The Bethlehem Steel Quiz

TRY IT ON THE FAMILY

Once again Bethlehem Steel Company sets down ten simple questions contrived to quiz your knowledge of steel, steel-makers and steel-making. No inside information on the subject is necessary, since the majority of the alternatives to the correct answer are taken from your general fund of facts.

Score 10 for each correct answer—40 is a good average, 70 should earn you the respect of all and sundry and, if you score 100, you may blandly let your astounded audience assume that the intricacies of steel manufacture are abecedarian to you.

Correct answers to the Bethlehem Quiz will be found opposite page 879.

1. Only one of the following sentences is correct. Can you spot it?

(a) George Pocock, the famous boat-designer, was the first to use streamlining on the superstructure of a large ocean-liner.

(b) Two men, Tyrus Cobb and George H. Sister, first developed a zinc roofing material with a steel base.

(c) The rivet heater heated the rivet and tossed it, with tongs, to the riveter above him.

(d) The steel sheets were first pickled in vinegar, then plated with tin.

2. One of these cities is not a steel center.

(a)Baltimore (b) Buffalo (c) Birmingham (d) Indianapolis (e) San Francisco

3. A Reinforcing Bar may sound like a place to get a refreshing drink after a day spent Christmas shopping, but it is really a long rod used by the building trade for one of the following purposes:

(a) As an anchor between parallel brick walls to prevent bulging.

(b) Set between angles of a gable roof to relieve stress.

(c) To support a stairway and eliminate sagging.

(d) Set in a form of concrete to strengthen it.

4. Which one of these simple steel contrivances is an important outlet for wire?

(a) eggbeater (b) dishpan (c) double-boiler (d) paper clip (e) doorknob

5. You may not realize how inexpensive standard grades of steel are. Actually, they cost less than half as much per pound as all but one of these:

(a) aluminum (r) milk (y) shoes (b) butter (d) book paper (f) cotton

6. In Bethlehem Steel Company’s new rod mill, the red-hot rods, being rolled to size, pass through the rollers at a maximum speed of:

(a) 3 miles per hour (c) 27 miles per hour (b) 12 miles per hour (d) 46 miles per hour

7. “Dardelet” is the name of:

(a) The latest French coiffure.

(b) A new type of lastex infants’ wear.

(c) The swing-anthem of Middlewestern jitterbugs.

(d) A self-locking threaded fastening, used where vibration is likely to occur.

8. While “work-hardness” has nothing to do with excessive labor, it is a term used to describe:

(a) The effect of exercise on the muscles of an overtrained athlete.

(b) A method of rapidly setting concrete.

(c) Hardness developed in metal resulting from mechanical working, particularly cold working,

(d) Epidermal friction which results in callouses.

9. Iron ore, commonly brick-red in color, which is mined and used in making iron and steel, is similar in its composition to one of the following substances:

(a) lignite (b) coal (r) iron rust (d) shale

10. What large steel producer has been making alloy steels longer than any other American company?

ANSWERS TO “BETHLEHEM QUIZ”

(See opposite page 875)

1. (c) The rivet heater heated the rivet and tossed it, with tongs, to the riveter above him.

2. (d) Indianapolis. Each of the other cities is an important steel producing center. Bethlehem Steel Company has plants at Lackawanna, just outside Buffalo and at South San Francisco. The largest Bethlehem Plant is at Sparrows Point, in the outskirts of Baltimore. This is the only major steel plant in this country which is located on tidewater and from which shipments can be made both by rail and by ocean-going vessels.

3. (d) Set in a form of concrete to strengthen it. Reinforcing bars are rolled with accurately-spaced deformations which increase the holding power of the bar and make for a more stable structure.

4. (d) Paper clip. Manufacturers of paper clips are important consumers of certain grades of steel wire.

5. (c) Milk. Selling at 10 or 11 cents a quart, milk costs less than 6 cents per pound. The base price for steel averages approximately 3 cents per pound.

6. (d) 46 miles per hour. When the rods enter the rolls, they travel at less than ¼-mile an hour. From these first rolls the incandescent steel rapidly picks up speed until the maximum of 46 miles per hour is reached in the finishing rolls.

7. (d) A self-locking threaded fastening, used where vibration is likely to occur.

8. (c) Hardness developed in metal resulting from mechanical working, particularly cold-working.

9. (c) Iron rust. The chemical composition of iron rust is virtually identical with that of iron ore.

10. Bethlehem has been making fine alloy steels for more than fifty years.