Blacksmith Alec Steele struts out of a narrow Birmingham back-alley and into a century old workshop that reeks of hot pennies and jet fuel. A big metal sign just outside reads Metallisation Ltd. Inside the workshop he’s greeted by workers who hand him a three pound pistol and cost more than his first ute. Give it a squeeze, and out comes a jet of liquid steel blasting out the front at a whack – 600 miles an hour. That’s just the beginning of a day that shows no signs of slowing down.
Billy, the floor manager, hands Alec a large brass torch fueled by two garden hose lines—one for propane and one for oxygen. There’s also a third hose filled with regular shop air. Alec gives it a try. A blue flame emerges, then expands into a white roar. A 1.6 mm bronze wire moves forward on a row of small teeth, propelled by the same air. Ten inches from the nozzle, the wire simply evaporates, and what hits the steel plate is a shower of tiny golden droplets no larger than dust particles. Thirty seconds later, the steel plate appears to have been coated in a mirror, with an 84 micron thick skin – equivalent to three human hairs stacked up. Give it a touch; it’s warm, not hot. The metal had landed, flattened, and frozen before it could begin to cook the steel beneath.
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Next up is the booth, where two spools of zinc wire face off like duelists. The gap is then sparked with 300 amps. Air rips the molten bridge apart and propels it ahead. The spray resembles a poor welder’s worst nightmare transformed into a shower of beautiful glitter. Alec coats some pallet wood with zinc in just two passes. It adheres to the oak just as well as it does to rust. He flips the board over. The uncoated side will be little more than a mound of rot after a year, whilst the coated side is smiling at the rain.
The Halo Jet, a rolling pin-sized kerosene rocket, is located upstairs in the office. Alec watches as a robot rotates a steel tube and the gun paints the inside with a special tungsten carbide material. The flame is invisible, yet the sound is as loud as a lion with a chainsaw. 15 microns, or half a hair, are placed down per pass. Later, he takes a hacksaw and drags it across the finished bar. The blade simply skates over; the soft steel underneath slices like a sack of cheese. You can have it both ways: the same bar, two very different lives.
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