Patent ID: 8215146

Claim:
A method of rolling a feed product into different sized finished products in a rolling mill finishing section which comprises a plurality of rolling units arranged along a mill pass line, each rolling unit including two roll stands with work rolls configured to define successive oval and round roll passes, and with each roll stand being designed to effect a specific area reduction on products rolled through its respective roll pass, said method comprising: rolling a feed product having an entry size through the roll passes of the roll stands of the rolling units in a first rolling sequence to thereby produce a finished product having a first reduced size; replacing a selected rolling unit along said mill pass line with a replacement rolling unit having roll stands designed to effect area reductions that differ from the area reductions effected by the roll stands of said selected rolling unit, and removing from the mill pass line any of said rolling units downstream from said replacement rolling unit to thereby provide an altered second rolling sequence; and rolling a feed product with the same entry size through the roll passes of the roll stands of the rolling units of said second rolling sequence to thereby produce a finished product having a second reduced size different from said first reduced size.