both Messrs. Kennedy, Chairman of the Board, and Perry Williams, President, and he got the approval to explore the possibilities of buying the company from Kelsey Hayes.

Without going into the extensive and complex negotiations involved, he succeeded in interesting White Weld and Lehman Brothers in NYC in putting together a package of stock ownership wherein the company would be publicly owned. We spent considerable effort in trying to come up with an appropriate name for the company using every synonym of "vacuum," "alloy," "quality," "technical" etc., but as the day for closing the deal approached, there was still no good candidate. Hearsay has it that when all parties were assembled for the final signing, one of the signatories said, "we've got to have a name on the documents, let's call it Special Metals," and thus came about the SM of the present SMC.



Chapter 5 -- Special Metals Inc


Things moved quickly when we became publicly owned, but first a sidelight which occurred a year earlier in late 1960. In frequent visits to Europe, Doc had developed a close rapport with M. Jean Duval, President of Aubert et Duval in France. This resulted in the signing of an agreement for the exchange of certain technical information between the two companies in November of 1960 in Paris. This agreement led to visits of technical personnel from both companies which has continued for thirty-five years. The help which we received from visits to Les Ancizes on VAR, rolling, forging and melt practices over the years greatly assisted us in fields where we were just starting, particularly in the selection and operation of new equipment, and many technical and personal friendships resulted from the mutual interchanges of data.

The first equipment need to be addressed by the new company was a VAR furnace, C-1. After visits to the Les Ancizes plant, a large Hereaus furnace was ordered from Hanau, Germany and installed in a new addition on the northwest of the melt shop. We could now start supplying our own in-house melted VAR ingots to the billet forgers across the country.

In 1962, we installed a 12,000 lb. furnace built by Stokes. This furnace, No. 8 was a bit of a compromise. We had wanted a unit with a separate mold chamber to reduce cycle time, but budgetary considerations dictated a single tank arrangement which has plagued us ever since from the standpoint of overall efficiency. It did, however, increase our electrode capacity at a time when it was sorely needed. Also, in the same year we added C-2 from Hereaus as a mate to C-1 to increase our VAR capacity.

Bar rolling was still being tolled out, and it was apparent that if we were to remain a dominant factor in this market, we would have to have our own facility. This was a tough call to make. First, the super alloy bar business was not a "tonnage" commodity in the parlance of the steel industry. There would not be bread-and-butter rolling to help defray the capital costs, and it would be essentially dedicated to a single product line. Second, superalloy rolling required a gutsy cogging stand and a very tight and rugged finish train to meet the critical size requirements. Thirdly, we didn't know a damned thing about rolling. With the help of Aubert et Duval and visits to shops in Sweden and Wales, we selected a rugged cogging stand and a three stand finish train without fancy repeaters, etc. This mill, ordered from Morgardshammer in Sweden, was delivered and installed in 1963 in the north east corner of what is now the Bar Mill. Aubert et Duval supplied the roll pass designs used on their Morgardshammer mill, and these were of great help in getting us up and running without an extensive trial and error learning period.

The early 1960's were a very busy time at Special Metals, for business was not only growing but diversifying. It was necessary to learn new processes such as VAR melting and bar rolling and to develop procedures and practices to accommodate the critical requirements of quality superalloys. A cooperative team effort developed among the production, sales, metallurgical, technical, engineering and staff personnel which resulted in solving the problems at hand and developing quality products, which put the company in the lead as the largest and best in the vacuum melting industry.

Then came the cancellation of the Dynosoar and B-70 projects, which seriously impacted the sales picture for the immediate future. While we had experienced the cyclical nature of the industry in the past and ridden with the punches, the bankers behind Special Metals were shaken when $700,000 had to be written off on Rene 41 and losses hit $300,000 on sales of $10 million for fiscal year June 1963 to May 1964. It was apparent that the company needed the financial support of a metals orientated organization more familiar with the unique requirements of our industry. Doc set about locating a potential buyer, and after early discussions with Latrobe, succeeded in selling the company to Allegheny Ludlum in 1965 -- the company whose scrap Waspaloy helped put us in business to start with.



Chapter 6 -- Early SMC Days with Allegheny Ludlum


Under Allegheny Ludlum, whose management at that time recognized the peculiar requirements of a specialty alloy producer, Special Metals Corp. again flourished. Almost immediately, plans were made to start the design of a 30,000 lb. furnace which would more than double our VIM capacity.

The writer recalls a staff luncheon with Ed Hanley, AL's Chairman of the Board, when Doc asked me how much a new 30,000 lb. furnace would cost. After roughly defining the scope, I picked a number of $3.7 million out of the air and within a matter of weeks was given the go-ahead to set up the project. It was unique from the standpoint that I don't think a detailed appropriation request was ever generated and circulated for approval. It was a case of -- we need it, design it, build it and fast. While we retained McKnight, Kirmse and French to design the building, the need was so urgent that it was constructed on a time-and-material basis to eliminate the time normally required for bidding.

Ajax Magnethermic was selected as the prime contractor for the new furnace, based on their developments in induction power supplies (since the days when they had refused to consider powering the 1000 lb. furnaces). The chambers and pumps were sub-contracted to Temescal, who sub-contracted the steam ejectors to Elliot. Several design criteria were set, including a separate mold chamber capable of handling the longest conceivable electrode molds as well as a pony ladle for pouring if desired, two six-stage steam ejector systems -one for the melt chamber and one for the mold chamber with inter-connectibility, a power supply which would permit both heating and stirring and an overhead charge chamber with a locking system.

The furnace was literally designed "on the fly," with a team of Temescal designers in residence in a trailer on Seneca Turnpike to turn out drawings as we finalized design features. The mold chamber underwent many changes before a satisfactory arrangement was developed, and the split melt chamber with a center section holding the coil assembly to facilitate quick crucible changes was added as an after thought.

The melt shop, mold area and charge make-up buildings were erected during the winter of 1966-1967 which was more severe than normal, and by spring, the steam ejectors, boilers and cooling towers were in place. The furnace was erected during the summer and fall, and the first heats were made before the end of the year.

No. 9 was not unique in one respect. It had its share of start-up problems which continued through the first half of 1968. The brick furnace lining, overheated yokes and various electrical switching problems come to mind, but they were systematically solved. June 1968 was a hot month, and we found the BAC cooling towers would not provide sufficient cool water for the steam ejector condensers. These were replaced by BAC and by the fall we were getting reasonable productivity from the new installation.

The latter half of the 1960s saw the installation of other new equipment as well and the development of new processing techniques in VIM and VAR melting as well as conversion and finishing. Without pinpointing the exact dates, the following efforts are examples:

Additional VAR furnaces were required to keep up with the increased VIM capacity. Two Consarc VAR furnaces were procured from Jay Wooding. They were installed as C-3 and C-4 in a pit by the Hereaus furnaces which was no longer needed for silo-cooling of electrodes. They were the first to incorporate Jay's co-axial method of power supply to reduce asymmetric magnetic fields and reduce ingot defects attributed to pool stirring.

To further increase VAR capacity, a wing was built to the west of the Hereaus furnaces and three Hereaus VAR furnaces, which we had been using for toll melting at Wyman Gordon, were installed. Our observers had noticed pool stirring at Wyman which resulted in ingot defects, and a magnetic survey had confirmed the asymmetry. During the move, some major modification in the support structures and power feeds were incorporated to partially eliminate asymmetric fields. It is understood that even today some problems exist however, which precludes their use for certain grades.

VAR melt controls were studied in detail. Soon after our acquisition by Allegheny, a joint program was set up between our VAR shop and the one at Watervliet. We had developed a program to melt defect-free A286 which Watervliet needed, and Breckenridge's electronics group had developed the "Hash Control" for arc gap. We soon acquired the necessary electronics to evaluate the control and eventually incorporated it on all VAR furnaces.

Arc gap controls underwent many revisions during the next five years as improved electronics and control philosophies evolved. This was before the days of the micro processor, so the control and analysis of results was tedious. After trying many approaches, including Jay's "Phantom shorts," we settled on the Robicon control until the computer age arrived ten years later.

Billet conversion was still a toll process. Doc wanted our own in-house forging facility, and many discussions were had with SACK and GFM trying to find equipment which we could afford. Meanwhile, our observers were busy at toll forge shops which eventually included the Dunkirk press shop owned by Allegheny and subsequently sold to Ajax Forging and Casting. This then became the prime conversion source.

The Bar Mill underwent considerable expansion during this period. The Centro-Maskin grinder was installed as well as much more support equipment for heating, finishing and inspection.

Remelt product was supplied, as it is today, from statically cast ingots. Chuck Yaker of Misco and Doc both felt that continuous casting in vacuum had a potential as a more efficient production method. Our first venture into this area took place around 1967 with some trial heats in a small set-up in No. 3 furnace. The results showed enough promise to expand the project to larger heats.

No. 5 furnace was selected for the trials, and a well drilling rig was moved in to the melt shop with its boom over the forward part of the furnace. A well was drilled over 50 feet deep, and a large casing was installed. Within that casing, a vacuum tight 6" pipe was placed and attached to the bottom of an enlarged section of the melt chamber. This became the run out container for 50 ' continuously cast ingots using a specially designed casting station. The resultant product had to be pulled up to the roof of the melt shop and maneuvered over to the cut-off area, where it was cut and processed. The process worked, although it was not particularly elegant. The metallurgical results were less conclusive. At that time, some heats tended to "wet" the crucible during the investment casting process, and it appeared that the continuously cast product was more prone to this phenomenon. Many heats were made and tested before the process was finally abandoned. There is still some question regarding the wetability, but it is a moot point now.

Many projects were proceeding in the Technical Department at this time, including both alloy and process development. I am not familiar with most of these, so cannot accurately describe the details, but powder making was tried as well as the melting of Nitinol. A process was even explored for making the balls for ball-point pens. It was an active period of diverse experimentation.

The plant was running out of space to house the increased salaried force which was required in all departments, so the first section of the present Process Lab. was built, and the equipment from the Pilot Plant in the east wing of the main plant was moved over. This wing was remodeled to provide the offices for the departments which essentially remain there today with a few exceptions. The library was moved from the front to a portion of the area now occupied by Metallurgy with Facilities Engineering occupying the remainder. The main lobby was where the conference room next to Purchasing is now, and all personnel entered through it, with the exception of the Staff. This proved unwieldy and was later eliminated. In addition, the present entrance road and guard house were constructed. Heretofore the entrance road came off Middle Settlement close by the grove of maples on the south east corner of the property, and there was no guard house. Just prior to the erection of the VAR expansion, the substation, which was about where C-5 to C-7 now stand had to be moved to its present location. This was done during a two week vacation shut down and was a beautifully coordinated effort on the part of Facilities Engineering. Of course there were continual changes in the front office layout, and the writer has regretted many times the decision to make the original offices from cinder block. The topsy-like growth in this area raised havoc with the heating/air conditioning systems as well, a fact with which I am sure everyone will agree.



Chapter 7 -- The Decade of the Seventies


During the next decade, SMC reached maturity. It acquired facilities to make it independent of toll services, expanded its product lines, weathered more business cycles and saw a change in leadership with Doc's retirement. Several of the major highlights are described below:

Misco and Doc still felt that remelt stock could be made more efficiently by a continuous casting process, and a new approach was tried in the "Chadwicks" project. This involved feeding a continuous caster with molten metal from a consumably melted ingot and withdrawing it through a dynamic seal and cutting it to length.

The equipment was designed in-house by the Engineering Department and installed in a vacant building leased from Central Steel Erecting in Chadwicks. It consisted of an upper chamber containing the electrode with necessary feed ram, a transition chamber with a water-cooled copper hearth from which the melted metal would flow through a funnel type tundish into the lower chamber. Here an oscillating continuous caster with dummy billet, withdrawal rolls and water cooled cooling clamps solidified the ingot which exited through a three-stage, vacuum pumped, dynamic seal to a traveling saw which cut the ingot and dispatched it by a conveyor-lift to floor level.

The control of the ram drive, melting power, mold oscillation, ingot withdrawal and saw action had to be closely coordinated, and before the days of microprocessors, this was a difficult challenge. After various modifications, including an induction heated tundish and a barrier diaphragm to isolate the upper sections in vacuum from the withdrawal chamber operated in a partial pressure of helium, successful castings were made.

As a production operation however, it was not a dependable process. The main difficulties arose in trying to maintain a constant flow of metal from the tundish where wandering streams and icicles precluded the constant metal flow so necessary for continuous casting. Many tundish modifications were tried, but none proved truly successful, and funds for further development were eventually withdrawn. In retrospect, the process still has potential, and with a controlled secondary heat source (perhaps electron beam), to provide a steady flow and the use of today's computer technology, it might prove viable.

In the early 1970's it suddenly became apparent that the days of unlimited energy were a thing of the past. The "unlimited" supplies of $0.53 per mcf natural gas, which had been touted when No. 9 was installed, suddenly disappeared. There were curtailments during the winter months which forced the shutdown of the furnace, and prices naturally rose. At the same time, the electric energy rates started to increase annually. As a result, SMC became an active participant in the Multiple Intervenors -- a group of industries in upstate NY -- which contested Niagara Mohawk's rate cases and their effect on industry. This group was very effective in using qualified rate-case experts at hearings with the New York State PSC to present industry's side of the testimony. As a result, rate increases were kept in line and substantial savings in electrical energy costs were realized.

A second result of the "energy crunch" was the formation of the Joint Energy Task Force, of which SMC was a co-founder along with Revere Copper and Brass. This group fostered energy conservation programs within-house and for other industries throughout the Mohawk Valley area. Annual energy conservation projects became a standard part of SMC's planning with substantial capital expenditures allotted for those with potential paybacks of three years or less. The Task Force also successfully challenged a potential promulgation by the PSC which would have required a stationary engineer around-the-clock on boilers such as those used on No. 9.

One of the larger conservation projects involved the pumping system on No. 9. While the steam ejectors were very effective in pumping the chambers, they were atrociously inefficient. It was determined that large Roots blowers would be more economical in maintaining operating pressures once the chambers had been roughed down with the hoggers and first steam ejector stages. Four large blowers were thus installed in the late 1970s with an attractive payback at the prevailing natural gas prices and availability.

Doc retired in the middle of the decade, and his retirement party on March 5, 1976 was attended not only by SMC employees, but many former associates, customers and industry leaders to pay him tribute for his visions, leadership and entrepreneurial abilities which resulted in a company internationally renowned as the leader in the vacuum melting industry. Nineteen years later, Doc and his wife Andray reside in Andorra, and his enthusiasm for technology and life in general continues unabated. His current challenge is the mastering of a Pentium computer.

Bob Halverstadt took over the presidency of SMC on Doc's retirement, and under his very able leadership the company continued to expand, not only in the existing product lines, but into new materials and markets as well. He moved on to become President of the Materials Technology Group of Allegheny International in 1981, and John Pridgeon became SMC's Executive Vice president and General Manager.

Billet conversion continued at Ajax's press in Dunkirk, but SMC continually searched for a more elegant in-house method. Several evaluations of forging machines were made on both GFM facilities, one developed by SACK in Witten, Germany as well as at Sandvik Steel in Sweden. The results on the SACK machines showed considerable promise, since the hydraulic action of the four dies gave remarkable hot-work penetration. Many proposals were made for a facility using this technique, once in partnership with Wyman Gordon; a second time with Ajax and third on our own, wherein a large SACK machine could have been procured and installed for a ridiculously low price. Unfortunately, for varying reasons, none of the proposals were approved.

Later in the decade, John Pridgeon, SMC's Vice President of Technology, became President of Ajax. Several of that company's operations were sold, and emphasis was placed on rehabilitating the Dunkirk press plant. The 2000 ton Lake Erie forging press, which had been a state-of-the art facility when it was built in 1957, had suffered severely from lack of maintenance during Ajax's previous management, as had the furnace equipment. Under the direction of SMC, the press was completely disassembled, reworked and rebuilt. New Wepuko pumps replaced the original Dennisons, a new hydraulic system was installed and computer control was incorporated using Pressure Systems Inc. as the contractor. The furnaces were rebuilt and insulated with modern refractories, and the overhead charger, (a vital part for fast material transfer) was refurbished. The press rebuild took place from late November 1977 to February 1978 after which SMC had a reliable means of conversion, although it was still hampered by a single manually operated manipulator of rather ancient vintage.

In early 1974, it became apparent that an electroslag remelting furnace was needed for some alloy grades in which SMC and Allegheny had mutual interests. After some deliberation, an order was placed with Jay Wooding, who had left Consarc and had formed his own design company. The project was plagued with problems from the outset, primarily because the furnace incorporated so many potential capabilities, it was an almost "universal design". Its features were to include:

The capability to melt in the direct current mode with bipolarity and in an alternating current mode as well.

The capability of melting both in air as well as in a controlled atmosphere.

The capability of melting both slabs and cylindrical ingots in a two-station arrangement.

Since bottom poured slag through a "mouse hole" was not permitted because this patent was held by Jay's former company, Consarc, a cumbersome top-pouring system was required. This also necessitated the use of an expensive starter plate.

The copper crucibles were to be electron beam welded.

The cooling water flow through the annulus was to be much greater than usually employed.

Suffice it to say that this was an overly ambitious undertaking for both SMC, who had little practical knowledge of ESR melting, and Jay, who had great ambitions but minimal staff to undertake a venture with the above complexities. As a result, after many delays in construction and installation, it did produce conventional heats, but most of the frills were never used. Its overall design was just too complicated for efficient operation.

The making of superalloy powder continued to be of interest after Joe Wentzel left to set up his own company. An experimental setup was tried in No. 4 furnace wherein metal was poured on the surface of a cylinder rotating on a horizontal axis. The resultant solidified splatter produced some fines, but the majority was flakes.

A second process was explored in which molten metal was poured onto a rapidly spinning cup. This was set up in "The Bluebird", a large tank in the Process Lab. The resultant powder was finer in mesh but yields of useable material were still not impressive. Difficulties also arose in trying to maintain a controlled metal flow to the cup, and its rotational speed was less than optimal. Powder producing became a reality when the Princeton, KY and Ann Arbor, MI facilities of the Federal Mogul Corp. were acquired by SMC in 1975. This acquisition of a highly respected producer of both superalloy powder as well as dental alloys expanded our product base in two attractive areas. The previous history of these plants as well as a summary of their remarkable progress since the acquisition are too lengthy to cover here, It is hoped that they will be sequentially documented by some of the old-timers at Princeton or Ann Arbor before memories become too hazy.

During the Seventies, the Process Lab, (formerly the Pilot Plant), was expanded in size and new equipment was added including:

D-1 furnace to replace the original No. 1 furnace as a more state-of-the-art unit for alloy development.

D-5 furnace which was a modification of No.5 with improved power supply, stirring and pumping.

No. 6 furnace, remodeled to provide centrifugal castings for rocket nozzles for the space shuttle.

Vader melting facilities, first as a pilot unit and later as a full-scale machine to consumably melt axially-opposed electrodes and cast the metal statically or continuously.

Powder making facilities moved from Ann Arbor as well as the Bluebird.

In 1978, ASM International designated No.1 furnace an Historical Landmark, and it was located by the flagpole in front of the main offices of SMC. An accompanying plaque states "In 1952, first commercial, vacuum melting induction furnace for production of superalloys. VIM processing upgraded the quality of existing alloys and made possible production of stronger, more ductile superalloys containing higher percentages of reactive elements."



Closing Thoughts


The preceding chapters give only a few of the highlights of SMC's fascinating history. As I indicated in the Introduction, the events described primarily cover equipment or process related activities, and I am sure I have omitted many which should have been included. Unfortunately, little has been said about sales and markets, technical and alloy development, production practices, financial details, personnel and management organization. These areas are equally fascinating , but I am not qualified to document their highlights. Perhaps they may be summarized by someone before the records are lost.

With a few exceptions, I have refrained from mentioning specific individuals after the Clayville days. I was often tempted to include many people in various departments who were so instrumental to SMC's development. But I could not include them all, and did not want to slight anyone.

I have ended the history on or about the start of the 1980s, and I feel I have not done justice to the era under Bob Halverstadt's leadership. The company by this time had reached maturity in its conventional superalloy product lines, and Bob led the way to diversification into sophisticated powder metallurgical products, various joint ventures, capital expansions and departmental reorganizations to maintain SMC's leadership in a field which had become intensely competitive. The days of just adding new equipment to keep up with the demand were over, and elaborate marketing, financial, production and engineering studies were required before a sound capital investment could be justified. His engineering and business background, combined with an unflagging enthusiasm for cutting-edge technology helped maintain SMC's position in the industry.

The succeeding fifteen years have been equally interesting with changes in ownership and management as well as some important facility additions and product line changes. It is hoped that someone will document the highlights of this period to bring the history of Special Metals up-to-date...






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