Suggestions needed for N scale steel mill scenery details,junk, parts, etc

[OldEastRR]

There doesn't seem to be much "junk" details except for auto scrap yards and gon loads. Anybody know of stuff that can be good ground clutter around a steel mill? Some things like beams and sheet metal can be made from stock parts but other than empty 55-gal drums I can't find anything that fits the bill. I suppose even some HO scale stuff would work as machines or equipment either junked or for replacing an old unit, since steel mill equipment was huge.

[nkalanaga]

Most of the steel mills I've seen (all two of them, from the highway...) don't have much "junk" laying around.  Besides being a safety hazard, if it's really "junk", they turn it into scrap metal, and reprocess it.

[Kentuckian]

Spare parts that the mill uses. Ladles, electrodes, parts for the specialty cars, rollers for the rolling mill, electric motors, etc. Crane spare parts and rigging such as electro magnets, hooks, blocks, cable rolls. See KenRay models, or all of these parts can of course be scratchbuilt.

Construction vehicles to pile up the scrap, such as dozers. Front end loaders or steam shovels to handle limestone, depending on era. Covered limestone piles. Scrap piles of shredded metal; I plan to use aluminum foil and a blender if I ever get that far on my KES Challenge. https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=43676.0 Service trucks with welders. A maintenance building to service/fuel these vehicles. Guard shack. Truck scale and building if the mill accepts local truck delivered scrap, and to weigh the limestone. Office/locker room building.

[nkalanaga]

Certainly there would be plenty of spare parts.  And those spare parts should be neatly stacked or parked, as the company would want to keep them in good condition, and easily accessible.  Nobody wants to shut the mill down waiting for a part to be ordered, as one can't just turn a furnace full of molten metal off. 

That's why aluminum, and probably electric steel, plants have redundant power sources, and contracts guaranteeing that they won't be cut off.  In many cases, they pay extra for the power for those guarantees.  If an aluminum pot line, or steel mill's electric furnace, cools, the metal has to be cut out, which is a BIG job!  It can't be remelted, as the cooled metal will short-circuit the electrodes.

The old-fashioned steel mills probably didn't have that problem, as they used an actual fire to melt the ore, and it could always be remelted.

[OldEastRR]

Thanks for all the help.

[mightypurdue22]

I was just at a massive steel mill today, one of my clients.  Just an awesome place for railroading with gondolas galore full of scrap metal and pipe.  Plethora of steel i-beams loaded on bulkhead flatcars.  They did have some massive scrap piles that were being added to by a claw crane.  I would think rust painted sprue items or similar would work for the scrap piles.  You can't go wrong with pipe or beam looking stuff.

Dave

[nkalanaga]

The mill I've seen most often is Kentucky Electric Steel, and they've never had much in the way of scrap piles.  They kept some, but most of their scrap came by rail from Mansbach Metals in Ashland.  Chessie/CSX ran seemingly daily scrap trains, until recently, to keep them supplied.  Now the mill is closing... 

At least in the 70s and 80s, many of the eastern KY scrap trucks should have been scrapped, and tended to drop sharp objects on the road.  Most scrap trucks going to Mansbach didn't go by KES, so US 60 there had fewer tire-flatteners.  Greenup Avenue, US 60/US 23 through Ashland, could be rough on tires.

Most of the scrap today seems to be hauled by commercial scrap haulers, in many cases L.R. Daniels, and the trucks are in a lot better condition.