I am glad to see the conversation drifting towards the rolling mills. It was there that the quality materials were selected, organized into determined patterns, and through innumerable heats and rollings were welded and drawn into the ribbands commonly thought of. Rolling mills were highly complex operations from which almost all metal objects began their journey to useful artifacts. And they date back into antiquity, possibly a thousand years or more.

When an old man dies a library burns to the ground. (Old African proverb)