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.

Have you had the pleasure as yet of partaking in the new web tv extravaganza that steel behemoth Arcelor Mittal have put together? If the header is to be believed then it could very well be called Inside Transforming Tomorrow.

Not only that but there’s a blog to tickle your fancy as well. It looks fabulous. But, as we all know, looks can often be quite deceptive fellows.

I mean, for a start off there’s that damn pic above. It isn’t some kind of spoof, I can assure you. And neither is the following post that I found: Shop floor Safety audits: we focus on people

Is there anything more rewarding that (sic) helping to save a life? Our colleagues here at the Luxembourg Headquarters had the opportunity to learn some days ago that everyone in our Group can do it! How? Thanks to what we call a ‘shop floor audit’. Let us explain to you how that works.

Seriously, I’m not making this up.

Diving into a freezing lake, or charging into a burning building with little thought to your own personal safety possibly warrants a pat on the back and a couple of column inches in the local paper, but implementing a few health and safety measures to ensure people don’t get squashed by a fork lift truck doesn’t.

At Butler Sheetmetal we’ve saved at least three lives by pointing out that sticking one’s noggin inside the hydroform could cause a few problems.

Anyway, I’m sure once the exuberant upbeat tone of the PR department has run its course there’ll be some right riveting stuff going on…..and I’m not being facetious either.

For the time being, it’s corporate answer to The Day Today.

It’s obvious that you build yourself a Web presence to improve your business. A lot of people also think it’s obvious to build a presence to drag that business in from a manner of weird and wonderful places. A global or countrywide reach is all fine and dandy doodle, but consolidating an area you already have your mucky paws on also makes a bit of sense.

We still don’t have a sales team, or do anything other than word of mouth and the internet. Well why fix what ain’t broke, or more importantly, doesn’t cost that much?

But I still find it kinda cool that the biggest paying job we’ve had thus far online came from a company just across the road in Colne. Boundary Mill, situated right next to Asda in Colne, were moving just across the road as they’d more than outgrown their existing premises and had built a brand spanking new set.

Apparently, all the needed was a full set of stainless steel planters to look nice and shiny on their restaurant balcony looking out over Pendle Hill. As you may have gathered by now, there’s little chance you’re going to drive up and down Burnley Road and passing Butler Sheetmetal HQ thinking there’s a blossoming planter operation going on.

They had been doing their homework online - like any reasonable business should in this day and age - to find somebody in the UK who could fabricate them some stainless steel planters. I’ve no idea if they found us though this site or through Tinpot Alley, but either way, it didn’t take them too long to work out that we’d be fairly cheap on the old delivery front. We could just get Jasper to handball them down the road if needs be.

I suppose the point is that they came across us online and thought we might be worth contacting before they found out walking round would’ve been as quick as firing off an email. And that cheers me up no end.

Anyway, less gassing and more pictures:

Large circular stainless steel planter.

Custom rectangular stainless steel planter

Planters with nice balcony view.

I’ve got a load more planter pictures that I’ll be putting up onto flickr once they’ve swept up.

Nothing says Happy Birthday quite like a quickly rustled together blog post.

Happy Birthday, John.

Apparently he’s forty whatever and I don’t doubt he’ll be celebrating by getting his lanky backside whooped by Dean at squash Friday night and then having some kind of birthday tea on Sunday with my Grandma having to toil all weekend over her meringues.

She’ll be 90 this year, y’know. It really is time my sister learned how to make the damn things. But, considering her answer to doing anything in the kitchen is to turn the oven up to its highest setting thinking things will cook slightly faster, then it’s probably best my Grandma sticks to getting up at 5am.

Besides all these chronological milestones, we’ve also got Butler Sheetmetal turning ten this year. It really is a decade since they roped me in to scrape my knuckles raw taking Victorian-era plaster off walls for nothing and I’m still doing the metaphorical equivalent writing this blooming blog.

I know, ’tis a hard knock life.

But, when you’ve built not only a business over ten years, but also had a hand in the revamping of your premises, it’s understandable if there’s a bit of emotional attachment to a place. Saying that, it’s still something of a hell hole. Perhaps it’s a certain emotional attachment that’s kept the original sign up outside the place for the past ten years:

BSM HQ replete with next door’s gypsy ice cream van and dodgy yellow peril.

Then again, it’s probably them just being tight.

Whether they move to their new place that’s almost finished, or whether they get chance to expand further into the bowels of former foundry hell and rent the new place to somebody will depend purely on what makes most business sense. Obviously.

Oh, and having a next door neighbour who doesn’t park rickety old ice cream vans blocking access to the front door may be the clincher.

Mono-browed Muppets.