AIST Steel Wheel

Very neat. If you ever have the opportunity to visit a steel mill I'd recommend doing so. The scale of the operation and the incredible energy and forces involved are out of this world, it's the closest you'll ever feel to visiting the lap of the gods without seeing a pyramid. I've lived in two 'steel towns', and each of them had their own cadre of thousands of workers who gave those towns a particular atmosphere. It's like an army, everybody has a role in keeping the material flowing and the work product delivered as a continuous stream that you can usually trace back for many decades. The gear can be anything from made a few months ago to 10s of years old and it's all part of an immense machine, parts of which are being replaced or in maintenance all the time.

It's not rare to have factories attached to the factory (typically on the same complex) to produce either tools, materials or special purpose machinery. These can be pretty impressive by themselves. And of course plenty of those use some of the steel that was produced right next door. And then there is the education department. Not content to just hire people and put them to work each steel factory has its own internal education track to ensure that people will be able to work smoothly together and with sufficient knowledge to ensure that the product made will be up to spec.

It looks so simple, a piece of rebar, a pipe or a rail from a railroad. But behind each of them there is an enormous amount of knowledge and process control to a degree that is most impressive.

Seriously: if you have never visited a steel mill, go do it.

I was surprised to see the Pittsburgh Steelers logo on this site, but then it turns out their logo is based on the Steelmark. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steelmark

Neat.

Terrible interface but awesome animations, thanks for posting this.

This would make a fun Factorio-style game! Modern smithing with all its intricacies.

My goal: to use "tundish" in a sentence tomorrow.