09/02/2026
In the latest episode of Forged in Focus, I sat down with Scott Draudt, Regional Sales Manager at New Castle Stainless Plate, LLC in New Castle, Indiana. Scott has been with the same mill since 1988, through every name it's worn along the way — from Avesta Sheffield to Outokumpu to today's fully American-owned New Castle Stainless Plate — and there's nobody better positioned to walk us through what it actually takes to turn a slab into finished plate.
We dug into the fundamentals fabricators deal with every day: the difference between quarto plate (PMP) and coil mill plate (CMP), why that distinction drives cost, gauge flexibility, and flatness tolerances, and what's really happening inside the mill during rolling, annealing, and pickling. Scott walked through the mill's deep history with duplex stainless — including their role developing the original "Code Plus Two" spec for 2205 back in the early '90s — and where grades like 2507 and 2101 fit into pressure vessel, heat exchanger, and even nuclear SMR work today.
We also talked quality culture (why service quality at the roll is the biggest source of variability), workforce development in a generational Indiana workforce, the push to get 2205 duplex approved for bridge infrastructure across multiple states, material surcharges and how mills manage nickel and chrome volatility, and what Scott learned walking the halls of Capitol Hill advocating for the pressure vessel and steel plate industry. If you work in fabrication, procurement, engineering, or pressure equipment and want a real look at what happens upstream at the mill before the plate ever reaches your shop, this episode is for you.
Like, subscribe, and leave a 5-star review.
🎧 Watch or listen to the full episode:
▶️ YouTube: https://lnkd.in/e3XkT6rv
🎙️Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eWJE3pzw
🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/egEsB6dT
