Non-Rheumatic Steel

Four years ago Herbert W. Graham, supervising metallurgist for the fourth largest U. S. steel maker, Jones & Laughlin, persuaded his company to build a miniature steel mill for research. This $175,000 toy mill's open-hearth furnace, ingot molds, soaking pit and rollers produce one-inch square bars.

Last week, as result of experiments in the little Pittsburgh "pilot mill." J. & L. introduced a new process which it hopes will give the company dominance of the seamless pipe market. Hitherto manganese, the element which gives, steel its pliability, has been apt to cluster instead of spreading evenly through the steel; now J. & L. is feeding manganese into the molten metal in carefully measured and shaped lots. The new process, says Metallurgist Graham, is like using bits of quick-dissolving granulated sugar in coffee rather than lump sugar. The analogy would be more accurate, he adds, if lump sugar caused rheumatism and granulated did not.

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