By DANIEL TAUB
Staff Reporter
Los Angeles has billed itself as the birthplace of the fortune cookie, space shuttle and barbecued chicken pizza. Now the city has a new claim to fame: It’s home to the world’s largest all-forged-steel hydraulic press.
South Gate-based Schultz Steel Co. has received the final piece of its 2,650-ton press and started the months-long process of assembling it. When the press is complete, it will be able to generate 40,000 tons of pressure.
“It’s hundreds of times more powerful than a car crusher,” said Chris Chance, vice president of sales and marketing for Schultz Steel, which has operated in South Gate for 52 years. “Theoretically, it could crush a car into a one-cubic-foot square It could turn a sequoia into sawdust.”
The custom-built press will not be crushing cars or trees. It will be used for making parts for airplanes, submarines, rockets and missiles including landing gear components and engine parts. It’s a critical addition for Schultz Steel, which generated revenues of $122 million last year, producing parts for the Boeing Co., B.F. Goodrich Co. and other companies.
Chance said the purchase of the $30 million press is part of a $62 million, four-year capital expenditure program launched by the company in 1997. The effort includes the purchase of other machine tools but essentially is built around the press, which was conceived by Schultz officials and fabricated by Japan Steel Works.
The powerful machine is intended to keep Schultz a strong competitor in the aerospace-defense industry. Once assembled, it will be able to mold pieces to within four one-hundredths of an inch of a specified dimension and make them incredibly hard and resilient by squeezing the raw material to a high density.
“Obviously, you don’t want a problem with a piece of metal at 30,000 feet,” Chance said.
The logistics of transporting and assembling the press have not been simple. Before the pieces even began arriving, Schultz Steel spent 18 months digging an eight-story pit to house it, and installing a four-foot-thick, rebar-reinforced concrete floor that will serve as its base.
The individual parts had to be transported across the Pacific Ocean on one of the few ships in the world capable of carrying such heavy cargo. The ship also had to have its own 500-ton crane on board, since no equipment at the Port of Long Beach, where the press was delivered, could handle such a load.
Off-loading the ship required special approval by the port’s engineering division. And each piece had to be precisely placed on a section of the dock that could handle the weight without collapsing.
The unloading was done by Stevedoring Services of America, which was hired because of its expertise with such unusual shipments.
“It was simple in terms of what they did,” said Larry Morres, a wharf manager at the port. “But it required people who really knew what they were doing The longshoremen they used were probably the most experienced I know of at this port.”
Even more complicated was transporting those individual pieces including three pressing-plates, each weighing more than 450 tons from the port to Schultz Steel, a distance of 11 miles.
Each plate had to be sent on a 192-wheel, 12-axle dolly, which could only travel on public streets from midnight to 5 a.m. at a top speed of 5 mph. The dolly was pulled by a tractor-trailer with the help of four “pusher” trucks. Because the load was so massive and heavy, the dolly could only travel on certain streets, which added 12 additional miles to the trip. It took two days to deliver each piece because the trip required a daytime stopover in a Compton cul-de-sac.
The entire 11-mile delivery process took nine days and cost about $1 million twice as much as shipping the press from Japan to Long Beach.
With the assistance of outside contractors, employees at Schultz Steel are now putting the press together a process that could take four or five months. At any given time, about 40 people are working on the assembly, but that number will grow to 80 when electricians are brought on later.
The press is expected to be ready for use by early next year.
Given the high cost and long process of getting the machine delivered and assembled, it’s expected to be in use for a long time.
In fact, Chance said, the press has an expected life span approaching 100 years. “The press can last virtually forever,” he said. “And it was built with that in mind.”
