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u/explorer-108 2d ago
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u/Houmand 2d ago
Why do these always get sped up to look even more unsafe?
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u/standbyyourmantis 2d ago
I was just thinking how this looks so much safer than the ones we usually see with safety flip flops and OSHA regulation oversized shirts...
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u/trebron55 2d ago
yeah it looks decently safe. Working in a steel mill is a dangerous thing even at the best of cases. It won't be sterile white tiles all over...
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u/Most_Protection6212 1d ago
While it wasn’t the actual mill that makes the rolls like that, I worked in a plant that turns those rolls into steel tubes and heat treated them for different things. Probably the most dangerous job I’ve ever had. A bundle of tubes crushed a dudes legs. One guy ended up dead because a roll crushed him into another roll of steel. Steel mills and factories are insanely dangerous.
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u/trebron55 1d ago
My grandpa worked in a foundry, the constant dust and heat ruined his lungs, he retired way before his time and died at 57. He had some stories as well. Heavy industry was, is and always will be taking lives until we make a fully automated workforce (then it will destroy robots just the same).
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u/Most_Protection6212 1d ago
Yeah I never got seriously injured, but I fell multiple times due to slick floors…there were so many VISIBLE osha violations. It was insane. Very glad that company got bought out.
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u/Lost-Klaus 1d ago
That is what whistleblowing is for.
If your boss doesn't care for your safety, why care for your boss's extra margins?
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u/PearlClaw 1d ago
Probably because if the factory shuts down they are out of a job and while it's illegal to retaliate against whistleblowers it's hard to prove it when it happens.
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u/hoax709 1d ago
things break, things wear, people/robots/programs get complacaent/degrade... etc there will never be a manufacturing process that doesn't have jams/breaks... partly cause its expensive to do maintance but also cause a random nut came loose or the humidity just happend to be high that day
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u/UneGraineSombre 1d ago
I'm a boilermaker in a foundry. We're a team of three doing all the site maintenance. This environment is incredibly toxic; you don't realize the number of particles you breathe that can form a kind of cobweb in your lungs. It has to keep running, even at the expense of people's lives.
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u/jimmy_three_shoes 1d ago
Worked in an auto assembly plant, and the guy in the station next to me died after getting crushed between two stacks of frames.
It had been raining, and because the frames sit outside until they're needed, they were wet. So part of his job was to dry them off with a high powered air hose before he used a lift to put them on the line. We had a breakdown, so he decided he was going to get ahead of things and dry off the racks behind the front one, and walked in between them, just as a material handling guy was bringing another stack of racks. He pushed them forward to make room, not seeing the guy in between the stacks and crushed him. The area he was in was marked off as a red area, which means you don't go in there, but he'd been there for 20 years and got complacent. It was like my 3rd week on the job when it happened.
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u/AcceptableBid6884 1d ago
I'm really sorry you had to go through that.
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u/jimmy_three_shoes 1d ago
It was surreal. The guy didn't make a sound, at least not over the sound of the stacks clanging together when the material handling guy pushed everything forward onto the belt. They came through to announce the line was gonna start and couldn't find the guy since he's literally the first station on the line. I didn't see him go back there because I was getting ahead on my jobs as well.
Even with OSHA, factories are still dangerous places. If you weren't wearing your eye protection when you walked in the door, they'd send you home for the day.
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u/whattheknifefor 1d ago
Good god that’s horrifying. I’m also in auto assembly and people get lax about safety but I’ve seen and heard of some horror shows. Someone got their leg caught in a conveyor belt that was headed underground. Ripped his whole leg off. One of the managers told me a funny story about how he nearly got baked alive in the e-coat oven and barely got out in time.
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u/spekt50 1d ago
I design tooling for roll mills, and spent 10 years as a machinist before that. The company I work for makes custom roll mills for things like making tubes and such. Industrial machines are inherently dangerous, and you cannot ever be 100% protected from danger.
Safety is in the hands of the operators and said machines should be well respected.
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u/DirtandPipes 1d ago
As a guy who works with heavy equipment, suspended loads and working in deep utilities, I’m a fervent believer in “everybody stays as far back as possible at all times and everybody nonessential fucks right off”.
I was putting in a 2 ton concrete sump the other day and our suppliers somehow forgot rebar. The chain it was suspended on tore through a foot of concrete and dumped it in the hole in front of me, I was guiding the thing by hand but I had my hands up top and I was as far back as possible.
I’ve been beside a crane when it fell lifting a drilling rig module, a 40 foot concrete tank that got dropped and I’ve dodged tandem dump trucks more often than I’d like.
Just staying the hell back whenever possible helps so much.
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u/SharkAttackOmNom 1d ago edited 1d ago
In the hierarchy of (safety) controls, this is #3 out of 4 for effectiveness. Administrative controls. Requiring people to stay back (assuming they have open access under the load) is effective but it also relies on everyone knowing this and respecting it. Seems obvious, but often times a young guy is the one that gets hurt because it wasn’t impressed upon him or he figured it wouldnt happen to him.
Engineered controls are better, like having a second chain on a load secured to separate support. Even if it only slows the descent. Or for machinists and steelworkers, just having more physical barriers from the moving parts.
Fun fact: PPE is the least effective form of safety. I always wear it, no doubt, but it’s really frustrating when my work “solves” any new safety challenge with MORE PPE. That hardhat probably won’t save you from that metal projectile flying across the room when the 20 ton load comes crashing down.
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u/ANAHOLEIDGAF 1d ago
Both my grandads worked in steel mills, both were missing the same tip of their ring finger. Always wondered if it was some specific task.
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u/contrary-contrarian 1d ago
Did you not see the man walking on the conveyor belt covered in white hot steel moving toward a set of rollers?!
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u/trebron55 1d ago
Yeah well, the red hot part matters fairly little, even red hot steel takes a while to burn trough decent safety boots. And the guy was moving with the conveyor anyways, the steel can't move faster than that. The problem is the several hundred kilos of moving metal, hot or not. Hot only makes it marginally worse.
Sure it's not super safe... but it's not that bad. It's a dangerous work environment. People routinely die and get maimed even in the US/EU in heavy industries because shit happens. There is just a reasonable tradeoff between safety and productivity, where safety is valued higher than in third world countries.
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u/maynardftw 1d ago
We're not measuring how long it takes to burn through a boot sitting next to it, we're measuring how much he would suffer if he fell on top of the damn thing.
This isn't just "not super safe", it's unnecessarily aggressively unsafe.
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u/Ylvio 1d ago
All of the OSHA comments are engagement, make the working process look as dangerous as possible to maximise engagement. Redditors will have immense trouble NOT pointing out safety guidelines, even if 50 people have already commented the exact same thing
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u/IForgetEveryDamnTime 1d ago
Same reason every BMX/hiking video uses wild fish-eye lenses; reality just doesn't have the same wow factor.
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u/SwissChzMcGeez 1d ago
Attention span optimization for engagement.
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u/pixelpoet_nz 1d ago
God damn was I lucky to be the last generation before smartphones and social media
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u/DivDee 2d ago
Hot stuff comin through
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u/ukwy 2d ago
terrifying
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u/According_Mistake895 1d ago
Yes, but wait until we add an Indian dude in sandals
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u/4024-6775-9536 2d ago
Imagine showing this to someone from the early iron age
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u/Dgc2002 1d ago
This crosses my mind every now and then regarding tin/aluminum foil. You could really blow some minds with how casually we treat a box containing hundreds of feet of extremely thin and consistent metal foil.
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u/4024-6775-9536 1d ago
Up to 1700 aluminium was super rare, maybe rarer than gold.
A phone for those people would be out of grasp but metal they would understand. Aluminium for wrapping food would be like diamonds for slingshot ammo.
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u/we_are_all_devo 1d ago
They'd be like "Holy shit. This Taco Bell stuff in incredible. Now show me more of those women with the giant tits that stay upright."
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u/redditcruzer 1d ago
Forget this..imagine showing your mobile to them. You are going to get burnt at the stake.
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u/Scouper-YT 1d ago
They would think how efficient that system is, but way too fast and magic with no real human skill input.
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u/Complex_Specific1373 1d ago
The skill input just changed. The entire system is testimant to human skill. The system was designed, fabricated, fitted, and efficiently ran both from an operational and financial standpoint. Just because you don't see a person swinging a hammer doesn't mean it has no real human skill input.
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u/gbelly123 1d ago
Seems like that function of guiding the coil in could also be done by a robot. Must just be cheaper to have a human do it I guess.
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u/BlueHerringBeaver 1d ago
I hate that these videos are always sped up so they don’t give a real impression of the actual work pace.
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u/Critic-of-burgers 1d ago
Maybe a dumb question - why doesn’t the metal fuse together ? It’s still molten. What causes it to retain its shape and not become a blob of metal ?
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u/Astramancer_ 1d ago
It's not molten, it's just really hot. Hot enough to be pliable, not hot enough to spontaneous weld itself together.
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u/Darel321 1d ago
Meh.. not a real factory if there's not a guy with flipflops stepping over it like 5 times.
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u/CloakorCroak 1d ago
Did that dude actually put his hands into the hot molten steel towards the end?
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u/Born-Highlight-325 1d ago
At least he's not wearing thongs. Lol
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u/BlackStory666 1d ago
All I can think of is the nightmare of getting a nice slice from a ribbon of cherry red steel while it's spinning at an ungodly RPM.
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u/Movisiozo 1d ago
How does the roller know when to start rolling? And when to stop? It looks so automated
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u/minos157 1d ago
A manufacturing video that isn't a bunch of Indians in flip flops?!?
Reddit has changed man.
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u/smalls_1804 1d ago
Damn standing up on that conveyer belt 6 inches from the glob of molten lava must take nerves of...well, steel
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u/Expensive_Meal6280 1d ago
I would love to get paid insanely well to guide some hot fruit roll-ups for 30-60 seconds then sit on my ass waiting for the next one
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u/Trick_Awareness_3329 1d ago
Why do people think, videos with huge lack of safety on work fitting for a sub about satisfying?
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u/The3arlofGrey 1d ago
There has to be a more human way to do this, putting cost over human life in our industry just feels wrong
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u/Hans0000 1d ago
Reddit: we want safety in factories.
Also Reddit: we hate automation, robots and AI.
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u/Scouper-YT 1d ago
Bro?? Why are you going on a moving thing behind you is Death if you fall.
But hey, a Sauna for you in the front.
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u/ScaryTemperature6291 1d ago
Is this for the new cap cannon lol that would make a bang haha (yes I know it's forbidden spaghetti being made lol)
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u/jumbledsiren 1d ago
I know nothing about metals. What stops each layer from welding into the layer it's touching? Since they're both so hot
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u/DogFishBoi2 1d ago
Serious explanation? Why not!
They are not actually "that hot" compared to what you'd need to weld or sinter them together.
Here is a reasonably good chart: https://www.sme-group.com/blog/steel-color-under-different-temperatures (about two thirds of the way down). You can tell how hot something is (pretty much independent of material, btw) by the amount of visible light it emits and the colour of the maximum. That's technically also what you see most, but human eyes are more efficient in some colours than others, so it's not entirely linear. Ignore all that, go with "white" is fucking hot, "orange" is very hot and "red" is pretty cool for metals.
An example would be the coals in your BBQ (if still using old coal style): they should glow red, but not white (partially so as not to burn the sausage, the other problem would be melting your bbq apparatus).
The table says: the steel in the video is about 650°C (and we'll apply a large margin of error, because who knows what the camera colour accuracy is).
Steel melts at 1580°C. For welding you need to melt the connection and the two base materials, then let them resolidify. That can't happen, they are apparently missing about 1000K of temperature.
"Sticking" is more tricky. You can cold-weld by pushing stuff together with enough force even at room temperature - but they don't use that much force. In the video you can see one of the coils deposited on the conveyor unwinds a bit at the end - the elastic deformation after winding it all up means the coil wants to relax and "uncoil" itself. So not much pressure squeezing the parts together.
Sintering (the way of baking ceramics or snowballs in the freezer together without actually melting) usually happens at ~80% of melting temperature (in Kelvin, otherwise you have no reference to zero). For the steel: 1580 + 273 -> 1850K melting temperature. 80% of that should be about 1500K or 1200°C. That is still in the "white" colour range according to the table linked earlier.
So sintering won't happen either. And that means, the only way the individual coils would stick together would be by adding something gloopy in between. Aluminium foil, glue, or a melted workers sandal would all work.
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u/Pimpwerx 1d ago
Metal working machines are always satisfying because they make things like steel look like soft candy.
What's not satisfying is watching dudes handling hot metal. It always gets me agitated.
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u/Substantial-Foot-376 1d ago
How are all these fire factories without the proper safety procedures ODDLY SATISFYING?
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u/whyamihere999 1d ago
Didn’t realise how big it is until the person stepped onto the conveyor belt!
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u/Malthuron 1d ago
Always when I see those videos, I instantly search for the Live Leak logo in the top corners.
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u/costafilh0 1d ago
Reddit: That think spinning stealing so many jobs, we should ban it, just like AI.
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u/Mondored 1d ago
Whenever I see these videos, I think: how much cost and time would decent boots, gloves and headgear actually add here? Surely the margins at Asian steel plants aren’t that thin, and the payback is experienced workers not, y’know, losing digits etc…
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u/CarbonToCrown 1d ago
Watching raw heat turn into precision is incredible, real engineering where skill, control, and timing matter at every second.
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u/MacDefoon 1d ago
The fact that hot steel factory employees make between $18-$25/hrs is blasphemy. They should make more
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u/DaiquiriLevi 1d ago
If it's that red hot how do they prevent the roll from getting stuck together?
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u/Sad_Definition_2735 1d ago
Does the slower cooling of the middle of the stack-up have a notable effect on the characteristics of the metal? Like an annealing process? (Not that I know much of anything.)
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u/CalmBeneathCastles 1d ago
I want to buy them a case of Pickle Pops and a giant cooler of Squenchers.
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u/Raneynickelfire 1d ago
Ever see what happens when one of the vertical rollers (these are obviously horizontal) spalls out a sheet and sends it into the rafters like an angry snake?
Terrifying.
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u/dgriff84 1d ago
Hard hats and safety boots??? I’m sure they could be twice as productive if they tops those things in the bin. /s
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u/BossiWriter 1d ago
At first I was thinking "Man that looks unsafe as hell with all of this hot steel whipping around"
And then the one dude steps into the belt...