What is the SCS Process?

The SCS Process is a revolutionary new way of processing steel coils. SCS material is very clean, extremely flat and comes dry with no oil on the surface.

How SCS works

All coils processed through the SCS machine pass through a set of high-torque tension levellers which ensure the material is extremely flat.

At the heart of our coil-to-coil system is a brushing unit. The material passes through a series of engineered abrasive rolls where rust and a controlled level of scale is removed. Water is used to cool and lubricate the rolls as well as wash away the iron oxide which has been removed. The material is then air dried to produce a clean, flat and dry surface.

In cases where only shape correction is required, the brushing can be omitted from the run. This is generally the case for coated and cold reduced coil.

Differences between SCS and Pickled & Oiled Material (P&O)

• SCS has a considerably longer shelf life than P&O without the need to apply a protective layer of oil. In normal indoor storage conditions, SCS will stay corrosion free for several months.
• With the use of tension levellers, SCS material is much flatter than P&O.
• The use of SCS material will improve the efficiency of many fabrication processes.
• The process does not use any chemicals, acid or heat and thus is extremely environmentally friendly. Please contact Servosteel to find out how you can Reduce Your Carbon Footprint by simply switching to SCS.
  

Please browse the above tabs to see process specific benefits that SCS can bring over P&O and Hot Rolled material. By simply switching to SCS cleaned steel, many users can achieve vast efficiency improvements throughout their production process.

Welding Benefits

Welding Tests Show Stronger Joints

Tests have shown that weld joints on steel which has been through the SCS system are significantly stronger than with Hot Rolled (HR) and Hot Rolled Pickled & Oiled (HRPO) steel. The SCS advantage comes from higher weld integrity. A certain amount of the weld arc's energy goes into burning off the oil on HRPO coil or sheets and the dirt and scale on HR material.

This introduces even more contaminants to a HR or HRPO surface that is already fairly 'dirty' compared to SCS. The net results showed a reduction in the integrity of HRPO and HR welds compared to SCS welds. User experience gained since the tests reinforces this finding.

Robotic and Spot Welding

Robotic welding and Spot welding also see significant advantages on SCS material. The extreme flatness of the SCS material enables more accurate welding. SCS is currently being used by some fabricators to solve welding issues on parts that are welded after being pressed and bent.

More Accurate Welding

Not only are weld joints stronger on SCS material, but the flatness of the material will ensure faster and more accurate welding. Regardless of how good your welding operative or machine is, if they are not working with completely flat material, you may experience some weld deficiency. Current SCS users have seen a massive reduction in repairs to seam welds and scrapped parts as a result of switching to SCS material from HR and HRPO.

Handling & Cleanliness Benefits

Some manual welders have said that the cleanliness of SCS material prevents sheet slippage they get with P&O and greatly reduces weld fumes. With a very clean, smooth and oil free surface, SCS is considerably easier to handle and means your tools, machinery and shop floor will be kept cleaner.

Health Benefits

SCS is a big help in minimising welding fumes. Replacing P&O with SCS eliminates surface oil that can be dangerous in two ways. First, burning the oil itself generates toxins. Second, the excess fumes generated from burning oil creates an effective medium for transporting fine particles of metals, electrodes, insulators and other materials that comprise the toxins from welding. Some fabricators are now learning that they may have taken an important step toward safeguarding the health of their employees by switching to SCS and eliminating hazardous fume emissions.

Contact Servosteel for a sample of SCS material to perform your own welding tests and experience these benefits first hand.

Welding Guidlines

Click on the link below to view the SCS welding guidlines to be sure to achieve the best performance with this material.

Cheaper Paint-Prep and Better Paint Adhesion

Salt spray corrosion testing of SCS panels produced an important result -- you can achieve extended corrosion resistance using just a single stage water rinse paint-prep. That's BIG potential savings to manufacturers who paint their parts. American users have reported six figure savings by reducing their paint preparation and painting process.

Money Saving

• Current SCS users have found they needed to replace their iron phosphate solution much less often because SCS is so clean. In fact it is so clean that some users have reported that they only had to replace their iron-phosphate solution in the wash tanks once in five months, compared to previously having to change the solution every month when cleaning P&O parts.
• Some users lowered their iron phosphate concentration from the 3% they used with P&O to just 1% with SCS, and their paint performance has never been better.
• With P&O sometimes you cannot avoid some oil or contaminants clinging to parts despite rinsing. This often causes a "fisheye" blemish on the paint finish. This usually means stripping and re-painting the part. Switch to SCS could mean that rework expense of this nature is virtually eliminated.

Fabricators and manufacturers using SCS are proving in practice what the laboratory showed in principle: SCS can help you substantially reduce paint-prep without compromising on paint performance.

Testing

With no pre-treatment, even clean hot rolled with high quality powder coat paint will show significant creep after 200 hours exposure. The most common chemical stage is an iron phosphate and water solution.

SCS tests exposed four SCS panels that received no phosphate at all - only a water rinse prior to a single powder coat with a common, good quality polyester paint. At each inspection interval up through 288 hours, the SCS panels showed no noticeable paint creep. The next inspection interval at 384 hours finally showed significant creep, but the SCS panels had already demonstrated 300 hours corrosion resistance using just a water rinse pre-treatment (see test results here). You simply cannot get performance like that from P&O or hot rolled.

Recommendations

Leading paint experts who have conducted the research suggested reducing an existing phosphate pre-treatment to a two-stage rinse:

• The first stage should use a low-foaming surfactant at 0.1% concentration (by volume) in water as a recirculating stage. Use a clean, overflowing water rinse at the second stage.
• For very clean SCS (lighter gauge material), it may be feasible to use only the first stage and reduce the surfactant concentration to 0.01% - enough to give the SCS low surface tension so paint 'wets out' evenly while curing.

The manufacturers who outsource painting because they lack pre-treatment systems may now consider painting SCS parts in-house. Those with pre-treatment systems may reduce their paint-prep as noted above.

Dirt smudges, fingerprints, etc. obviously require some level of paint preparation, but you should be able to minimise your existing paint-prep system when you switch to SCS. Testing for your individual process and paint system should be done to determine exactly what is necessary for your application.

Paint-Prep Guidlines

Click on the link below to view the SCS paint-prep recommended guidelines and ensure you are running the most efficient paint preperation process on SCS material.

Laser Benefits

It is no secret that lasers love flat material. The SCS Process produces a surface with an extremely high degree of flatness which is absolutely ideal for laser cutters.

Increase Laser Cutting Speed

• The extreme flatness of the SCS material provides you with a very consistent distance between the lens and the material surface. This allows you to choose the correct nozzle size and power level to enable you to operate your laser at 100% cutting speed. For the best results download our Laser Cutting Guidelines.

Corrosion Resistant Material

• When we spoke to some laser cutters in the West Midlands, they told us that rust or corrosion was a major material issue for them. Rusty sheets often have to be ground or discarded. The SCS steel has a fine layer of Wustite (FeO) mechanically bonded to the surface which in turn acts as a protector against oxidation.
  Stored in normal dry conditions, SCS material will stay rust free for many months.

Significantly Reduced Springback

• As part of the SCS process all coils go through a high torque tension leveller in order to produce the ultimate flat surface. Once a coil has been SCS processed and has been correctly decoiled, there will be virtually no spring back in the material either during or after laser cutting.
  This will mean no head damage from spring back.

Edge Roughness

• Tests conducted by Nottingham University found that the measured surface roughness of the cut edges produced on SCS steel were considerably less than that of other hot rolled and cold rolled material.

Surface Cleanliness

• No Oil - The absence of oil on the SCS surface means there is no hazardous smoke produced during cutting.
• You will not experience any material loading problems from oiled blanks sticking together - This is a benefit which all laser users will feel but a major advantage for lasers with automated loading systems.
• Material handling is made much easier, simpler and cleaner with the absence of oil - The shop floor is cleaner, tools & machinery are cleaner and require less frequent wipe downs.
• Simple savings on consumables (e.g. gloves, shoes) are also achieved by switching to SCS.

Laser Guidlines

To help you achieve the best results on this material, please download and follow our Laser Cutting Guidelines.

Improve margins on low grade material with the Servosteel Coil Recovery Service

Opportunity to maximise your steel value

Servosteel, the UK's number 1 toll processor, brings you a way of recovering damaged or low grade steel coils via the revolutionary Coil Recovery Service. Already many of our customers have returned degraded steel coils back to their full potential by using the Coil Recovery Service. Our customers regularly see savings of £100 per tonne as they no longer have to sell coils as secondary material. Take a look below at the types of material we can restore and see how you can realise the full market value of your low grade stock.

The process of reclaiming your secondary coils

The use of roller levellers and a high degree of tension to the strip during the cleaning process produces an exceptional degree of flatness. The brushing unit then removes any rust or scale that has built up on the surface.

Please have a look at our "Coil Conditioning" video to witness for yourself a downgraded coil being restored to its former glory.

We have had great success reconditioning defective coils - full middle, bad edge shape, poor build up etc can all be eliminated.

Water Damage

Heavy rust and corrosion can be completely removed from the surface. If you have coils that have degraded over time or during transportation, the Coil Recovery Service can restore them to their former glory. Providing you with a clean, dry and rust resistant surface, the line can bring secondary coils back to caption.

Shape

Whether your coil has Edge Wave, Full Middle, or a Bow, the Coil Recovery Service can correct shape issues to significantly increase the value and workability of your coil. The Coil Recovery Service uses a high torque tension leveller to achieve exceptional flatness. Quality issues such as coils outside flatness specifications can be resolved with the option of surface cleaning. The majority of strip mill products can be processed through the line.

Click the 'Shape Correction' video to see a coil with extremely bad shape transformed into a smooth, clean and extremely flat strip of steel. The shape in this particular coil made it unworkable and would have otherwise been moved on as scrap.

Coil Breaks

Coil break happens when localised yielding occurs during the uncoiling or recoiling of the hot strip. With the use of a tension leveller to achieve exceptional flatness, a side effect is that coil breaks are significantly improved on hot rolled coils. Breaks will be improved both visually and to the touch.

A better product all round

Not only can the Coil Recovery line be used for restoring low grade coil, but once a coil has been subjected to the Coil Recovery Service it brings many advantages to a range of production techniques.

Browse the tabs across the top of the page to see specific advantages for different processes.

Future processes to consider

• Processes that compress or deform the steel sufficiently to disrupt the surface oxide layer.
• Hydroforming, cold reduction, deep draw and deep draw with spinning, may need a different dry lubricant and process adaptation for recovered material to work well.
• Porcelain enamel coating and electrolytic planting.
• Surface sensitive material when utilising the brush cleaning system.

For more information on the benefits the Coil Recovery Service can bring to your production process, please contact our Operations Director Phill Guest on 01384 471371 or e-mail pguest@servosteel.com.

Multi Process Benefits

Steel fabricators with multiple processes under the same roof have witnessed significant efficiency increases on a range of machines.

Punch & Press Benefits

It is no secret that both punch and press machines work best on flat material. SCS material is significantly flatter than P&O and HR material. Your machine will be able to perform more efficiently producing less scrap or unusable parts.

Not only does the SCS Process provide flatter material, is also significantly reduces the possibility of spring-back in steel sheets. Current users have solved issues with spring-back both on Laser Cutters and on Punches by simply switching over to SCS material.

Manual Press Brakes

Where operators are manually handling the material going onto a Press-Brake, slippery oiled surfaces are potentially dangerous and difficult to handle. The oil on P&O material has been around for so long that most people cannot imagine working without that burden. However:

• Imagine handling material that is extremely flat but at the same time very clean and completely dry with no oil.
• Imagine a clean shop floor without the annoying dirt and oil everywhere.
• Imagine the savings on consumables with employees using things like the same gloves for longer periods.
• Imagine not having to wipe the oil from machinery.

SCS brings these benefits to all fabricators and – AT NO EXTRA COST!
It is no wonder our American friends have described it as ‘The Fabricators Dream’

Current Users

Often users have switched to SCS to solve a shape problem on one machine and ALSO noticed significant improvements on another.

For example, a current steel fabricator using SCS is producing a part that is pressed awkwardly through multiple angles so they switched to SCS as the material had to be extremely flat. Real value was noticed when they welded this part onto another using a robotic welder. P&O sheets weren’t exceptionally flat therefore caused the robotic welder to often produce inadequate welds. This required time consuming manual re-welding or the part had to often be scrapped.

SCS has not only solved the issue on the Press-Brake, but also brought great benefits and savings to the company through their welding process.

Rust Resistance

Stored in normal indoor storage conditions, SCS will not rust for several months. This gives fabricators great flexibility with both sourcing and storage of material and semi-finished parts. Nottingham University have carried out tests on SCS which proved that with the micron thin, clean protective layer of Wustite on the surface, it is harder to scratch the surface of SCS material and cause surface corrosion. SCS parts will not rust after being handled like P&O material.

Browse the above tabs to discover more detail about how Steel Fabricators can realise the SCS benefits on various different processes and machines.