TREASURE CHEST

[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Here they come. [Music] [Music] All the world loves a lover and all the world loves a newlywed. And it seems all the world loves practical jokes at a wedding. my son. But it's a day they'll all remember because they all had a part in it. [Music] Many things played a part in the happy celebration, even the tin cans. Well, it looks like this member of the party was left behind noticed. I suppose that's the life story of a can. It plays its part without being noticed. I wonder about the story behind this can. Who made it? Who filled it? Who used it? I wonder what was in it. Perhaps we can find out if we do a little investigating. H seems to have a name of a kind. T A M10. Well, maybe that's a clue where it came from. TAM 10. Well, now that's just a code the packer puts on there. It's his identification of a particular pack. In this case, the item was tomatoes. We sell a lot of these. All right. If you found that can in the neighborhood, chances are it came from right here. I guess anybody could have taken it to that wedding party. Maybe Susie Wendell. She bought a can of these tomatoes just a few days ago. She says that canned foods are a big help to her. I've known Susie since she was a little girl way back when I started as a grocery clerk. One day last week, I happened to notice her doing her shopping. She seemed to be puzzled about something, so I stopped to see if I could help. It seems her husband is very fond of tomatoes. She was looking over the various kinds, wondering if I had something different, something she hadn't tried before. Tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, preserves, sauce, paste. Why not try these handpacked whole tomatoes that just came in? I knew they were good. We'd had some at home ourselves the night before. Susie is a girl who takes pride in her dinner table. She's a good cook, too, fussy about food. Everything has to be just right. And in this case, I guess everything was right. I heard all about it next day and she thanked me especially for recommending the tomatoes. Of course, the real credit belongs to the canery. These tomatoes are packed right out here in the valley. You know, I never thought much about it till I visited the canery, but it takes a lot of skill and knowhow to put a can of handpacked tomatoes or any other food on the shelves of our markets. Packing takes a lot of equipment and skillful work by a lot of people. Yes, the packers do a share of the credit for helping Susie. And as time goes on, she will recognize that more and more. You won't have to tell Susie what's happening as her family grows. The needs grow, too. Why, I read where the average family uses about 800 cans a year. And all of us together use a 100 million cans a day. That's a whale of a lot of cans. And I guess each one has a different history. Be pretty hard to trace the whole story on any one, I suppose. But if you really want to know more about this can, why don't you look up the people who made it? Their can making plant is right over there in the valley, too. Drop in. They'll be glad to see you. Yes, this is one of ours. We made it right here in this plant. We make millions of these and we can easily recognize them. I'll tell you how we make these cans. In fact, I'll show you. Come on along. Our operation starts with these bundles of tin plate. We don't make the tin plate ourselves. We buy it from the steel producer. We order it in many sizes and thicknesses and with various tin coatings depending on the kind of cans to be made. We bake a coat of enamel on some of the sheets before doing anything else. For some foods, this enamel gives special protection. [Music] Certain cans have labels and decorations printed directly on the tin plate. It's done by this lithographing press. Now, the tin can you asked about had enamel ends, but the body was plain. So, its history really started here. The sheets of tin plate feed into the slitter, which cuts them into pieces called body blanks. The blanks go on to this body maker where a sequence of complicated operations notches and hooks them and forms them into cylinders called can bodies. After the body is formed, the seam is soldered, then cooled by a blast of air. Now we have our can bodies. And they're really moving, aren't they? About six every second. Of course, they are open at both ends. And in the meantime, this press stamps out the tops and bottoms. A curl around the edge holds a gasket material which forms an airtight bond between the body and the end when we join them together on the double seam. Of course, we only put on one end here. We send the tops along to the canery and they seal them on after the can is filled to make sure the cans are perfectly leak proof. We test them here by air pressure. We check up on the machine too by sending a test can through at intervals. The test can has a microscopic hole in it. If there's any leakage in a can, the machine automatically rejects it. Rejection of the can tells us the machine is working properly. We ship a lot of our cans out in paper line box cars like this with the tops packaged separately. Other shipments go out by truck. We make the cans and send them out to the packers ready to work. In other words, a story of teamwork. The can maker takes tin plate from the steel producer, sends tin cans to the packer, and times his movements precisely. Yes, these cans will be on time to meet the packer's needs. But meanwhile, let's take another look at that tin plate. As a load of finished cans goes out, more tin plate arrives to keep the cycle going. Ferris Suppose we take a sheet of Ferristan and trace the story back a bit farther at United States Steel. We're always glad to talk about tin plate. Ferris stands our trademark for electrolytic tin plate. I guess you know that a tin can's about 99% steel. We take a sheet of steel and put a protective coat of tin over it. Then you have tin plate. Well, of course, it's not as simple as all that as you'll see out in the plan. In our mill, the job starts with inspecting and preparing slabs of steel. The slabs are about 6 in thick and average 15,000 lb. Looks like a pretty big bite to chew on, doesn't it? Well, just wait and see what we do with it. Before we can roll the slab, we have to make it soft. This reheating furnace does that job. It takes 2 to 3 hours at 2200° to condition the slab for rope. [Applause] The high temperature creates a surface crust or scale on the slab. It's broken off and removed by giant rolls and jets of high pressure water. Then the slab is rolled on a series of roughing stands, reducing its thickness and increasing its length with each pass through the powerful rolls. Then the slab moves along to the six finishing st. It gets longer and thinner as it progresses through each set of [Music] rows. See how much longer it becomes. That runout table is longer than a football field. And right now that strip is doing 25 m an [Music] hour. At the end of the 1600 ft line, the racing steel strip is trapped and wound into a coil, ready for further processing. Each coil is assigned a code number which permits identification during any step of production. After hot rolling, the coils are cooled, cleaned, and then go to the cold reduction mill. Cold reduction is an accurate and efficient method of reducing hot roll steel to tin plate thickness. Each successive set of rolls further reduces the steel until it finally reaches the specified gauge. As the steel is cold reduced, an X-ray gauge automatically controls the setting of the rolls to asssure close tolerances in the finished product. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Now, our steel is coiled at nearly a mile a minute and is 13,000 ft long. While cold rolling reduces the thickness of the steel, it also hardens it. So we have to soften it up by heat treatment. First the steel is given an electrolytic cleaning. Then in the operation called box annealing, the coils are covered and a furnace is placed over them and fired. That one furnace will anneal 150 tons in about 72 hours. That's more than 60 miles of steel. The continuous annealing line does the softening up job in an improved way. Slack in the line permits us to weld the ends of the coils together without interruption. Here the steel is first cleaned then races along through the line at the rate of 1,000 ft a minute. The steel undergoes many physical changes as it climbs the 60 ft towers and drops into 50 ft underground pits over the 400 ft length of the line. Only minutes after entering, the steel speeds along to the coiler completely [Music] [Applause] [Music] annealed. After annealing, the steel is too soft. Rolling on a temper mill gives it the exact degree of stiffness and finish required. I know these processes look pretty. They have to be because each one has a definite purpose in meeting [Music] requirements. One way of putting tin on the steel is the hot dip process. After shearing, the black plate is clean before going through the bath of molten [Music] tin. The hot dip puts a comparatively heavy coat of tin on the plate. It's necessary for certain products. But over here, we have the electrolytic process of tin coating. The tin plate which comes off this line, like the sheet we're investigating, is called ferro. At the start of the continuous electrolytic tinning line, the coil ends are welded together. During the welding operation, loops of the steel hanging in 60 ft pits continue to feed the All [Music] right. In the ferrisand process, the steel runs through cleaning tanks on its way to the plating cells. Bars of pure tin are being submerged in the electrolyte solution that fills the plating [Music] cells. Electric current is passed through the electrolyte from the tin bars to the steel and carries tin to the surface of the moving steel. When required, a light coating of tin can be deposited on one side, a heavier coating on the other. Now the steel covered with a matte finish tin deposit runs through the melting tower. Electric current passing through the steel heats it to the point where the tin deposit melts into a bright finish. A water quench cools the steel and solidifies the tin. Then after chemical treatment, the steel is coated with a lubricant which serves to prevent scratching in handling and promotes easy feeding into the high-speed machinery of the can making plants. Now the strip of tin plate is ready to be cut into sheets. But first, an electronic device tests for variations in thickness and activates a mechanism that rejects farther down the line any offgage sheets. Now we come to the flying shear which cuts the tin plate into sheets. An electric eye checks the tin plate for pin holes and rejects any sheet that's less than [Music] perfect. And here at the end of the line are the prime sheets electronically sorted and counted. But even with all the modern electronic devices, we make an extra check on representative lots of electrolytic tin plate. The work these women are doing may look easy, but it takes many months to learn the job. I know you'll recognize this bundle. It's just like the ones you saw in the can making plant. And that's just where this one's going. Our plant here is just one of five which the company has built in strategic locations at Morrisville and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Gary, Indiana, Birmingham, Alabama, and Pittsburgh, California. Located to give convenient service to can makers and other consumers of tinmill products. And we do business in just about every country. When we ship tin plate overseas, it's packaged in special metal wrapping. It's used by can makers and packers all over the world. Well, that's our part of the story of tin cans. We make the tin plate here, send it off to the can makers, and well, you know what happens from there on. Yes, we've seen what follows. And I guess there's just one last question to ask. Where does the long chain of events really start? The slabs of steel that are stretched into thousands of feet of tin plate. Where did they come from? Well, that's an easy one to answer. We requisition them from our steel works, specifying exactly what type of steel we need for each purpose. To make steel, a fleet of giant ore boats brings iron ore from distant mines. sometimes over a thousand miles away. Equipment of awesome size is required just to handle the stockpiling that will see the plant through the winter when the boats are icebound. Meanwhile, coal is flowing in from another source. And coal, too, must be transported over long distances by rail or barge and then converted into coal. Limestone is coming in from yet another source. All these raw materials travel through an intricate network of manpower and equipment before they even arrive at the blast furnace. You first make iron in the blast furnace from raw materials that have been carefully prepared. We can't just take them from the mines and quaries and dump them into the furnaces. They must be sorted, blended, and processed first. The story of the tin can really begins right here. A force of thousands of men, an investment of billions of dollars in equipment are required for the job. The open hearth refineses the iron into steel. Molten steel is poured into molds to cool and solidify to become ingots ready for shaping into slabs. And now you have the story of the slabs you asked about. Yes, we have the whole story now. A slab of steel born of iron ore, coal, and limestone. Fashioned with a specific nature for a precise purpose. A slab of steel whose form and appearance are dramatically changed in the mills. A slab of steel whose hard resisting form is squeezed and rolled. Rendered workable by a kneeling, tempered and stiffened. Steel, a willing servant made willing by the care and skill in its manufacturer. It accepts and dawn its coat of tin. And at another time, in another place, it accepts the forming and shaping of the canmaking plant and comes out the shining perfect container that was its destiny. And all this while, as the steel was made and the cans were shaped and shipped, fish were caught and prepared. Meat was made ready for processing. Food stuffs of many kinds were growing in the fields. Precision timing by the steel maker, can maker and packer assure that the cans are there to receive these foods as they are harvested in their prime. Research by canmaker and packer has developed varied methods and techniques, scientific processes that seal all the nutritional goodness of the foods inside the can and preserve them indefinitely. By making a complete variety of foods available all year round, cans have helped change the economy and health of the nation. Helped create a new standard of living. That standard of living enables the average family to enjoy the products of the whole world. Delivered in a steel container that costs approximately the same as a postage stamp. These are the products of a special science. A science that became an art through the research of the steel maker, can maker, and packer. Better cans, more varied products. Big cans, small cans, long ones, short ones, special cans, pressure cans, cans with keys, with lids, with hinges. The life story of a tin can is the story of enormous facilities, vast resources, huge investment, skillful work, and precision timing by steel maker, can maker, grower, manufacturer, and packer. It's a story of the tremendous teamwork that brings you the riches of the world locked in a treasure chest of steel. [Music] [Applause] [Music]