A rolling mill is a machine that, as the name suggests, is designed to manipulate sheet metal by rolling it. Rolling mills contain at least one pair of rollers. Steelmaking companies use them to manipulate the physical properties of raw sheet metal, including steel sheet metal. By passing sheet metal through a rolling mill, its physical properties will change.

While they’ve evolved over the years, rolling mills have been around for centuries. Many historians, in fact, believe Leonardo Da Vinci was responsible for pioneering the first rolling mill. In one of his drawings, Da Vinci designed a rolling mill featuring a pair of rollers. With that said, modern-day rolling mills didn’t emerge until the 19th century. In 1820, Bedlington Ironworks produced one of the world’s first rail-based rolling mills. Rail-based rolling mills are those that are designed to create long and narrow beams or “rails” of metal.