Feb. 21, 2006 — Sterling Steel, Sterling, Ill., recently welded its first high-carbon steel billets on the new Danieli Morgårdshammar EWR^® line installed at the company’s 12-inch high-speed wire rod mill.

Sterling’s new Endless Welding Rolling line is designed for automatic continuous welding of 130x130 mm, 11-meter long billets at rates of up to 100 ton/hour for low, medium and high carbon spring steel wire rod. The new billet welding operation will enable the production of customized-weight and extra-heavy coils, even starting from low weight billets. Coil weight selection from the endlessly-rolled wire rod will be performed by a new Danieli shearing unit installed in the coil reforming tube, at the end of the roller conveyor.

Testing of Sterling’s new line continued through January with extremely good results, granting a considerable increase in plant hourly production. This has enabled endless rolling for uninterrupted production of long products to take place for the first time in the USA and, significantly, on high-carbon steel billets.