mills were classified by the product produced: Blooming, cogging and slabbing mills, being the preparatory mills to rolling finished rails, shapes or plates, respectively. If reversing, they are from 34 to 48 inches in diameter, and if three-high, from 28 to 42 inches in diameter. Billet mills, three-high, rolls from 24 to 32 inches in diameter, used for the further reduction of blooms down to 1.5x1.5-inch billets, being the nubpreparatory mills for the bar and rod Beam mills, three-high, rolls from 28 to 36 inches in diameter, for the production of heavy beams and channels 12 inches and over. Rail mills with rolls from 26 to 40 inches in diameter. Shape mills with rolls from 20 to 26 inches in diameter, for smaller sizes of beams and channels and other structural shapes. Merchant bar mills with rolls from 16 to 20 inches in diameter. Small merchant bar mills with finishing rolls from 8 to 16 inches in diameter, generally arranged with a larger size roughing stand. Rod and wire mills with finishing rolls from 8 to 12 inches in diameter, always arranged with larger size roughing stands. Hoop and cotton tie mills, similar to small merchant bar mills. Armour plate mills with rolls from 44 to 50 inches in diameter and 140 to 180-inch body. Plate mills with rolls from 28 to 44 inches in diameter. Sheet mills with rolls from 20 to 32 inches in diameter. Universal mills for the production of square-edged or so-called universal plates and various wide flanged shapes by a system of vertical and horizontal rolls. Tandem mill A tandem mill is a special type of modern rolling mill where rolling is done in one pass. In a traditional rolling mill rolling is done in several passes, but in tandem mill there are several stands (>=2 stands) and reductions take place successively. The number of stands ranges from 2 to 18. Tandem mills can be either of hot or cold rolling mill types. Cold rolling mills may be further divided into continuous or batch processing. A continuous mill has a looping tower which allows the mill to continue rolling slowly the strip in the tower, while a strip welder joins the tail of the current coil to the head of the next coil. At the exit end of the mill there is normally a flying shear (to cut the strip at or near the weld)