Tube Manufacturing

Timken steel tubing is seamless, created by a rotary forging process that provides excellent mechanical properties with

very high yield. These seamless tubes are used as the raw material for a wide range of annular mechanical steel components.

Raw Material
The steelmaking process begins with our raw material recycled scrap metal.

Melt
Electric arcs jumping across three carbon electrodes in the roof of each furnace create controlled lightning.

Refine
After being melted, the ladle of steel is carried by crane to the refiner.

Bottom Pour
At our Faircrest Plant, steel is bottom poured into ingots.

Strand Cast
At the Harrison Steel Plant, we cast steel blooms in our strand caster, designed to produce extremely clean bar products.

Rolling
Large starting cross-section sizes provide improved grain structure in the finished steel product.

Pierce
The billets are transferred to the piercing mill, where they are drawn by two rotating drive rolls over a bulletshaped piercing plug.

Thermal Treat
A variety of thermal treatments are available to provide the necessary strength and toughness, or the optimum hardness and microstructure for customer processing requirements.

Surface Inspection
Routine visual inspections combine with automated testing systems to ensure the quality and dimensions of our tubes.

Straighten
Our tube products meet straightness tolerances through either rotary straightening equipment or press straightening.

Cut Off
Tubes are cut to standard lengths, or to customer-specified lengths.

Identification
Each tube is spray-labeled with product data that enables easy identification, and tracking the tube back to a specific heat of steel.

Final Inspection
Each heat of steel is rigorously evaluated as it moves through the process.

Metallurgical Lab
In addition to surface and dimensional quality checks, steel product samples are evaluated using a number of laboratory tests.

Ship
Timken seamless tubes can be cut to the customers required length before shipping.