Abstract: A method and apparatus for rolling a rolled material widthwise thereof wherein the rolled material in the form of a flat metal which may be a slab of metal having a large width as contrasted with the thickness has its lengthwise end portion shaped by compression working while the rolled material remains stationary in such a manner that the lengthwise end portion is formed with a progressively reducing width portion in which the width is progressively reduced in going toward the end of the rolled material, and a uniform width portion contiguous with the progressively reducing width portion and having a width equal to the minimum width of the progressively reducing width portion between its end contiguous with the progressively reducing width portion and the end of the rolled material. Thereafter, the rolled material is subjected to widthwise rolling, whereby the fishtail produced at the end of the rolled material can be greatly diminished.

Abstract: A shape control system for a rolling mill comprises means for operating a roll positioning means to press down the rolls under a preselected load, when no strip to be rolled is fed between the rolls; a calculator of roll position variation for comparing the roll position under the preselected load with a preselected reference roll position; a calculator of roll crown variation for calculating the roll crown variation by using the output from said calculator of roll position variation and a preselected functional relationship; and a calculator of roll bending force for calculating the amount of a roll bending force to be corrected based on the output from said calculator of roll crown variation and feeding the thus calculated correction to roll bender control means.