LYNCHBURG -- The workshops at Banker Steel are mammoth places -- in the largest shop, corrugated metal sections form patchwork walls that rise to meet a ceiling perhaps 80 feet above.

The big room is dusty, rusty and noisy. Occasional flares from cutting torches flash in the dimly lighted space. A bright yellow 50-ton crane rumbles overhead.

This is where blunt and unwieldy work gets done, and the facility right now has a particularly important project: The company will fabricate some 3,000 tons of steel to be used in New York City's Freedom Tower, which will stand on the former site of the World Trade Center.

The first batch of steel is scheduled to leave Lynchburg on Sunday. Saturday, the public will have an opportunity to view it and sign a girder from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at City Stadium on Fort Avenue.

In the past, Banker Steel has provided materials for the Gaylord Hotel and Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Md., the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico and the still-in-progress baseball stadium in Washington, D.C., where the Washington Nationals will play.

Company president Don Banker said the Freedom Tower project is "a medium-sized job" for Banker Steel. It involves the fabrication of 27 steel columns imported from a mill in Luxembourg. The beams weigh 730 pounds per linear foot.

Though they're reportedly the heaviest I-beams available, the company will fortify them by welding 6-inch-thick plates to the flat sides of the H-shaped girders.

This process augments their strength, said project manager Chet McPhatter, and "in many cases, it increases their weight three times."

Most of the columns are also being fitted for base plates, 6- to 10-inch-thick steel platforms that will provide foundation. A stack of the plates sits outside the shop and each slab is marked with specifications and a "heat number" that Banker said tracks each piece "back to the very molten metal it came from."

The entire job, McPhatter said, should be complete sometime during the summer.

The pieces will then be trucked to New York to form the tower's foundation. It will reach 85 feet below ground and 15 feet above ground.

"This is what the building will actually sit on. This will hold the building up," said Jim Brown, who operates a massive and high-speed device called a HEM saw. Girders run through the HEM's door-size window and are cut in 30- to 50-foot lengths. Part guillotine, part band saw, the machine can cut 21 inches of steel in about eight minutes.

Plates are then attached with temporary welds called tack welds. Before permanent welds can be made, workers preheat the steel to about 300 degrees, usually using a torch called a Rosebud that resembles a small flamethrower. A powdery material called flux is placed around the welds to prevent them from being contaminated.

On Monday afternoon, workers Jong Guen Moon and Chun Woong Seo, used automated welding equipment to attach plates to a column.

Across the room, supervisor Mike Duddleson and fitter welder Tim Franklin used a gas torch to make a practice cut on a 10-inch-thick base plate before cutting it to a pre-drawn design. The torch heats up to about 1,400 degrees. While it doesn't slice through the metal like butter, it works with deceptive speed. Duddleson said it can cut the blackboard-size plate into shape in two to three hours.

"I've worked in steel for 30 years. I've worked on a lot of different types of buildings," he said. "This is something that's more recognizable by people in this country. I have children and grandchildren who will know about it."

When the original World Trade Center was under construction, the Lynchburg facility provided more than 25,000 tons of steel for the project. As someone who closely followed the construction of the twin towers, Duddleson said he believes the Freedom Tower could be even more historically significant.

Franklin, meanwhile, eagerly pounded a sledgehammer against a newly cut, freshly smoking section of base plate until it fell free of the molten incision.

His actions underscored the possibility that even with all the heavy labor, working with steel can occasionally be fun.

"Oh yeah," Franklin said. "This is the most exciting job I've worked on."