Finishing

Steel is traded in many different shapes and sizes. They include rods, tubes, plates, sheets and double t-beams.

Some of these forms are produced in rolling mills for example by rolling hot slabs. Processing of steel increases its quality by refining the crystalline structure and increasing the hardness. The main method to process steel is hot-rolling where a steel slab is heated to red heat and then passed through a row of metal roll which form it to the right size and shape.
For cold-rolling the steel is not heated before it is rolled. Cold-rolling is often used for cold-forming for example to produce thin sheets.