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Author Topic: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......  (Read 10184 times)

John W E

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #25 on: November 22, 2007, 09:36:58 pm »

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
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Colin H

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #26 on: November 22, 2007, 10:43:24 pm »

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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sheerline

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #27 on: November 22, 2007, 10:57:47 pm »

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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sheerline

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #28 on: November 22, 2007, 11:04:04 pm »

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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Colin Bishop

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #29 on: November 22, 2007, 11:07:02 pm »

And then there's this - anyone else been run over by an aircraft carrier?

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cos918

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #30 on: November 22, 2007, 11:11:13 pm »

so colin whats this about or do i dare not ask. john
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sheerline

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #31 on: November 22, 2007, 11:12:29 pm »

Surely not Colin...its every aviators nightmare you gotta tell all!
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Colin Bishop

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #32 on: November 22, 2007, 11:35:42 pm »

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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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #33 on: November 23, 2007, 12:15:26 am »

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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Colin Bishop

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #34 on: November 23, 2007, 12:33:55 am »

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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Bunkerbarge

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #35 on: November 23, 2007, 02:42:38 am »

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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RipSlider

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #36 on: November 23, 2007, 07:33:00 am »

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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John W E

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #37 on: November 23, 2007, 09:52:24 am »

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
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djrobbo

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #38 on: November 23, 2007, 09:53:36 am »

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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DickyD

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #39 on: November 23, 2007, 10:34:34 am »

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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sheerline

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #40 on: November 23, 2007, 10:39:02 am »

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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djrobbo

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #41 on: November 23, 2007, 12:20:20 pm »

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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sheerline

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #42 on: November 23, 2007, 02:40:04 pm »

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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Colin H

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #43 on: November 23, 2007, 05:36:03 pm »

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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catengineman

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #44 on: November 23, 2007, 06:31:30 pm »

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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John W E

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #45 on: November 23, 2007, 07:41:19 pm »

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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sheerline

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #46 on: November 23, 2007, 08:15:43 pm »

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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djrobbo

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #47 on: November 23, 2007, 09:13:10 pm »

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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sheerline

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #48 on: November 23, 2007, 09:37:05 pm »

Whether the lights were on or off, it sounds like there was no one at home there. :P
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djrobbo

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Re: USAGE AND ABUSAGE OF TOOLS......
« Reply #49 on: November 23, 2007, 09:44:34 pm »

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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