Industrial Challenge-Kentucky Electric Steel Melt Shop

[nkalanaga]

Howard Tayler: "There is no 'overkill.' There is only 'open fire' and 'reload.' "

Clear spray may be overkill for brick paper, but water damage would be very hard to fix on a finished model.

[OldEastRR]

This is an HO Electric Furnace kit I stretched into a generic N steel mill structure which is used as a BOF. (the "small" building was a subsequent add-on). There's no interior detail. By using a sheet of plain .040" thick styrene sheet for the back unseen wall, I got a lot of the Walthers wall material to use for the visible walls. For back-up I found Evergreen steel siding sheet matched the Walthers stuff pretty closely. Also used it for the shorter roof. Plastruct not only makes the huge pipes, joints and supports, they have a decent scale corrugated metal siding w/o ridges, too (not used here). Since SM buildings have huge openings in the sides, that helped me stretch the Walthers wall supply.



Another view:



Just can't be a SM without a crane blister on something.
The big venting pipe is meant to channel heat to processes in other buildings. Building a framework and extended piping between buildings is another neat model detail.

[Kentuckian]

Nice! I like the weathering. Thanks for posting the pictures.

[Kentuckian]

Tinkering with things I didn’t like while I decide how to paint/assemble the main structure. The original Furnace supports were made from three layers of .060 styrene sheet. They were okay, but it couldn’t get them square with the score and snap method. I decided to use 1/4” basswood, these are on the right.

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[nkalanaga]

Somewhat off-topic, but I stopped at KES today, and asked the gate attendant about their plans.  The question was "are you shutting down and scrapping the plant, or just idling it until business improves?".  She said the original plan was to scrap it, but they have an "interested buyer", and it looks like the deal will go through.  Naturally, she didn't give any other details, and I didn't ask.  But she did volunteer that IF the deal goes through, they hope to running again in "mid-May".

So there is hope the plant, but it isn't saved yet.

Since they have a fully trained crew, and a management team on site, it wouldn't be hard for any company that understands the steel industry to take over, whether they've ever owned a steel mill or not.  I wonder if Mansbach Metals, the local scrap dealer in Ashland, might be the buyer?  Most of their metal seems to go to KES, so it would be a natural acquisition.  They have their own locomotives, which sometimes make it out of the scrap yard and onto the CSX main in Ashland, so they could even buy the branch, with trackage rights from the yard to the junction.  KES is the only customer on the branch now, so it wouldn't affect anybody else.  Mansbach used to have scrap gons lettered MMC, and those reporting marks apparently aren't assigned now, so that would work.

MMCX is now assigned, so my mining company has a problem.  But I got there first!

[Kentuckian]

I was hoping the tariffs would help KES.of course, Mansbach is who started it.

[nkalanaga]

"Mansbach is who started it"

I never knew that.  That probably explains Mansbach Road, across the state highway from KES. 

[nkalanaga]

Possibly of interest to some who followed this topic:

UPDATE: Boyd County steel mill has rebirth months after 113 layoffs
By Andrew Colegrove, Chad Hedrick, Nick Oliver |
Posted: Wed 5:18 PM, Oct 17, 2018  |
Updated: Wed 6:27 PM, Oct 17, 2018

https://www.wsaz.com/content/news/113-jobs-to-be-cut-in-Ashland-plant-closure-468490003.html

Summary is they plan to start producing steel next month, are hiring 40 people to start, with 20 more when production starts, and will give preference to former KES employees.  Unsaid, but if the business does well, there will probably be more hires in the future.

[Kentuckian]

Thanks for posting!

[nkalanaga]

The storage area lights, both outside and in the sheds, were on tonight, there are lights in the plant itself, and there are gons on the ex-mainline, now car storage.  They looked empty, but could have had scrap that I couldn't see, or they could be for loading finished steel.  Looks like they are actually back in business!