Model Boat Mayhem
Mess Deck: General Section => Chit-Chat => Topic started by: Roger in France on November 01, 2007, 06:30:14 pm
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We all know that tools have varying uses, try these:
SCREW DRIVER: excellent for opening tins; mixing paint; prizing out staples and makes a fine substitute for a wood chisel. Only the unimaginative use them for driving screws!
FINE TOOTH SAW: super for finding hidden nails in timber.
BAS**RD FILE: useful for throwing at those you do not like. (Spell Check disallowed the use of TA in the middle of the name!)
CLAW HAMMER: effective in gouging two lines in wood.
SLEDGE HAMMER: makes a fine door stop.
PLUMBERS WRENCH: efficient in cracking wash-hand basins and toilet pans.
PAINT KETTLE: makes an excellent storage space for used nails etc. Also a fine decoration for the workshop if unused and hung on a nail. However, contemplation of this work of art is not guaranteed to calm you when you have just spilt a 5 litre can of paint you used instead.
METAL TAPE MEASURE: good for scratching inside the plaster cast on your broken leg.
STANLEY KNIFE: great for paring your finger nails and removing hardened glue from your fingers.
ENGINEERS HAMMER: has magical properties as it can turn your thumb nails blue, make grown men cry and turn the placid into foul mouthed blasphemers.
MARKER PENS: excellent at producing physcadelic patterns on clothing but useless for marking smooth surfaces as the marks are inadvertantly removed by sleeves of the aforementioned clothing.
FACE MASKS AND GOGGLES: another excellent ornament for the workshop wall; good at collecting a cover of dust and debris but little appreciated after you have a lungful of sanding dust or a spark in your eye.
FIRST AID KIT: has a place in every workshop but that place can never be found after an accident or, if found, the box resists all attempts to open it with two bleeding thumbs and a severed index finger.
Roger in France.
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Chisel: great for cleaning glue and gunge from bench surfaces.( I can feel my woodwork teachers hand around the back of my head as I write)
Torque wrench: very handy when the socket wrench goes A.W.O.L
Scalpel: great for de-burring the inside edge of K&S brass tube
Paint brushes: open packet, throw away immediately (saves doing it later) or use for everything except paint.
Blowtorch: perfect for fag or pipe lighting but requires high degree of skill.
Belt sander: excellent for spinning up tight wheels on models, also sharpens chisels after bench scraping excersise.
Drill bits: the cut off shanks are a great source of perfectly fitting shafts after drilling a hole with them. ( always leave a bit of shank on the bit so you can continue using it)
Cylinder vacuum cleaner: with pipe placed in the outlet hole, makes a great blower for blowing dust out of workshop door into the atmosphere. Also can't be beat as a blower for bonfires and barbecues. (avoid getting sparks down inlet hole, blazing dust bag turns cleaner into fighter engine on re-heat)!! Bin there! :P see wife impression-- >>:-(
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Here's one for the ladies. ;)
INCOMING !!!
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With regard to cylinder vacuum cleaners.
Many years ago I was teaching a friend how to reload 12 bore shotgun cartridges on a Saturday morning. SWMBO was at work so I set up the cartridge press on the kitchen table. Having gone through all the safety aspects of working with `nitro powder` a fast propellent and reloaded some 150 cartridge's. I decided to pack up and we would go pigeon shooting with the fruits of our labour.
I had spilt some of the powder on the carpet which had to be cleaned up. Brushing was not having the desired effect so I got the old cylinder vacuum out and proceeded to `hoover` up. 8) 8) 8)
You should have seen the look on both our face's as with an almighty bang both end caps of the hoover did a short circuit of the kitchen. :o :o :o
SWMBO to this day still does not know why I went soft and bought her a new `upright` that day. :angel: :angel:
Colin H.
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All purpose tool kit
hammer, screw driver and a pair of vice grips
you can destoy any thing
Robert
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insulation tape makes a good standy elastoplast!
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Or DUCK tape if it's a near amputation situation... ;)
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Being an ex musician, I have had a few experiences with Gaffa tape. Man the things you could do with that. I recall a show were the whole lighting rig was held up with the stuff. Also good for repairing holes in shoes. Immobilising limbs, repairs to that piece of your car that keeps on falling of.......
Regards David
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Although not strictly a tool, the ubiquitous workshop radio is often used for target practice by irate engineers. This usually takes place when the set is at full volume and a commercial radio station is pumping out is mind numbing repetetive ads. :P You can surprise yourself at how accurately an engineers hammer can be thrown and the distance it can cover when launched by a deeply disstressed engineer. >:( The resulting crash followed by the soothing silence is most gratifying.
I don't think the H.S.E approve of the technique but I think the stress reduction is conducive to a safer working environment.
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>>:-( A good range of Hammers in different sizes,,,,,, so you can use the adage, " If it don't work go and get a bigger 'ammer ".
Harry
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i laughed after reading this thread......
SWMBO is a cabinet maker.... we have to share one of our workshops, and thats where i find some of my tools take on new uses...
i have found metal rulers which have been used for opening paint tins/ varnish tins and worse still they have also been used to stir the contents,
vernier calipers used to scribe parallel lines in timber for a mortice and tennon joint
engineers scribe used in conjunction with a hammer because she could not find her bradawl
radius gauges used to scrape off material from timber to acheive the correct profile....
and to top it all long nose pliers ( now bent long nose pliers) used to ' lever' out a screw with a damaged screw head....
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Yep ex time served Joiner done most of the above , but genitally :D but when teaching saw a lot worse ..
peter
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Sheerline, your posting has brought back a few memories to me. One of the memories, I would like to share with everyone;
It concerns a 'know-it-all" engineer, fresh out of University, with more letters after his name than there is in the alphabet, but no practical experience whatsoever; so then, let us set the scene, are we sitting comfotably?
Thursday morning, after a 12 hour nightshift; the shift group handing over to the dayshift group plus dayshift managers; sitting around a table, talking over the busy night we had all had and how we had overcome some of the problems. One of the problems was a persistent problem which only raised its head at the most inconvenient time. It had to do with an 80,000 ton press, if you can imagine a press twice the height of an average 3-bedroomed semi detached house and it has 21 bedplates in it which are all lifted up by eight huge hydraulic rams, and when I say huge they are about 3 foot in diameter and about 20 foot long standing vertical.
These are all controlled by an electronic valve block. What basically happens, there are 3 valves on the top. First valve shuts the press, and takes it up to 7,000 psi. The second valve takes her up to her operating pressure & the third valve kicks in and maintains this pressure by recycling and then boosting and every now and again this 3rd valve would stick.
So, you had two options, if the valve stuck when the press was first operated, you could gently crack the press open and send her back up quick and this sometimes cured it. But, if the press had gone into its heat cycle - this is where they start heating the press up to 190 degrees C . The option then was to go and collect the engineers number 2 precisioning instrument and give it 'WACK' on the top of the valve block and if you hit it in the right place, it did the trick. If it did not work, panic stations, because you had to stay with the press and operate it manually all the time and its not very nice being near the press when it is on heat cycle.
So, in the log book, the normal comment was 8000 press cycle valve adjusted with engineers precision instrument and then everyone on the maintenance team would know what had been going on....
apart from this new 'highly qualified engineer' and, as I say, we were all sitting talking discussing another major breakdown we had had through the night, which we had all been called too electricians and fitters, and, as we were discussing this with the Managers - there was a voice piped up from the back 'CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN WHAT AN ENGINEERS PRECISION INSTRUMENT IS PLEASE, OR ARE YOU ALL JUST IGNORING ME' at this point the factory's head Manager, who, is in the charge of the factory now and was the Manager in the engineering department, before he was promoted. He promptly walked over to the tool box, picked up a number 2 ball pane hammer and threw it at him. Obviously it missed him, because he was like a scalded rat when he saw the hammer coming towards him - and to which the Manager turned round to the engineer and said 'FOR ALL YOUR QUALIFICATIONS - YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ENGINEERING - so I suggest you spend a month on shiftswith these lads, working alongside of them, and, you can forget your Manager status as well!!!' and by hey, he did as well, he worked with us for a month.
Believe me, he had his eyes opened a few times.
aye
john e
bluebird
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Hi John,
That one had me in tears and reminded me of something similar some 40 years ago.
I was working as a plant engineer on a Derbyshire quarry that was converting from coal fired to gas fired kilns. Thats how I got the job, me gasman not engineer in anyway. The guys looked on me as `mate` status and as I tried my best we all got on very well.
Nearly every job involved moving a mountain of muck (usually lime stone or dust) before you could get to it.
One day new engineering type chappie starts having come from a factory back ground. His first job was on some rollers that supported a 400 ton horizontal kiln and there must have been 15 ton of muck to shift before he could properly get to it.
At snap break he popped his head into the cabin and asked if he could get any help shifting the stuff to which the foreman replied `heh lad get thee sen a cleaner shovel`. Come dinner time he turns up looking the worse for wear, filthy dirty and sweating for England. `Were ah they been lad its only a two hour job` came from the foreman. ` I will be all day with that bl--dy shovel he replied.
Only then did he find out that to us a `cleaner shovel` was in fact a small by our standards piece of earth moving kit, about 3 times the size of your average JCB. These were used for running about the quarry cleaning up the mess left by larger bits of kit.
I don't think he ever lived it down and he left a few weeks afterward.
Colin H.
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Excellent work related tales lads, bin chuck ing away here reading them. O0
The workplace can be a strange envirionment and sometimes brings out the worst in blokes. I have never ceased to be amazed how a bunch of intellegent, dilligent dedicated engineers can be reduced to a bloodthirsty marauding rabble, behaving in the most primitive and infantile manner at.......................the injection of a flying insect into the working environment!!
Be it a wasp or bluebottle, grown men will rise, en - mass,from their place of work to hunt down this vile fithy and deadly creature. The cry would go up "look, a fu-----g wasp... get the b----st d"! The primitive human bloodlust instinct coupled with the thrill of the hunt would take over and as one, the workforce would be seen to rise up and employ everything from todays newspaper to a steel rule to bring down the enemy. I have seen large wing retaining type elastic bands, aerosols (WD40, trike', spray paint etc etc) steel rulers, electric fans, and just about anything which came to hand, either launched or flailed in an attempt to bring down the enemy ( my personal choice is the steel rule).
There is always some lefty who will stand back and bleat about how its 'one of Gods creatures' and keeps whining that it 'should be left in peace, it will go out of its own accord'! When this happens, someone will always close the windows to prevent it leaving so it can represent the real threat which justifies killing it.
When finally the foe is conquered, the striker of the death blow can be seen to fill his chest with pride whilst jealous others of the pack pour scorn upon him claiming "it was a lucky shot"!
This once proud 'pride' of dedicated techs and engineers, panting and sweating slightly, will calmly return to their individual tasks...........whilst someone slowly and quietly opens the window in the hope another will come along.
Lastly, just as everyone is settling down again someone will pipe up and use those immortal words which firstly brings the whole place to a standstill then causes mass panic............. "Do yo think that wasp was dead.... and where did it go when you hit it"?
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really enjoyed these tales....we are on the track of reminiscing. Here is a good 'bedtime' story for one and all...and this story has lived with me
You know, you have finished serving your Apprenticeship time and in the shipyards you did your sea time as well and if you liked it, you stayed there, if you didnt, you either went back to the shipyards if you could or you found other employment.
I went to sea for 8 months - enjoyed it but did not stay - I did not enjoy the Persian Gulf, too much heat & etc., so, I decided I wanted to try other fields of engineering.
I took a job with a Company called 'Blackwood Hodge' and I went for a 6 weeks training course in Twickenham, which is another story - with 12 Australians (not Aborigines either). Anyway, I ended up working in Cerrigydrudion in North Wales - on heavy earth moving equipment bl**dy big tipper trucks and huge lorries.
We had trucks which we called 45 ton 'Yukes'.
The story goes, they were loading a truck full of earth from the side, with a Volvo Shovel 992, huge thing. It literally turned the 45 ton Yuke over on its side. You guessed it, the driver was still inside! Now, in these lorries, a bank of batteries in a steel box forms part of the driver's seat. Although the batteries are all secured in they still could be broken free. Obviously, the acid in them is a potential hazard.
So that is the scene;
We all piled down, emergency crews, there were two other lads and myself, we managed to get on top of the side of the truck to open the door. We opened the door to hear the driver shouting and screaming, thinking the worst that he had been burnt with battery acid etc., because he was shouting 'IVE LOST MY EYE' he was rolling around the side of the cab, looked like he was trying to find his way out.
Then, one of the lads who was with me started laughing and shouting & calling at him TO GET HIS AR*E OUT OF THE CAB AND STOP MUCKING ON. At this point I screamed obscenities at the lad who was laughing saying YOU STUPID SO AND SO HE HAS LOST HIS EYE WE HAVE TO GET HIM TO HOSPITAL AND GET FIRST AID FOR HIM at which point we literally dragged him out of the cab.
We will now jump forward to the next day. Sitting having our breakfast and in walked the lorry driver who had had the accident, I myself am sitting with a bacon sandwich and there was promptly a GLASS EYE placed in the middle of my plate :o :o . The lorry driver then said, I FOUND MY EYE LAD :D {-) EYE/I never lived that down. aye aye...... 8)
aye
John e
bluebird
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Love it John! I do however have to ask, did you finish that bacon butty??
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Where John comes from the man was lucky to keep his eye never mind not eating his butty.
Still laughing your on 6 turbos now John.
Colin H.
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hi ya all
No, you know what, I did not finish me bacon butties and everytime I went into the canteen they would should AYE AYE let us see what John wants today for his breakfast, eye and bacon {-) {-) :D
There is another part to the story you know, where four of the Lorries were moved up to Forth in Scotland, up to an open-cast coal mine and two of us were transferred up there. We there met a driver called 'Vince' how he ever got a job only God knows. Whisky for breakfast, whisky for dinner, whisky for tea and then he would have a good-night wee dram.
Just quickly, these lorries obviously were not allowed on the road and can you imagine our surprise when a Police car arrives on site and the Policeman was asking HAVE WE LOST ONE OF OUR LORRIES and if so, IT WAS IN THE VILLAGE PUBLIC HOUSE CAR PARK, hey, it had demolished one telegraph pole, two farmers walls' were demolished. But, somehow, he had managed to get it through the gates of the pub without damaging the gates and parked it perfectly over four car-parking spaces :o :o . Needless to say, Vince he did not have a job with the Company for very long. The other funny thing was, the Police would not allow us to drive the lorry back up the road, they had to take it back to the site on the low loader.
There was even a management team up and they wanted to know how he had taken the lorry off-site.
One of Vince's other tricks was - being in Scotland in November/December time, you can imagine it was rather cold up there in Forth in Scotland. So, what we all used to do (the maintenance staff) was get an old 45 gallon drum, fill it full of old rags and diesel and set fire to it, to get warm. Also we used to stand around the drum to get warm, plus, the drum was normally beside the air receivers that we used for the pneumatic tools to stop them freezing up. Vince's party trick was to bring his lorry alongside the drum of burning diesel, open the cab door and either throw water into it or even p**s into it, he only did that the once, because the drum spat out and everybody ran like hell. :D Aye, good memories, glad Im not there in the cold now.
Aye, I wonder where they all are now. {-) {-)
aye
john e.
bluebird
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Could'nt help laughing John but the thought of Vince pi....ng in the drum gave me visions of a massive' flare up' caused by all that alchohol coarsing through his system. :o
Aye (no pun intended here)
Chris
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Not an engineering story but along a similar vein.
When I was at University I dated an older girl who was doing a PhD in chemistry. the grads had an office that was shared about 1 between ten people. Each office had a lab next to it. I made friends with the group of grads in that lab, and did a lot of my work in there, as it was far warmer than my room. In the course of a few months, I saw a number of interesting events:
My friend Stuart was working with Hydrofluric acid, which is by far the most dangerous acid you can get. If some lands on you, it will immediately eat through your skin and destroy the nerve endings, so it is painless. It will then proceed to eat the calcium in any bones it can get to. There are horror stories of people waking in the morning to find no bones left in their hand or arm, and sadly these are true. Anyway, stuart managed to drop some on himself in a fairly spectacular way, getting spatters of it all over his body. At the time he was wearing a fairly brightly coloured track suit. The acid immediately ate through this, hit his skin, eat through that and then proceeded to attack the bone.
Stuart starts shouting, tearing off his clothes. We all come running into the lab to find a long haired loon with neat holes all over his naked body. We managed to get him to A+E, where he was shot full of HF antidote, as it's very poisonous, and was given treatment to stop the acid attacking his bones.
When all the holes had healed, it turned out that HF did not destroy the dye in his track suit. He therefore has bright red and green "tattoo's" over his entire body, and will do forever more...
Second "interesting" event happened when a crazy hungarian girl was working in the lab trying to remove all the water content from petrol as part of an experiment. To do this, you add powdered sodium to the petrol, and then boil it. So, away Marta is going, but she left the top off the bottle of powdered sodium, and was working right next to a pool of water. Some how, she managed to give the sodium a damn good whack, which knocked it into the pool of water. This then detonated, causing the boiling petrol to detonate immediately afterward.
So, she is now covered in burning, boiling petrol. The lab is decked out with fire extinguishers, so me and my friend Chris immediately grab them and run towards her. However, in her panic, she runs away from us, out into a corridor, setting fire in the process to a number of notices on the wall, and then outside.
So we have myself and my friend chris running after a screaming, burning lunatic hungarian who won't let us her her to put her out. After probably a minute or so, chris was forced to drop his extinuisher and rugby tackle her to the floor, so that I could put her out.
Somehow, she managed to get away with only very mild burns.
Last incident involved Victor, the proffesor of my girlfriend. Some how, victor managed to get hold of a 3kg solid block of pure magnesiun. Victor was a pretty odd person. He was a chemsitry genius, but a russian loon as well, and did all sorts of strange experiemts, including such oddities as having some of his students buy what ever erm... chemical stimulants.. they could, using lab funds, at the student bar, so that he could analyise the content of the drugs during lunch times.
Anywho, victor decided it would be fun to light the magnisium block, as magnusium burns very fiercely. He tried lighting it in a fume cupboard with a bunsen burner, and then using various chemical reactions that generated a lot of heat. This didn't work, so he picked up the block and carried it to the tea room, where upon he put it on the stove and lit all the hobs.
It was only when another professor came into the room saw what he was doing and started shouting that he stopped. The worst thing was that Victors enthusiasm was so infectious that a big group of us were clustered around the stove waiting to see what would happen, and up to that point it had seemed a perfectly sensible thing to do!
Steve
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When I was a kid a friend of mine had a chemistry set (not the sort you could ever buy these days). You could also buy magnesium powder quite easiliy as it was still sometimes used for flash photography. He had his own shed (lucky lad) with a substantial timber worktop. As an experiment we put some magnesium powder into a metal bowl together with something else, (can't remember what) and lit it. The magnesium rapidly went through the bowl, through the worktop and through the base of the shed before it was all consumed. Just why the whole shed didn't go up as well I'll never know!
It was around that time that we rigged up an intercom between our houses (about 200 yards) using two valve radios and some army surplus signal wire run along the chainlink fence of an adjacent field. It actually worked, but the rig involved connecting the chassis' of the radios which were live! While it lasted we had a 250v electric fence on the garden boundary but nobody died!
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I collected the temporary nickname of Humpty when as a Post Office Engineering "yoof" I did a bit of time learning about the workings of the overhead gangs. 1960/61 was not a good winter to do this. The gang was a select group who wandered about in a Commer travelling speakeasy, van at the back, half a bus at the front. The mornings work having been completed, we were heading to the north of the land for the afternoons job, which was the removal of a kiosk. We stopped at a builders merchant to get the sant and cement and aggregate to lose the hole we were to leave, and probably do the foremans back path, and I as yoof, got shoved into the back to brew up on the move. Me, big kettle, gas ring, huge jug H&S about twenty years off. The motor stopped by some shops so the lads could get their chips and stuff, and I was officer I/C kettle. As I was adding hot water, they came back. "OK?" said foreman. "Coming" said I, moved the filled jug of tea to the rear and leapt in an athletic manner over the tailgate. Then, reaching over the tailgate, lifted the jug clear, the van went "VROOM" and shot off, leaving yours truly stood in the road luckily holding the gangs brew.
Eventually they returned. I was spotted sat on the pub car park wall, clutching the brew can for warmth. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
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I'm not sure if this will count but many moons ago I was serving my time as a vehicle technician (OK OK) car mechanic :embarrassed:
at the grand old age of 19 I had the fortune to assist in the repair of a damaged car (it was by todays standards a rite off) but the power arm to straighten chassis was being used on another, so the charge hand (my tutor) sent me round the stores for two sets of 3 tonne chain pulls where we then connected these between two lamp posts with the car in between and duly straightened the chassis, may I add that this idea was far easier to control than the correct equipment. but if the local council and elec board had know what we were up to all hell could have broke loose (I have used this idea myself, please don't tell anyone as the 'bollard I used came out the ground)
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When we were tv engineers back in the 70s we got up to all sorts of tricks in the workshop. We used to use those old Solon soldering irons with a coper tip which simply pushed into atubular socket on the end of the iron. I discovered you could scrape the red heads off matches, ram them down the hole, shove the bit in the end , plug in the iron and wait. If memory serves me correctly, the time period for detonation was around 40 secs. The first time we tried this, the iron was just hanging on the tube base wiring on the set I was working on. The thing went off like a gun, the recoiling iron ripped the wiring off the tube and the copper bit went through the workshop roof! The genie was now out of the bottle and everyone was at it, you dare'nt enter that workshop without shouting "is it safe"?
This skylarking and experimentation progressed to a MK2 version..... BIGGER. We had this whopping great electric iron with a huge bit in the end so out it came, in went half a box of match heads followed by the bit. At this point, we were all a bit twitchy and shell shocked and we knew this would be a big bang so we anchored the iron in a vice and pointed it out of the window at a wall about 50 feet away. We plugged it in and hid behind the tv racks on the other side of the workshop. After a couple of minutes, it still had'nt gone off but no one dared go check on it to see if it was warming up. Three minutes later there was a tremendous bang which not only hurt our ears but brought dust down from the roof.
When we re- emerged, the iron was like one of those old blunderbuss guns you see on Tom and Jerry cartoons, with its end all splayed out and completely wrecked. The vice had also been shunted along the bench and the Bit had vanished.. obviously ejected at high speed.
We never found the bit and there were no marks on that wall outside so God alone knows where it went! After that last incident, we closed it down as a prank because it was so so dangerous.
Lucky to be here really as there were many other tales to tell.
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Sheerline, Ive had three goes at reading this...got tears in me eyes with laughing....even me Mrs is having a good laugh.
We have to keep this going, because these are good tales.......never to be forgotten :D {-) a good laugh is what life is all about.
aye
john
bluebird
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At one time my nick name was Santa.
Early December 1968 (god thats nearly 40 years ago) building site and I was the site plumber. Fearing bad weather over the Christmas holidays the site foreman decided to make everything water tight where ever possible and I was given the task of putting on the lead chimney flashing's.
So there I was, bright crisp day sat on a crawler ladder (one of the old wooden types) along side the stack merrily bashing away at the lead with the old bossing stick when the damn hook came of the crawler. Being a steep pitched roof the ladder part with me aboard immediately started to slide down the roof tiles.
My screams made everyone turn round as the ladder picked up speed. It wasn't until I hit the ground I recalled that I was on the rear of a bungalow roof and that the garden banking lifted at that very spot. I actually came down less than 7 feet so apart for a sore a-se and cut hands (where I had tried to hold on to the tiles) I was OK.
You can just imagine 1960s building site humour I hardly dare go in the snap cabin for lunch and was very glad when the Christmas holidays came to give everyone a chance to forget the incident.
Yours Colin H (Santa on a jet sleigh).
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It still makes me smile when I think back on it too John. There were a few explosions created in that place and I am afraid myself and one of my collegues were the main perpetrators. We were always up to some ruddy thing which usually ended in tears or dirty underpants. One ,Mike, my partner in crime, walked through the workshop door carrying a huge mains driven ventilation fan. "Look wot Iv'e found, bet this is really powerful"! Well, you know whats coming, the first thing was to fire it up and boy did that thing go, it was blowing stuff all round the workshop. It only took two seconds to come up with the idea of anchoring it to the end of a wheeled TV stand to see if it would propel it along. We rigged this thing up with a really long mains lead, cleared some space in the middle of the worksop and plugged it in to a centrally located floor mounted socket.
The fan spun up and the stand set off in a circular path around the room. We stood well back, admiring this lunchtime engineering miracle. The speed started to pick up and the exposed fan on the front of this stand began to look just a bit dangerous. At one point I said to Mike "we've got to turn the bloody thing off, its getting faster all the time". "Sod that" says Mike "I aint goin anywhere near that thing now and anyway, we can't get to the mains socket, it's in the middle"!
At this point, the thing was going round the room like an express train and sensing something was about to give, we dived for cover behind the tv racks. With a huge flash, the mains wire tore out of the plug and the now free tv stand with screaming fan shot across the workshop, fortunately not in our direction. The sigh of relief was cut short at the spectacle of this mechanical abortion careering at full tilt into the side of a brand new 25inch Philips colour tv. It ploughed into the cabinet and destroyed the tube with an almighty bang!
There was glass and bits of wood everywhere so then we had a massive panic on to get the 'thing' dismantled and get rid of all the evidence. Mike squared away the sets destruction with the boss by claiming he had dropped it down the stairs whilst shifting it and was told " I know you blokes are doing your best but from now on, you must always get two people to move these large sets around".
What a pair of rotten lucky b--st.--ds we were. I still feel guilty about it but the devil in me still makes me smile at the thought of that powered tv stand and Mike's silly grin. I wonder where he is now and if his experimentation luck has held out as long as mine.
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Hey Colin, That roof stuff is the one thing I can't do, heights are for special types who know no fear...Respect man!
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And then there's this - anyone else been run over by an aircraft carrier?
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so colin whats this about or do i dare not ask. john
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Surely not Colin...its every aviators nightmare you gotta tell all!
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Well, guys, it's like this. I was inexperienced. We'd just bought the boat, a 25 footer and decided to go to the Isle of Wight from Chichester. Lovely day, gentle breeze then the wind dropped just as we were approaching Horse Sand Fort in the Solent (big thing made of Granite).Tide sucked us in towards the fort, started engine and tried to steer clear, tide too strong, hit fort. Big bang from forward. Wife & daughters making distressed noises, captain stunned. Boat swung round by tide, stern hit fort, trashed outboard. Drifted clear, still no wind. Went below to use radio to request tow. Shouts from on deck. MOD launch yards away, HMS Illustrious returning from Bosnia also yards away - heading straight for us as we had drifted into the main shipping channel. MOD launch tried to take off my daughters, too late, had to leave us to our fate. Illustrious bow missed us by about 8 feet. Drifted down her port side under the flight deck - matelots running for their lives as our mast approached them. Seemed to go on forever - long ship Illustrious! Wife went below, daughters still in cockpit, captain grimly gripping the helm. Suddenly realised that sponson supporting phalanx mounting at stern of Illustrious lower than our mast. Pushed daughters below, continued grimly gripping helm. Mast top hit sponson, forestay parted, mast fell down beside me, Still gripping helm. Looked up. Illustrious receding, crew lined up in Sunday best around flight deck ready to enter harbour. Waved to them, didn't wave back. MOD launch came alongside and took us in tow to Gosport. Everyone shellshocked, including MOD launch crew. Lots of formalities, report in Sunday papers, legal proceedings, 3 points on licence. Daughters don't come sailing anymore, nor does wife. Just one of those things really - Sod's Law in overdrive.
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colin:
What sort of formalities? Please don't tell me there is a specific form that you have to fill in if you nearly get sunk by an air craft carrier?
Steve
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Prosecuted for sailing without due care and attention. Technically if you get in the way of a large vessel in a narrow channel constrained by its draught it is entitled to run you down which is what happened. Actually Illustrious did put her engines astern twice but still had to maintain steerage way otherwise she could have run aground. The powers that be determined that there had to be an investigation as a result of which I was invited to accept a caution which I did on the advice of my solicitor. When I duly repaired to Portsmouth to be admonished the MOD Sergeant said afterwards that they would never have actually prosecuted me for what was essentially bad luck. The powers that be just wanted a scapegoat.
It was a bit different for another yacht a few months later. They collided with a semi submerged German submarine in Portsmouth Harbour and the Germans sued them for £20,000 for a damaged sonar dome. Risky old business yachting!
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I'm not sure what it is with engineers and experiments but I guess we are engineers because we have a fascination with how things work and to what extreems we can take them to. How do you know when something is going to break untill you have taken it to that point?
I obviously displayed such talents as a youngster when I distinctly remember my first delvings in to pyrotechnics. In the days of penny bangers we all put them into plastic model submarines before chucking them into a pond to see if we could frighten any of the ducks to death but I always knew that to make an explosion more effective you had to contain it within a boundary that would allow it to escape only when it reaches maximum pressure. Enter the pop bottle. The thing was that you had to wait until the banger was actually fizzing otherwise it would go out again so you had somewhere in the region of five seconds. I was designated the bottle man, I was keen to be popular in those days, and my mates lit the banger.
As soon as it was fizzing they dropped it in and started running. I was left with putting the cap on, screwing it down, chucking it away and running as fast as my little short trousered legs would carry me. It went with a very satisfying boom, closely floowed by small pieces of glass debris falling on me as I ran. I can't begin to imagine what would have happened if it had gone off a second sooner.
From there match heads also held a fatal attraction and once again it was how to contain it that was the challenge. I was still at secondary school when I worked out that two bolts screwed into one nut formed a nice tight litle chamber that you could scrape a few match heads into. I started of with something the size of a M6 by about 50mm screw. Two of those carefully tightened onto a few match heads in one nut and then toss it in the air, spinning it as you did so. It was almost certain to land on one of the ends if you spun it fast enough and the sharp crack was enough to blow the bolts apart and send the pieces off in opposing directions.
By all the natural progressive laws that apply to enquiring minds what we now needed was a bigger bolt! One lads father was an engineer and he was dispatched to get a bigger pair of bolts and I duly went off to steal a box of my fathers matches. When we returned our eyes lit up at the beauty he had found. The bolts must have been well over an inch in diamter and about 4 inches long and easily capable of taking a whole box of match heads. We all set to to carefully scrape the sulphur of the ends of a whole new box of matches until we had done the entire box. This lot was poured into the nut with one bolt half way in and the other bolt was carefully screwed down onto the match heads. Nervously we all looked at the assembly and one by one all my mates slunk away until I was the only one left holding it.
A big bolt was going to take a good belt so I tossed it in the air spinning it as fast as I could. It came down, hit the concrete path and went off with a retort like an artillery shell, completely deafening me and making me jump so much I had no idea what happened to the pieces. After my ears had stopped ringing and my mates returned from behind the wall we looked for the evidence and the best means of escape should any of the waving curtains or opening doors bring any trouble. One bolt was eventually found embedded in the bottom concrete step by my own back door a few feet away. We had to knock it out. The other one we couldn't find anywhere until we saw that one of the planks in my back gate had a piece missing at the bottom. The freshly damaged wood indicated the path of the bolt so we back tracked it until we found it on the other side of the road in the gutter. It was only when I looked at the damaged gate and where I had been stood that I realised that the bold had passed between my legs with enough force to smash the gate and travel about 100 feet. If it had hit my legs I'm sure it woukldn't have slowed down!! Both bolts had thier top two or three threads stripped of completely. We never found the nut. (Apart from the one that threw it!)
That was school days, I'll tell you what I got up to at college later.
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Not a story of mine, but one of my fathers, although I have his mates as evidence so I know it happened:
My dad started his army life as a dispatch rider in a signals regiment. He had a motorbike and used to get run ragged taking messages from the CO to various sub units.
One day they were in Germany and a major NATO excersise was called. As part of it, 3 regiments of infantry and 3 regiments of guns, all british, were assigned the task of demostrating a "creeping barrage", which the British had perfected and a lot of other countries were interested in. A creeping barrage entails very accurately laid guns fireing just in front of an advancing line of infantry. As the infantry advance forwards, the fire from the guns also advances forward at the same speed.
On the day of the Demo, my Pop was a D/O for the Nato top brass. generals from 5 different countries were in attendance.
The demo commenced, and all was going well. However, all of a sudden, the shells started to land in the middle of the infantry. 3 entire regiments of Britians finest did the decent thing and legged it at high speed, in front of two british brigaders and a number of NATO generals.
For some reason, this didn't go down to well with the top brass, and from the command post, a great deal of screaming, shouting and swearing erupted. After some thought, my dad decided that they obviously wanted to get it off their chests, and had absolutely no desire to be the lowest ranking squadie in the area. Deciding that cowardice was the name of the game, he promptly jumped on his bike and legged it as fast as he could away from all the mess. Unfortunately, he was that desperate to get away that he ran his bike straight into a trench, crashed and impaled himself on the handle bars, leading to a stay in hospital and the surgical removal of a set of handlebars from his chest.
When he was out, he was placed on a charge of deserting his post, although he considered it well worth it.
Steve
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Hi there {-) I am still ill with laughing, they say laughter is the best medicine, havent laughed like this for ages {-)
During my apprenticeship and, just as no doubt everyone else did, you had to spend a certain length of time in each engineering department. The time had come for me to go into the white metal shop, this is where they used to re-white-metal main engine bearings and soforth. In the middle of the shop, there was a huge cast iron steel plate, approximately 12 foot x 12 foot and about 4 inches thick. There was about 8 inches off the ground. Underneath there were propane gas torches for heating the plate up. Also, there were gas torches mounted around the outside that could be directed at the bearings.
At one side, there was a variety of 'home-made' tools. On the plate itself there were several rings, similar to a dartboard, drawn on the steel heating plate. So, when I went in, the bloke in charge Ernie Shemm and there was a bloke called Mickie Richardson - I was given the induction course. FIRST OF ALL, THE TOOLS ALONG THE WALL I asked the questions and they gave me the answers. WHY ARE THERE WHITE CIRCLES PAINTED ON THE PLATE well son, came the answer, when the plate is redhot it doesnt glow bright red it is only dull red. People have not got the sense to feel the heat and they try to walk across the plate and we determine how far they get to the centre before their shoes melt. I said ah, right, I said anyway THESE TOOLS ALONG THE SIDE WHAT ARE THEY FOR and they said, the first one (similar to a wallpaper scraper) welded to a 6 foot length of pipe was for scraping melted soles off the hot plate. The second tool which was like a very long pair of forging tongues, I asked what they were for - that was for putting your cans of soup on the hot plate to get them hot for dinner time.
I then asked what was the idea of the upturned bucket with the pipe welded to the bottom for, I thought it was some form of ladle. It turned out it was some form of safety device - as several people have put unopened tins of beans & soup onto the hotplate - ALMIGHTY BANG - or if you see the tins expand you put the bucket over the top of the tin and it catches/stops the ingredients being spread around the shop!
The last one I wanted to know WAS, WHY, DID THEY DO THE RITUAL - OF BANGING THE HOTPLATE before they lit the gas torches underneath? Back came the reply.....that this was a new ritual, due to the fact several weeks before they had turned the gas on, put a lighter on underneath to ignite the gas and when it ignited it went off with a bang and out shot one badly singed well grilled shipyard cat whiskers smoking that had been sleeping underneath the plate to get warm.
My last question to Ernie was why were the painters banned out of this part of the workshop. Back came the reply, Jimmy the painter was passing with a tin of paint and an unlit cigarette - he inadvertently bent down to get a light from one of the gas torches for his cigarette not realising he had put the unopened tin of paint onto the hot plate in front of one of the operating gas torches. Needless to say, it just exploded and sent showering burning paint everywhere. His overalls were set afire along with other things which caught fire.
Aye
Happy times
John e
bluebird.
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While we are on the subject of things that go BOOM....as a young apprentice me and my mate nobby discovered the potential fun to be had with oxyacetaline gases.......i"ll explain ! we found that if you put a car indicator bulb in a bulb holder with long lead attached , then break the glass so that the element was exposed....put this inside a balloon or plastic carrier bag , now insert the nozzle of the welding torch into the bag or aforementioned balloon and open both taps , thus charging bag etc with , with gases. When enough gas is in the bag (guesswork ! ) remove the torch nozzle , ( turn of both taps ) , then wrap the opening of the bag etc with tape ,thus trapping bulb element inside bag with the gas. Now retire to safe distance , plug end of lead into mains socket , switch on and watch resulting large bang ,,very satisfying !!!!...This of corse resulted in idle moments being spent looking for bigger and better bangs !..We soon discovered that if said bag was placed under an upturned bucket , the resulting bang would propel the bucket upwards in a manner which would rival the space shuttle... ::) :D
Anywho this action resulted in the final epic , which incolved a black bin liner , a dustbin , and an old outside concrete toilet block , and a very annoying sh%t hawk. ,,,. Yes you know whats coming dont you ? We set up the experiment ? in a very orderly manner with a few bread crumbs for added effect. wait until sh&t hawk lands to pilfer bread crumbs , then plug in,,,,The resulting explosion launched the dustbin skyward with a trail of flame out the back like a nasa booster rocket , when we looked back at the toilet block the solid concrete roof had moved about a foot in a westerly direction , the door was now in residence in cubicle four , and a steady trickle of sh&t hawk feathers falling in the yard . This also gained the attention of the local plod who had heard the bang nearly a mile away and had come looking for the cause , they spent nearly two hours cruising the estate looking for a missing workshop , being convinced that one had blown up,
WE didnt try to improve on that :D :D :D
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These big boom stories have reminded me of the time I was working on a building site in Stevenage back in the seventies.
The drainlayers on the sight were a particularly militant mob who seemed to be constantly at war with the bonus surveyors. There was heated arguments every payday.
One November about Guy Fawkes night things got really fraught.
The chief surveyor was a man of regular habits [in fact he was very regular] if you know what I mean. His office was in one of the new houses we had bulit and every morning at 9.45 he picked up his paper and disappeared to the smallest room for approximately 15 minutes. Anyway on this particular morning he disappeared as usual.
The drainlayers gave him 5 minutes and then one of them lifted a manhole cover and put a drain stopper in the pipe from the WC. When he had done this another one shinned up a ladder and put a large bundle of very noisy fireworks down the soil pipe after first lighting the blue touch paper, he then very quickly put in a pipe stopper and made his escape. After a few seconds there was a fairly large muffled explosion and apparently the surveyor was blown offf the pan closely followed by what the drainlayers had said he'd been talking when he'd upset them.
He was never known to have cr***ed on that site again and the police never did find out who done it. {-)
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What great tales chaps, still larfin me head orf! I have to say, of all the stupid experiments and things which have nearly killed me, I would still rather have chosen that course rather than mix it with an aircraft carrier..... at least we could run and hide.
What is it with us blokes and this fascination for all things dangerous? It's at this point you really begin to realise the BIG difference between the male and female minds as you never hear of girlies mucking around in this fashion. I wonder if there are any looking in on this lot and if they have any tales of this nature?
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Hi guys.it gets better....A lot of years after the oxyaceteline caper....when i should have known better ::). i was foreman on a site refurbishing old houses in the east end of london.....it was probably january or february coz it was bl%$#ing cold.....anwho the large site fire of which there were many,was growing in size and rapidly becoming a lot bigger than the 50 gallon drum that it started in... No problem there then ?...lots of people crowded round said fire trying to get the feeling back in parts of the body that had apparently dissapeared.....Along comes site manager in landrover which makes a lot of numb bodies leave the warmth of the fire , leaving just a few of us round the inferno . Then out of the blue,, one of my guys , who had shall we say a stupid sense of humour , says , wonder what would happen if we got a putlog ( for those that dont know , a putlog is the short length of scaffold tube with a flattened end ) , filled it with water and banged a lump of wood in the end , and then put it in the fire ????...Can you tell whats coming ????..It took ages for the wood to burn through even though the wooden plug was down in the fire , most of us had given up waiting and started to leave. all of a sudden there was an almighty bang followed by a wooshing sound. The contents of the fire were spread about everywhere and there was no sign of the putlog. We did however manage to find it though sticking out of the toilet block wall , which it had managed to penetrate after first going in and then coming out the other side of the site managers land rover ! ::) we then understood why steam engines could be so powerful , and no , nobody owned up , it was put down as a freak accident.... :D :D . hey ho . the things you do when you are young..
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I worked in the oil industry for a number of years and in the Pre- Piper Alpha days.. before things really tightened up safety wise there were all sorts of dodgy goings on taking place. One job which had to be performed in our yard was something called 'String testing. String was the name given to the very long sections of threaded pipe which you see being lowered vertically and sequentially screwed together as they are lowered down through the wellhead in the deck of oil rigs. At a guess I'd say they were about 25ft long but stand to be corrected on figures.
We had a pile of these in our yard and there were two types which were rated for different pressures, I believe one sort was 20,000psi and the other at 30,000 psi ... at least that it what I was told.
Two of our chaps were charged with testing these pipes and this involved capping one end and fitting a special adapter to the other so the whole tube length could be pressure tested, this was done pnuematically. To my way of thinking the reasoning behind this method of testing seemed questionable and a bit dubious to say the least. I worked on electronics in the lab so who was I to question such matters.
I came into work one monday morning and there was a bit of a flap on and it wasn't long before someone told me.
During testing, someone selected a low pressure pipe and charged it at the wrong pressure. The pipe was layed horizontally on trestles and a Diesel powered compressor was used for charging it. Apparently the charging end cap came off the pipe and it performed an act which can only be likened to a Challenger rocket booster. I don't know what these pipes weigh but I do know they are bludddy heavy and have to be moved either by crane or a forklift. The pipe accelerated along the trestles and punched its way through three steel indusrial containers, like the ones you see on the back of trucks. One the way, it took out the compressor and smashed the diesel engine, just missing the operator. The huge volume of gas at these pressures, exhausting from the aft end created a sandstorm of grit from the dirt surface in this part of the yard, this engulfed the luckless operator but because of the velocity of this grit, it did do the poor chap some damage.
I saw him after he was reased from hospital and he appeared none the worse for wear and grateful to be alive, however one side of his face was black and this was caused by the grit driving hard into his flesh and embedding itself. Fortunately, he was told it would all come to the surface and eventually disappear. I reckon he was lucky not to have received the full exhaust blast as it would have probably torn the very skin from his body.
It was reckoned that if that pipe had got out of our yard and got airbone, it could well have come down elswhere on the industrial estate.
Big Question... Who the hell ever thought of air testing such an item... logic must surely dictate hydraulic testing as the only option.
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Hi chaps,
Think we might have to stop this thread for medical reasons I have aching ribs and I can't see for the tears, I ran out of hankies last night and SWMBO as been asking questions about the amount of laughter coming from my office.
As someone else asked what is it with engineers and dangerous experiments. As you all know I am not an engineers but I have known a few in my time, one in particular springs to mind, a certain Neil no surnames for reasons of national security.
Neil was older than me and was the epitome of an old fashioned engineer I swear this man could work out gear ratio's on the back of his fag packet. At the time Neil was working at a NCB central workshops on night shift and seemed to spend most of his time working for his self.
We both belonged to a black powder shooting club and had a long term interest in all things that go bang. Neil had a very handy side line turning out miniature brass cannons and of course being an engineer they were working models and sold for an handsome price.
He received a commission from someone in the Sealed Knot reenactment society for a larger version in fact full size job. A few weeks later he turned up at our range which was in an old sand quarry with said piece in his van, lovely looking, accurate in detail and with a 1 inch bore. After receiving the complements of all and sundry he announced that as the thing was going to be used in front of the public we better proof test it.
The van was driven half way down our 100 yard range and three of us unloaded it on to the quarry floor, now remember this was just a barrel no gun carriage. The conversation went something along the lines of, how much powder do you think Neil? Well says he they (the owners) reckon on using about 1/2 a pound so we should up that a bit just to make sure.
About a pound then? suggested one of the guys. Nah says your man Neil I have bought a couple of tins and produce`s 2 x 2lb tin,s of coarse grain black powder `worried looks from the watching crowd` 4lbs is a bl--dy big bang. `Be alright` says Neil i`t won't move in the sand` and then produce's a 1 inch diameter ball. People are now backing off, seeking shelter, hiding behind sand banks etc.
This thing is meant to fire blanks but the engineer in Neil meant that he just had to see if it would hold up to the real thing. As he loaded the damn thing we all beat a hasty retreat much to Neil's enjoyment and of course we were wimps, woosies and all the other names he could think off. Any how he primes the touch hole asks if we are ready applies the taper and tries to run.
He got about two steps when there is the biggest bl--dy bang I have ever heard on our range, the barrel appeared to be chasing him back up range but we saw him dodge behind his van at this time we lost view of him due to the cloud of black smoke. Out of this smoke came cries of anguish and we started to worry, but as the smoke cleared we could see our man stood there unhurt. The same could not be said for his van however, this was the fastest conversion ever of a 4 wheel drive to a 3 wheel drive.
After drying our tears we look for the cannon ball, it was not hard to find. Our target frame 50 yards away and made from railway sleepers had a lovely new hole in it, taking a line of site we found the ball 2 feet into our sand back stop.
All in all a good fun day.
Yours Colin H.
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With the hydraulics in mind I shall say that while I helped my father (yes dear old dad) who would have the safety of one of his Son's in mind.
Dad owned and ran a commercial vehicle repair garage to which tipper trucks were serviced and repaired as required, all straight forward until you get the tipper truck that fell on its side and has bent the rams which lift the bodge (tipping part of the body) one day we had such a job in it was an old A E C with twin rams each having 4 stages. the normal way was to use the overhead gantry beams to first lift the body clear so work could be done then to pull the bent ram or rams out. Allwent well and the body was disconnected from the rams and lifted then supported out of the way so that the ram collars could be loosened. the "strong back" fitted to the top of the first bent ram and lifting gear made ready, standard workshop practice GO FOR TEA! after dog rolls and a mug O tea back to the job in hand, The cylinder collars had been slackened by about 1 turn so that we knew they would undo and the chain lift was operated but even with me dad swinging on the chain no movement in the ram. Great idea, run the hydraulic system and the chain lift at the same time should get the result required. Nice strong Gardner engine which never even coughed with a full bodge was started up and tipping gear engaged, engine idle revs but nothing happening so a few rpm and a slight movement but then the engine started to labour so more rpm, no movement but now a VERY hard working engine, dad swinging on chain lift and shouts "Give it the F###ing lot" to the other fitter who did just that! a squeak a rumble dad yelling two or three loud bangs and a lot of mist/ smoke/ steam/ oil stink and a lot of sunlight. One of the rams sections had found an easy bit and went up with such force it stripped the threads on the collar and continued on its journey through the roof (going out) then back through the roof (coming in) then through the roof of the lorry and then through the engine cover in the cab and destroyed the radiator.
Hydraulic oil is one of my PET HATES now it took days to get the smell off my body
One new truck supplied by insurance company, workshop repaired by dad, me and two other brothers. still became an engineer though.
R,
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I had the pleasure of living for a few years in Eaton Socon working for the CEGB - The Electricity Power station there. I met a gentleman, who became a good dear friend, until he died not so long ago. Isnt it funny though, sometimes you just meet someone who you just gel & get on with - and I used to work with Harry as much as possible.
One of the jobs we were allocated was the overhaul of one of the Parsons' turbines. The rotor had been sent away to be rebladed and rebalanced. We were working with the Parsons' guys and were in the process of putting the main casing back on. The casing was held together with rather large nuts and bolts in the region of 3 inches in diameter, by about 2 foot 6 inches long. The procedure was to heat the nut up to a predetermined temperature, place it on the bolt, tighten it down with an engineers precision instrument number 12 - A Monday hammer or a bl**dy big sledge hammer :) and you tighten the bolt down.
We had a young apprentice working with us and we all took turns on the hammer.
When it was the young apprentice's turn to swing the hammer, I noticed Harry jumping around like a wicket keeper as though to catch a ball. I wondered what was wrong and I could hear Harry shouting but I could not make out what he was shouting. The next thing, the big hammer goes flying, scattering two blokes and it demolished two guages on the instrument board.
Harry did not catch the young apprentice. The young apprentice went sprawling across the floor - it turned out the young apprentice had not been breathing when he was swinging the hammer and he held his breath.
Apparently, Harry had been shouting RED, PURPLE, BLUE - HE'S GONE!
The apprentice was brought back round quickly - as Harry was the first aider.
:D :D
The other thing was, every 2 weeks you had to do first aid training exercise alternatively if you were in the fire fighting team, you did an alternative fire fighting exercise.
Harry's nick-name was SQUASHBODY the reason being - during one of the first aid exercises on the outside boilers they assimilated a collapsed man e.g. a full life size weighted dummy on the top of the boiler. The idea of the exercise was to bring the lad down from the top of the boiler on top of the stretcher, well midway up these boilers, there used to be a crane gantry sticking out the side for lifting and lowering heavy valves etc., so Harry struck on the idea of putting a sling around the stretcher that the dummy was on, and slinging it out onto the gantry and lowering it to the ground quickly - to gain Brownie points . Everything went well until they got the body about 2 feet out from the side of the boiler and the stretcher twisted and it slipped through the sling so it ended up hanging vertical - body was not really fastened to the stretcher properly and it just slipped through. Needless to say, the dummy was spread all over the place at the bottom of the boiler. We used to have Doctors and Nurses come on site and used to judge these and give advice.
The Doctor said IF I HAD KNOWN YOU WERE GOING TO DO THAT i could HAVE DUG A HOLE WHERE HE LANDED AND BURIED him at the same time {-) {-) .
By the way lads, have you heard the News, BRITISH GOVERNMENT TO DISBAND ALL ARMED FORCES AND EMPLOY SEVERAL MAYHEMMERS - MORE KNOWLEDGE OF BLOWING STUFF UP
aye
john e
bluebird
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I've got another loosley work related tale from the tv days.
My friend Terry and I became best mates after his bad attitude to tidiness in my workshop caused us to have a punch up round the back of the building... niether won this fight as we simply rained blows on each other until we were exhausted and ended up collapsing in fits of laughter. We were young, fit and hot headed in those days. Anyhow, this chap had fallen out with both his neighbours either side of his terraced house. He really hated the bloke to the left of him and vowed to get him back for something which eludes me now.
We were always experimenting with high voltages (E.H.T) around 15000volts, which were used to charge the tubes in television sets. To this end, we had several tv chassis lying around in Terrys hallway, the wall of which was adjacent to the living room of the neighbour. We found that by drawing arcs from the output transformers, it caused a bit of pandemonium next door (the walls were thin) and it was obviously interfering with the guy next door's telly. Terrys eyes lit up as a plan was slowly beginning to form' he had a day off coming up and k now knew exactly how he was going to spend it.
It was summer time and next door had the tv on all day everyday watching the cricket. Terry fired up his tv chassis and started drawing arcs. Through the walls he heard mumbling and grumbling and the sound of the tv been banged and fiddled with. After a period he heard the words he had been waiting for "That bluddy TVs playing up again, I think we will have to call them out to have a look at .. it's beginning to get worse"! Now Terry was on his back, screwdriver in hand, wetting himself with laughter and trying to be quiet about it. Like a demon, he sparked and flashed this lot up whilst he heard the blokes wife on the phone to the rental company telling them they just couldn't watch it anymore and could they come out pronto.
It took at least an hour for the TV engineer to come out and as soon as Terry saw the van pull up outside he went at it like a man possed, the neighbour was in a fit and swearing all the time. Terry kept this up until he heard the mans wife open the door to the tv guy and the moment he stepped into the house........Terry stopped!
He could barly contain himself and was weeping as he heard the bloke take the back off the set and start banging around inside. Obviously mystified at the phenomina described by the irate householder he fiddled with it for a short time, told the guy a pack of lies about what he had done and packed up his tools and left. The neighbour was naturally relieved theat the man had apparently found the fault and cured it but Terry had other ideas. He watched as the tv guy clambered into his van, start the engine and move off whereupon he immediately recomenced disruption operations.
There was a roar from next door as the neighbour leapt from his chair "I don't believe it.. the f--k--g things gone again.. quick, stop the bloke from going"! "it's too late says his wife . he's just driving off" With that, the front door flew open and the neighbour was off down the street chasing after the bloke in the van. Now Terry was almost becoming ill, fearing a heart attack and holding his aching stomach so he let up operations for a short time... just long enough to recover and allow the neighbour to lapse into a false sense of security, believing the fault had disappeared..... then it was back to the grind again !
Apparently, he kept disrupting this blokes tv for a week and in that time, he heard him abuse his wife.. verbally, throw things about, bang the tv and swear at it and best of all.... abused the tv company and told them to come and take the f--k--g thing away.
Terry reckoned it was just about the funnist thing he had ever done in his life and said his gut ached for days afterwards.
By the way, there are one or two more 'Terry' stories to come but prhaps a bit later if this thread does'nt die.
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This one isn't about blowing something up , but could have been i suppose . A while ago i was involved on a site that was building an extension to a motorway , which involved removing about sixty metres of the top of an underground train tunnel which ran under a roundabout. Obviousely we weren't allowed on to the track until the last train had run by , ( usualy about midnight ) , and to aid this process london underground appointed us one of their protection masters . This extremely inteligents task was to deny possesion until he said it was safe . This included making sure that the not inconsiderable traction current was switched off . underground trains run on four rails two of which bite . To aid this intrepid gentleman in his task he carried what can only be described as a giant voltage detector , this consisted of two boxes about the size of a small shoe box , these both had a handle to aid placement , both boxes were connected by a thick cable and one box had three orange lights on top. These boxes were placed on the centre live rail and the other on the outer return rail , if the lights glowed the rails will bite !. When the lights went out it was safe. WE knew when it was safe anyway because down the track away was a signal that was something to do with the track circuits , and went out when the track juice went off . Now for the good bit , remember we are talking about 660 volts d.c. at quite huge amperage . This intrepid proffesional waited for the lights to go out , removed the boxes , and then proceeded to touch both the traction rails at the same time , akin to sticking your fingers in a giant light socket , needless to say nobody could actually believe what they had seen this moron do . We had great difficulty explaining his mistake as we were all laying on the embankment wettin ourselves laughing. We christened him sparky but didn't see him after that incident :D :D Wonder if he's still alive ????
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Whether the lights were on or off, it sounds like there was no one at home there. :P
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Hi sheerline ...takes all sorts eh !.....more tales to come , that site was a gold mine of funny and stupid events....
see ya later..........regards...bob.
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Hi Guys,
Got to tell you about the ultimate abuse of a tool, in this case a workshop broom, you know the type, about two and a half foot across with a metal brace.
Well when I was on the shop floor one factory I worked at, backed on to a brook on one side and a canal on the other, and because of this we were always being visited by the local wild life.
In the area that I work we call them rots (black country), anyway one morning a rot was spotted running along the pipes at the back of the stores, the call went up "ROT" all present armed themselves with a weapon of there choice and the hunt started.
We managed to contain it to the top pipe in the stores, as we were not allowed to enter the store we had to watch from out side.
The young trainee who was armed with a big broom went in to attack, took the bigest swing I have ever seen, mist the rot (it ducked), the force of the swing causing the broom head to come of.
The broom head now an unguided missile flew through the stores office door and knocked out the chief stores manager sitting at his desk.
Of course we all ran to help but I was laughing so much the tears ran down my legs!!!
Oh by the way my latest funny is a young trainee girl coming to ask if she should change a washer on a component as it was split, it was a spring washer He He.
Regards to you all.
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I had no idea what I was setting off when I started this thread! What an inventive and staggeringly dangerous lot you are....
I cannot rival your stories of daring do but I will tell you about the practical jokes we got up to when I was a trainee.
I had been having a hard time as the youngest trainee and the butt of several tricks. Looking for revenge I spotted that our toilet had an overhead cistern with a pull chain. Next to this was a small window. Leaving the window open slightly I attached an almost invisible length of wire to the pull chain lever and fed the wire out the window. After a short time I heard the lavatory door close and someone take their place on "the throne", as they contemplated the wonders of the world I jerked my wire and the cistern flushed....as I heard the cries of shock I recognised the voice....it was the boss!
One trick I suffered from was constantly having my bike tampered with. However, one day having got my cycle clips on ready to ride home I could not find my bike anywhere. Wondering what the maniacs had done this time I searched the building high and low. Sadly I did not actually look "high" because I found it, eventually, hoisted high up into the fanlight of the double height laboratory and suspended above the most delicate and expensive bit of kit which the lab. housed. By this time everyone else had gone home and so I ignored the warnings not to disturb; move or touch the delicate precision balance over which the bike had been suspended and managed to lower my bike. Next morning everyone in the know was teasing me about "Had I got home O.K." etc. until all went quiet as the irate Chief Inspector conducted an enquiry into who had moved the precision balance. I had not quite got the bench back onto the four, slight rings on the floor. Each of us was interviewed but everyone denied all knowledge and so we were all "sentenced" to a deep clean of the labs and workshop.
Roger in France.
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Hi Roger, we used to do that too... hoist the boys bike up into the rafters of the warehouse. It was a good wheeze but we ran out of places to hide it eventually. I was a bit of a Nomad when it came to work.. often choosing a type of work which interested me and getting a job with that particular company. You could do that sort of thing years ago and because I was interested in everything I have moved around a lot but have always enjoyed my work and monday morning depression has never been an issue with me as I liked going to work.
I worked for a few years with a well known radio control service company in south London as a service engineer and I have to say we spent everyday laughing our heads off as there was always some wheeze on the go and the banter and behaviour bordered on the infantile. :P
We were always winding up the lad in the warehouse ,known as 'The Gobbler.. (don't know why) and as the tea machine was in there we were always wandering through and firing off those large elastic wing retaining bands used for the model aircraft. The lad always responded by firing them back at us and could often be seen swinging ape like from rack to rack in desperation to avoid the onslaught.
One day we designed a long pole with a RX, battery and servo at one end and three elastic bands stretched along the pole and hooked around the servo arm. We erected this contraption in the rafters about 20 feet up and aimed it at his bench, the idea being to fire this thing off remotely and watch through the window whilst he hunted down an invisible enemy. We all agreed not to switch on any TX on yellow channel (27Mhz) until the time was just right.
Shortly after erecting the thing, our boss burst through the door and said "Get the place cleaned up damned quick, the Japanese are coming on a surprise visit"! The 'Japanese' were the suppliers of all our gear and we were their sole agent in the UK so this was important.
They did indeed arrive and were being shown around the warehouse when one of their sharp eyed group spotted the 'lacky band firing machine' in the rafters and enquired of our boss as to what it was. Our boss obviously recognised this device as another workplace plaything and to avoid embarrasment claimed it was some kind of test being conducted. ::)
We were beside ourselves with fear, praying we didn't get a radio glitch and as the group moved toward the Gobblers bench the thing went off, showering elastic band everywhere. We all raced back to our benches and sat there in fear of the repercussions which were bound to follow but all the time giggling and holding our aching stomachs. My mate 'J' ( no names here) had tears rolling down his cheeks and I can still see him now, doubled over the bench.
I have to say, our boss was a great bloke, I liked him a lot and had a lot of respect for him... never said a word about it. Deep down I think he probably saw the funny side of it.
What a great job I had, I enjoyed my work, had great blokes to work with and spent everyday with a grin on my face.
You can't ask for more than that and 'J' and I are still mates today 30 years on ,even though he is still in London and I am in Norfolk. Wonderful memories... great days!
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hi all many many years ago i was workink in a scrap yard we had a big old crane the sort with a corrugated iron shed on it after the weekend one early winter Monday morning the boss wanted the crane started me and my mate went into hiding we new what was going to happen as he was never in early to see how the crane performed he cranked over the engine flipped over the decompresser and away she went we justwaited till he started to slue the jib the crane was going round & round he had to jump out we left it going for about 10 mins before we let him know how we stopped it we said its very complicated my mate hit the clutch with hammer it stopped tuning we said your never in early enough to know what gos on good old days O0
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The laughs that nearly got me the 'Sack'
Set the scene; major breakdown in the finishing bay on the Transport Conveyor. The conveyor has sealed sides to keep out the dust but there is an 8 inch gap at the bottom in places, to which you can just squeeze through and the drive motor and gear box for the conveyor, yes, you have guessed it RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE :D so the motor on the gearbox decides to throw a wobbler and burn out. So my shiftmate squeezed through the gap under the conveyor to disconnect the motor from the gearbox whilst the electrician was replacing the contacts in the power cabinet. The power cabinet also supplied power to other conveyors so that it could not be isolated or shut off.
The shiftlad who was disconnecting the motor, once he had disconnected the motor, stuck his head through the gap to shout at me to bring in the fork truck with a sling on. We could then drag out the motor.
This is when I noticed that his head started bouncing from a steel cable tray on the floor and hitting the top RSJ and he was screaming and in pain and I could do nothing for laughing and even when I am writing this I AM STILL LAUGHING - imagine baldy lad - head just bouncing around - he was getting 110 volts through his head! Therefore, when my mate, with his hand on the framework of the conveyor and everytime his head touched the cable tray he made the circuit therefore his head went back up and belted the RSJ.
What had happened, the Lecky (electrician) when he had disconnected the power supply in the cabinet, he had bent the wires down over and one of them had made contact with the framework so therefore sending 110 volts through the cable tray.
Anyway, when he eventually stopped bouncing around and he shouted out he was getting an electric shock the whole power supply was switched off.
BUT I COULD NOT STOP LAUGHING and then the manager came round and started shouting at me because the poor lad had to go for first aid for the cuts to the top of his head.
:) :) :) :) :)
My other tale to tell, you know kitchen worktops and all Kitchen cupboards - Formica stuff, well that is the Company who where I used to work and the press as I have already mentioned, when they make these boards - When the boards are manufactured they are made up into what are called a 'Daylight' this is basically similar to a pack of playing cards only obviously a lot bigger and normal size is about 10 foot x 5 foot and these make 8x4 boats. Anyway, when they come out of the press, they hold a lot of static electricity. What the operators do, because these daylights have to be broken into individual sheets is, first of all, PUT ONE HAND ON THE STEEL FRAMEWORK AND PUT THE OTHER HAND ON TOP OF THE PACK TO DISCHARGE THE STATIC and, if you are in the vicinity and not knowing or the operator has a grudge against you - HE WILL TOUCH YOUR EAR AND YOU TAKE THE STATIC SHOCK and by hell its painful I KNOW. Well, you know I mentioned the young engineer who has more letters than enough after his name, when he was on shifts with us and we were working on the press, we sent him off to purchase the coffees and there were three of us standing talking to the operator so what we did was WE FORMED A HUMAN CHAIN holding hands and the last person who was in reach of the young engineer near the coffee machine, we waited until he had just got the coffee out of the coffee machine and touched him on the ear - THE COFFEE WENT ONE WAY AND HE SHOT OFF LIKE A SCALDED RABBIT and ran out of the press bay screaming and shouting obscenities at us. :D :D
In the morning he complained about us to the dayshift manager and what did the manager say he said SON YOU HAVE TO HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOUR WORKING HERE OR YOU WILL END UP HAVING A SAD MISERABLE LIFE end of story. :angel: :angel:
aye
john
bluebird
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John, I can't stop laughing at the thought of the reciprocating head of the young lad, what a howler! {-) I bet everyone called him 'a right headbanger' after that. I know what you mean when you say it still makes you laugh when you think about it.. I do the same when these things sometimes spring to mind. There are times when my wife says "what are you grinning about"? and I just have to shake my head and say " you would'nt understand and nor would you want to know" I'm sure she would have given me the elbow when we were dating if she knew how daft I was at times. Ignorance is bliss... bless her!
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There was a guy who had a workshop in one of the outstations, and one day he got a CALENDAR.
It was much appreciated by the lads as it had imroperly dressed young ladies. Perhaps not ladies. We spotted him looking at August with a far-away look in his eyes. "Whats up, B...." we said. "I've always wanted one of them, but never had one" he said. We looked, and it was a young lady sitting on a Harley, not dressed at all well for biking, and holding a kite. After a while we found out that the object of desire was the kite.
So, someone turned up with some spare aluminium air presure tube, one of the extrernal lads donated his plastic sheet that was intended to keep the weather of the insides of the roadside boxes. An infernal construction guy came up with a bobbin of lacing twine. A few bits n pieces for the tail, and we had a two and a half yard square plastic kite. Teamwork at its finest.
Come lunch, out onto the next door football fields, and flight testing. It flew well. So well that we got to the end of the bobbin, about 400 yards. Some fool ran in for another. All was well untill the wind dropped, as did the small dot in the distance. It was noted that as the string was pulled, so some of the TV aerials along the road waggled. Panic as several techies shot off to sort it. The string was cut each side of the roundabout (bus route!) at the end of the road and it was noted that it vanished into the cemetry at the other side. With a combination of stealth and good luck, the kite and most of the string was recovered from where it came to rest, the other side of the cemetry about 50 yards from the next road.
You become aware that there is a deity that looks after idiots, but it is also a good idea not to rely on him (or her).
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Aye, I certainly know about smiling and laughing to oneself, it has just literally happened to me..... I was thinking about poor old Albert, he suffered from partial deafness. Albert and Niel another shift engineer were sent out onto a job dealing with the coating machines. These machines coated paper with varnish and also, as well as the varnish, they put a green dye strip down one edge for identification purposes. It was this green dye applicator that was always blocking up and one of the tricks was.....
WE WILL START THE STORY ;D
Albert goes to the dye storage unit and what it consisted of was a bank of plastic bottles, similar to large lemonade bottles. These screwed into the base & then there was a maze of different plastic pipes which went into a valve block and from there out towards the applicators. So, Niel was standing at the applicator side of the machine and Albert is on the other side and what Albert does was unscrew one of the pipes and connects an airline of 100 psi to it. Thinking he was going to clear out the line between the line where he was and Niel was - when one of the lemonade type bottles (ink dispensing bottle) started to expand and then THE BOTTLE JUST DECIDED TO BREAK FREE AND TAKE OFF LIKE A ROCKET spraying permanent green dye all over Albert. Remember, permanent dye which has to just 'wear off' in the end. :D Of course old Albert took the full force didnt he - REMEMBER THE INCREDIBLE HULK how green he was. Anyway the pair of them came back to the fitting shop, Albert stripped off and went into the shower and when he came out of the shower his face was still bright green apart from where the safety glasses were. Niel could not speak to us for hours for laughing and he had been shouting and screaming telling Albert what was happening with the bottle, it turned out Albert thought he was shouting that nothing was coming out of the end of the pipe {-) {-) :P
It took about 3 weeks for Albert's dye to wear off, and he had to live a life of solitary confinement for weeks - his wife wouldnt go anywhere with him. ;D
aye happy times
John e
bluebird