In an effort to reach out to industry in the Reading/Eastern Pa area, I got to tour a copper tube manufacturer called Cambridge-Lee.

The tour covered a number of buildings throughout the property, but Building #2 was by far the most interesting to me.  Imagining that I was only going to see a warehouse full of copper tube with shipping and receiving  was not the case.

I was unaware that they process their own metals from the intake of scrap copper, to a 2-stage melting process with further refinement.  With building #2, it was the first stage of melting from scrap.  The two images show the melting process where scrap metal bails are fed into the furnace with tree trunks slowly advanced into the furnace to help de-oxyidize the melt.

The melt cycle blew me away as they tap the furnace for 5 hours with the remaining part of the day used to recharge the furnace and achieve proper temperature.

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