Dalton manufacturer delivers two 35

DALTON ― Duane Sidle propped up a ladder in the Tuesday morning heat and climbed it with a spool of green rope in his hand. Running the green bands through the hatch doors, he fastened them shut.

Climbing back to the ground, Sidle, the shipping and receiving clerk for J. Horst Manufacturing, scanned the 35-ton electric arc furnace strapped to a semi-truck trailer to make sure everything was secured.

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With everything tied down, the 9-foot-tall and over 32-foot-diameter furnace left Dalton with a squad of four Ohio State Patrol cruisers and two vehicles Tuesday. Its location: Big River Steel in Arkansas.

The furnace would travel 80 miles south by truck to Steubenville, said J. Horst Manufacturing President Joe Downs. Then it would travel by boat roughly 700 miles down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to its new home.

Combined with another furnace, two roofs and two elbow-shaped ventilation pipes that were also shipped in May, this is the largest delivery in Horst history. It is double the weight and the product shipped last January.

The shipment is the culmination of a monthslong effort by the J. Horst team that has operated with just enough manpower to get the job done, Downs said.

"I'm incredibly proud of my team," he said.

It's no easy task shipping six furnace components roughly 800 miles, Downs said.

Not only are these heavy pieces of equipment, but they can also take up multiple lanes on a highway. One delivery truck broke down on the way to Steubenville, causing a multi-hour traffic jam, he said.

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"We do everything we can to make sure the equipment is ready to go, so that doesn't cause the driver any problems," Downs explained. This includes strapping down loose parts like hatches that could possibly fall off.

Although it's not likely something will fly off mid-delivery, he said it's protocol.

"And you know the one time you don't follow protocol, something will go wrong, so that's why we do it," Downs explained.

Downs said the domestic steel industry is growing as demand is on the rise. This is one reason the Dalton-based manufacturer is producing these furnaces.

But as demand grows and steel companies require new production facilities, he said they have new and ever-shifting requests.

"These furnaces we're shipping to Arkansas have interchangeable parts," Downs said. "So the roof from furnace one can go on furnace two, and the elbow from roof two can fit on roof one."

This shift creates new challenges for Downs' team. The first furnace that shipped in 2022 did not have interchangeable parts, so Horst employees had a larger window for error. With this delivery, that window has narrowed.

A small mistake or incorrect measurement could result in a product not fitting on other furnaces.

"We had to look at scans and photos to make sure we were making it right," Downs said. "Then we had to test whether they were actually interchangeable by using a crane and swapping the parts."

Although the test was a success, the next challenge will come when his team manufactures the next two furnaces for Big River Steel.

"We'll need to get these next two as close as possible to the furnaces we just shipped, and it'll be more difficult because we won't have them here to test the interchangeability," Downs said.

Despite these challenges, he believes his team is up to the task.

"We have some new guys here who have great potential, and overall, it's just a great crew," he said.