CLEARFIELD TWP — When Pete Connor labeled his book "Hold up — Mill Cobble" as a steelworker's biography, he was really referring to the biography of 75 men.

The men were involved in starting up Armco Steel Corporation's second hot strip mill in Butler Township. The world's first hot strip mill, also developed at Armco, was launched in 1926. But the second hot mill increased the capacity of the original, which by then was worn out.

Although the hot strip mill Connor writes about was developed between 1959 and 1963, many of the workers remained as a team for the next 40 years.

The book includes more than 300 pages of text and photos to describe their stressful jobs and the camaraderie that ensued. Authentic cartoons also reflect life in the hot mill, now owned by AK Steel.

Drawn by several men in the plant, the cartoons addressed the stress of perfecting new technology that elongated red-hot slabs of steel. The technology allowed slabs as large as 8 by 52 by 218 inches to be processed, coiled and shipped more efficiently as continuous strips instead of in multiple pieces.

"The process took two minutes or less," Connor said, explaining how slabs would spend several hours in enormous furnaces, then require speedy handling at successive stations before they cooled.

"Everybody at a certain station has to be ready to accept the steel as it comes — or you have a big wreck," said 70-year-old Dick McElroy of Fairview Township, the primary cartoonist in the book.

"It revolutionized the whole industry, because this was so complicated and complex," Connor said.

Much of the stress came from each man's work ethic and the peer pressure to do their jobs successfully, avoiding a "cobble" that would result in a production holdup.

"Most of the jobs required hand-eye coordination. Things happened so quick," McElroy said.

In addition to using Maalox, Tums — even a designated vomit bucket for one man — to relieve stress, the workers gained comic relief by posting and reading the comics, Connor said.

"They were having so many wrecks. To break the tension and start laughing, they started writing cartoons," he said.

Drawn on the backs of work orders, the cartoons depicted everything from the outbursts of irate managers to a snafu in the delivery of a new car to Joe Moore of Center Township, now 82.

In those cartoons, Moore was shown with dark, lumpy hair speaking his catch-all phrase "Judas Priest" while complaining about the absent car. A mule outfitted with a chair and umbrella represented the loaner vehicle.

"At the beginning of the turn, we'd all go to the bulletin board to see (the cartoons)," Connor recalled.

"(McElroy) made a lot of cartoons about me, and they weren't always flattering."

McElroy said the cartoons would disappear after a time, and he assumed they were being discarded. But several years ago, when Connor sought permission to publish the drawings, McElroy realized his friend had saved them.

"I have a sense of history," Connor said, explaining his motivation to write the book and to save 150 drawings.

Although the result provides a detailed history of the revolutionary technology, it also reflects 1950s culture.

"In our generation ... every magazine had cartoons in it — and every paper. You weren't into the visual effect of television now," he noted.

For Connor, 74, the book also chronicles a time of personal transition.

"I was about ready to quit the mill because I couldn't stand boring work,"he recalled. "(But) working at the hot mill was the most exciting time of my life."

All retired from their jobs as rollers, the highest ranking position in the hot mill, Connor, Moore and McElroy say the technology has long been perfected and many of the jobs are now automated — eliminating much of the stress.

"Most of the jobs were mechanical," McElroy said. "Whereas now they're computer-driven. The margin for error is less now."

"These are the kind of things that were part of the everyday humor that no other department has," Connor said.

Although not all episodes in the mill are recounted in the book, the three retirees say it depicts the workday of many.

"A lot of the guys in the hot mill have said to me, 'This is my story. You take the names out, and this is my story.'"

Copies of "Hold up — Mill Cobble" will soon be available for about $25 through the Mechling Book Bindery at 724-287-2120 or 1124 Oneida Valley Road, Chicora, PA 16025.