Previous issues (Sept. 2004) explained how SCS offers cost advantages over P&O, temper pass and CRS. But can it offer cost savings over the basic hot rolled black (HRB) steel from which SCS itself is produced?

At first glance, this seems unlikely. After all, HRB goes from the mill right to the steel processor where it’s slit or blanked. There’s no extra stop along the way (such as an SCS process) to add process cost, freight cost or “carrying cost” (interest on working capital). So how can SCS beat HRB economics?

  Economics 102: SCS vs. HRB

  Brush Breakthrough Opens Up
              SCS Production Market

  SCS Sales Center On Your PC

Subscribe to SCS UPDATE

If you go beyond the price tag on a coil or stack of blanks and look at the total value chain, you see SCS offers manufacturers and steel processors savings in two areas: painting prep costs and rust claims.

The Cost of Getting Steel Clean
Manufacturers often use HRB if they can’t afford a multi-stage paint prep system (even if capital cost is not prohibitive, sometimes there’s just no floorspace). But the tradeoff is HRB still needs manual paint prep. That may be a thorough wiping down with solvent and rags, but if minor surface rust developed some light grinding is needed. Manual processes add cost, but what’s worse is they stretch out production time right when you’re trying to get products finished and shipped.

Replacing HRB with SCS eliminates the rust problem and the solvent cleanup is virtually eliminated. SCS arrives so clean that the only paint prep needed is usually wiping off dirt from handling.

Making Rust Problems Disappear
HRB with rust rarely gets to the manufacturer. It's the problem of the steel processor, who rejects rusted coils and issues a rust claim to his supplier mill. Even if the mill honors the claim, the steel processor must scramble to replace coils and avoid missing his delivery to the manufacturer. This raises his cost and plays havoc with scheduling.

But if the processor operates an SCS Coil Line, rust problems can disappear. The SCS process completely removes surface rust leaving a uniformly smooth, clean, cold roll surface. And the rust will not return! It's gone and there's no need to apply oil or other preservative to the SCS surface. A light “ghost stain” remains where rust was removed (see photos), but this stain presents no problems for paint coverage or appearance - a fact that’s been proven in controlled tests.

So whether you buy HRB to make products or process HRB for sale, claim your savings by giving SCS a trial. You can reduce non-value-added paint prep and make mill claims for rust a thing of the past.

Extensive development and testing of new-technology Brush Rollers (’brushes’) for the SCS Sheet Line is complete and results have exceeded expectations. This means SCS production capacity is now a more affordable investment for a much broader range of steel processors.

The reason? The steel being brushed no longer needs to be as flat as the original brushes required. The original brushes (shown below) were made of a harder material that adapted less to shape irregularities in the sheet. This meant the sheet had to meet a 1 I-Unit requirement (deviate no more than 1/8" in height across its surface).

Roller levelers don’t work the material in a way that gets it that flat, especially after it’s sheared in a cut-to-length or blanking line. To guarantee this level of flatness required use of a stretcher-leveler. Stretcher leveling is the reliable way to correct shape problems like edge wave, center buckle and oil canning to get material ‘super-flat’ (see “How Flat is That” in November 2004 The Fabricator). Another benefit to the stretcher leveling is it removes all residual stress in the sheet, so there’s no ‘springback’ after cutting - important to fabricators of close-tolerance parts. Still, not all applications require such ‘super-flat’ material. And at a price tag of $3.5 million, a stretcher-leveler is an imposing investment for smaller service centers - one that might have kept them from becoming SCS producers. The new brushes are bristle-style brushes which are much more accommodating of surface irregularities. These brushes work well with material at 100 I-Units, which equates to a 5/8” wave in 30” of sheet length.

That means an SCS Sheet Line can now reliably process material that comes directly from a temper pass line or roller-leveling line, and that opens up enormous potential. At an average price of $1.3 million (not including SCS License fee), the SCS Sheet Line can affordably be brought into a facility with an existing blanking line, temper pass cut-to-length line or roller leveler line. In fact, adding SCS capability enhances the value of the existing lines since they are used in the production of a more valuable product - SCS! So steel processors who struggled to justify investment in a stretcher-leveler or a complete SCS Strip Line can now ‘Get in the Game’ with just the SCS Brush Cleaner complementing their existing processing lines.

TMW and Red Bud Industries, the SCS equipment supplier, have begun reserving production slots for SCS Sheet Lines in order to meet the demand this breakthrough in brush technology has created. Contact TMW for more information.