Shop Time w/T.W. Friends

Liked, and then un-liked so I could like it again!

 

Hear, hear!

I have nothing against hybrid, or fully electric vehicles in general, but I am heartily sick of all the greenies (No offence to our own rusty greenie! ) yammering on about how driving an electric vehicle will save the environment. Apparently, the mining, manufacture and disposal of all of the rare elements used in the batteries has zero environmental impact, and the electricity to charge them comes from the wings of fire flies! When (if) they get the charging time down to something akin to a gasoline fill-up, or the battery life to something where I can drive all day on the highway, I will be interested. Oh yeah, and those thousands and thousands of dinosaurs who gave their lives so we could have oil? I will NOT dishonour their memory!

 

Next Tuesday.

Been in Plant shutdown/turnaround mode since last Monday. Shutdown ends this Sunday, so it sill

 

Knee replacement or something else going on?

I have plica syndrome in left one, doc said basically it's like glue in a door hinge. I keep fighting it and putting surgery off.

 

Negative.. they were in the middle of finishing set up Friday.. I think he has to come back today though for initial startup/setup.

Did get some other interesting news though this morning. We're a small, family owned shop.. We've all worked together for years and years and get along great. My co-worker who does more of the Prototyping/Engineering work for our shop (designing fixtures for production jobs, finds and orders specialty tooling, works directly with the customers, designers and engineers, etc), also does some quoting and slings out Programs for some of the other guys on the floor, etc.. put in his 2 weeks today because he just needs better/less expensive benefits for his growing family (new baby).. Totally get it. SUPER sad to see him go, I've learned a ton from him over the years and have become good friends as well.

Anyways... Bossman came up and said we'll meet up and go over everything. Since he was such a huge part of the shop and how it functions, obviously there are some concerns and worry moving forward.. and even more so for me.. because honestly, I think he might put me in that position. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, the bump up in pay and title would be nice.. but I've seen what he had to go through sometimes, and the things he lost out on (like actually still being able to program AND run your own stuff, as that's a huge part of why we all work here). He ended up getting stuck up in the office and mostly just programming for the coupe of operators we do have, and doing engineering work. I love the fact I'm still out on the floor, doing MY thing, on MY machines, with MY programs. BUT.... Progression.

 

Ouch, can't like that.

 

Speaking of electric cars, we had the power blip the other day at work. The sort manager was asking what happened. The big boss (for the maintenance department) just said "not sure, someone probably tried to plug in their Tesla"


That was a pretty nasty power blip too. One of the network switches had trouble coming back online so all the control panels were having trouble communicating to each other. Took a good part of 2 hours to get everything situated as where it would normally take less than 30 minutes...

 

Running a few electric heaters in the evening, especially on the low setting (500-750 watts), might be cheaper than firing up the boiler for just a few degrees rise.

Fortunately the combustion chamber liner kits aren't too expensive.
https://www.lynnmfg.com/wp-content/uploads/ref/Ready-Reference-Web.pdf

We use several of the oil filled jobs like this:

 

The joys of small business, I totally get it. Our shop has 3 people, my boss, our lathe guy, and me. Our lathe guy is 67 and keeps threatening retirement, coming in later some days (almost lunch a few times lately) and is one of the best machinist I've ever seen. Not sure what will happen when he stops but I'm gonna try and ride it out here as long as I can.

Best of luck with your company and decisions going forward

 

Scoping a torn meniscus. Should be a quick recovery.

 

Ican't even...

 

Thanks man. I thought my shop was cozy.. 3 guys. I totally get that feeling of riding it out as long as you can. I thought that was gonna happen with my co-worker and I myself. It's had to find good people to work with.. we've all said we're like a family here.. so its tough when one leaves the nest. lol

 

We actually have one of those exact heaters. We put it right at the entrance of the kitchen/living room and turned it on medium. It kept it warm, even the bathroom down the hall wasn't bad. The master (my bedroom of course) has its own heating zone so I won't be affected by it much. We'll run the little electric heater during the day. Also need to replace the outlet its plugged into; seems to be a little loose.


I would do the liner kit myself, but my boiler has a nice insulated encasement all around and you need to disconnect the bottom pipe to get it off for access to the chamber. Yea, I'm not fooling around with that. There's a plumbing/heating company barely 5 miles down the road that does boiler work.

 

Brian has been a machinist his entire adult life, we've been working together for 27 years and I've learned so much from him. I never went to school to be a machinist, learned it all out here in the shop with him and a few others who've worked here through the years.

 

If the plug doesn't look like this, you should be good*.


*I'm not an electrician but play one on the internet.

 

I periodically replace outlets that are frequently used. I still need to replace all the outlets around here, but am waiting till I paint.

 

Is this an outlet?

 

Smart-alec

 

That's exactly how it is for me too.. No schooling.. Just learned hands on from a couple shops in the past.. but most of my growth has been here with these people.. and he's taught me more in the last 3 years than my whole career. I definitely know how you feel Sir.

 

Lol...I'm in Illinois now. Saw 8 this morning; a few does and some yearlings, and this little feller.

I have a couple of doe tags (and can get more) but they were 45 yards, which is out of my comfort zone.
I wish I was off for 6 months!!! From Oct 21 thru Nov 30 I only work 6 days.