Abstract: A method of reducing tubular metal products includes the steps of selecting a tube to be reduced having the specified initial wall thickness necessary to produce the desired finished wall thickness, and reducing the tube by passing it through a succession of roll stands which reduce the end portions of the tube without applying tension between roll stands and which reduce the portion of the tube intermediate the end portions with application of tension. The method produces reduced tubular products with substantially uniform wall thickness throughout eliminating the necessity of cropping end portions which have out-of-specification wall thickness.

Abstract: An inside-outside quench arrangement is disclosed for long steel pipe which utilizes a tangential quench arrangement to cool the pipe's outside surface and an axial flow nozzle to cool the pipe's inside surface at approximately the same cooling rate. The O.D. quench arrangement includes a manifold carrying jet nozzles circumscribing the pipe which can be pivoted apart to permit a four-bar linkage mechanism to smoothly and efficiently transfer the pipe into and out of the arrangement for quenching. A roller drive arrangement rotates the pipe in a longitudinally stationary position to minimize pipe bow and enhance pipe cooling.

Abstract: An apparatus for hardening an elongated steel pipe by quenching the pipe with a cooling medium, particularly water, which apparatus comprises an elongated container dimensioned to receive a hot pipe to be hardened, means for supporting the hot pipe in a predetermined position in said container, a cooling medium nozzle, having a tip, for introducing cooling medium into the pipe through said tip, means for moving said nozzle between a retracted position in which the tip thereof is spaced from an end of said pipe to allow removal and insertion of said pipe with respect to said container and an expanded position in which said tip lies within said end of said pipe, inlet means for introducing cooling medium into said container so as to pass into said pipe through said tip of said nozzle located in said end of said pipe and also to pass around the outside surface of said pipe and an isolator means in fluid communication with said nozzle, movable to vary the relative proportion of volumes of cooling liquid entering