Document KR7ooaDa6YO4jVb7QD1aa9KDo

A NATIONAL ASSOCIATION TO rftOWs>T THE INTER SSI S OP KiA N J FACTOR SR S AND CONSUMERS OF REFRACTORY PRODUCTS N A T O N A L SANK U I L 0 I N G . PITTSBURGH 2 2. PA. C,Avery Newton, exrcvm-i <SfCSITAfcT SEmwsss 29, 1958 SPECIAL BULLETIN MINUTES OF THE MEMBERSHIP MEETING OF THE REFRACTORIES INSTITUTE Held Sept. 11 ar>d 17, 1958 at The Broadmoor, Colo rado Springs, Colo. ` " '-- Total attendance including guests was 62 men. Forty- three wives of members were also present to attend the soaaj functions. Atudance list is appended. President j. E. Brinckcrboff presided and Avery C. Newton acted as secretary of the meeting. Minutes of the last membership meeting held at The Homestead, Hot Springs, Va., on May 8 and 9, 1958, previously submitted by mail, were approved. F. H, Laubc, Treasurer, presented the financial report for the five months* period April 1 to Aug. 31, 1958, copy appended. This report was received and ordered placed on file. W. H. Peterson, Jr,, Chairman of the Men's Coif Committee, reported on the rules of play for the golf tournament. The President announced that the Board of Directors n their prior meeting on Sepc. H had accepted with re gret the resignation of John L. MacFarkne as Director of The Kofraetones Institute. William T. Tredennick was nominated and unanimously elected a Director to fill the vacancy and to serve until the next annual Spring elec tion. W. A. Turner, Chairman of the Mellon Institute Committee, thereupon presented the report of his com mittee, copy appended. It being nearly noon, the meeting adjourned until 10:00 A.M. the following day. Upon resuming the sesdons, tfie President reported on the current activities of The Institute and the several actions taken by the Board of Directors at their meeting on Sept. 11 as follows: 1. You may have found on the table at the entrance to the ballroom, a supply of Membership Rosters. These have just been published by The Institute and vnil he dis tributed to the entire membership by mail next week. They are for the personal use of our members only and are not to be given to outsiders. 2. Also on the table is a supply of posters announcing the rules for the 1959 Award Contest for the best papers on any phase of refractories, A supply of these posters will be mailed next week to associate as well as active members. You are urged to see that these posters arc put up on the bulletin hoards in your offices, plants and mines. Your employees have talents and abilities--urge them to enter the contest. We want a lot of entries. The three price winners will present their papers at the 1959 Fac tory Optrators Meeting and will receive engraved gold watches. 3. After discussion at the Board Meeting yesterday, it was decided that it would be impractical to attempt to combine our Factory Operators Mfc?ing_jrith a college program and hold the meeting on the"campus of a univer sity haring a ceramic engineering department. Our Fac tory Operators Committee will therefore meet in Pitts burgh on Sept. 2i to pick a site for the Operators Meet ing, plan a pTOgram and arrange for visits to refractories plants as they have done in the past. These meetings have proven to be highly successful in the past and of great value to cur production personnel. Your continued sup port of this worthy Institute activity is appreciated. 4. Two thousand copies of the Refractories Bibliogra phy covering the years 1948-1957, inclusive, will be print ed and distributed before the end of October. It will be a massive volume of over 2000 pages weigh ing about 6 pounds. Containing abstracts of all the litera ture and patents on refractories, jt will have interest especially for ceramic engineers and research personnel of our member companies. This Bibliography, as you know, has been jointly financed by The Refractories Institute and the American Iron and Steel institute at a total cost of $60,000. The Refractories Institute is taking 750 copies for free distribution among its members, depending on their size and need. We are also sending copies to the Ceramic Engineering Departments of the 17 universities and will hold in reserve about 100 copies. The Iron and Steel Institute is likewise taking about 750 copies for free distribution among their members and technical libraries and research agencies in North Amer ica and Western Europe. The balance of about 500 copies will go to the Ameri can Ceramic Society for storage and subsequent sale at $1,50 per copy to cover their costs of handling and mail ing. 5. The Board of Directors discussed a number of new Institute activities of possible interest to the membership. These activities will be explored and in some cases ques tionnaires will be sent to the meirdxirship to determine the degree of interest and participation. Some of these proposed activities are: Special committees to serve the peculiar interests of sub groups of the industry such as the Special Refrac tories Association, the Hot Top producers and others. A committee of standards to explore and recommend uniform standards of packaging castables, mortars and plastics, similar to our palletizing recommendations. Tie collection of statistics from the industry by an outside accounting firm and reporting in totals of re fractories shipments by industrial consumer classifica tions, such as iron and steel, glass, power plants, etc The collection and reporting annually of such informa tion as: 1959 Spring Membership Meeting June 25-2C> at The Greenbrier, Wiile SuJpluir Springs,W.Va. m WV-03018 -THE REFRACTO Hr) S INSTITUTE * Tcta! op:u! invested in :he indc'try 1 F,-- f-. anft -V ~'*l,*n* c. Expenditures for plant expansion and i/v<pTucement 6. A committee of the Board had been selected at the previous meeting to explore the advisability of extending the territorial limits of the membership beyond the pres* ent boundariesof the United States, Canada and Mexico, The Institute had recently received applications and in* quines from refractories companies in the Dominican Re' public, Argentina and as fa^ away as Australia. The committee recommended and the Board agreed that the present territorial limits of .membership should not be extended. It was feit that the cost of maintainmg distant memberships, making available the test facilities at our Fellowship and furnishing technical and production know'how, would far outweigh the financial benefits to The Institute. 7. The Board discussed the question of holding future meetings at other locations chan heretofore. The Secretary was instructed to submit at the next Board meeting the names of a number of likely sites, At present, we alter* nate each Fail between The Broadmoor and the Grand Hotel at Point Clear, Ala. Each Spring we alternate be* tween The Greenbrier and The Homestead, The Secretary will appreciate receiving suggestions from the members. Passing on to other matters, the President thereupon called on General Counsel, W. J. Kenney, who presented a report, copy appended, on the current status of per* antage depletion. The President then called on R. C. Shepard, President of The Denver Fire Clay Co., who introduced the guest speaker. Dr. Irving P. Krick, meteorologist and President of the Water Resources Development Corp, of Denver, Colo. Dr, Krick gave a most interesting and informal talk on "Recent Developments in Weather Forecasting and Con* trol.'* 77ie numerous questions asked by the members at the conclusion of Dr. Krick s talk indicated the degree of interest in his remarks. There being no further business to come before the meeting, upon motion, adjourned, AvRy C. Nswtok, Secretary. REPORT OF GENERAL COUNSEL Hiss is in the nature of a report of status rather than a report of progress in the, depletion field. There has been no substantial progress in the clarifica tion of the refractories depletion problems since the spring meeting of The Refractories Institute in May, 1958. However, certain straws can be reported, but only as measuring the velocity of the wind. T.eosury Lfgiskm>e fons,~On April 25, 195S, the Treasury proposed an amendment to Section 613(C) of the Internal Revenue Code of 195-4. The effect of this proposal would have been to establish a cut-off point for the refractories industry at the crushed and ground stage. However, the proposal did not provide any method to determine the value of crushed and ground clay. The Treasury proposals made no effort to solve this primary problem which has been plaguing the refractories industry for seven years. The Refractories Institute had requested an opportunity to express its views at a hearing to be held by the House Ways and Moans Committee in July of I95S. 7hc`c hearings have never been held The Technical .Act of 19:S was, however, recently adopted by Ce.rvcrc^. and ngrec by the President. the '*nly effer-. of vhn*h so far a* d'-'letion is concc-ned wa< to r-a;./* s!:$h: changes tr. the rules governing elections to aggre gate mineral properties. Pending Depletion Regulations.---At the most recent meeting with Treasury representatives the industry was assured that a final revision of percentage depiction regu lations originally projiosed on November 3, 1956, would be published in June of 1958. This promise has not been fulfilled to date and there is no reason to suppose that they will be completed before the end of the year 7956, The refractories industry has made determined efforts to obtain a satisfactory revision-of thr-*proposed reguhn'fcfffl' to establish a method for valuing crushed and ground clays for percentage depletion purposes, internal Revenue Examination .Policy.---The Interna! Revenue Service has, in accordance with its announced policy, settled depletion cases involving products made solely from shale on the basis of end product depletion, following the Chero\ee line of decisions. However, the Service has not yet announced its policy with respect to depletion upon products made entirely or in part from '`refractory and fire day**, Jn the absence of such an nounced policy, Examining Agents have generally re fused to grant end product depletion in such cases, ex cept where the fire day content has been minimal. The result has been an almost complete moratorium on settle ment of depletion claims where refractory or fire clay is a material constituent of the product. There Kms to be 1`ttle prospect for any overall better ment of the situation until the Service issues instructions to its examining and engineer agents, which probably can only come after final regulations are developed. The MeTth of the Cases.--Since the last meeting two end product depletion cases have reached trial, in both of which fire day is involved as a major raw material con stituent of the finished procua. In both cases the govern ment had countered the taxpayers claim for end product depletion by asserting the existence of a market for raw lump fire day and that this is the first marketable product upon the value of which depletion is to be computed. In the Cdnnricon Sewer Pipe case in the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana the taxpayer claimed end product depletion on sewer pipe with a sub stantial fire day content. The government contended that there was a market for raw fire day, but the only raw clay sales produced in substantiation of this market twere approximately 75 miles distant from the taxpayer's plant. The District Court held that these sales did not establish a market for raw fire clay in the area of Cannelton and allowed end product depletion to the taxpayer. This case will probably be appealed to the Seventh Circuit Court. la the Sparta Ceramic Company case the taxpayer brought suit for end product depletion in the U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Ohio. This case was reached for trial in Cleveland in August, 1958, The tax* payer is a manufacturer of small glazed and unglazed wall and floor tile and chimed depletion computed on net sales of finished tile. The government contended that the first marketable product was alternatively either (1) the value of raw clay; (2) the value of structural brick; or, (3) the value of uglazed tile. At the trial the govern* men? produced evidence showing substantial sales of raw fire clay produced fiom 6 and #5 Ohio scams in the years 19510 3. 7Vw raw clays were used largely for the manufacture of refraaory products and sc'.xcr pipe and structural buck The i ce of ia^- fi-c c'r.v oid in this THE REFRACTORIES INSTITUTE area of Ohio in 19M apparently approximated 50% of the total tonnaee of day prwcrvd. However, the. taxpayer u<:d nre clay trem Scams =4 and crriU x\ the manufacture of its tile and few sales of this type clay were shown. The matter is now pending before the judge for decision. However, the taxpayer may we)! obtain end pre-dua depletion on the basis that no market has been shown to exist for the particular fire day u<wl by it. The foregoing cases indicate the beginning of what may be a serious problem confronting not only the refractories Industry bur all day industries. Apparently, the govern ment proposes, where possible, to comend for a raw day market m any litigation involving depletion of fire days.The government engineers in the Sparta case performed enormous work in assembling these figures and subpoenaed many of the day consuming and producing industries, in cluding some members of the refractories industry, to testify as to raw fire day purchases and sales. Other cases are pending in other District Courts by structural and xwer pipe manufacturers in which the government counsel have raised such a defense, F cspectfuJIy submitted, William j. Kenney, General Counsel REPORT OF MELLQN INSTITUTE COMMITTEE As you will note from the Treasurer's Report for the five months, April 1-August 51, 19SS. income from tests was $19,700, disbursements were 525,260, leaving a net loss to The Institute of $5,560 for the psriod. h is expected that the rate of loss will decline during the balance of our fiscal year, since the volume of test work is normally slow during the summer months and since the increased prices for tests did not go into effect until June 1, 1958. A new bulletin has jus: been primed and distributed describing the tests on refractories and showing the new rates as authorised by the Board of Directors at their May meeting. The test charges are increased an average of 15% sn an attempt to offset the increased overhead charges at Mellon Institute. W. A, Turner and Avery C, Newton vimed Stuart Phelps, the Director of our Fellowship at Mellon, on August 19, Stuart reports a substantial current increase in orders for hoc load tests. He showed us scores of devices used experimentally in the way of altering the original design of the castable consistency meter so as to be able to measure mixes of a suffer consistency. This work is being done in an effort to comply with the suggestions made by some producers after laboratory trials with the equipment. The work is now in the stage of trials with a number of commercial castables, and it should not be too long before the re vised test can be reevaluated in the field. He also showed us new equipment, largely designed and assembled by the Fellowship staff, to record photo graphically the pressure and platen movement during dry pressing operations. Mention was made of the therma1 spalling test for sil ica brick, which the Fellowship began developing over 20 years ago. The test has not been used to any extent until recent years, but a number of laboratories have now in stalled the equipment and Committee G-S of A.S.T.M. u-jJi discuss its adoption during the fall meeting of the Vv Timit tee. A technical bulletin entitled "Refractors for G;a<` Furnace Checker Brick" by Fr**\v, M-Rnth'-e. hV-.*vri As*!5'.4rt ai ihc Fellowship, will be published :h:s rrooir, At the last Board meeting. The In^ulute's Secretary was instructed to determine which members planned to install thermal conductivity test equipment ip their own laboratories and to ask them to secure bids on the con struction tA two or more uims. The purpose was to see if the unit price would be sufficiently reduced to warrant The Institute purchasing and installing one at the Fellow ship. Only two companies reported pl^ui to install such equipment and one has`'since drSppcdTHI projectCThe other company is currently building the equipment for installation in its new Ub. The company is doing much of the work in its own machine shop and reports very little, if any, saving could be obtained by building two units at the same rime. The cost of this equipment has been estimated at around 515,000 plus installation cost. A trained techni cian would be needed to operate it. Test charges would range from $250-5600 depending upon the type of re fractory towed. The demand for this type of test is un known. Your committee cccommends that The Institute sand a quArit-nnaifc to the membership seeking advice on the probable number of tests per year over a three year period which each member company might require. With that information, the committee will be in a better position to make s recommendation. Respectfully submitted, W. Alfred Turner, Chairmen. RETORT OF THE TREASURER 5 Months* April !-August 31, 1958 Receipts Dues .............................................. $48,521,00 Mellon Institute Tests................. 19,704.47 Mucctlaneous ................................ 1.229.52 Tout ....................................... .................. 569,454.99 Disbursements Audit and Legal ...... .................. $ 5,042.50 Dues and Subscriptions............... 273,52 Furniture .,........... 93.68 Meeting Expense .................. 4,720.46 Mellon Institute Fellowship .... 25,266.45 Mellon Institute Research.......... 14,535.03 Office Expense............................. 2,134.69 Pension and Insurance ............... 2,241.71 Percentage Depiction ................. 829.92 Printing and Publishing ............. 1.926.50 Rent .............................................. 942.00 Salaries, Net ...................... 7,905.10 Taxes ............................................ Telephone and Telegraph.......... Travel ............................................ Miscellaneous ............................... 2,580.49 278.18 1.756.34 25.50 Total ......................................................... $68,052 07 Surplus ............................................................S 1,402.92 Add Cash Balance April 1............................... $24,964.95 Adi Savings Account....................................... 20,482.01 Tu-.al Cash Hand Sept. J ......................... 5^6,849 5/; Acme Bmk Co. Mr. and Mr*. G. Puls The Aetna Fir* Bnck Co, Mr. and Mrs. i. F. Sims The Babcock* WH Co. Mr. and Mu. J. B. Brinckcrhoff Mr. and Mu. C L. Norton Mr M. j Tenaa The Carborundum Co, Mr. R. A. Bur Cedar Heights Clay Co. Mr, and Mrs. D. E. Morgan The Cordot Corp, Mr. and Mrs. C. L Corson The Davis Fire Brick Co, Mr. and Mu. E. Davis Mr and Mrs. J. L Cummings The Denver Fire Clay Co. Mr. and Mrs. R. C Shepard Mr. and Mrs. V, O. Brandt Mi. and Mu. C J. Cerfeig Freeport Bnck Co. Mr. and Mu. F. H Laube Cladding. MtBean S Co. Mr and Mrs. J. R. Rhodes The Glebe Brick Co. Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Porter BatteSle Memorial Institute Mr. L. S. O'Bsnnon The Bonnot Co. Mr. R. R. Bush Mr. W. J. Kenney, TM Counsel Mr. O. E. Miller THE REFRACTORJgS 1 KS T1T ATTENDANCE USX Atlivv Members A. P. Green Fire Brick Co. Mr. and Mr* A. R. Barnett Mr. and Mrs. M. D. McClain HarbisomWalker Refractories Co. Mr. and Mrs, C, A BrasHarea Illinois Gay Products Co. Mr. and Mrs. H. F. West The Jronton Fire Buck Co. "-Mr. J. H. Rickey. Jr, JohnS'Manville Sales Corp. Mr, K J. Kent Kyanite Mining Corp. Mr. G. Dixon P,, J. l.avjno and Co. Mr. and Mrs. G. T. Stowe Malvern Brick VT.Ie Co. Mr. G. B. Byerly MeCrady Refractories, Inc Mr. and Mrs. L. C. McCrady Mcxko Rcfracsorirs Co. Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Leach Mr. E. C. Tinsley National Refractories Div. Mexico Ref. Co. Mr. R. A, Hitdiins New Castle Refractories Co. Mr and Mrs. R. W, Rowland Pacific Oay Product! Mr. and Mrs. j. C Culhane Phhnco Co. M: and Mrs. R. W. Schaefer H. 1C. Porter Company, Inc, Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Turner The Rameite Co. Mr. and>Mrs. T. RauSfl'SV Mr. and Mr*. Q. V, Campbell i*.. Refractory Specialties Co. Mr. and Mrs. W. T. Trrdcrmick Mr. and Mrs. R. F, Poslusxny H. C. Spinks Gay Co.. Inc, Mr. and Mrs. R B. C-rotWs The Standard F>re Brick Co, Div. A. P. Green Fire Buck Co. Mr, J. L. MacFarlane Hiram Swank's Sons Mr. A M. Swank Mr. B. A. Rhine Valentine Fire Brick Co. Mr. W. H Peterson. Jr, Walsh Refractories Corp. Mr. and Mu. J. J. Duggao Mr. and Mrs. W. K. Schweickhardc North American Refractories Co. Mr. and Mu E. W, Vaknsi Mr. and Mrs, H H. Hopwood WelljvilJe Fire Brick Co. Mr. and Mrs. L. E. WhiteseU ( / V Associate Members Clurubers Brothers Co. Mr. and Mrs. L. S. Beoiiort Chisholm, Boyd White Co, Mr. R. A. Ebeuole Cruoble Steel Co, Mr. J. R. Richards Mr. c. S. Co* Harrop Ceramic Service Co. Mr. and Mrs. G D. Brush Mr and Mrs. W. H. Schott* Honorary Associate Member Mr. and Mrs. J .0. Evans Others Mr. and Mrs, A. C. Newton, TRi Mr. and Mrs. J. W. WiUon Mr. and Mss, F Bordrck, Brick V Clay Record Mr. C. W. Berg, Blaw Knox Co. Mr. and Mu. J. Svec. Brick * Gay Record