Steel and Metals Editing and Proofreading Services

An order goes to the mill for two hundred tonnes of plate. It states the grade, the thickness and the quantity. What it does not state is the delivery condition, the surface class, the flatness tolerance, whether the edges are sheared or as-rolled, the impact test requirement and temperature, or whether through-thickness properties matter. All of those will be decided by somebody — the mill, in the way that suits their rolling programme — and the fabricator will discover the answers on the lorry.

We edit what steel producers, stockholders and processors produce — order specifications and enquiry documentation, grade and condition documentation, tolerance and surface condition schedules, test and certification requirements, mill certificate and inspection documentation, processing and cutting specifications, storage, handling and preservation guidance, technical guidance for fabricators and designers, non-conformance and claim documentation, and stockholder product and availability information. Our editors work on the order specification and what happens when it is incomplete.

The order specification is where a steel purchase either arrives as intended or arrives as whatever suits the mill, and its failure is specifying the material without specifying the product. A grade is a chemistry and a set of minimum mechanical properties; it is not a description of what will be delivered. We work through these so the delivery condition is stated, since as-rolled, normalised and thermomechanically rolled plate of the same grade behave differently under welding heat and cost differently; so the impact requirement is stated with the test temperature and the specimen orientation rather than left to the grade's default, given that the sub-grade suffix is the whole of that requirement and is frequently omitted; so the tolerance class is named for thickness, flatness and length, because a plate within standard flatness tolerance can be unusable for a machined component; so the surface condition and edge condition are specified, as a fabricator planning to weld from the plate edge needs to know what that edge is; so any through-thickness, ultrasonic testing or restricted chemistry requirement is stated at order rather than requested at delivery; so the certificate type required is named, since an inspection certificate validated by an independent party and one issued by the works are different documents; and so the order says what the material is for, because a mill that knows will often flag a problem the order missed. Specifications written this way avoid the argument on the weighbridge.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including specifications, certificates and commercial information. We are editors rather than metallurgists or steel technologists, and we offer no view on grades, conditions or acceptability. What we can do is make the order say everything that will otherwise be decided for you.