YOUNGSTOWN — The continuous-casting method of steelmaking will be on display at an open house noon to 4 p.m. Saturday when the steel museum, 151 W. West Wood St., has one of several events this year to celebrate the museum’s 30th anniversary.

The Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor will give a sneak peak at a model it has owned since March 1991 — 15 months before the museum opened in June 1992.

The model was built in the 1970s by the LTV Corp. of Cleveland of a continuous caster that it later constructed in 1983 at its Cleveland Cliffs mill. Dr. John Liana, assistant curator at the museum, and museum consultant Tom Leary said LTV still uses a continuous caster at its Cleveland Cliffs mill, though they are not sure if it is the same as the model.

The model is large — more than 9 feet by 8 feet and about 8 feet high, mounted on tables. Its realism and attention to detail is remarkable.

Liana said when engineering students at Eastern Gateway Community College came to the museum to help with the model, they “couldn’t believe that someone actually made this, the amount of work it took to make this.”

Liana said the reason for the quality of the model is the reason it was built — so that the company could show it to customers or investors, promote its products and demonstrate the modernity of its mill.

The Republic Steel / WCI mill in Warren was the only Youngstown-Warren area steel mill with a continuous caster, Liana and Leary said. It was built in 1993.

The Youngstown mills never had a continuous caster, which is “part of why” the Youngstown mills closed, “because there was no modernization,” Liana said. The continuous caster at Republic Steel in Warren was the only one between Cleveland and Pittsburgh, Liana said.

“Warren had one that would be similar to this” but until more research is done, it’s unclear just how similar the model is to the one in Warren, Liana said of the model.

The former WCI mill in Warren closed in 2012, and demolition of the mill began in 2013, followed by removal of its iconic blast furnace in 2017.

Liana said he expects the model to bring back memories for workers who spent time in steelmaking.

“It’s attractive to all of the men who worked in the mills. It’s the memory,” he said of the model. “We had three or four guys one day (in the museum) who wanted to look at plant maps,” Liana recalled. Museum officials provided the maps.

“These three guys said, ‘I used to go in here. We used to walk over here.’ They stood around making detailed observations and discussions just looking at this map,” Liana said. “It’s memory. It’s preservation of that memory for future generations.”

He said a person might tell his grandkids about a continuous caster, but, “They may not know what it is. They will now,” Liana said.

“It revolutionized the way things used to be done, “ Liana said of continuous casters. Liana stood at the model last week pointing to the various stages of a continuous caster, saying molten steel is poured into what is called a “tundish,” which is like a bathtub, which fed the molten steel into a mold that creates an ingot. The model has realistic ingots.

“It all flows to this conveyor belt-like system and then it just keeps running and rolls down to the end of the mill, where they take it up and put it to the yard,” Liana said.

“Continuous casting made things two to three times faster than regular pouring — the old method of casting an ingot — because you could only make so much at a time because you had to take time to empty the furnace, fill the ladle and fill the ingot molds,” he said.

The continuous casting method of steelmaking was invented in the 1950s and was a great advancement in the steel industry because it “streamlined the system,” making production more efficient, saving money and energy and resulting in fewer errors and a higher-quality product, according to Marcel Wilson, site manager of the steel museum.

The earlier method of steelmaking resulted in up to 5 percent of the steel being inferior and having to be scrapped, Wilson said.

A partnership between the museum and two local universities — Youngstown State University and Eastern Gateway Community College — is providing manpower to manufacture missing or broken parts of the model and helping to develop a display explaining how the caster works. A volunteer and Liana did much of the cleaning of the model.

At the Saturday event, visitors will get a look behind the scenes at the work that has been done to clean and restore the model. Light refreshments will be provided. The event is free and open to the public. The open house is part of the Ohio History Connection’s Ohio Open Doors event that began Thursday and runs through Saturday.

The Open Door event’s goal is for facilities to “open their doors to the public for special tours and to allow the public to celebrate Ohio’s architecture and history at a free event, according to the Ohio History Connection.

Another September event celebrating the steel museum’s 30th anniversary is at 6 p.m. Sept. 22 at the museum featuring Angelica Diaz, executive director of Organizacion Civica y Cultural Hispana Americana, and other members who will be sharing their experiences and reflecting on 50 years of OCCHA.

And at 6 p.m. Nov. 10, Donna DeBlasio, former steel museum director, will share her memories of the steel museum’s beginnings and growth.

Liana said part of the philosophy of the Open Doors events is to allow the public to “see things they would never see in the real world anymore. You’re not going to find something like this in Youngstown or Warren,” Liana said.

The main parts of the museum are on the first floor, where artifacts and images of steelmaking are shown from the earliest days of steelmaking in Youngstown to 1920, when the Mahoning Valley was second only to Pittsburgh in domestic steel production, and to more modern times, when most of the mills were demolished.

• 4 p.m. Saturday: Visitors get a look behind the scenes at the work to clean and restore a model of a continuous caster used in steelmaking. Free and open to the public. The open house is part of the Ohio History Connection’s Ohio Open Doors event.

• 6 p.m. Sept. 22: Angelica Diaz, executive director of Organizacion Civica y Cultural Hispana Americana, and others will share their experiences and reflect on 50 years of OCCHA.

• 6 p.m. Nov. 10: Donna DeBlasio, former steel museum director, will share her memories of the steel museum’s beginnings and growth.

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