1962 PHELPS DODGE / U.S. DEPT. OF INTERIOR COPPER MINING FILM SMELTING, USES OF COPPER 67864
1962 PHELPS DODGE / U.S. DEPT. OF INTERIOR COPPER MINING FILM SMELTING, USES OF COPPER 67864
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This color educational film is about Copper, how to mine for it and its uses. It was made in 1962 and features footage shot at Phelps-Dodge mines.
Opening titles: US Dept of the Interior – Bureau of Mines presents COPPER: THE OLDEST MODERN METAL (:12-:55). The ancient symbol of enduring life is also the modern symbol of copper. Liquid flows through a mine. A solid piece of copper that has been formed through human means. Copper pieces going through production. Copper wire being formed. The wire is being wound up. Copper is number 29 on the periodic table -the table is shown. Animated copper atom is shown and then inside of it is explained (:56-3:04). The metal copper. Pure copper is malleable, conducts heat rapidly, allows it to resist corrosion, permits it to be drawn, and enables it to conduct electricity efficiently. Other minerals are shown. Exploration for copper. The side of a mountain. Men study with microscopes. A man lays out a map to plan. Copper is found in many parts of the world as the map shows. Southwestern parts of the US have copper deposits. Open pit and underground are two ways to mine. A mining plant. Men with hard hats get ready to head into the mines. Copper wire spins off its spool for the elevator. The men exit the elevator and go into the mine. A drill is used to get into the rock. Explosives are placed into it. The mine is blasted to break up the rock. Broken ore is put into chutes then into tiny railcars to transport it (3:05-7:55). Ore is transported up the shaft. Giant open pit mine painting. In an open pit most waste rock is removed. Railcars move waste rock. A bulldozer pushes rock. Men work. A man surveys. Workers communicate with one another, rail lines move. The open pit is in layers. Explosives are placed in position to be detonated. A man waves a flag. A hand operates the button and the explosion occurs. The rock is then hoisted into railcars (7:56-11:00). Rock is moved into the railcars. Only some of this rock contains ore. Railcars slowly move waste rock out and discard it down a hill. Ore leaves on railcars to being its process of becoming pure copper (11:01-12:38). Ore is dumped. Concentrating, smelting, and refining are up next to make pure copper. Concentrating: first the ore is crushed and ground in water, mixed with oils. The process is explained and shown how they get to concentrate. Piles of ore are ground up. The mill pulverizes the ore. The processes are discussed and shown. Ore mixed with water. Concentrate is then upgraded by grinding and floatation and ready for smelting. The process of smelting and what is required to break it down is explained (12:39-16:17). Man in the smelting plant. Slag is withdrawn and discarded. Buckets pour the liquid. In the converter the liquid is poured. Processes explained. Men punch through the air ducts to keep the air flowing (16:18-18:08). The furnace turns. Oxygen reacts with gas goes off as steam. Copper is poured into a casting wheel. Electrolysis purifies the copper. Pure copper sheets are made in the refinery (18:09-21:03). The electrolysis begins. Sheets of copper are melted down and recast for fabrication. The liquid is cast. Copper moves through the plant. Machines at work. Copper wire is made. A copper pipe is made (21:04-23:20). different copper pieces in production. Wire copper is wrapped with tape. Most copper is hidden behind walls and panels or buried in the ground and sea. A space rocket takes off (23:21-25:10). A hand touches buttons and knobs, a reel to reel tape recorder, a hand turns on a switch, knobs turned, lights go on. Neon signs of the big city. A cross. A statue, The Statue of Liberty. Many different uses for copper. A machinist uses copper. A scientist pulls copper from a machine. Copper experiments (25:11-27:29). End credits (27:30-27:42).
Phelps Dodge Corporation was an American mining company founded in 1834 as an import-export firm by Anson Greene Phelps and his two sons-in-law William Earle Dodge, Sr. and Daniel James. The latter two ran Phelps, James & Co., the part of the organization based in Liverpool, England. The import-export firm at first exported United States cotton from the Deep South to England, and imported various metals to the US needed for industrialization. The corporation acquired mines and mining companies, including the Copper Queen Mine in Arizona and the Dawson, New Mexico coal mines. In 2007, it was acquired by Freeport-McMoRan.
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
Copper = Female
Copper county is in my home state
"…hidden in the deep reaches of space." Back, from whence it came.
All the shit pumped out of the stacks of those smelters. No effs given.
Nice. I grew up in a Phelps Dodge copper town (open pit). My dad worked in the lab and when I got out of high school, I worked at the mine in the pit and the mill for a couple years. The gold and silver recovered from the refining process paid for the operation and copper was pure profit. That has all changed – at least in the US. I remember the train leaving once a week to take the copper ingots to the refinery in El Paso. Thousands of the ingots every week.
Hells ya
11 meth-head brains exploded when they saw all copper in this film that they couldn’t steal.
the sound track is something else. Love these old films
Love a bit of copper 😉
why the feminine symbol is used for copper?
My dad worked for decades for Phelps Dodge. Quite a number of plants in the northeast, Habirshaw, Bayway, South Brunswick.
The story of Phelps Dodge is one I’ll always remember. From about 2000 to 2004, copper was selling at ridiculous low prices. Under $1/lb…65-70-90 cents. Starting in 2004, Phelps sold kilotons of copper forward once copper poked above $1 to 1.25 or so. They thought it could never go higher. https://www.macrotrends.net/1476/copper-prices-historical-chart-data By selling these contracts, Phelps was obligated to deliver copper at historically low prices. Starting late 2004 copper began a price run that took it ultimately to $4.50 at its peak. But Phelps was obligated to deliver copper at well under $2. By 2006-2007, Phelps was losing massive money on every ton of copper they had to deliver, Mid 2006, copper had ramped over $3 and Phelps was losing tremendous money because it had to deliver copper at (say) $2. When it appeared they were going to have to declare BK, Freeport bought them out NOT by paying money, but by offering to take PDs’ delivery obligations off their hands. FCX just supplied their own copper to fulfill PDs’ obligations and became the owner of PD.
Plenty of brass in the soundtrack, as there should be in a film about copper!
As always, thank you…especially since I have been sitting at home.
These are the shows we watched in science class. We actually learned something back then, now its brain washing.
It is disconcerting to see so much waste/inefficiency at every step.
Morenci smelter?
Love these
I love these old educational and promotional films, but this one has such a cockamamy sound track, as though the makers are trying to match the visual actions with the soundtrack, like Disney’s Fantasia, but in this case it just didn’t work, it’s just damn annoying. Sorry P.F, this one gets a thumbs down, not for your work, but for the crazy musical score. 👎😔🇬🇧🏴
Reminds me of my days in the copper mines of Geber…there was a tough gig..
im pretty sure the slag will one day be seen as a useful ore at some future date
$2.00 a pound #1 bright scrap price as of today !
Looking up the Wiki on Arizona Copper, the numerous Labor Strikes and attendant violence, posse’s, mass arrests and deportations to other states is an eye opener. I moved to Arizona in late 85′. I recall reading of the Morenci strike.
Dat original score. Wew
That’s a Hamilton 950E Railroad-grade pocketwatch, if anyone wondered.
So in 1962 at least, rock adjacent to ore and slag are discarded, we are told. We aren’t told their destination. No doubt about it, the copper industry is a messy one, hopefully less so from year to year.
Thanks Periscope! Good video and the music was over the top and down the other side but it was an old one. Thanks again!
Bugs Bunny meets Twilight Zone meets documentary, crazy
Can you imagine a world without copper?
There’s a finish plant in Norwich CT I use to deliver the finished copper rod product to the various companies around the east coast
If you work in a mine I feel bad for you son.
I got 99 problems but silicosis ain’t one.
What an involved and long process– who thinks up this stuff??! Let alone the machines to do it.
Lack of industrial education is one of the major failures of the modern public school system. Young American school students should be required to understand the processes necessary to maintain and advance our exceptional standard of living. Understanding the unpleasantness that is endemic to such processes will help explain why many such industrial processes have been exported beyond the authority of the Congress, IRS, EPA, OSHA, EEOC, Unions and environmental/anti-business organizations.
My great grandfather was a PD man. Phelps Dodge paid him well enough to by a house that is still in the family.
Unfortunately, my generation of men from my county, unlike our forefathers did not have an opportunity to work for a well-paying company that was famous for taking care of the communities in which they operate, largely because of false information pushed by environmentalist and the EPA.
My dad worked at Magma Copper Co. in San Manuel, AZ for over 20 years. I only ever got to see the open pit mine and the underground mine. Never did see the crusher, smelter, or refinery. Thanks to this video I now have a better idea of what it was like where he worked.
I still remember back to when I was a kid and from where we lived we could see the glowing molten hot ribbons of slag being poured at night. I still wonder why that Iron wasn’t used for steel production, though.
Copper’s a feminist.
Why did i click on this video?
Those titles and motion graphics are very Saul Bass.
Where’s the girl?