Glossary of Terms

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Term	Definition
AAR	The Association of American Railroads. This association acts in the capacity of general staff for the railroads as a whole and takes the initiative on all subjects relating to American Railroad progress and improvement of transportation service. Reference is usually made to the AAR as far as scrap is concerned, with regard to the Standard Specifications which the AAR has prescribed for various grades of iron and steel scrap.
Abandonment	When a railroad decides that a portion of track is no longer useful, it decides to have the track torn up and removed.
Absorption	The charges of one carrier are being assumed by another without increase to the shipper.
AC Furnace	An EAF that has three electrodes and uses alternating current.
Accessorial Charges	Charges made for accessorial service.
Accessorial Service	Any charge other than the applicable freight charges advanced by one transportation line to another, or by the shipper, to be collected from the consignee or the company paying the freight bill.
Accumulation	The amount of material expected to be produced or generated by an industrial plant over a given period of time. Contracts are written on an "accumulation" basis usually for a calendar month but may cover other periods as well.
Actual Tare	The result of weighing a vehicle immediately before loading or immediately after unloading the specific material in the shipment with which we are concerned.
Advance	A payment for a portion of the anticipated value of a shipment forwarded to the shipper prior to our having ascertained mill weights and/or other details essential to a final settlement with him.
Advanced Charge	Any charge other than the applicable freight charges advanced by one transportation line to another, or by the shipper, to be collected from the consignee or the company paying the freight bill.
Agent	A railroad employee who undertakes the performance of functions in behalf of the railroad, in particular at the point of origin or at the destination, and usually having to do with either the instructions as to destination of a shipment or instructions as to issuance of freight bills. Instructions to railroad agents should always be confirmed in writing.
Agreed Weight	The weights agreed to by the shipper, consumer, and the carrier, in the event a car was not weighted by any of the above. This weight, in most cases, is obtained by the average weight of preceding cars to the same mill containing the same or like grade of scrap.
AISI	The American Iron & Steel Institute, a trade association comprising most of the steel mills in the United States, operating for the benefit of them all. Sometimes, chemical or physical specifications are stated which refer to an AISI number.
Alligator Shear	A type of equipment formerly in widespread use in scrap yards to cut steel into small pieces...consists of one immobile blade and one mobile blade. Alligator shears are now in use in some facilities but do not have the widespread use that they did some years ago.
Alloy Steel	An iron-based mixture is considered to be an alloy steel when manganese is greater than 1.65%, silicon over 0.5%, copper above 0.6%, or other minimum quantities of alloying elements such as chromium, nickel, molybdenum, or tungsten are present. An enormous variety of distinct properties can be created for the steel by substituting these elements in the recipe.
Alloying Element	Any metallic element added during the making of steel for the purpose if increasing corrosion resistance, hardness, or strength. The metals used most commonly as alloying elements include chromium, nickel, molybdenum, manganese, and titanium.
Alloys	Typically iron-bearing materials added to the steel to produce certain physical properties.
Alumina	A slightly acidic refractory material usually used in ladles. (Al2O3)
Arbitrage	Selling a commodities contract in one market and buying a contract for the same commodity in another market. For example, selling an LME contract and then buying a Comex contract, or vice versa.
Argon-Oxygen Decarburization (AOD)	What. A process for further refinement of stainless steel through reduction of carbon content. Why. The amount of carbon in stainless steel must be lower than that in carbon steel or lower alloy steel (i.e., steel with alloying element content below 5%). While electric arc furnaces (EAF) are the conventional means of melting and refining stainless steel, AOD is an economical supplement, as operating time is shorter and temperatures are lower than in EAF steelmaking. Additionally, using AOD for refining stainless steel increases the availability of the EAF for melting purposes. How. Molten, unrefined steel is transferred from the EAF into a separate vessel. A mixture of argon and oxygen is blown from the bottom of the vessel through the melted steel. Cleaning agents are added to the vessel along with these gases to eliminate impurities, while the oxygen combines with carbon in the unrefined steel to reduce the carbon level. The presence of argon enhances the affinity of carbon for oxygen and thus facilitates the removal of carbon.
Arms/Length	A basis for negotiation between buyer and seller in which price, terms, tonnage, shipping time, grading, and other factors essential to the negotiation are dealt with on a "spot" basis and wherein each of the items is negotiable. In arms-length negotiations, all details regarding transaction must be carefully covered by buyer and seller and agreement reached between them on each.
Arrival Notice	A notice to the consignee advising the arrival of freight.
As Is, Where Is	Material bought or sold on this basis requires no additional inspection and the seller warrants nothing about the material other than that which has been represented by him and which has been accepted by the buyer without further obligation on the part of the seller. Purchases on "as is, where is" basis are best avoided, unless the same material is sold by us on an "as is, where is" basis to the buyer, thus, lack of obligation on the part of the seller is transmitted through us to the buyer without any further obligation on our part.
ASTM	The abbreviation for the American Society for Testing and Materials. This society has established certain standards based on chemical and physical requirements for many products. Often the ASTM standards, especially the chemical ones, are used to define specifications of material which we buy and sell.
Austenite	A phase of iron not typically present at room temperature except in stainless steels.
Austenitic Stainless Steel	Cr-Ni steels in 300 series, non-magnetic, matrix is austenite.
Auto Shredder Residue (ASR)	The material left over after an automobile has been shredded and the ferrous metal removed (nonferrous metals plus nonmetallic material).
Auto Stamping Plant	A facility that presses a steel blank into the desired form of a car door or hood, for example, with a powerful die (pattern). The steel used must be ductile (malleable) enough to bend into shape without breaking.
Automobile Shredder	A hammermill-type shredder large enough to break whole cars into fist-sized pieces of steel in less than a minute.
B.O.F.	The abbreviation of "basic oxygen furnace." There are a number of pieces of steelmaking equipment which are essentially designed from the same original plan. These are the B.O.F., B.O.P. (basic oxygen practice), the "Q-B.O.P." a refinement of the B.O.P., the "L.D.," standing for Linz-Donowitz furnace and the "SK" or Stora-Kaldo furnace which is similar to all the above with the exception that it is designed to rotate at an angle. All the above pieces of equipment are operated on essentially the same basic melting principle in which oxygen is introduced into the molten mass and the furious activity that takes place serves to heat and refine the elements included.
Back-to-Back	In our business if we sell and buy "back-to-back" we mean the material which we have purchased and the material which we have sold is intended to be the same identical material and the conditions of the contract insofar as tonnage, shipping time, grading, and all other matters, except for price and terms are the same. Back-to-back contracts, both the sale and purchase, have identical cancellation dates. Back-to-back contracts "cancel each other out" as far as position is concerned.
Backing	This term is usually referred to in the bidding on industrial or railroad scrap in which a consumer has advised its broker that should he purchase a certain quantity of a given time, that they would in turn purchase same from him. Usually this backing also involves the price, shipping time, and other pertinent details. Care should be taken in bidding so that if we have backing it is clearly understood what our privileges and obligations are to the consumer should we purchase the material. Frequently these obligations will change from month to month, from grade to grade, consumer to consumer (see "Bid For").
Backwardation	Market condition where the spot, or current price for a metal is higher than the three-month delivery price. This usually indicates immediate demand is perceived to be stronger than long-term demand. Not considered to be a "normal" market state (See Contango).
Bad Order	This term is used in two ways in our industry. One way describes a railroad car or truck, or other piece of equipment used for conveying scrap, to describe the fact that it was not able to be used to transport the material as had been planned originally. Bad order railroad cars frequently cause us trouble because they are often shopped by the railroad in a repair station and delayed in transit for quite some period of time. Often, cars that are bad-ordered are thought to be lost, but later we learn that they had been set aside at a repair shop. The other meaning of the term for "bad-order" implies that we have made sale expecting to make a profit on it, but found out that our judgment of the market was in error and what we thought would be a "good" order turned out to be a "bad" one.
Bale-A-Shear/Slabber	A piece of equipment which compresses light-gauge material such as auto body stock into a flat slab and then proceeds to slice it into various lengths usually 2 or 3 ft. Scrap originating from this piece of equipment does not have widespread acceptance in the melting industry generally due to its lack of density and failure to hold together well. There are certain consumers, however, who find the material satisfactory under most market conditions.
Baler	A hydraulic baling press.
Ballast	Small pieces of steel which can be packed together densely and are used for adding weights to cranes, machinery, etc.
Bargeload	A term which should be carefully used and should always be preceded or followed by an estimated quantity, stated in tons.
Bars	Long steel products that are rolled from billets. Merchant bar and reinforcing bar (rebar) are two common categories of bars, where merchants include rounds, flats, angles, squares, and channels that are used by fabricators to manufacture a wide variety of products such as furniture, stair railings, and farm equipment. Rebar is used to strengthen concrete in highways, bridges and buildings (see Sheet Steel).
Base Rate	Usually refers to a freight rate listed in a tariff in the amount in which it has been published. Often to be added to the base rate are additional amounts or percentage of cents or dollars which have increased the base rate to the present or prevailing rate ("Exparte").
Basicity	The ratio of bases to acids usually in slags. Typically CaO/SiO2.
Basing Point	Basing points give consumers in remote towns an opportunity to establish a price based upon a larger market (the basing point) in order that they may achieve a competitive stature in the marketplace and be able to purchase their scrap in a more logical fashion insofar as the element of competitiveness is concerned. A basing point is a city which has been designated as a point to which a given price per ton has been assigned for the purpose of establishing a market relationship to some other city which is to be the ultimate destination of a shipment. Usually, scrap is not shipped to the basing point but the price at the basing point is used in order to establish the shipping point price to which will be added freight to the ultimate destination, to establish a given delivered cost.
Beach Iron	Iron produced by a blast furnace and then dumped into large, in-ground sand molds or indentations, hence the name. Typically very good quality iron with properties similar to Pig Iron. EPA restrictions make this grade less prevalent and the term often used to describe any and all iron products from a blast furnace.
Bearish	An attitude of pessimism in which it is felt that the market prices generally will be lower, business poor, volume down.
Bid Calendar	A chronological listing of various invitations to bid received by The David Joseph Company. The bid calendar is important in the planning of our approach to making bids on industrial and railroad scrap each month.
Bid For	When we "bid for" one of our consumers we are usually obligated to sell the consumer that material for which we have bid on his behalf. "Bid for" is generally a stronger obligation than "backing," although often they are synonymous. Care should be exerted by all bidders that they know the precise obligations in "bidding for" a consumer.
Bill of Lading	A carrier's contract and receipt for goods. A written instrument which recites that the carrier has received certain goods which he agrees to transport from one place to another and to deliver to designated person or consignee for such compensation and upon such conditions that are stated therein.
Billed Weight	The weight the carrier shows on the waybill or freight bill.
Billet	A square sectioned bar produced by steel mills as an intermediate product. Usually 2 to 6 inches square. Billets are usually rolled into bars, rods and rounds.
Black	In scrap and steel language the word "black" means that the material has not been painted or coated in any way and consists of steel or iron just as it has been cast or rolled from the manufacturing plant without any foreign material being applied to its surface. "Black" material is often shiny and silvery looking if it has been polished or rolled, but this is a result of surface reflection and not any coating.
Blast Furnace	A furnace which refines ore into pig iron or "hot metal." Hot metal is essentially pig iron that has not been allowed to cool whereas pig iron is hot metal which has been allowed to cool into certain shapes for longer distance transportation. The blast furnace in today's steelmaking process in the initial refinement of ore into a form to be further processed by other steel and ironmaking equipment.
Blast Furnace Iron	Iron produced by a blast furnace. If kept molten, called hot metal. If solidified, can be called beach iron, prepared iron, or runner iron.
Bloom	The first intermediate product rolled from an ingot. Blooms are usually square, and usually 6" x 6" to 12" x 12". Blooms are rolled into structural shapes and rail.
Boatload	Like bargeload, this term should always be preceded or followed by an estimated number of tons.
BOF	Basic Oxygen Furnace.
Borings	Bits of scrap resulting from drilling a hole into metal. Technically, borings will be made of whatever metal was drilled, i.e. brass, steel, lead, cast iron, etc. However, most people (but not all) refer to cast iron borings simply as 'borings." Unless positive, always check to be sure the borings are what you think them to be.
Boxcar	Any type of freight car with roof and sides, with doors in sides.
Breakout	An accident caused by the failure of the walls of the hearth of the blast furnace, resulting in liquid iron or slag (or both) flowing uncontrolled out of the blast furnace. Can also refer to molten metal escaping the mold at the caster.
Briquettes	A piece of equipment takes small, relatively fine material and packs it together, snowball-like, into cake form. Briquettes are generally considered to be small, the largest of them probably not more than one foot square. Most briquettes consist of borings or turnings, though there are briquettes which are made of sheet clippings and other material which can be easily compressed into small cakes, disc shaped or rectangular in shape. Can be "cold" in that they are produced by pressure or "hot" where temperature is used to bind them.
Broker	So far as the scrap iron and steel industry is concerned, the broker is a market-maker. He is a middleman who does not process or prepare material, but buys and sells scrap and involves himself in finding markets for the sale of; and finding sources for the purchase of; scrap material intended to be used by steel mills and foundries and supplied by scrap dealers, industrial plants, railroads, and government agencies.
Bullish	Generally an optimistic attitude in which it is felt that business will be good, that prices and volume will be up.
Burden depth	The depth at which material is spread on a conveyor belt.
Busheling	Steel scrap in small (usually 2' and under) pieces, including stampings, punchings, small clips, maximum size should always be stated.
Button	A mass of steel or cast iron which has been allowed to solidify at the bottom of a ladle, slag pot, or another vessel, often contaminated with slag and other nonmetallic residues.
Buyer	From a contractual point of view the person to whom the company is selling, or if the company has purchased material, then he is the buyer. From an operational point of view a buyer is frequently the title of an individual with whom our representatives will negotiate when endeavoring to sell material to a steel mill or foundry.
CaCO3	Chemical formula for raw lime.
Calcination	The removal of CO2 from raw lime forming CaO or the removal of CO2 from raw dolomitic lime forming MgO. Process requires a great deal of heat.
Call	An option, but not an obligation to buy (See Options and Put).
Cancel	A purchase contract has provisions for shipping time and often for scheduling. It should be made clear to shippers that schedule and the period of time for which the contract is written are essential elements of the negotiation. Failure to comply with either, places the shipper in the vulnerable position of possible cancellation of the contract providing the elements of time and scheduling are not adhered to. Notification of our intent to cancel may be made in advance of the cancellation date, or may be made on or after the cancellation date, (usually expressed as the final date of shipment for the contract). Failure to ship within scheduled times places the contract in jeopardy of being cancelled insofar as that portion of the quantity of the contract which was not shipped in the required periods.
CaO	Chemical formula for lime.
Car Cleaning Charge	A charge assessed by a consumer or railroad for removing material from a railroad car after the scrap has been unloaded.
Car Dumper	A piece of equipment used in some steel mills which turns a railroad car over on its side or upside down in order that the material therein is removed quickly.
Car Initials	Official abbreviations of the names of the railroads which limits the number of initials in the abbreviation to a maximum of four. Care should be taken in stating railroad's initials that only the approved or official initials are used.
Car Length	Usually dealt within our industry as outside length. The measurement from one end of the railroad car to another. Frequently, within steel mills or foundries tracks take sharp bends or scales are of limited length, or for other safety reasons a consumer will not want to receive a railroad car of more than a certain maximum outside length. Care should be taken in writing contracts that car length requirements are understood and passed on to the shippers.
Car Masher/Slabber/Crusher	A piece of equipment which decreases the volume of an automobile by mashing it to approximately 1/5 of its thickness. In this way, many vehicles can be transported from one place to another in a more efficient manner.
Car Numbers	In order to identify shipments, railroads give their pieces of equipment various numbers. The number of digits in a railroad car number is limited to a maximum of six.
Car Parts	In dismantling railroad cars for recovery of ferrous scrap, we frequently find that there are parts on those cars that are good enough for additional use. These parts are carefully recovered by us and set aside for resale.
Car Shortage	At certain periods of time when transportation of various commodities is brisk, the number of available vehicles for the loading of iron and steel scrap is limited. This is a period of car shortage and during this time it is often necessary for us to attempt to help our shippers find sufficient railroad cars for the loading of the material that we purchase from them.
Carbon Equivalent	The effect that elements, especially silicon have on the phase diagram expressed by the formula CE+%C+(.33*%Si).
Carbon Steel	Ordinary steel containing under 1.03% carbon, into which no alloying elements have been purposely added.
Carload Minimum	In most roadhaul situations freight tariffs are written so as to provide a given freight rate charge to the minimum of a certain car loading. This provides the railroad with the assurance that it will receive a minimum dollar revenue on each movement. The amounts of the carload minimums vary from territory to territory and for various reasons. The carload minimum is an intrinsic element in the freight rate charge and should be considered in all negotiations.
CAS-OB	A secondary refining unit - Controlled Argon Stirring - Oxygen Blow.
Cast Steel	A ferrous material with less than 1.0% carbon that is cast into a mold.
Caster Mold	A water-cooled copper plated shape used to solidify the molten steel.
Casting	The practice of pouring molten metal into a mold, allowing same to cool, removing same from the mold, and after cleaning and polishing, the item is then able to be used in approximately the same form that it was originally cast. Casting is for the most part done in foundries as opposed to mills. The term continuous casting, however, applies to the pouring of molten metal in a form in which when partially cooled it is cut into segments and then requires additional processing in order to shape the material into the form in which it will be used. This kind of casting is done in steel mills.
Cementite	Fe3C, iron carbide, acicular in shape and very hard and brittle.
Cents Per Pound	A method of pricing usually used for nonferrous metals, seldom in connection with brokerage of iron and steel scrap but frequently used by scrap dealers in their negotiations with their suppliers.
Change Order	Documentation of an agreement between ourselves and our customers which affects a previously written contract to buy or sell. Change orders should be issued for any change in the original contract conditions. They should be carefully reviewed and analyzed to make certain that any changes that are introduced do not in turn require additional changes brought about by the initial change.
Channel Induction	A furnace using inductance to maintain heat in the metal, used as a duplex unit. Consists of an inductor mounted under the furnace which passes the metal through a channel.
Charge	The act of loading material into a vessel. For example, iron ore, coke and limestone are charged into a Blast Furnace; a Basic Oxygen Furnace is charged with scrap and hot metal; Electric Furnaces are charged with scrap, pig iron, and HBI or DRI.
Check Voucher/Remittance Advice	In some remittance systems a check voucher is issued along with the check itself and describes the various items included in the total check amount. Check vouchers can be simple with very little information or complex giving the recipient considerable information regarding the source or sources of the amounts included in the total check amount.
Chemical Specifications	Refers to the limitations put upon the inclusion of various elements insofar as the consumer's requirements are concerned. This will often involve minimums and maximums of certain elements. In stating chemical specifications, care should be taken that the decimal point is in the proper place and that the abbreviations for the chemical elements are correctly stated.
Chicken Feed	In our industry chicken feed refers to iron and/or steel scrap that is very small. This term requires some clarifications, because the degree of smallness would depend upon the size of the scrap that was intended to be shipped. Chicken feed is usually referred to in the course of rejection and refers to the comments made by the consumer that a portion of the material received was too small to be able to be utilized. While the term is relative, generally speaking pieces under one inch in any dimension are candidates toward being considered chicken feed. (See "Fines.")
Chopper	Piece of equipment used in manufacturing plants to cut strips of material into short pieces.
Chromium (Cr)	An alloying element that is the essential stainless steel raw material for conferring corrosion resistance. A film that naturally forms on the surface of stainless steel self-repairs in the presence of oxygen if the steel is damaged mechanically or chemically, and thus prevents corrosion from occurring.
Circored	What. A gas-based process developed by Lurgi Metallurgie in Germany to produce DRI or HBI (see Direct Reduced Iron and Hot Briquetted Iron). How. The two-stage method yields fines with a 93% iron content. Iron ore fines pass first through a circulating fluidized-bed reactor, and subsequently through a bubbling fluidized-bed reactor.
Clean	Implies "relatively" clean. A railroad car is considered "clean" when material that has been shipped has been removed therefrom and the only residue left in the car is an insignificant amount. The degree of cleanliness of scrap is a question of judgement.
Clearing House	Part of a commodities exchange that monitors buying and selling of contracts, matches the buys and the sales.
Clips/Clippings	Pieces of sheet steel sheared off as scrap in a manufacturing process, also often refers to skeleton scrap.
Closed to Reciprocal Switching	Line haul billing on shipping or receiving from an industry that is restricted to the serving carrier only. The serving carrier in this case must receive a portion of the line haul on all inbound and outbound rail traffic.
Closes	Usually refers to an "invitation to bid," advising as of the last date or time for submission of a bid price on the material offered for sale. Once a list "closes" no more changes to the bidding price are accepted by the seller. Sometimes the closing date and time are less firm than at others, and opportunities for changes are presented.
Cobble	Rejected or spoiled sheet or plate from a rolling mill. Usually the full width of the rolling mill product and may be of any length.
Coils	Steel sheet that has been wound. A slab, once rolled in a hot-strip mill, is more than one-quarter mile long; coils are the most efficient way to store and transport sheet steel.
Coke	What. The basic fuel consumed in blast furnaces in the smelting of iron. Coke is a processed form of coal. About 1,000 pounds of coke are needed to process a ton of pig iron, an amount which represents more than 50% of an integrated steel mill's total energy use. Why. Metallurgical coal burns sporadically and reduces into a sticky mass. Processed coke, however, burns steadily inside and out, and is not crushed by the weight of the iron ore in the blast furnace. How. Inside the narrow confines of the coke oven, coal is heated without oxygen for 18 hours to drive off gases and impurities.
Coke Oven Battery	A set of ovens that process coal into coke. Coke ovens are constructed in batteries of 10-100 ovens that are 20 feet tall, 40 feet long, and less than two feet wide. Coke batteries, because of the exhaust fumes emitted when code is pushed from the ovens, often are the dirtiest area of a steel mill complex.
Cold-Rolled Strip (Sheet)	Sheet steel that has been pickled and run through a cold-reduction mill. Strip has a final product width of approximately 12 inches, while sheet may be more than 80 inches wide. Cold-rolled sheet is considerably thinner and stronger than hot-rolled sheet, so it will sell for a premium (see Sheet Steel).
Collect	A term descriptive of a shipment where the collection of freight charges is to be done by the delivery carrier at the destination. "Collect" is the opposite of "prepaid" which is defined later.
Combination Rate	A rate made by the combination of two or more rates published in different tariffs.
Commercial Grading	Also sometimes called "commercial package." In regard to quality of material, a commercial package or commercial grading refers to the fact that the material being shipped is of a standard generally acceptable to others in the industry.
Commercial Zone	The geographical area of commercial influence of a specified point or city.
Commission	In our usage an amount of dollars and/or cents per ton added to our cost paid by our consumer to us as compensation for the service rendered in purchasing same in his behalf.
Commodity Rate	A special rate applicable to a specific commodity moving between specific points determined by economic geography.
Common Carrier	A transportation line that offers service impartially to the general public.
Competitive Rate	A charge established by a transportation line to meet the competition of another transportation line.
Completion Rules	Most consumers have certain rules as to the amount of material required to complete a given contract. These completion rules deal with the amount of material which may be shipped in excess of or less than the contract quantity. These rules will vary from consumer to consumer and it is necessary for each District Office to be aware of the rules imposed by each of its consumers (see "Overshipment" and "Undershipment").
Consign	To send goods to another - to ship a car to a given destination.
Consignee	The one to whom something is shipped; the receiver of the goods; the consumer or mill.
Consignment	Usually means material is to be shipped to a given consumer who will unload and retain some for a given period of time prior to payment. Consignment arrangements require considerable planning and understanding on the part of both parties as to exactly when and how the material is to be paid for.
Constructive Placement	A term used to denote that a vehicle (railroad car or barge) is ready for delivery by the carrier to private facilities. Often placement has not been affected because of conditions attributable to the consignee and the cost of holding the car or barge for the account of the consignee begins at the time of constructive placement. Frequently, these charges are attributable to the shipper or seller if certain conditions of shipment imposed by the consignee were not properly handled by the shipper.
Consumer	In our business, the consumer is usually a steel mill or foundry to whom scrap is shipped and who will actually utilize the material in their melting process. Consumer to us is not the "general population" as it is most frequently used in everyday language.
Contamination	The inclusion of material not wanted or not desirable to the user. Material can be considered contaminated due to the presence of excess dirt, non-metallics, items of an unwanted shape or size or weight, and otherwise for a variety of reasons. "A rose in a corn field" is a contamination.
Contango	Market condition where the spot price is less than the three-month delivery price. This is considered the "normal" market state because the costs of storing and shipping metal are assumed to be higher in three months than at present (See Backwardation).
Continuous Casting	What. A method of pouring steel directly from the furnace into a billet, bloom, or slab directly from its molten form. Why. Continuous casting avoids the need for large, expensive mills for rolling ingots into slabs. Continuous cast slabs also solidify in a few minutes versus several hours for an ingot. Because of this, the chemical compositon and mechanical properties are more uniform. How. Steel from the BOF or electric furnace is poured into a tundish (a shallow vessel that looks like a bathtub) atop the continuous caster. As steel carefully flows from the tundish down into the water-cooled copper mold of the caster, it solidifies into a ribbon of red-hot steel. At the bottom of the caster, torches cut the continuously flowing steel to form slabs or blooms.
Contra	Literally Latin "against." To hold money due in anticipation of the receipt of material to equal in value the amount of the funds retained. If material is bought from a shipper to whom a sale has been made for other material, it is often the practice to withhold the transfer of funds between the parties until all shipments on the involved contracts have been made. At that final time, an accounting is made as to the value of both lost of material that have been shipped. The difference between the valuation is then transferred between the parties.
Contract Completion Tolerances	Most consumers have certain rules as to the amount of material required to complete a given contract. The completion rules deal with the amount of material which may be shipped in excess of or less than the contract quantity. These rules will vary from consumer to consumer and it is necessary to be aware of the rules imposed by each.
Contract Hauler/Contract	This usually refers to a motor carrier, not a common carrier, who contracts to transport property for one or more firms and not for the general public.
Conversion Deal	Can involve a variety of negotiations and arrangements that mean scrap is purchased for a melting facility which proceeds to make steel out of it and then turns the steel over to that party who supplied the scrap. There are many modifications to this concept, they are often fraught with tenuous negotiation and arrangements.
Cope	In a foundry, it is the top half of a mold.
Core	The sand shape used to make the interior of castings in a foundry.
Coreless Induction Furnace	A cylindrical furnace using inductance to heat and melt scrap.
COREX	What. COREX is a coal-based smelting process that yields hot metal or pig iron. The output can be used by integrated mills or EAF mills. How. The process gasifies non-coking coal in a smelting reactor, which also produces liquid iron. The gasified coal is fed into a shaft furnace, where it removes oxygen from iron ore lumps, pellets or sinter; the reduced iron is then fed to the smelting reactor.
Cover Date	This usually refers to Iron Age Magazine and specifically refers to the date of the issue that is printed on the cover thereof (see "Effective Date" and "Price Page Date").
Cover In	When scrap has been sold and we are now buying against this sale, in particular, in view of a rising market or possibly a falling market, our activity in the marketplace to purchase scrap against our sale is "covering in." Covering in implies a conscious effort to get material purchased so as to be "even" or possibly "long" on our position. Covering in means we do not want to have sales orders on the books without having the material purchased against them.
Covered	Covered means that we have purchased all the material necessary against a given sale or, in reverse, have sold sufficient tonnage to accommodate all the material of a given grade that we may have purchased in advance. Both covering in and covered are terms which we use to reduce our vulnerability to the fluctuations in the marketplace. These terms imply a certain amount of protection to a market move which we anticipate.
Crane	A piece of equipment used in steel mills and foundries, scrap yards and industrial plants, to move material from one place to another, in particular to load and unload scrap from the vehicles in which it is to be or had been shipped.
Crops	Scrapped end pieces cut off blooms, slabs, billets, bars, plates, rail, etc. Maximum sizes should always be stated.
Crusher	Crusher is a piece of equipment which in our industry is used for the purpose of crushing long turnings into a grade that is shorter and more dense, and more readily handled. The crusher is generally considered to be smaller than a "shredder," does not have the capacity and is of lower initial and operating cost.
Cupola	A stack furnace that melts using coke and air. Typically used in the ferrous foundry industry.
Customer Return	Many of our steel mill customers have arrangements where by scrap generated by one of their customers is returned to them either through direct negotiation or thorugh a broker. Customer returned scrap is usually priced against Iron Age Magazines quotations or against certain other generally known market information which is readily available. U.S. Steel bases the price of some customer returned scrap in the Chicago district against the average price of various industrial lists sold in that district. In other areas, the Iron Age Magazine is used as a basis for customer return pricing.
Customs Broker	A person or company engaged in arranging for the expeditious import or export of material into or out of the United States. Customs brokers are familiar with customs rules and regulations and for a minimum fee generally handle much of the paperwork involved in behalf of the shipper. His functions, however, do not negate the resposibilities of the shipper insofar as other documentation is concerned.
CWT	Cents per hundred pounds.
DC Furnace	An EAF that has a single electrode and uses direct current.
Dead Freight	This word was originally used in defining certain conditions in ocean freight. The term, however, has been carried over into rail car and truck freight lingo. Originally, it meant freight that was paid to guarantee certain storage space in a vessel but was not all used by the shipper. Inasmuch as the shipper had guaranteed to use the space but had not used it, he must pay for it anyway. In carload and truckload shipments dead freight refers to the difference between the actual weight shipped and the lowest minimum weight chargeable to obtain the lowest freight cost.
Deadhead	This term when used in truck transportation - refers to the condition in which a truck is moving without a load. This movement is usually a return to a point of origin where its intial load was made or back to "home terminal" where it will await instructions for its next haul of material. Trucking companies attempt to avoid deadhead situations because they increase their costs without resulting in any revenue. To counteract deadhead movements, trucking companies attempt to "backhaul" movements. Backhaul is not always back to the initial point of origin but may be a move in the general direction or into a geographic area where another load may be found. We should look upon "deadhead" as an empty truck moving on the highway. Deadhead, in railroad parlance, means a load moving without the assessment of freight charges (usually "company material").
Debit	A record of indebtedness on the part of ourselves or one of our customers. This as opposed to "credit" which is a record of the amount in favor of ourselves or one of our customers. Again the term debit should be carefully used and should be referenced that it is clear as to whom the indebtedness applies (See "Credit.")
Delivered	This term usually means the same as "at the destination" except when the term basing point is introduced in order to price material in the fashion so required. When the word delivered follows a certain number of dollars, it usually means that the seller will arrange for the means of transportation requested by the buyer and will also arrange to have the material delivered or taken to the destination at his cost. Negotiations that are not a "delivered" basis are on a "shipping point" basis.
Delivery Date	In barge and railroad car shipments, it is almost impossible to predict or demand a given delivery date. In truck transportation, the matter is somewhat easier but still not without pitfalls.
Demurrage	In domestic shipping demurrage is a penalty charged to shippers or receivers of freight by the carriers, usually at a stated amount per car, per truck, or per barge, per day for detention of the vehicle beyond the free time provided for loading or unloading.
Dendrites	The acicular shape during the freezing of molten steel. Has the appearance of sharp fingers.
Density	This term carries with it the usual definition. It also, in a large number of cases when used referring to scrap shipments, refers to the relative density of the grade under consideration. Two shipments of the same grade of scrap may have different densities, the one being prepared in such a way that the material is more compact and would weigh more per cubic unit. Generally speaking, the higher the density the more disirable the material.
Deoxidization	The removal of oxygen from the steel usually with aluminum or silicon.
Despatch (also Dispatch)	In loading or unloading international cargoes, it is sometimes possible to exceed the load/unload rates specified in the ship charter agreement. When this happens, the ship can be underway or be released for its next trip ahead of schedule. The ship owner benefits because his vessel is experiencing higher utilization...it is available sooner for its next trip...and the charter includes provisions for rebates to the chartering party. This reduction in the charter expense is called 'despatch' and represents an additional opportunity for the person who chartered the ship.
Destination	The location where a shipment is to end up after transportation from the point of origin. Destination is synonymous with "delivery point." There is a fine line of difference between these two terms as they are generally used in our industry. Delivered usually is used in context with price, and destination is usually used in contest with shipment.
Destination Agent	The agent for a railroad nearest the consignee who is usually referred to on a bill of lading as the Agent who is to issue a freight bill in situations where freight is to be charged on a "collect" basis.
Destination Weights	Weight figures taken nearest the consignee, usually by the consignee himself, often by (in the case of the railroads) the railroad at its scales nearest the destination, or (in the case of trucks) destination weights are weight provided by the consumer or by an independent scale located relatively near the consumer. Destination weights on barge shipments can refer to a variety of weighing techniques, either the draft weight (gauged weight)at the barge unloading point nearest the consumer, or weights provided by a railroad scale after the material has been unloaded, or weights provided by a railroad scale after the material has been unloaded, or weights provided by a truck scale after the unloading has taken place at the consuming point. In the case of barge shipments, specific destination weights should be clearly identified prior to negotiations being completed as there is lots of room for argumentation as to how destination weights are to be taken and the agreement of all parties required as to which weights will be used in settlement.
Desulfurization	The removal of S from molten metal by chemical injection, usually Mg or CaC3.
Die	An iron or steel pattern used in the stamping process in the manufacture of formed steel shapes. Sometimes dies have nonferrous inserts and sometimes iron dies have steel inserts. In transactions involving dies, definition of the material is required for a clear understand of what is being handled on the part of all parties concerned.
Die Cast	Die casting is a century old process of injecting molten metal into a steel die under high pressure. The metal, either aluminum, zinc, magnesium and sometimes copper, is held under pressure until it solidifies into a net shape metal part.
Die Cutter	Industrial plants will frequently have their dies designed in such a way that portions of the stampings which are to be discarded as scrap are made smaller and easier to handle by virtue of being "cut out" into smaller pieces by the design of the die.
Direct Dealing	Usually means that a scrap dealer is selling to a steel mill or foundry on his own and does not ship through a broker. This also sometimes refers to industrial plants who have made arrangements to make shipments to steel mills without going through a member of the scrap industry. Direct dealing removes some of the marketing versatility afforded by the scrap industry to a given system of negotiations.
Divert - Diversion - Reconsign	These terms are often incorrectly used but specifically they mean, and should be used to describe, the change in destination of a railroad car already on the way toward an original destination and now changed en route to another new destination. We will sometimes use one of these words when instead we mean "change instructions" meaning that a car has not moved yet but we want it to go to a different place than originally advised.
Dollars Per Ton	Should always be expressed as dollars per net, gross or metric ton (2000#, 2240#, 2204.62#, respectively). Represents the usual terms in quoting on scrap iron and steel. Note: Nonferrous metals are quoted in cents per pound, or cents per hundred pounds; alloy scrap often in cent per hundred pound. Care should be taken that all quotations are interpreted as they were intended. Most dealers buy scrap across the scale in cents per hundred pounds.
Dollars Per Unit	Many years ago (and possibly at certain times today), dealers would buy a pile of scrap, or a length of track, or a vehicle-load of same at a flat price. Today, dollars per unit is pretty well confined to a price for a railroad car on its own wheels or on a railroad car part, whose weight will not be a consideration in the final pricing arrangements. We will pay for example - "$1,250 each for 50 gondola cars." The car or parts need not be weighed for settlement purposes, but would be weighed at our yards for inventory control purposes.
Dolomite	A lime mineral that contains 44% MgO and 56% CaO used as a flux for refractory protection and can be used in ladle brick.
Domestic Scrap	A) Scrap generated and retained in the U.S.A. (as opposed to imported or exported). B) "Home scrap." Iron and steel scrap which results from the manufacture of iron and steel. Domestic scrap and home scrap usually refer to such material generated in the semi-finishing stages at the steel mill level. Industrial scrap and factory scrap refer more frequently to offal generated in the finishing processes at the consumer product manufacturing level.
Downgrade - Downgrading	To classify a shipment of material as a grade of less quality to the consumer than the grade so determined by the shipper. These terms are usually in connection with rejected shipments, and usually require a reduction in price to compensate for the lesser quality as a graded by the consumer.
Downstream Separation System	Separation of material after it has been shredded. Usually material leaves the actual shredder on a conveyor belt and then is sent through magnets, eddy current separators, trommels, and other downstream separation equipment.
Draft - Draft Survey Weight	A method of determining the weight of material loaded into barges, ships, and other vessels that travel in the water. Basically figured by determining the number of feet the vessel sinks into the water before and after material has been loaded. The density of the material times the displacement will approximate the weight of the material.
Drag	The bottom half of a mold used to make castings in a foundry.
DRI - Direct Reduced Iron	Processed iron ore that is iron-rich enough to be used as a scrap substitute in electric furnace steelmaking. The impurities in the crushed iron ore are driven off through the use of massive amounts of natural gas. While the result is 97% pure iron (compared with blast furnace hot metal, which, because it is saturated with carbon, is only 93% iron), DRI is only economically feasible in regions where natural gas is attractively priced. As mini-mills expand their product abilities to sheet steel, they require much higher grades of scrap to approach ingetrated mill quality. Enabling the mini-mills to use iron ore without the blast furnace, DRI can serve as a low residual raw material and alleviate the mini-mills' dependence on cleaner, higher-priced scrap. See also, HBI.
Dry Sand Molding	Same as green sand except the mold is baked after formed.
Ductile Iron	A ferrous material containing 3-4% carbon 1.5-3% silicon with the graphite in spheroidal form. (Appears like BBs in Jell-O.)
Ductility	Ability of steel to undergo permanent changes in shape without fracture at room temperature.
Dump Truck	A vehicle used to transport scrap which is capable of independently unloading itself by raising one end of its body in order to dump the load on the ground. Such trucks can usually carry 20-30 GT each, depending upon the nature of the material, and legal load limitations, state-wide.
Dumping	Dumping occurs when imported merchandise is sold in, or for export to the domestic market at less than the normal value of the merchandise -- that is, at a price that is less than the price at which identical or similar merchandise is sold in the comparison market, the home market (the market of the exporting country), or third-country market (in this case, "market" is used as proxy for "home market" in cases where home market cannot be used). The normal value of the merchandise cannot be below the cost of production.
Dumping Margin	The amount by which the normal value exceeds the export price or constructed export price of the subject merchandise.
Dunnage	In making shipment of certain items, problems of safety and ability to handle arise. To restrain large pieces of equipment, wooden blocks and boards are often used. To allow certain grades of scrap which are small and/or non-magnetic to be handled and shipped without loss, such grades are often loaded into drums and kegs. The weights of the block, board, drum, kegs, etc., are referred to as "dunnage." Freight is paid on them, but the weight is subtracted from the net of weight of the vehicle in order to arrive at the net weight of the product being shipped.
Duplexing	The process of holding with temperature the metal produced by the melt furnace until ready to cast.
EAF	Electric Arc Furnace
Eddy Current Separator	A device for separating nonferrous metals from nonmetallic material that works by creating a mechanically driven rotating or alternating magnetic field and moving a non-magnetic metallic particle into this field. An eddy current is created in the particle, producing a magnetic field with a like polarity, and ejecting it from the fixed field generator.
Eddy Current Separators	(or ECS for short) separate non-ferrous metals from waste by generating a strong oscillating magnetic field. The magnetic field changes 10,000 times per minute from north to south causing non-ferrous metals to jump. Eddy currents do not work on Stainless Steel and are easily damaged by ferrous metals.
Effective Date	As here defined, this item referes to pricing, and more specifically to a price quoted in a trade paper or magazine, (AMM-Iron Age). As opposed to the terms "cover date" or "issue date," the "effective date" usually is synonymous with the term "price page date," and is usually earlier than the issue or cover date. Since the term "effective date" as so many implications, it should be avoided in favor of "price page date" and should not be used in connection with "cover date" or "issue date."
Electric Air ( Furnace)	A melting facility whose heat is the result of an electrical charge of great intensity passing between two graphite electrodes.
Electric Arc Furnace	Steelmaking furnace where scrap is generally 100% of the charge. Heat is supplied from electricity that arcs from the graphite electrodes to the metal bath. Furnaces may be either an alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC). DC units consume less energy and fewer electrodes, but they are more expensive.
Electric Furnace	Any of a variety of melting facilities whose essential heating source is electrial power. There are a variety of types, arc, and induction.
Electrical Steel	Steel that includes silicon. The silicon content allows the steel to minimize energy loss during electrical applications.
Electrostatic separator	Use high voltage (10,000 volts DC) to separate conducting from non-conducting materials, i.e., copper wire from plastic wire insulation.
Elements	Except for pure iron, which contains 100% of the element iron, all other iron and steel products contain other alloying "elements." Each element imparts to the product to which it has been added certain characteristics which are either desirable or undesirable for various purposes. A knowledge of the most frequently used elements in iron and steelmaking is of great value for a scrap trader. The correct chemical abbreviations for each of the frequently used elements should be a part of each trader's knowledge. (See Mendeleef's "Chart of the Elements" in any good chemisty text book.)
Embargo	A legal order which prohibits acceptance by a carrier of freight destined to a consumer in an area, usually on account of congestion, labor problems, weather, etc.
Empty	A vehicle which has been unloaded, using normal methods, and which is considered to have fulfilled the purpose of shipment from orgin to destination, and is ready for the next load.
En Route	Moving and on its way from origin to destination.
Endothermic	A reaction that requires heat.
Endpoint	The end of processing of a heat in the furnace.
Entering the Market	In trading, to begin to purchase scrap at a new level of pricing, perhaps after a delay of some appreciable period of time after the previous quotation.
Equalize Freight Rate	An adjustment in the delivered price of material intended to compensate for some disadvantage resulting from differences in freight rates which would ordinarily preclude a buyer from being competitive for a material orginating in a distant location (see "Basing Point").
Estimated Weight	Shippers who do not have scales, and/or do not have origin weights from their railroad carrier, may send us invoices on an "estimated weight" basis. This weight should be reasonably close to the shippers normal carload weight for the grade purchased. A review of shippers actual mill weights over a period of time should be made in order to verify and qualify a shipper's estimated weight for invoicing purposes.
Eutectic	A point on the phase diagram where the material behaves like an element, one phase transforms to two phases.
Even	In position-keeping, being neither long nor short. "In balance." Often, a supposedly even position becomes a somewhat "long" or "short" position after mill weights are determined and adjustments to shippers weights and/or estimated weights are made.
Exchange Agreement/Trade Deal	A means whereby we sell to and buy from one customer at the same time, offsetting the "Debits" for what we have purchased against the "Credits" for which we have sold, until the end of the transaction when all shipments are made and received. A reasonably small balance is then due one of the parties involved (ourselves or the customer) at the time of the reconciliation of the accounts, which has previously been handled on a "contra" basis. Exchange agreements as such are usually between The David J. Joseph Company and a multi-plant steel mill and/or foundry customer.
Exothermic	A reaction that produces heat.
Expiration Date	The date of the month and year which serves as the terminus for the acceptance of shipment. The date is verified from the railroad agent's stamp date on the bill of lading, or the date shown thereon as the date of receipt, so identified with the agent's signature. All purchase and sales contracts should have a specific day of the month specified as "expiration date," shown as "ship on or before (date/month/year)."
Export	To ship outside the United States. Shipments to Canada and Mexico, as well as overseas, are considered exports.
Extension	Normally regarding contracts, to extend or delay the shipping time until a later date.
F.A.S. (Free along ship (side) )	Delivered to the side of the vessel and ready to be loaded.
F.I.F.O. (First-in, first-out)	An accounting term, which established the "price" for inventory purposes.
F.O.B. (free on Board)	Already loaded in the vessel/vehicle and ready for shipment; or received in the loaded condition. F.O.B. requires either "shipping point" or "delivered" to complete its meaning when used as a pricing consideration, as this determines who shall pay freight charges.
F.O.T.(Free on Track)	Usually refers to railroad cars on their own wheels and located at an agreed upon point on the railroad.
Fabricated	"Made-up." Two or more pieces of steel, welded or otherwise joined together, to accomplish a certain required shape and function.
Fabricator	A producer of intermediate products that does not also produce primary metal. Examples include brass, wire and rod mills, which buy copper and other primary or secondary metals to produce brass and other copper alloys, or take raw forms of metal and make building, magnet, telecommunications and/or industrial wire, rod, and similar products.
Factory Scrap	New industrial scrap generated during the manufacturing process in plants which are further processing semi-finished steels into consumer products.
Fastmet	A process to directly reduce iron ore to metallic iron pellets that can be fed into an electric arc furnace with an equal amount of scrap. This process is designed to bypass the coke oven-blast furnace route to produce hot metal from iron ore. It is also one of several methods that mini-mills might use to reduce their dependence on high-quality scrap inputs (see Direct Reduced iron and Hot Briquetted Iron).
Fe-C Phase Diagram	The relationship of iron and carbon based on carbon content and temperature.
Feedstock	Any raw material.
Ferrite	A matrix that is free from carbon.
Ferritic Stainless Steel	Cr bearing steels, 400 series, magnetic, matrix is ferrite.
Ferroalloy	A metal product commonly used as a raw material feed in steelmaking, usually containing iron and other metals, to aid various stages of the steelmaking process such as deoxidation, desulfurization, and adding strength. Examples: ferrochrome, ferromanganese, and ferrosilicon.
Ferrous	Metals that consist primarily of iron.
Ferrous Separation System	Ferrous or magnetic metals are the first metals to be separated after shredding. A series of drum magnets are used to remove and clean the ferrous material from the mixture of ferrous, non-ferrous and waste coming out of the shredder. Damp shredding systems use 3 drum magnets.
Final Settlement	Usually results in the last payment made to a shipper on a particular shipment. The final settlement is a recapitulation of the weights, freight payment, advance payment, etc., made and/or due the shipper and/or ourselves considering all available information. Often, due to freight audit and corrections made later by consumers the "final settlement" itself requires minor changes and later adjustments.
Fines	A relative term, but generally means "small pieces left over." Small pieces of cast iron borings might be as small as grains of sand, while small pieces of broken ingot molds might be as large as a fist. Often, the size of the fines should be defined because of this variance.
Finishing Facilities	The portion of the steelmaking complex that processes semi-finished steel (slabs or billets) into forms that can be used by others. Finishing operations can include rolling mills, pickle lines, tandem mills, annealing facilities, and temper mills.
Finmet	The process reduces iron ore fines with gas in a descending series of fluidized bed reactors. The reduced iron is hot briguetted.
Firm	Usually refers to the status of an "option," although the term "firm option" is redundant. A "firm offer" might be synonymous to an option.
Flashings	Scrap produced from a forging operation, usually a thin open portion and a heavier short piece, called the tong-end, whereby the bar was held during hammering.
Flask	A container to hold the sand for molding and subsequent pouring in a foundry.
Flat -Bed Truck	Generally a truck or trailer with no sides, unless perhaps, temporary stakes or panels.
Flat Car	A railroad car without sides, generally a "platform on wheels."
Flat-Rolled Steel	Category of steel that includes sheet, strip, and tin plate, among others.
Flue Dust	The dust which comes out of steel mill and foundry furnace stacks and contains a percentage of iron in the form or iron oxide.
Flux	A material used to remove impurities from the steel by forming a slag.
Foamy Slag	Furnace slag that foams due to the exclusion of CO gas from the melt.
FOB Pricing	Free On Board Pricing. Phrase that explains whether the transportation costs of the steel are included. "FOB MILL" is the price of steel at the mill, not including shipping.
Fore Hearth	A holding vessel to receive metal from the melting furnace typically in a foundry.
Foreign Car	A railroad car not on its own lines or track. When an N&W car is on CSX tracks, it is a "foreign car" insofar as CSX is concerned.
Foreign Line	From the point of view of a railroad, a foreign line is any other railroad. When two or more railroads share in the revenue of given freight charges, each considers the chrges of the other as the "foreign Line" proportion of the total freight.
Forge Crops	Relatively heavy scrap pieces produced in a forging operation.
Forging Press	A more sophisticated manifestation of the blacksmith's hammer and anvil. Forging presses form steel shapes by exerting a series of blows on heated steel pieces in a predetermined pattern.
Formula Price	A price based on one or more numbers by a pre-arranged, agreed upon system. The numbers can from a publication, or can result from a variety of sources such as industrial list results, sales prices, etc. The prices will fluctuate, following the formula, based upon the chosen number source or sources. (See Iron Age and American Metal Market.)
Foundry Pig Iron	Foundry Pig Iron is the name given to pig iron specifically aimed at the foundry industry. It is generally higher in carbon (4.7% avg), silicon (2.6% avg) and lower in sulfur (.018% avg) than typical pig iron. See Pig/Pig Iron for more information.
Fragmentizer	Same as a shredder - - a piece of equipment which mutilates scrap and breaks it up into fist-sized pieces, to facilitate removal of undesirable portions, and to put scrap in a form so as to be readily charged for remelting.
Free Time	A period during which no demurrage is charged by a carrier for the use of his equipment, providing time to load and/or unload at no charge.
Freight Bill	The bill rendered by a carrier to cover the freight charges for transportation service (see "Waybill").
Freight Equalization	A common industry practice when a mill sells steel outside its geographic area; it will assume any extra shipping costs (relative to the competition) to quote the customer an equivalent price to get the business.
Freight Rate	The charge made by a carrier or carriers to transport material from origin to destination. Freight rates are usually expressed by the gross or net ton, but sometimes by the hundred pounds (cwt) and by the "movement" (switching charge) per vehicle.
Freight Territory	A geographical section of the Continental U.S.
Futures Contract	Legally binding agreement to buy or sell a commodity.
Galvanized	Zinc plated or coated steel.
Galvanized Steel	Steel coated with a thin layer of zinc to provide corrosion resistance in underbody auto parts, garbage cans, storage tanks, or fencing wire. Sheet steel normally must be cold-rolled prior to the galvanizing stage. Hot-Dipped. Steel is run through a molten zinc coating bath, followed by an air stream "wipe" that controls the thickness of the zinc finish. Electrogalvanized. Zinc plating process whereby the molecules on the positively charged zinc anode attach to the negatively charged sheet steel. The thickness of the zinc coating is readily controlled. By increasing the electric charge or slowing the speed of the steel through the plating area, the coating will thicken. Differences. Electrogalvanizing equipment is more expensive to build and to operate than hot dipped, but it gives the steelmaker more precise control over the weight of the zinc coating. The automotive manuacturers, because they need the superior welding, forming and painting ability of electrogalvanized steel, purchase 90% of all tonnage produced.
Gate	In casting into molds, molten metal is poured into the gate (where the metal enters the casting), then enters the space provided by the removed pattern. (Also see "Riser" and "Sprue.")
Gauge	The thickness of steel sheet. Better-quality steel has a consistent gauge to prevent weak spots or deformation.
Gauging	A method of determining the weight of material loaded into barges, ships, and other vessels that travel in the water. Basically figured by determining the number of feet the vessel sinks into the water before and after material has been loaded. The density of the material times the displacement will approximate the weight of the material.
Gondola Car	A railroad car with the general appearance of a rectangular, topless, box of wheels.
Grade	A name given to a class of material prepared and sorted to conform to certain specifications. Grade will often include chemical as well as physical requirements, and may also specify the method used to prepare the material (i.e., baled, shredded, etc.).
Granulator	A machine for shredding small materials such as plastics.
Graphite	Elemental carbon in cast iron.
Gray Iron	A ferrous material containing 2-4% carbon, 1-3% silicon with the graphite in flake form. (Appears as corn flakes in Jell-O.)
Green Sand Molding	Molding accomplished by using green sand (sand, water, clay).
Greenfield Steel Mill	New mill that is built "from scratch," presumably on a green field.
Gross Ton	A unit of weight consisting of 2,240 lbs. (also defined as "long ton").
Gross Weight	Total weight, which includes (1) tare weight (weight of carrying vehicle), (2) dunnage (boxes, drums, boards, etc., to facilitate shipping) if any, and (3) net weitht (weight of merchandise shipped).
Gypsy	An independent truck operator who drives his own truck and carries shipments without proper permits.
Hammermill	A high-speed rotor equipped with large happers for pulverizing material into smaller sizes. Large machines are often used to crush automobiles and other heavy-duty scrap metal.
HBI - Hot Briquetted Iron	HBI (and DRI) is processed iron ore that is iron-rich enough to be used as a scrap substitute in electric furnace steelmaking. HBI is Direct Reduced Iron that has been processed into briquettes. Because briquetted DRI (HBI) is more stable than DRI pellets, it is less likely to re-oxidize, especially in the presence of moisture, and is preferred when the metallic material must be stored or transported large distances. HBI is therefore more suited for the merchant market. See DRI.
Heat (of Steel)	A batch of refined steel. A basic oxygen or electric furnace full of steel. One heat of steel will be used to cast several slabs, blooms or billets.
Heat Treatment	What. Altering the properties of steel by subjecting it to a series of temperature changes. Why. To increase the hardness, strength, or ductility of steel so that it is suitable for additional applications. How. The steel is heated and then cooled as necessary to provide changes in the structural form that will impart the desired characteristics. The time spent at each temperature and the rates of cooling have significant impact on the effect of the treatment.
Heavy Structural Shapes	A general term given to rolled flanged sections that have at least one dimension of their cross sections three inches or greater. The category includes beams, channels, tees and zees if the depth dimension is three inches or greater, and angles if the length of the leg is three inches or greater.
Heavy Tare	A tare weight, taken at destination, which is greater than the tare weight taken at origin, and/or heavier than the stencil weight, by a considerable amount.
Hedging	Taking an opposite position in the commodity futures market to your position in the physical market.
High Side Car	Usually referring to gondola cars whose sides are higher than normal, made to increase capacity. Often high side gondola cars cause loading or unloading problems.
High-Carbon Steel	Steel with more than 0.3% carbon. The more carbon that is dissolved in the iron, the less formable and the tougher the steel becomes. High-carbon steel's hardness makes it suitable for plow blades, shovels, bedsprings,cutting edges, or other high-wear applications.
Hold Track	A track where cars are held awaiting disposition orders from shippers or receivers.
Hold Up	Instructions from a consumer to us, and/or from us to shippers from whom material has been bought, to suspend shipments. Holdups can be an indefinite period of time, or for a definite period of time (i.e., "hold up until further notice," "hold up until June 10th") and take effect as of a specific date. Holdups often cause a variety of problems, and little should be taken for granted insofar as the effect on contract expiration dates, "reasonable" period of time of indefinite holdups, freight rate change implications, etc.
Home Scrap	In the manufacture of iron or steel, scrap produced in plants that melt. Home scrap is made in the steel mill and/or foundry, and is usually prepared and remelted "at home" in the same plant as produced. Often, this scrap is shipped to another mill of the same company, and frequently is sold by the mill for a variety of reasons. Home scrap is one of a variety of industrial scrap items but differs from most other types of industrial scrap to the extent that industrial scrap made by non-melting industries is more often termed simply "industrial scrap" or "factory scrap."
Hopper Car	A railroad car, similar to a gondola car, except it has doors at the bottom from which loose material is allowed to flow.
Hot Band (Hot-Rolled Steel)	A coil of steel rolled on a hot-strip mill (hot-rolled steel). It can be sold in this form to customers or further processed into other finished products.
Hot End	The section of a steelmaking complex from the furnace up to, but not including, the hot-strip mill.
Hot Metal	Liquid iron from a blast furnace.
Hot-rolling, Hot-rolled Steel (HR)	Rolling steel slabs into flat-rolled steel after it has been reheated.
Hot-Strip Mill	A rolling mill of several stands of rolls that converts slabs into hot-rolled coils. The hot-strip mill squeezes slabs, which can range in thickness from 2-10 inches, depending on the type of continuous caster, between horizontal rolls with a progressively smaller space between them (while vertical rolls govern the width) to produce a coil of flat-rolled steel about a quarter-inch in thickness and a quarter mile in length.
Hundredweight (Abbrev. = cwt.)	A unit of 100lbs. Dealers usually buy ferrous scrap across their truck scales by the hundredweight, some freight rates are expressed in hundredweight and often nonferrous metals are bought and sold by the hundredweight.
Hydraulic	Refers to equipment operated under the principle of hydraulic pressure, usually utilizing oil as the material under force. shears, cranes and other equipment are often hydraulically powered.
HYL I, HYL III	Processes for producing DRI and HBI developed by Hylsa. The processes reduce iron ore lump or pellets with reformed natural gas in a vertical shaft furnace. The HYL I process uses four fixed-bed reactors; HYL III uses a single-shaft furnace.
I-Beams	Structural sections on which the flanges are tapered and are typically not as long as the flanges on wide-flange beams. The flanges are thicker at the cross sections and thinner at the toes of the flanges. They are produced with depths of 3-24 inches.
I.C.C. (The Interstate Commerce Commission )	A committee that deals with traffic and transportation situations at the federal Level. The I.C.C. has powers enabling it to regulate and control traffic moving from state to state, but not within a given state.
Identified	In trading scrap, we often find it advantageous to identify (name) a shipper or shippers as part of our sales negotiations with a consumer. Such identification, while it often helps to seal a transaction, often causes problems. Identification of sources should be used sparingly, and the responsibilities and obligations of both our consumer and The David J. Joseph Company should be clearly defined, and not taken for granted.
Import	To bring material from a foreign country into the United States.
In the Market	A buyer is considered to be "in the market" when he is willing to buy. Being in the market is not always the sames as being competitive. Often a buyer is in the market for a limited amount of material, and will take what he can get at a low price and doesn't care if he buys nothing - nevertheless, he is in the market as he is a willing buyer at some price. Often a buyer needs to buy a small amount of material, and will come into the market at a high price, buy his needs, and duck back out.
In-Transit Preparation	A seldom used procedure. At one time, unprepared scrap was purcased, shipped to an independent scrap dealer for preparation and then shipped to a consumer. The dealer was paid a per ton fee for his in-transit preparation. Weight and grading problems are very likely in this procedure - and it is avoided. In its place, when authorized, the unprepared scrap is sold outright to the dealer. A purchase order is then sent to the dealer for prepared grade. Thus two independent transactions are on the books.
Independent Scale	A truck scale owned and operated by a party other than buyer or seller or consumer. Often scales owned by such "third party" establish fees for weighing, and such weighing fees should be considered in our transactions.
Industrial Scrap	Generally refers to scrap which is the by-product of a manufacturing process other than melting (such as fabricating, drilling, stamping, forging, etc). Industrial scrap is 'left-over' new metal, usually of a single type and frequently from a single producer. Therefore, industrial scrap purchased directly from a plant or factory often commands higher prices on the expectation that it is less contaminated and more homogeneous than either obsolete scrap or industrial-origin material that is handled through a scrap processor's facility. Also called prompt scrap or new scrap (scrap made from new material). Obsolete scrap sold by a manufacturer (for example, maintenance scrap, old machinery, or demolition scrap from plant tear-outs) is not industrial scrap.
Industrial Substitute	A grade of scrap resulting from the preparation by a scrap dealer of industrial scrap received from one or more industrial plants, usually identified. This definition does not carry universal application, but the implication is that the quality of the grade is equal to that of the same grade that may have been processed by the industry itself, if they had the equipment able to do the preparation.
Ingot	A form of semi-finished steel. Liquid steel is teemed (poured) into molds, where it slowly solidifies. Once the steel is solid, the mold is stripped, and the 5-ton to 30-ton ingots are then ready for subsequent rolling or forging.
Ingot Molds	The cast iron holder for ingot pouring.
Ingot Stools	The cast iron base that the ingot mold sits on.
Inmetco	What. Inmetco is a coal-based process similar to FASTMET that uses iron oxide fines and pulverized coal to produce a scrap substitute. Mill scale and flue dust, inexpensive byproducts of steelmaking, can be mixed with the iron oxide fines. Inmetco, unlike other direct reduction products, is intended to be hot charged into an EAF, with attendant energy savings. How. The process includes three steps. First, iron oxide fines, pulverized coal and a binder are formed into pellets. Second, the pellets, two to three layers deep, are heated in a gas-fired rotary hearth furnace for 15-20 minutes to produce sponge iron. Subsequently, the iron must be desulfurized. The coal in the pellets provides much of the energy required in the second phase.
Inoculation	The adding of a ferroalloy in the ladle to improve properties.
Inspection	To observe material in a manner intended to judge its qualification as a prepared or unprepared grade of scrap, or its potential for same.
Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI)	A trade organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. to which a large percentage of ferrous scrap dealers and equipment manufacturers belong.
Instructions	Usually refers to shipping instructions, involving name of consumer, destination city, and delivering carrier. Often, instructions require only that shipper turn a railroad car or truck over to the broker at the shipping point, the responsibility for final shipping instructions often rests with the broker who must supply same to the carrier in a timely fashion or pay demmurrage charges until same are given.
Integrated Mills	These facilities make steel by processing iron ore and other raw materials in blast furnaces. Technically, only the hot end differentiates integrated mills from mini-mills. However, the differing technological approaches to molten steel imply different scale efficiencies and, therefore, separate management styles, labor relations, and product markets. Nearly all domestic integrated mills specialize in flat-rolled steel or plate.
Integrated Mini-Mill	An "integrated mini-mill" uses liquid steel produced from virgin ore-based raw materials with "mini-mill" casting and rolling technology (and size or scale). The typical "integrated mini-mill" is an EAF producer that makes and uses a significant amount of its own virgin ore based raw materials ... usually DRI. One report a few years ago counted around 25 integrated mini-mills world-wide ... EAF mills with captive DRI/HBI plants. The largest company that employs this strategy is ISPAT, with EAF mills & DRI plants in Mexico, Trinidad, Canada, and Germany. Though some mini-mills use a large percentage of HBI/DRI and pig iron in their EAFs, they are not considered integrated mini-mills if they buy the HBI/DRI and pig iron and have not "integrated" the production of ore-based raw materials. A variation on the theme is the "mini-grated" Acme Steel mill in Chicago. A few years ago, Acme built a new thin slab caster and compact strip rolling mill behind its older blast furnace and BOF steelmaking shop. The caster makes a 2 inch slab, like the ones being used by EAF flat roll producers. Acme called itself a "mini-grated" mill to indicate that they retained the integrated mill quality advantage of making steel from blast furnace iron (low residual/high purity) but had adopted the newer efficient thin slab casting technology pioneered by the mini-mills.
Interchange	A connecting point between two railroads, the transfer of freight from one carrier to another.
Interim List	Industrial plants usually sell scrap on a once a month schedule, however, often additional or extra material is expected to be produced, and the producer elects to offer scrap for sale at a non-regular (between) or interim time.
Internal Costs	Cost of doing business generally ascribed to expenses within the Company, including but not exclusively, salary, overhead, and such other expenses as cannot be passed on to consumers.
Interstate	Between two or more states, as opposed to within one state (intrastate).
Intraplant	Within a plant or factory. Usually refers to railroad cars used for "intraplant" switching, or to grades of scrap shipped from one part of a plant, where produced, to another, for preparation or melting.
Intrastate	Within the same state, as opposed to interstate (between two or more states).
Introductory Shipment	A shipment made in advance of the bulk of an order, intended to allow the consumer to inspect and determine if they desire additional of the same material. The term is preferred to "sample shipment" because of the problems attendant to the usage of the word "sample" in this reference.
Investment Cast	Use of a wax pattern, slurry covered, wax removed and then metal poured in. Used for precision castings such as jet engine fins and golf clubs.
Invoice	A bill for material or services rendered.
Iron	(1) an element, abbreviated as FE (ferrous). (2) A contraction for "cast iron." The usage of "iron" for "cast iron" should be avoided.
Iron Age Magazine	A trade publication for the Iron and Steel industry. Prices for various grades of iron and steel scrap are quoted on the "price page" of this magazine. Such prices are often utilized by industries to buy and/or sell scrap. (see "Iron Age Price" - "Formula Price").
Iron Age Price	A price for a grade of scrap, listed on the price page of Iron Age Magazine. Care should be taken in the usage of such prices as a basis for pricing material. Attention must be paid to: (1) Whether the price referred to is based on an issue of a certain date (cover date) or on the price page of a certain date (effective date). (2) Which grade of scrap is being used for reference. (3) Which city of reference is used. (4) Whether the price to be used is the "high" or the "low" quotation.
Iron Carbide	One of several substitutes for high-quality, low-residual scrap for use in electric furnace steelmaking. Iron carbide producers use natural gas to reduce iron ore to iron carbide(Fe3C). Can also refer to cementite in cast iron.
Iron Ore	Mineral containing enough iron to be a commercially viable source of the element for use in steelmaking. Except for fragments of meteorites found on Earth, iron is not a free element; instead, it is trapped in the earth's crust in its oxidized form. (Typically Fe2O3)
ISRI	Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries - - a trade organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. to which a large percentage of ferrous scrap dealers and equipment manufacturers belong.
Joint Rate	A rate applicable from a point on one transportation line to a point on another transportation line, made by agreement between and published in a single tariff under proper concurrence of all transportation lines over which the rate applies.
Junction Point	A connecting point between two railroads, the transfer of freight from one carrier to another.
Kish Iron	Also called skimmer iron. In an integrated steel mill, the hot metal (liquid pig iron) is desulferized. The resulting slag from this process must be removed and is skimmed off the hot metal charging ladle. During the skimming process, iron is lost as well as the slag. Material is processed and the iron is separated from the slag. Material is very dependent on processing, with high sulfers in poorly processed material.
L.C.L.	"Less than car load."
L.F.V.C. (Loaded to full visible capacity)	A freight tariff term, meaning that the conveyance has been loaded to the top and could contain no more of a given commodity.
L.I.F.O. (Last-in, first-out)	An accounting term, which establishes the "price" for inventory purposes.
Ladle	A refractory-lined pot used to transfer molten steel.
Ladle Metallurgy Furnace (LMF)	An intermediate steel processing unit that further refines the chemistry and temperature of molten steel while it is still in the ladle. The ladle metallurgy step comes after the steel is melted and refined in the electric arc or basic oxygen furnace, but before the steel is sent to the continuous caster.
LD Furnace	Refers to Linz-Donowitz, a type of basic oxygen furnace. Another name for BOF.
Legacy Costs	Any costs that are associated with prior operations. Employee liabilities (pensions and health care benefits) and environmental cleanup costs usually are included under this moniker.
Letter of Credit	A financial instrument, which guarantees payment by a bank in the event payment is not forthcoming from the creditor in a prescribed fashion.
Liability	The ultimate responsibility for payment of a bill, usually a freight bill or bill for services. A party may be "liable" for charges even if another party makes the payment in their behalf for matters of commerce.
Light Weight	Generally, the weight of a vehicle, without the weight of its contents.
Lime	Any mineral containing CaO, also generic name for CaO.
Liquidation	In commodities market parlance, selling long positions to counterbalance previous buying.
Liquidus	The line on the iron carbon phase diagram where above it the material is liquid.
Local	A relative term, used as opposed to "remote." Local often refers to scrap originating in a nearby area. Remote would refer to material further away, from a freight rate point of view. Other parameters are often established, defining the local and remote areas by different means.
Long	A term having to do with the amount of material purchased. To be "long" is to own more material than has been sold (see "Short").
Long Products	Classification of steel products that includes bar, rod and structural products, that are "long," rather than "flat."
Lost Foam Process	Styrofoam used as pattern and melted out during casting.
Lost Wax Process	Another name for investment casting.
Low-Carbon Steel	Steel with less than 0.005% carbon is more ductile (malleable): It is capable of being drawn out or rolled thin for use in automotive body applications. Carbon is removed from the steel bath through vacuum degassing.
Magnesia	A very basic refractory material used in furnaces (MgO).
Malleable	Formable or ductile.
Malleable Iron	White iron that has been annealed producing a graphite shape that is raggedly spheroidal. (Appears as grape nuts in Jell-O.)
Mandrel	A "spool." A mechanical device upon which long strands of material are wound. Scrap coming off a slitter line is often "mandrel wound" as opposed to chopped. (Also "Mandril.")
Manganese - (Mn)	Element (Atomic # - 25 Atomic Weight - 54.93) Manganese increases the hardness of iron and steel. Will reduce sulfur problems by forming MnS stringers. High percentages (>12%)of Mn in steel stabilizes the austenitic phase and behaves like a stainless (non-magnetic). These steels are sometimes called "Hadfield" steels for the man who discovered them. They "work harden" in that they get harder by beating on them and therefore make great wear parts like shredder hammers, grates, and railroad frogs.
Marine Insurance	Insurance against loss or damage to freight while being transported by water carriers.
Marked Tare	That weight shown on the side of a railroad car (stencilled on the car) shown as "tare" or "light weight," which designates the weight of the car, empty, when the car was last repaired and painted (see "Stencil Tare"). The marked tare is seldom accurate (see "Actual Tare").
Market	A general term, intended to encompass the entire supply and demand structure of the iron and steel scrap business. "The Market" is in no particular place, designates no particular grade of material, and the prices of no particular quantities are intended to be conveyed. "The Market" is generally described to be thin or weak (very little business transacted, very little interest to buy), or robust or strong (considerable business anticipated, at generally high prices). In describing a specific market, the grade of scrap and the geographic trading area involved should be stated. Also, another meaning, to market means to try to sell.
Market Price	The price believed to be paid for a given grade in a particular trading area at a given time, the price at which an appreciable tonnage can be traded.
Market Rejection	The refusal of a steel mill or foundry to accept a shipment of material on the basis of quality at a time when the market for that grade of scrap was weakened, leading the shipper to believe that it was the conditions of the market which really caused the nonacceptance of the shipment, not the quality.
Martinsite	A matrix similar in properties to pearlite but developed through heat treating.
Material Burden	The material on the conveyor belt that needs to be sorted.
Matrix	The microstructure in a casting.
Medium Speed Shredders	A round drum with multiple replaceable cutter inserts which cut against a fixed bed knife. Used for reducing materials such as plastics, electonic scrap, wood paste and nonferrous metals.
Mega-Shredder	A hammermill-type shredder with a larger capacity than the typical hammermill used for shredding cars. A mega-shredder will be able to upgrade many types of secondary scrap (#2 HM steel, and even some #1 HM Steel) that were previously sheared or torched.
Merchant Bar	A group of commodity steel shapes that consist of rounds, squares, flats, strips, angles, and channels, which fabricators, steel service centers and manufacturers cut, bend and shape into products. Merchant products require more specialzed processing than reinforcing bar.
Merchant Shapes	Angles, bars, beams, channels, etc., of more or less standard shape and size, produced by steel and rerolling mills.
Metallic	Having to do with metal.
Metallurgy	The science of the chemistry of metals.
Metric Ton	2204.62 pounds - used widely in making sales into foreign countries (other than Mexico and Canada).
MgCO3	The chemical formula for raw dolomitic lime.
MgO	The chemical formula for magnesia, sometimes called dolomite.
Mileage Rate	A freight rate applied according to distance.
Mill Scale	The "rust" or iron oxides which forms on red hot ingots, slabs, blooms billets, etc., which is knocked off by water streams (and other methods) in steel mills. It contains a percentage of iron, usually over 65%, but should be tested for average iron content prior to negotiations.
Mill Weight Ticket	A document supplied by the consumer or acceptable to them, showing the gross and tare (and usually net) weight as determined on their scales, or scales authorized by them in liew of their own.
Mill Weights	Weights determined at the destination of a shipment.
Mini-Mills	Normally defined as steel mills that melt scrap metal to produce commodity products. Although the mini-mills are subject to the same steel processing requirements after the caster as the integrated steel companies, they differ greatly in regard to their minimum efficient size, labor relations, product markets, and management style.
Minimum Barge Load/Minimum Car Load/Minimum Truck Load	That quantity of scrap, which when loaded in a conveyance, is required by the carrier in order to achieve the assessment of freight charges for at least that quantity. Example: if a freight rate is stated as "$11.00 GT, minimum 80,000#," that means that the railroad will charge a freight rate of $11.00 GT on each gross ton (and the appropriate portion thereof) included in the shipment beyond 79,999#-, up to such quantity as may be required to establish charges for a larger quantity, i.e., 112000#, 134,400#, etc., at which point the next freight rate level would be brought into play. If less than 80,000 is shipped,the RR will charge freight as if 80,000# had been shipped, resulting in a higher cost per ton (known as the "effective" freight rate) for each ton shipped.
Moisture	Oil and water often found in shipments of borings and/or turnings because of their physical nature.
Monthly Production	The anticipated generation of scrap by an industrial plant, and/or the anticipated quantity of metal expected to be melted by a steel mill or foundry during a one-month period.
Muller	A large mixing machine that typically uses large wheels to perform the mixing of sand and clay used in molding in a foundry.
Multi Mode Shipment	More than one mode of transportation is involved. Example: scrap starts out in truckloads, gets shipped to a barge terminal, is transferred to a barge to destination. Sometimes three modes are used if the total trasportation cost can be determined to be lower than single (or double) mode. Care must be taken to determine which weight will govern (as weight loss is inevitable), who is responsible and liable for each stem in the movement.
Multiple Car Rate	A freight rate established to govern the charges assessed by a carrier for more than one carload. (May also be used in barge and truck traffic when applicable.) Multiple carload shipments amount to a "quantity discount" concept.
Negotiate	Trade.
Net Ton/Short Ton	2,000 pounds
Net Weight	The weight of material unloaded from a conveyance, determined by subtracting the weight of the conveyance (tare weight) from the total weight of material and conveyance (gross weight).
Nickel	An alloying element used as a raw material for certain classes of stainless steel. Nickel provides high degrees of ductility (ability to change shape without fracture) as well as resistance to corrosion. Approximately 65% of all nickel is used in the making of stainless steel.
No Analysis	The chemical analysis of the scrap under consideration is of no consequence. The material is being purchased regardless of what the chemical analysis may be.
No Dope Car	A carload of scrap received by a consumer for which he has received no advance notice. He is not sure of what grade it was intended to be, what broker was responsile for its shipment, nor to which order it applies. Some consumers charge a specific sum of money to cover their inconvenience in handling no dope cars.
No Rejection	The shipment may not be refused by the consumer for certain reasons, which should be clearly spelled out in advance. Failure of the shipment to comply with other limitations may result in a rejection, however.
No-Bake Molding	Molding accomplished by using a resin and catalyst system, can be furanic or phenolic. The resin is mixed into the sand with the catalyst added immediately before molding.
No. 1 Heavy Melt	Obsolete steel scrap grade, at least one-quarter inch in thickness and in sections no larger than five feet by two feet. Much of the metal comes from demolished buildings, truck frames and heavy duty springs.
Nodular	Another name for ductile iron. See "Ductile."
Nodular Pig Iron	Nodular Pig Iron is also pig iron aimed at the foundry industry but more specifically the ductile iron foundry. This pig iron has slightly lower carbon (4.0% avg) but much lower silicon (.08 % avg) and sulfur (.011% avg). This is required for ductile iron foundries since they must desulfurize the iron before treatment (lower sulfur, less treatment) and the alloy used to produce ductile iron is typically high in silicon so that the base iron must be lower.
Non-Metallic Inclusion	A small piece of material, usually slag that is entrained in the steel resulting in a product defect.
Nonferrous	Referring to metals which do not have iron as the major alloying element. Metals such as aluminum and copper.
Nonmagnetic	Is not attracted by a magnet.
Nonmetallic	Is neither of a ferrous nor nonferrous nature, and generally means wood, plastic, rubber, dirt and such other materials as cannot be construed as metal.
Obsolescent Scrap	see Obsolete Scrap
Obsolete Scrap	Scrap material derived from products that have outlived their useful lives. Examples include demolition scrap, old appliances, scrap vehicles, retired railcars. The product has become 'obsolete' due to age, wear and tear, or fashion ... and has been scrapped. Also called obsolescent scrap, old scrap, and sometimes capital scrap.
Off Line	On a railroad carrier other than the one in consideration, but also involved in the specific movement.
Off Line Freight	That portion of the freight charges that applies to the off line railroad.
On Consignment	Scrap shipped to consumer to be paid for at a later pre-determined date. Ownership of the scrap remains in the hands of the broker until paid for.
On Line	On tracks of a specific railroad.
On Line Switch	Only one railroad carrier is involved in the movement from origin to destination, and that within a specific switching district.
On or Before	A contract term limiting the date on which a shipment or shipments may be made.
On Track	A car loaded with scrap, located either at shipping point or destination, for which a railroad is awaiting further instructions as to where it is to be shipped.
Open Hearth	A broad, shallow hearth to refine pig iron and scrap into steel. Heat is supplied from a large, luminous flame over the surface, and the refining takes seven to nine hours. Open Hearths, at one time the most abundant steelmaking furnaces among integrated companies, have been replaced by the basic oxygen furnace.
Open Price	Price is to be determined later.
Open to Reciprocal Switching (Open to Switching)	Access to other railroads serving a city in which an industry is located for line haul billing or shipping or receiving, in addition to the actual serving railroad.
Open Top Car	A railroad car which is to be loaded and unloaded from above (gondola, hopper).
Operating Rates	The ratio of raw steel production to the mill's stated capacity. Each December, steel companies report to the AISI their estimated capacity (if they could sell all steel they produced) for the following year, adjusted for any facility downtime.
Option	An option may be either buy or sell. An option to buy means that negotiations have progressed to the point that all matters, such as price, grading, shipping time, etc., have been agreed upon in principle, but the final agreement to buy has not been given. An option should include a specific date and time of day on or before which time the buyer has the right to exercise his option (agree to finally buy). The seller is ethically bound to sell the material to the buyer at any terms previously agreed upon may affct the right of both parties in the exercise of the option. An option to sell is the same, except the seller has the final say in determining whether the transaction will take place, and the buyer is ethically bound to buy the material should the seller exercise his option.
Order Rate	The ratio of new orders recorded to the mill's capacity to produce the steel to fill the orders. Many analysts view trends in the order rate as harbingers of future production levels.
Origin	The point of shipment.
Origin Agent	The railroad agent responsible for traffic matters at the point of origin.
Origin Scale	A scale nearest the origin, at which a weight on the shipment may be taken.
Origin Weight	That weight resulting from the weighing of a shipment at or nearest to the point of origin.
Originating (RR/Line/Carrier)	The first railroad to handle the shipment at the point of origin.
Oscillation	The up and down movement of the mold to facilitate casting, process leaves small marks called oscillation marks.
OTM (Other Track Material)	The definition of scrap (other than rail itself) resulting from the repair or dismantlement of RR track. The grading may vary from job to job, and from railroad company to railroad company. Grading of track scrap should not be taken for granted.
Out of Route	So located geographically that further shipment of a car already beyond the point of origin, that the lowest freight rate from that point of origin to a destination will not apply, and a different rate (usually higher) will be assessed by the carriers.
Out of the Market	Not willing to buy at a price as high as the market (see "In the Market"). Usually a buyer who is out of the market will not buy at all, but often other considerations may cause such a buyer to purchase something anyway (price, terms, delayed shipping time, etc.).
Outright Rejection	A shipment of scrap refused by a consumer, and one for which they are unwilling to establish a lower price. They will not accept the shipment at all.
Overage	An overage results when the net weight at destination exceeds the net weight at origin.
Overdue	A shipment that is late; a payment that is late.
Overloaded	A conveyance loaded heavier than regulations allow. An overloaded car is often returned to the shipper to be lightened, or a part of the laod may be reloaded into another car by the railroad. Often the railroad fails to notify the shipper or the broker of the second car number, and it is first discovered by the consumer and is reported as a no dope car.
Overship	To ship more material than the contract specifies. Consumers often have overshipment tolerances, and will accept some specific quantity or percentage beyond the contract amount. (They also often have a concomitant undershipment tolerance.)
Oxidation	The combining of oxygen to another element producing an oxide (usually exothermic).
Package	A borrowed term used to describe the preparation style of a grade of scrap. While the scrap is packaged only to the extent of being loaded into a conveyance, a shipper may describe his material as "a clean package," "a dense package," etc.
Partial Load	Less than a carload, less than a truckload, less than a bargeload - intended to convey the idea that more material needs to be loaded in order to ship a minimum acceptable quantity.
Partial Rejection	Part of the load is rejected, the balance accepted at contract price. Partial rejections usually result from the first (top) part having been unloaded (and hence, accepted) and upon further examination, the balance (underneath) portion of the load found to be unacceptable, and hence, rejected.
Pearlite	A matrix in iron with a lamination of cementite and ferrite with great strength.
Peddler	An independent, usually small, handler of scrap who brings his product to a dealer for further processing.
Pellets	Iron ore or limestone particles are rolled into little balls in a balling drum and hardened by heat.
Per Car Rate	A fixed charge per car on specific commodities between specific points.
Per Diem	A charge assessed on a daily basis.
Peritectic	Like an eutectic except where two phases transform to one phase.
Permanent Molding	A steel or carbon mold used over and over again to produce castings.
Physical Specs	Data describing size, weight, shape and configuration and not involving chemical information.
Pickling	What. Process that cleans a steel coil of its rust, dirt and oil so that further work can be done to the metal. Why. When hot-rolled coils cool, rust forms on the unprotected metal; often coils are stored or transported while exposed to outside air and water. How. Through a continuous process, the steel is uncoiled and sent through a series of hydrochloric acid baths that remove the oxides (rust). The steel sheet is then rinsed and dried.
Pig Iron Substitute	Any of a variety of grades of scrap which approximate the quality of pig iron to the extent that they contain a minumum amount of critical contaminants, and high yield of iron.
Pig/Pig Iron	The name for gray iron produced by a blast furnace from the smelting of iron ore and then cast into small shapes. Contains a large quantity of carbon (above 1.5%). Named long ago when molten iron was poured through a trench in the ground to flow into shallow earthen holes, the arrangement looked like newborn pigs suckling. The central channel became known as the "sow," and the molds were the "pigs."
Pit Scrap	Runouts, drips, etc., from tapping a furnace.
Plate	Sheet steel with a width of more than eight inches, with a thickness ranging from one quarter of an inch to more than one foot (see Sheet Steel).
Point of Origin	The point of shipment.
Position	The status of our orders (sales and purchases), so arranged as to show how much scrap we have sold and how much bought. When shipments have been made, the net status of the sales and purchases is adjusted. The various grades we handle are grouped so as to be readily analyzed and we state our "position" as to whether we are long (have excess purchased) or short (have excess sold) by the major grades recorded. Our position is a form of inventory control by which our needs to sell or buy are made obvious to us. Brokerage position is also a form of inventory control, except the inventory is in our shipper's hands, rather than in ours.
Pouring Basin	An indentation in the top of the mold to facilitate pouring in the foundry.
Powder Metals	Fabrication technology in which fine metallic powder is compacted under high pressure and then heated at a temperature slightly below the melting point to solidify the material. Primary users of powder metal parts are auto, electronics and aerospace industries.
PPM	Parts Per Million.
Prepared	Means suitable for charging into a furnace, or so processed that it is able to be consumed without further processing.
Prepared Iron	Can refer to any of the types of iron from a blast furnace that has bgeen prepared to sizing specifications. Material can contain blast furnace iron, beach iron, kish or skimmer iron, and runner iron.
Prepay - Prepaid	Refers to freight charges which are to be paid to a carrier at or near point of origin.
Price Page Date	See "Iron Age Magazine."
Production Scrap	A form of industrial scrap resulting from the manufacture of a specific product. Production scrap will vary in nature from plant to plant, and often from time to time at the same plant.
Prompt Scrap	see Industrial Scrap
Pulverized Coal Injection System (PCI)	A blast furnace enhancement to reduce an integrated mill's reliance on coke (because of environmental problems with its production). Up to 30% of the coke charged into the blast furnace can be replaced by this talcum-like coal powder, which is injected through nozzles at the bottom of the furnace.
Put	An option, but not an obligation so sell. Nonferrous metal producers often buy puts to lock in a price for their metal. It is akin to a price insurance policy.
Put Out of Market	To sell sufficient scrap to a consumer that he needs buy no additional material for a prescribed period of time. A consumer may be put out of the market on only one, or on a variety of grades. Often consumers "put out of the market" find that for one reason or another, they need to or desire to reenter the market sooner than expected. Seldom is a consumer really put out of the market entirely.
Pyrotechnic	A reaction that is violent and produces a great amount of sparking like fireworks.
Q-BOP	Modified Basic Oxygen Furnace in which the oxygen and other gases are blown in from the bottom, rather than from the top. While the Q-BOP stirs the metal bath more vigorously, allowing for faster processing, the design produces essentially the same steel grades as the top-blowing basic oxygen furnace. Today's state-of-the-art furnace design combines the previous technologies: 60% of the oxygen is blown from above, with the rest blown through the bottom of the vessel. (K-OBM)
Quotation - Quotes	Refers to prices heard in the trade, offers made by our competitors.
Reciprocal Switch	Within switching districts, railroads often make agreements with each other to switch material to each other, either at no charge or at a reduced rate. When this is done, scrap moving, first on one railroad line into a switching district for delivery to a consumer on a second railroad line, can be switched over at a lower or no additional cost.
Reclamation	Broadly covers the removal and grading of metallic material from an admixture of metallic and nonmetallic substances.
Reconsign - Divert - Diversion	These terms are often incorrectly used but specifically they mean, and should be used to describe, the change in destination of a railroad car already on the way toward an original destination and now changed en route to another new destination. We will sometimes use one of these words when instead we mean "change instructions" meaning that a car has not moved yet but we want it to go to a different place than originally advised.
Recoveries	The percent of the alloy added that stays in the steel.
Reducing Agent	Either natural gas or coal can be used to remove the oxygen from iron ore in order to produce a scrap substitute. In gas-based processes, the iron ore is heated in a vessel as reformed natural gas passes through. In coal-based processes, iron ore is combined with gasified or ground coal and heated. The oxygen in the ore combines with carbon and hydrogen in the gas or coal, producing reduced, or metallic, iron.
Reduction(1)	As opposed to an outright rejection, a car accepted by a consumer as a lesser grade than shipped may be accepted at a reduction in price, and possibly also be classified as a reduction in grade as well.
Reduction(2)	Removing the oxygen from a compound (usually endothermic).
Reefer	A refrigeration boxcar.
Refractory	A ceramic material than can resist great heat and is therefore suitable for lining furnaces. Fireclay, dolomite, magnesite and silica are examples.
Refractory Brick	Heat-resistant brick. Because its melting point is well above the operating temperatures of the process, refractory bricks line most steelmaking vessels that come in contact with molten metal, like the walls of the blast furnace, sides of the ladles, and inside of the BOF and EAF.
Reinforcing Bar (Rebar)	A commodity-grade steel used to strengthen concrete in highway and building construction.
Rejection	The refusal of a consumer to accept a shipment due to unacceptable quality. Rejections are usually of one of three types: 1) Outright - mill will not accept. 2) Downgrade or reduction - mill will accept as a lower grade and/or at a lower price. 3) Partial - combination of the above.
Rejection Charge	A sum of money arbitrarily charged by some consumers for any shipment suffering a rejection.
Rejection Report	A formal document used within The David J. Joseph Company which outlines the details involved in a rejection.
Relaying Rail	Rail which has been taken up from its original track location, but is still sufficiently sound to be useful for secondary track service, such as factory siding, scrap yards, etc.
Reline	The process of replacing the refractory lining of a liquid steel vessel. Once it wears out, the brick lining of a furnace must be cooled, stripped and replaced. This maintenance can be significant because a blast furnace reline may require up to three months to complete. BOF furnaces require 2 weeks while most EAF furnaces are done off-line.
Remelting Purposes	Industrial processes which raise the temperature of metals to the melting point and allow for the ready assimilation of alloying elements at such temperatures, are remelting facitlities. Scrap shipped for remelting purposes is usually covered by specific tariffs covering such usage.
Remit	Pay, send your check.
Remittance Advice	See "Check Voucher."
Remote	As opposed to local - scrap so located that it is beyond the normal drawing area for a given basing point or consuming point.
Request for Bids/Invitation to Bid	A method whereby most industrial plants and railroads solicit the best price available for scrap they have for sale.
Rerolling Rail	Rail no longer useful for track service, but sufficiently sound to be rerolled into smaller rails, merchant shapes, bars, etc.
Reship	Ship to another destination after arrival at the first (as opposed to reconsign, in which case the shipment is made prior to arrival at the first destination).
Residuals	The impurities in mini-mill steel as the result of the mix of metals entering the process dissolved in obsolete scrap. Residuals are key concerns regarding the mini-mills' recent entry into the flat-rolled market, where high residuals can leave sheet steel too brittle for customer use.
Responsibility	The first party properly charged for a freight bill is considered the responsible party. If such charges are not ultimately to be assumed by the original payee, then the charges are the liability of another party who will be debited for such charges (see"Liability").
Results	After bids are submitted, we attempt to ascertain to what extent we have been the successful bidder. This information, known as "results" of bids, is valuable in our appraisal of the market and flow of scrap.
Retired Cars	Railroad cars declared no longer fit for normal usage, and available for resale as scrap or for special limited purposes of reuse.
Return Parts	Certain prescribed parts of railroad cars which we agree to return to a railroad after their cars have been dismantled in one of our yards.
Revert	Revert Scrap. Home scrap that normally would be used by the producing plant.
Reworking	Often, after an outright rejection, a carload of scrap can be made satisfactory for use by a consumer after a certain amount of additional preparation or sorting has been accomplished. This is termed reworking.
RH Degasser	A secondary refining unit that uses a vacuum to remove gasses and carbon from a heat of steel. Can be equipped with oxygen blowing (RH-OB, RH-KTB) RH stands for Ruhrstahl Heraeus.
Risers	In casting into molds, after filing up the space left by the removed pattern, molten metal rises through the riser to provide a storage space for molten metal to feed the casting during solidification.
Road Haul	As opposed to switching, road haul is the more or less long distance transportation of goods via railroad car.
Rod	Round, thin semi-finished steel length that is rolled from a billet and coiled for further processing. Rod is commonly drawn into wire products or used to make bolts and nails. Rod trains (rolling facilities) can run as fast as 20,000 feet per minute -- more than 200 miles an hour.
Rolling Mill	A facility which rolls steel in various forms into a variety of products.
Rolling Stock	Railroad cars able to transport material.
Route	To specify, or cause to be specified, on a bill of lading the routing which shipments are to take from origin to destination. Routings should be cleared through the Traffic Department.
Runner	The path the metal takes after coming down the sprue.
Runner Iron	Blast furnaces cast their hot metal into rolling ladles (bottles). The metal flows from the furnace to the ladle via a runner. At the end of casting, some material remains in this runner and is extracted.
Runouts	The scrap produced when the residue in a ladle or furnace is spilled out on the ground or into molds to prevent its solidifying in the ladle, or vessel, etc. (Also overpour.)
S.A.E. - Society of Automotive Engineers	The SAE number ascribed to certain alloys represents the limitations and/or requirements of various alloying elements in the material.
Salamander	A solidified mass of iron, usually with slag inclusions, from the bottom of a furnace.
Sample	A small representative amount of a larger quantity.
Scale	The oxide of iron that forms on the surface of steel after heating.
Scarf	To remove by torching, shaving or grinding surfaces of a piece of semifinished steel. Also, the material so removed, called "scarfings."
Schedule	A system whereby scrap is shipped in a manner and at a rate deemed desirable by our customers and/or ourselves. If scrap is to be scheduled, both buyer and seller should be made aware of that possibility, as it becomes a part of our contractual responsibility.
Scrap (Ferrous)	Ferrous (iron-containing) material that generally is remelted and recast into new steel. Integrated steel mills use scrap for up to 25% of their basic oxygen furnace charge; 100% of the mini-mills' raw material for their electric furnaces generally is scrap. Home Scrap. Waste steel that is generated from within the steel mill, through edge trimming and rejects. It normally is sent directly back to the furnace. Prompt (Industrial) Scrap. Excess steel that is trimmed by the auto and appliance stampers and auctioned to scrap buyers as factory bundles. This is a high-quality scrap as the result of its low-residual content and consistent chemistry. Obsolete Scrap. Iron-bearing items such as old automobiles; household appliances; farm, office and industrial equipment; ships and railroad cars; buildings and bridges that have completed their useful life which can be recovered from the junkyard and remelted.
Scrap Substitute	Raw material that can be charged in place of scrap in electric arc furnaces and basic oxygen furnaces. Scrap substitutes include, among others, DRI, HBI, iron carbide, and pig iron.
Second Movement	If a carload/bargeload/truckload of material is rejected and is reshipped to a second consumer, it is considered a second movement of that vehicle, and care must be taken that all costs involved in the first movement become a part of the records connected with the second movement. (see "Reship.")
Secondary Steel	Steel that does not meet the original customer's specifications because of a defect in its chemistry, gauge or surface quality. Mills must search to find another customer (that can accept the lower quality) to take the off-spec steel at a discount. While secondary will not affect the reported hield, margins will suffer.
Sell Off	To dispose of material in the most advantageous manner, usually under some stress.
Semi-finished Steel	Steel shapes -- for example, blooms, billets or slabs -- that later are rolled into finished products such as beams, bars or sheet.
Semi-Steel	A material midway between steel and cast in carbon content.
SEN	Submerged Entry Nozzle. Used to protect steel during transfer from the tundish to the mold.
Sequence	The term given to a group of heats processed through a caster.
Series	(1) In establishing chemical constituent minimums and maximums for various types of steel, the organizations that do so, group the types of steel by analysis based on the percentages of various elements considered. The groupings are numerical, and the numerical listings are in series of numbers. Often the AISI or SAE letters are omitted, and only the number of the series is given, i.e., 8600 series, 1000 series, 300 series, etc. (2) When railroad cars are manufactured, all those following certain specifications of manufacture are numbered consecutively in series, i.e., 85,000 series, 110,000 series, etc.
Service Center	A catchall name for an operation that buys steel, often processes it in some way and then sells it in a slightly different form. A service center is distinguished from an end-user by the fact that, unlike an end-user, a service center sells steel, not a fabricated product. Service centers are manufacturers to the extent that they add labor to steel by providing a service.
Settlement	To finalize the payment for shipment settled.
Settlement Report	A report to shipper outlining differences in weights; showing freight charges, and any other data relative to the settlement for a given shipment.
Sheet Steel	Thin, flat-rolled steel. Coiled sheet steel accounts for nearly one-half of all steel shipped domestically and is created in a hot-strip mill by rolling a cast slab flat while maintaining the side dimensions. The malleable steel lengthens to several hundred feet as it is squeezed by the rolling mill. The most common differences among steel bars, strip, plate, and sheet are merely their physical dimensions of width and gauge (thickness).
Shell Molding	Shellac-like substance added to sand then baked to form mold.
Shipper	The party originating a shipment.
Shipper Weights	Weights supplied by a shipper, indicating the quantity of material he believes included in the vehicle used. Shippers weights may be actual or estimated, but in either case give way to consumers (destination) weights for settlement purposes in almost all cases.
Shipping Instructions	Instructions to a shipper including the destination, type of equipment, routing and other details required for the expeditious shipment of the material purchased.
Shipping Notice	A document mailed to a consumer showing data necessary for the consumer to have in advance of the receipt of a shipment.
Shipping Point	The point of origin (city and state) of a shipment.
Shipping Time	The period of time during which shipment of scrap on one of our contracts is expected to be shipped. Usually, shipping time is expressed as "on or before" a certain date. Shipping time, and scheduling, if any, are an integral part of our contractual arrangement and should be determined and stated clearly both in our negotiations and on our confirmative documents.
Short	More scrap is needed to be bought - we have sales in excess of our purchases (see "Long").
Short Ton	Net ton - 2,000 pounds
Short Weight	Less scrap received at destination than shown by shipper as net weight at origin.
Shortage	Same as short weight.
Shredded Scrap	Fist-sized, homogenous pieces of old automobile hulks. After cars are sent through a shredder, the recyclable steel is separated by magnets. Mini-mills consume shredded scrap in their electric arc furnace operations.
Shredder	A piece of equipment which 'shreds' scrap, breaking it into fist-sized pieces, to facilitate removal of undesirable portions, and to put scrap in a form so as to be readily charged for remelting (same as fragmentizing - a now obsolete term).
Shredder Drive	The motor on the shredder, which can be configured a number of different ways including electric or hydraulic.
Shredder Rotor	A large shaft and series of rotating disks to which are attached the 'hammers' which are the key working parts in a shredder.
Shroud	A refractory piece used to protect the molten steel during transfer from the ladle to the tundish.
Side Track	A length of railroad track other than main line, used to access industrial facilities from the main line, to allow for passage of trains in same and opposite directions, and/or for holding of RR cars not imminently ready for movement.
Silica	A very acidic refractory material that used to be used in ladles (SiO2).
Silicon - (Si)	Element (Atomic# - 14 Atomic Weight - 28.06) Found in many substances - principal component of sand (SiO2). Found in varying proportions in iron and steel. It is a graphitizer (promotes graphite formation) in iron. Large amounts in steel (~6%) forms electrical steel which is steel used in electrical applications due to grain orientation. Typically used in billet shops in combination with iron (ferrosilicon) as a deoxidizer.
Silicon Electrical Steel	A type of specialty steel created by introducing silicon during the steelmaking process. Electrical steel exhibits certain magnetic properties, which make it optimum for use in transformers, power generators and electric motors. Grain-Oriented. The metal's grain runs parallel within the steel, permitting easy magnetization along the length of the steel. Although grain-oriented steel may be twice as expensive to produce, its magnetic directional characteristics enable power transformers, made from this metal, to absorb less energy during operation. Non-Grain-Oriented. Because there is no preferential direction for magnetization, non-grain-oriented steel is best used in rotating apparatus such as electric motors.
Sinter	A partially smelted mass of iron bearing fines, such as ore, mill scale, etc., made suitable for blast furnace use. The product of a steel mill sintering machine. Material is sintered so as to give the mass body.
Sintering	A process that combines iron-bearing particles, once recovered from environmental control filters, into small pellets. Previously, these materials were too fine to withstand the air currents of the smelting process and were thrown away. The iron is now conserved because the chunks can be charged into the blast furnace.
SiO2	Chemical formula for silica, major acid constituent in slags (also the chemical formula for sand).
Skeleton	Scrap steel sheets or plates out of which parts have been stamped or cut.
Skimmer Iron	Also called kish iron. In an integrated steel mill, the hot metal (liquid pig iron) is desulfurized. The resulting slag from this process must be removed and is skimmed off the hot metal charging ladle. During the skimming process, iron is lost as well as the slag. Material is processed and the iron is separated from the slag. Material is very dependent on processing, with high sulfurs in poorly processed material.
Skulls	A solidified mass of iron, usually with slag inclusions, from the bottom of a ladle or slag thimble.
Slab	The most common type of semi-finished steel. Traditional slabs measure ten inches thick and 30-85 inches wide (and average about 20 feet long), while the output of the recently developed "thin slab" casters is approximately two inches thick. Subsequent to casting, slabs are sent to the hot-strip mill to be rolled into coiled sheet and plate products.
Slabs/Slabber	There are two types of equipment that make two distinct types of slabs from scrap, one for direct charging to a furnace, the other, for the economical transportation of automobiles (see "Bale-A-Shear" and "Car Masher"). In addition, slabs made by steel mills are rectangular pieces of semifinished steel which are destined to be rolled into plates or sheets.
Slag	The impurities in a molten pool of iron. Flux such as limestone may be added to foster the congregation of undesired elements into a slag. Because slag is lighter than iron, it will float on top of the pool, where it can be skimmed.
Slitter	A piece of processing equipment used by industry to make coils or sheets narrower. Scrap from a slitting operation is either chopped by an additional piece of equipment, or rolled up on a mandrel. Slitter scrap should be further defined as "chopped" or "mandrel wound" or "hand bundled" and further description given as to sizes of pieces, weight and size of mandrel or hand bundles, etc.
Slitting	Cutting a sheet of steel into narrower strips to match customer needs. Because steel mills have limited flexibility as to the widths of the sheet that they produce, service centers normally will cut the sheet for the customer.
Slow speed, Shear Type Shredder	A high torque, low speed industrial shear shredder consisting of two or more counter rotating shafts equipped with hooked knives capable of reducing a wide variety of materials such as tires, paper, and baled metals such as aluminum.
Smelter	Facility is used to extract metal concentrates found inside mined ore. The ore will often contain more than one kind of metal concentrate and this facility also separates them. Technically, a blast furnace is a smelter.
Solidus	The line on the phase diagram where below it the material is solid.
Spar	CaF2 a natural occurring salt used to fluidize the slag.
Special Bar Quality (SBQ)	SBQ represents a wide variety of higher-quality carbon and alloy bars that are used in the forging, machining and cold-drawing industries for the production of automotive parts, hand tools, electric motor shafts and valves. SBQ generally contains more alloys than merchant quality and commodity grades of steel bars, and is produced with more precise dimensions and chemistry.
Specialty Steel	Category of steel that includes electrical (see Silicon Electrical Steel), alloy (see Alloy Steel), stainless (see Stainless Steel), and tool (see Tool Steels) steels.
Specifications	Specifications may include chemical and physical specifications, as well as method of preparation or manufacture. Specifications are established by consumers for scrap that they use, and the same grade of material may have different specifications for different consumers.
Speculate	To guess as to the direction or extent of a market move. Some dealers speculate on swings in the market and, if right, can profit handsomely; if wrong, they may be forced to hold their inventory longer than originally planned. Speculation was more prevalent in earlier times when the cost of money was lower than it is now. Speculation, always risky, is riskier in times of economic uncertainly and high cost of borrowed funds.
Spills	Iron or steel scrap formed when molten metal spills during pouring.
Split Car	A railroad car loaded with two grades of scrap, one at each end, with a separation in between. Split cars, once frequently used by small shippers in making ferrous scrap shipments, are now mostly limited to nonferrous shipments made in boxcars in which several grades may be shipped, so long as physical separation between them is made.
Spot Market	Sales for delivery in less than three months (typically).
Spot Material	Metal or finished products available for prompt delivery.
Sprue	In casting into molds, a dished out part at the top of the gate, providing a "funnel" into which metal pours into a gate. In foundry, the connection between the pouring basin and the runner, also can refer to all return scrap.
Spur Track	A length of railroad track other than main line, used to access industrial facilities from the main line, to allow for passage of trains in same and opposite directions, and/or for holding of RR cars not imminently ready for movement.
Stainless Steel	The term for grades of steel that contain more than 10% chromium, with or without other alloying elements. Stainless steel resists corrosion, maintains its strength at high temperatures, and is easily maintained. For these reasons, it is used widely in items such as automotive and food processing products, as well as medical and health equipment. The most common grades of stainless steel are: Type 304. The most commonly specified austenitic (chromium-nickel stainless class) stainless steel, accounting for more than half of the stainless steel produced in the world. This grade withstands ordinary corrosion in architecture, is durable in typical food processing environments, and resists most chemicals. Type 304 is available in virtually all product forms and finishes. Type 316. Austenitic (chromium-nickel stainless class) stainless steel containing 2%-3% molybdenum (whereas 304 has none). The inclusion of molybdenum gives 316 greater resistance to various forms of deterioration. Type 409. Ferritic (plain chromium stainless category) stainless steel suitable for high temperatures. This grade has the lowest chromium content of all stainless steels and thus is the least expensive. Type 410. The most widely used martensitic (plain chromium stainless class with exceptional strength) stainless steel, featuring the high level of strength conferred by the martensitics. It is a low-cost, heat-treatable grade suitable for non-severe corrosion applications. Type 430. The most widely used ferritic (plain chromium stainless category) stainless steel, offering general-purpose corrosion resistance, often in decorative applications.
Stampings	Pieces of sheet metal stamped out of strip or sheet stock during manufacturing.
Steel Intensity	The amount of steel used per unit of gross domestic product. Intensity reflects the secular demand for steel, as opposed to cyclical demand. The amount of steel used in vehicles and the popularity of alternative materials affect the intensity, or how much steel is needed per unit produced. The state of the economy, however, determines the number of units.
Stencil Weight/Tare	The most recently painted-on light weight of a railroad car (see "Marked Tare").
Stevedore	One who is responsible for loading or unloading ships in port.
Storekeeper	A person in charge of scrap and other goods, usually used in reference to an industrial plant or railroad, employee.
Strip	Thin, flat steel that resembles hot-rolled sheet, but it is normally narrower (up to 12 inches wide) and produced to more closely controlled thicknesses. Strip also may be cut from steel sheet by a slitting machine (see Sheet Steel).
Structurals	Steel product group that includes I-beams, H-beams, wide-flange beams, and sheet piling. These products are used in the construction of multi-story buildings, industrial buildings, bridge trusses, vertical highway supports, and riverbank reinforcement.
Sub-Broker	A broker who buys from small yards not usually contacted by major national brokerage firms. Usually sub-brokers sell to larger brokers but occasionally are able to sell direct to consumers, and when they do, they are no longer sub-brokers, in fact, but are brokers in that transaction.
Suitable	Able to be used in commercial application. Usually, "suitable" is followed by "and acceptable," meaning that the grading must be of such nature as to pass inspection at the destination.
Swing	"Swing scrap" is scrap of such grade, location and price that it can move more or less profitably into two or more consumers, in the same or different trading areas.
Switch	As opposed to roadhaul, the charge made by a railroad to move cars within a switching district, i.e., Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis. The charge for a switch may be expressed as a per car flat charge, or as so many dollars and cents per ton, depending on how the tariffs are written.
Synthetic Slag	A man-made material (usually calcium aluminate) added to the ladle.
Taconite	What. Natural mineral containing less than 30% iron. It is the primary ore used in blast furnaces. Why. Domestic supplies of iron-rich ores (greater than 50% iron) were largely depleted in the 1940s, so integrated steel companies now process the lower-grade taconite to make it useful.
Take a Position	To buy more material than sold in anticipation of a higher market is to take a "long" position. To sell more material than purchased in anticipation of a stable or falling market is to take a "short" position.
Take Out of Market	See "Put Out of Market."
Tank Car	A railroad car designed to carry liquids or gases; often insulated and frequently having a residue of obnoxious material remaining therein.
Tare Weight	The weight of a conveyance, not including the material being transported (see "Stencil Weight" - "Marked Tare" - "Actual Tare").
Tariff	An official list of freight rates published by various rate making authorities.
Team Track	A name given to a public loading terminal. Many years ago wagons pulled by teams of horses would be driven to a team track where scrap would be reloaded into railroad cars. Today, only a few towns still have team tracks, available for those industries that do not have their own sidings.
Teeming	Pouring; ingot molds are filled (teemed) by iron-bearing ladles.
Telex	A facility utilized by the Western Union Company to transmit messages, and the message itself when using the facility.
Terms	Method of payment - part of a contractual arrangement which should be discussed with customers initially and as frequently thereafter as conditions warrant. Care should be taken that the terms on contracts are compatible with the type of transaction and circumstances related thereto. Terms for truck shipments may not be the same as for cars, etc.
Terne Plate	Steel sheet or plate which has been plated or coated with a lead and tin alloy. Terne principally is used in the manufacture of gasoline tanks, although it also can be found in chemical containers, oil filters, and television chassis.
Thimble	The ladle used in steel mills to carry slag, sometimes called a slag pot.
Tin Mill	Continuous tin-plating facility to produce tin mill steel sheet to be used in food and beverage cans and other containers.
Tin Plate	Thin sheet steel with a very thin coating of metallic tin. Tin plate is used primarily in canmaking.
Tin-Free Steel	Chromium-coated steel. Because it is used in food cans just like tin plate, it ironically is classified as a tin mill product. Tin-free steel is easier to recycle because tin will contaminate scrap steel in even small concentrations. The chromium coating is extremely thin.
Tolerance	Some industrial plants and railroads, as sellers, and some consumers, as buyers, have established policies which allow for tolerances established so as to eliminate adjustments for slight variations in weights between origin and destination. Weight tolerance policies on the part of a seller, for example, might allow for adjustments in net weight settlement only if the destination weight on a shipment exceeds origin weight by 1,000# or more. A tolerance policy by a consumer might accept origin weights only if a variation of more than 500# exists. The details of weight tolerance policies are simple, but become complicated if and when both seller and buyer have tolerance policies which are not readily compatible with each other.
Toll Processing	The act of processing steel for a fee ("toll"). Owners of the steel sheet may not possess the facilities to perform needed operations on the material (or may not have the open capacity). Therefore, another steel mill or service center will slit, roll, coat, anneal, or plate the metal for a fee.
Ton, Gross	2,240 pounds. Standard measurement in steel scrap.
Ton, Long	2,240 pounds.
Ton, Metric	2,204.6 pounds. It is often spelled "tonne" to distinguish it from other standard ton measures.
Ton, Short	2,000 pounds. Often called a net ton.
Tool Steels	Steels that are hardened for the use in the manufacture of tools and dies.
Top Dressing/Topped	A shipment in which the quality of scrap on top of a carload or truckload is higher than that of the material below. Top dressed cars usually are discovered by competent mill inspectors and result in rejections, usually of the "partial" variety.
Trace	(1) A relative term, usually referring to a supposed insignificant quantity of an undesirable alloying element or undesirable type of material. Since the term refers to an inexact quantity, it should be used with care. (2) To trace a RR car is to determine through inquiry of a carrier, where in its route a car may be located at any time. We often need to trace cars that have been slow in getting delivered to destination, or if we intend to consider the reconsignment of a car to another destination, and need to know whether its location is in or out of route.
Track Scrap (OTM)	The definition of scrap (other than rail itself) resulting from the repair or dismantlement of RR track. The grading may vary from job to job, and from railroad company to railroad company. Grading of track scrap should not be taken for granted.
Trade	To negotiate, to buy and sell.
Trade Case	A type of lawsuit filed by United States companies against their foreign counterparts in response to imports at prices lower than those in the U.S. market. Sanctions can be imposed by the International Trade Commission and the Commerce Department on foreign producers involved in dumping and government subsidization, if domestic manufacturers can prove material damage to their results.
Trailerload	Quantities of commodities, including primary and secondary metals, that amount to as much as 44,000 pounds each, which is the standard weight limit on U.S. highways.
Tramps	Another name for residuals, originates from scrap.
Transfer	To take scrap from one vehicle and place it into another.
Trial Car	A shipment made in advance of the bulk of an order, intended to allow the consumer to inspect and determine if they desire additional of the same material.
Truckload	Quantities of commodities, including primary and secondary metals, that amount to as much as 44,000 pounds each, which is the standard weight limit on U.S. highways.
TTT Curve	The Time, Temperature, Transformation curve for an alloy. Used mainly for annealing purposes.
Tub Grinder	A shredder used primarily for woody, vegetative debris. A tub grinder consists of a hammermill, the top half of which extends up through the stationary floor of a tub. As the hammers encounter material, they rip and tear large pieces into smaller pieces, pulling the material down below the tub floor and ultimately forcing it through openings in a set of grates below the mill. Various sized openings in the removable grates are used to determine the size of the end product.
Tundish	The shallow refractory-lined basin on top of the continuous caster. It receives the liquid steel from the ladle, prior to the cast, allowing the operator to precisely regulate the flow of metal into the mold.
Tunnel Furnace	Type of furnace whereby stock to be heated is placed upon cars, which are then pushed or pulled slowly through the furnace.
Turnings	Pieces of steel resulting from work on a lathe. Turnings are "machine shop" if long, "short shovelling" if short enough to be scooped up with a hand shovel.
TWX	Originally a facility utilized by AT&T to compete with Western Union's Telex system. Western Union bought the TWX facility and now owns them both. (See "Telex")
UBCs (Used Beverage Cans)	Scrap aluminum beverage cans, although sometimes applied to steel cans as well (steel has a microscopic share of the beverage can market in America but a much larger share in Europe and elsewhere).
Undership	To ship less than contractual arrangements.
Unfair Trade Suit	A type of lawsuit filed by U.S. companies against their foreign counterparts in response to imports at prices being lower than those in the prices in the U.S. market. Sanctions can be imposed by the ITC and the Commerce Department on foreign producers involved in dumping and government subsidization, if domestic manufacturers can prove material injury.
Unload	To remove scrap from a conveyance.
Unprepared	Not processed sufficiently to satisfy specifications for a given grade. Scrap can be prepared to satisfy one grade but not another; but the general term "unprepared" refers to scrap not prepared at all, most of the time.
Unreconcile	A bookkeeping or accounting term, meaning that certain data or documents received are not able to be introduced into our recordkeeping systems because of insufficient identification.
Unshreddables	Materials that a shredder is unable to handle because they are too large or too thick to be shredded.
Up To	Usually refers to size or chemical structure or percentage by weight. Scrap may said to be up to 5' long, or up to 500# per price, or may have up to .05% sulfur or up to 15% material over 10' long.
Upgrade	To improve quality, to beneficiate, to make better.
Upon Arrival	When received.
Usable	Pieces of scrap which because of their nature may be able to be used for purposes other than remelting. There are various degrees of usability which depend upon the ingenuity of the user as much as the item under consideration.
V Ratio	An expression of basicity (CaO/SiO2).
Vacuum Degassing	An advanced steel refining facility that removes oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen under low pressures (in a vacuum) to produce ultra-low-carbon steel for demanding electrical and automotive applications. Normally performed in the ladle,the removal of dissolved gases results in cleaner, higher-quality, more pure steel (see Ladle Metallurgy).
Vacuum Oxygen Decarburization (VOD)	What. Process for further refinement of stainless steel through reduction of carbon content. Why. The amount of carbon in stainless steel must be lower than that in carbon steel or lower alloy steel (i.e., steel with alloying element content below 5%). While electric arc furnaces (EAF) are the conventional means of melting and refining stainless steel, VOD is an economical supplement, as operating time is reduced and temperatures are lower than in EAF steelmaking. Additionally, using VOD for refining stainless steel increases the availability of the EAF for melting purposes. How. Molten, unrefined steel is transferred from the EAF into a separate vessel, where it is heated and stirred by an electrical current while oxygen enters from the top of the vessel. Substantial quantities of undesirable gases escape from the steel and are drawn off by a vacuum pump. Alloys and other additives are then mixed in to refine the molten steel further.
Vendor	Supplier, seller.
Vessel	(1) Certain equipment used for melting purposes. (2) A lake or sea-going ship.
Voluntary Restraint Agreements (VRAs)	Trading partners are allowed to export steel "illegally" -- that is, "dump" or receive subsidies -- with no consequences, as long as such exports are kept below a certain level; this provision cannot be used with WTO countries.
Voucher	A document, usually accompanied by a check, giving sufficient data to identify the reason for the issuance of the check. More recently, the term "remittance advice" has been used instead of voucher.
Walking Beam Furnace	A type of continuous reheat furnace in which the billet or slab moves through distinct heating zones within the furnace: By controlling the speed through the zones, steelmakers can achieve precise rolling temperatures and consume less fuel during operation.
Waybill	A document prepared by the carrier of a shipment of goods that contains details of the shipment, routing, and freight charges. (Same as "Freight Bill")
Weight Agreement	After an industry's railroad scales have been examined and tested by the appropriate Weighing and Inspection bureau, and proven to conform with certain requirements, that scale is then approved to establish weights to be used for the assessment of inbound freight charges. When such approval is given for shipments of scrap, it is termed a "scrap weight agreement," and the industry is then authorized and bound to weigh all cars moving to or from the holder of the agreement.
Weight Certificate	A document certifying that certain weights are correct. A weight certificate may also be a scale ticket, providing the ticket is signed by an authorized weighmaster.
Weight Ticket/Scale Ticket	A document showing the results of weighing a vehicle, with or without its load of material. Weight tickets should specify whether the weight covers a gross weighing or a tare weighing, or both, should be dated and signed, and should show the vehicle number clearly. Additional information may also be included, such as grade of material, name of shipper, etc.
Weights to Govern	Often, a number of weighings are made during the transportation of material from origin to destination. In order that the parties involved are aware of their rights and responsibilities, all transactions, especially complicated multi-mode transactions should be so documented that the weights to govern considering the various phases of handling are made clear. Without such clarification, ultimate consumers weights are considered to govern.
White Iron	A ferrous material containing 2-3.5% carbon 1-2.5% silicon with a matrix of cementite and pearlite. White iron is annealed to form malleable iron.
Wide-Flange Beam	A structural steel section on which the flanges are not tapered, but have equal thickness from the tip to the web and are at right angles to the web. Wide-flange beams are differentiated by the width of the web, which can range from three inches to more than 40 inches, and by the weight of the beam, measured in pounds per foot.
Work Rules	The division of jobs into separate crafts and specific guidelines for work in the labor contract. These provisions define the duties of a specific job, and management must negotiate with the labor representative to make any changes.
Yard	An area where scrap is sorted and processed and prepared for shipment.
Yield	The ratio of the quantity of finished shipments to the total raw steel produced, adjusted for changes in inventory and any slabs that are purchased from outside; or the amount of material divided by the amount of material in expressed as a percentage. The amount out divided by the amount in.

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