Hillary
Where’s the sixty quid you borrowed off me for the gas?
Hillary, The Fall

Never in the history of political machinations and sycophantic panderings to the will of the common man has the humble sheet metal worker / steel mill worker been as important as in 2008. It’s the new blue collar barometer.

It all started with the $400 haircut, John Edwards, and his incessant ramblings about his Dad having worked the steel mills all his life. The tone had been set, and once he dropped out both Barack and Hillary continued to carry that particular torch.

But it’s Hillary who is somehow the champion of the humble sheet metal worker. She’s been endorsed by SMART and has also been hailed as having ‘testicular fortitude’ by Paul Gibson, the President of the Sheet Metal Workers’ Union:

“If you’re thinking the next President of the United States should address and amend and convince people that here are the flaws with that law, and here’s what we’re supposed to do and it shouldn’t cause harm to either border,” said Gibson. “Well, you know what, then I truly believe that that is going to take an individual that has testicular fortitude, that’s exactly right, that’s what we got to have.”

Gibson told the crowd that he is fed up with people who exploit American workers. “I am sick and tired of these Gucci wearing, latte drinking, self-centered, egotistical people that have damaged our lifestyle,” he said to a standing ovation from the crowd.

But it didn’t stop with that nonsense. A couple of days later we had Hillary actually travelling to work with a ’sheet metal worker’ and fielding questions at a gas station as the sheet metal fella pumped the gas. Not that she fielded them awfully well as she confessed to having not filled up for a good few years as the secret service tends to take care of that kind of thing.

Oh, us working class folks can empathise with that, love.

But, being the true working girl she is, Hillary managed to stop off to pick up a brew while simultaneously pandering to the working class sheet metal type who’s spent the night previously getting smashed by struggling to work the coffee machine. Although, Jasper has never had the same problem after hitting the cooking sherry:

Trust me when I say not all sheet metal types are automatic Clinton shoe-ins. Unless you’re a sheet metal type that consistently runs to the right of George Bush that is.

Then again, what do I know? I’m nothing but an elitist blogger.

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Harland & Wolff Ship Broken for Scrap

The linked photoset from this weekend’s Guardian:

April 12 2008: Belfast, UK: The MSC Napoli cargo ship lies in a dry dock at Harland and Wolff ship builders as it is dismantled for recycling. The ship was grounded off the English coast after getting into difficulties during bad weather in January 2007. After she was split into two pieces, the largest front section was floated to the Harland and Wolff shipyard for recycling in August 2007. After the removal of approximately 80 cubic tonnes of waste oil and other pollutants 150 workers began the task of cutting up the high grade steel of the Napoli by hand. The steel is then smelted locally in Belfast and will most likely be used for ship building. The whole process will be finished in three to four weeks.

This is one for Jasper seeming he spent his apprenticeship in the shipyards of Glasgow. I’d like to say he’s bored us rigid with his tales of welding ship floors, but we still don’t have a clue from day to day what he’s talking about. Think of it as a blessing in disguise.

But I’m also pretty confident it’ll get everybody who swarms round The Tinbasher for out-of-date scrap steel prices hot under the collar, too.

Syd Mead futuristic illustration for United States Steel

This is part of an absolutely marvellous flickr set of what United States Steel thought the future might hold. It’s a touch more optimistic than their British counterpart, Corus, who only managed to inspire the dystopia that is Blade Runner with their monstrosity of a steel plant in Port Talbot.

However, USS obviously didn’t figure current prices into the equation.

[cap doff]

I always get mightily confuddled by various steel grades and types. Oh, I have the basics from 304 to 316 down pat, but when our Steve at Steel Strip mentioned to me that he’d started selling small quantities of spring steel I had to scurry off to Wikipedia to find out what spring steel actually was. All we get is this paltry stub:

Spring steel is a low alloy, medium carbon steel with a very high yield strength. This allows objects made of spring steel to return to their original shape despite significant bending or twisting.

Silicon is the key component to most spring steel alloys. An example of a spring steel used for cars would be AISI 9255 (DIN and UNI: 55Si7, AFNOR 55S7), containing 1.50%-1.80% silicon, 0.70%-1.00% manganese and 0.52%-0.60% carbon.

Most spring steels (as used in cars) are hardened and then tempered to about 45 on the Rockwell C-Scale.

According to Machinery’s Handbook, “The spring materials most commonly used include high-carbon spring steels, alloy spring steels, stainless spring steels, copper-base spring alloys, and nickel-base spring alloys.” According to the same, the most widely used spring steel is ASTM A228 (0.80–0.95% carbon) known as “music wire”.

I presume we’re not talking about slinky spring steel?

It makes a change to hear of somebody prepared to service the little guy…..as it were. Here’s Steve’s raison d’etre and combined mission statement:

Whilst steel mills regularly insist on minimum order quantities of up to 5 tons, and stockholders upwards of a ton, we have recognised the need of smaller engineering companies who may require as little as a single sheet to complete a project, or to replace a part in an aging piece of plant.

It can be frustrating and time consuming for an engineer to spend hours on the telephone trying to source small quantities of spring steel, only to find the supplier loses interest the moment he realises the small quantity involved. To be honest it’s as a big a problem often for the supplier as for the customer! Not for us.

So, if you’re looking to buy spring steel in small quantities I’d recommend you go and have a word with Steve over at Steel Strip as he’s a top bloke. Or, you can give him a bell on +44 1952 290313. (Yes, he can ship worldwide.)

Oh, and I can assure you I’m not on any commission. I just like it when people aren’t trying to stiff smaller companies - especially when they happen to be a mate.