In 1951, Babcock & Wilcox installed the first American hydraulic Extrusion press using the Ugine - Sejournet process for the extrusion of stainless steel. This press operated until Babcock & Wilcox decided to exit the steel making business in the mid 1980's. Now there is AMEREX.

Starting in 1992, Amerex began renovation of this high speed press by providing updated furnace controls, new burner systems, new instrumentation and a new attitude. The Sejournet process uses glass as a lubricant, the only economical high temperature material which survives the 2000 to 2300 degree temperature used to extrude steel.

Many have heard of or became familiar with the term extruded as the term relates to consumer products such as storm doors of aluminum or plastic home accessories. Few know that under the right conditions, carbon, alloy, and stainless steels can be hot extruded. This process is used to produce shaped steel products, either solid or of a tubular configuration. This allows an end user to purchase material to a near net shape rather than machine or fabricate standard rolled shapes into a finished part. This near net shape becomes more critical as the material needed becomes increasingly expensive per pound.

You purchase and ship only the material which you need, not that which is machined away and discarded as scrap. Shapes with configurations that are impossible to produce by rolling or forging methods are the forte of extrusion. Furthermore, extrusion mill quantities can be much smaller compared to rolling mills or forging shops. Tooling costs are well below those of rolling mills, lead times are shorter, thus inventory costs for the end user are lower.

When Babcock & Wilcox operated the extrusion facility, 70% of the production capacity was devoted to seamless stainless steel tubular products, i.e; redraw hollows, pipe and mechanical tubing. AMEREX has added to the capabilities of Babcock & Wilcox by adding gun drills to further improve the concentricity on certain tubular sizes. AMEREX offers pipe sizes from 2" schedule 40 through 8" schedule 80 and mechanical tubing (hollow bar, redraw hollows) in sizes from 2" to 8" OD's and walls up to 1". In special circumstances, AMEREX may expand the size ranges slightly.