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Thread: Interesting Old Equipment, Projects & Work Places

  1. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by Old Farang View Post
    Undoubtedly excellent training. But I would just like to know why the young fellow at 1.15 is using an adjustable / crescent
    wrench on what appears to be around a fuel injection system
    ? In fact, why was such a butchers tool allowed in the workshop in the first place?


    Don't have an answer for that. We were not permitted to use them. As for working in civvie street, all those I know who wanted to work the trade did so , and most ended up in management. While serving on ships we were operator/maintainers, and when I picked up my Chiefs Rate I was in charge of the maintenance of the after unit, which was the aft boiler room and Engine room. When we completed the machinery charge certificate that enabled us to take charge of the Marine Engineering dept. in the absence of a marine Engineering Officer. This we did on Patrol boats, head of the engineering dept. responsible to the Captain. Destroyers had a well equipped workshop, and if we didn't have a part to refit a main feed pump or a turbo-generator, often we would make one. Proven leadership abilities were essential prerequisites for promotion , and most of my mates & I stuck it out for 20 years or more, most reaching the rank of Chief Petty Officers, some Warrant Officers. They were some of the most talented and dedicated men I knew, I doubt you or your mates would have ever met one in a professional capacity.
    I’m pretty sure the dinosaurs died out when they stopped gathering food and started having meetings to discuss gathering food

    A bookshop is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking

  2. #42
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    Low-res_DSCN0472-466x370.jpg Another one of our contracts was to fabricate these transmission towers & deliver to Power Sub Station sites all over Qld in knock down form . We assembled two sides in the factory & shipped them to site & fully assembled them on site. I never liked doing these as no two angles were the same & there were around 50 different bolts in a tower , with some sites going into the 49 deg's & even wearing gloves the galv angles would be too hot to pick up with leather gloves. We also fabricated all the support structures in the sub stations, including large tapered poles that replaced the lattice towers.

  3. #43
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    Quote Originally Posted by 1950landy View Post
    Low-res_DSCN0472-466x370.jpg Another one of our contracts was to fabricate these transmission towers & deliver to Power Sub Station sites all over Qld in knock down form . We assembled two sides in the factory & shipped them to site & fully assembled them on site. I never liked doing these as no two angles were the same & there were around 50 different bolts in a tower , with some sites going into the 49 deg's & even wearing gloves the galv angles would be too hot to pick up with leather gloves. We also fabricated all the support structures in the sub stations, including large tapered poles that replaced the lattice towers.

    Cripes! I bet they earth that structure extremely well.

  4. #44
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    Quote Originally Posted by bob10 View Post
    As for working in civvie street, all those I know who wanted to work the trade did so , and most ended up in management.
    During my working life in engineering, ship repair, motor manufacturing I worked in a few places that started ex-forces senior nco's and some officers straight into management. Those with some ability and a willingness to learn usually turned out well. The ones liked by staff usually received some "staff training" without realising they were being trained by their staff. Those who thought they could order a militant unionised workforce around like a mob of swaddies either had to totally change their outlook or disappear. Their workforce would smartly tell them to get stuffed and even shut the place down. Senior management being told that he/she has to go or we stay on the grass until they are gone.

    It is funny, isn't it, how many ex-service people end up working for a govt. body often involving a uniform like police, warders, postmen and so on.
    URSUSMAJOR

  5. #45
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    Quote Originally Posted by 4bee View Post
    Cripes! I bet they earth that structure extremely well.
    When we were working in live sub stations we were not allowed to go within 6m of any of the live structures, I would always allow 12m & on some sites even at 12m you would still get a shock when we reached for the chains on the crane, when this happened they would attach a 25mm earth cable to the crane which was earthed to an earth at one of the structure & the crane would drag it around while an observer would make sure the earth was out of the way of the cranes wheels. There were two sites that were particularly bad one between Bulli Creek Millmerran & Goondiwindi , the other West of Marlborough , you could be 20m away from the live structures & lean over one of the structures you were unloading & the static would zap you through the gap between your shirt buttons. We had to wear long sleeve cotton work cloths buttoned up to the neck & wrists , didn't matter how hot it was if you didn't comply you would get kicked off the site . I did this work for around 30 years until I sold the business & retired.

  6. #46
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    I did not mind doing these tapered poles they were 12.5 m long with a 1.2m base & weighed 3.5t , they had a 2.5 to 3m section bolted on the top depending on which site they were going to. Power-station-03.jpg

  7. #47
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    Part of the copper extraction plant at Olympic Dam involves a solvent extraction process called SX-EW.

    The solvent...I'm thinking Hexane...is a highly explosive liquid carrying the copper oxides to the electroplating point where it is extracted and pumped back to it's own special solvent extraction plant.

    The plant has hundreds of earth points and the solvent being pumped produces huge quantities of static electricity. as you approach the plant you can clearly hear the ticking of the static discharge which is normal and healthy , You are told during the plant induction if you are inside and the ticking stops run like ****.

    In 1999 the plant exploded and the fireball could be seen in the sky for miles. It took the best part of a day to extinguish.

    I was told I was privileged to be chosen to work inside the plant , man I was singing a song to the regular ticking of the static discharge. No metal anything goes in except copper....you wear button up trousers , special rubber boots , gloves , eye protection. You are locked in by a gatekeeper/timekeeper, all communications within hundreds of metres are vocal , vehicles are kept at a distance, you are the sacrificial lamb.

    Dunno why I did things like that.....was I highly paid ? Yes!......did they look after me? Yes!

  8. #48
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    Quote Originally Posted by ramblingboy42 View Post
    Part of the copper extraction plant at Olympic Dam involves a solvent extraction process called SX-EW.

    The solvent...I'm thinking Hexane...is a highly explosive liquid carrying the copper oxides to the electroplating point where it is extracted and pumped back to it's own special solvent extraction plant.

    The plant has hundreds of earth points and the solvent being pumped produces huge quantities of static electricity. as you approach the plant you can clearly hear the ticking of the static discharge which is normal and healthy , You are told during the plant induction if you are inside and the ticking stops run like ****.

    In 1999 the plant exploded and the fireball could be seen in the sky for miles. It took the best part of a day to extinguish.

    I was told I was privileged to be chosen to work inside the plant , man I was singing a song to the regular ticking of the static discharge. No metal anything goes in except copper....you wear button up trousers , special rubber boots , gloves , eye protection. You are locked in by a gatekeeper/timekeeper, all communications within hundreds of metres are vocal , vehicles are kept at a distance, you are the sacrificial lamb.

    Dunno why I did things like that.....was I highly paid ? Yes!......did they look after me? Yes!

    Of course it was worth it, you have a tale to tell, & oi loikes tales like that.

  9. #49
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    We used to do maintenance work on a Oil Seed Crushing plant here in Brisbane. They used Hexane to extract the oil from the pulp by boiling it off in a giant toaster. when working in the plant they supplied copper coated tools to prevent sparks. when they did a shutdown the hexane was pumped into storage tanks underground . They recon there was enough hexane stored to wipe out the whole industrial estate.
    Also when my daughter was doing stage management at USQ Toowoomba she had to bur copper coated tools for same reason , not sure what they had that was so flammable though. She never continued in that field so I have the copper coated tools now.

  10. #50
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bigbjorn View Post
    During my working life in engineering, ship repair, motor manufacturing I worked in a few places that started ex-forces senior nco's and some officers straight into management. Those with some ability and a willingness to learn usually turned out well. The ones liked by staff usually received some "staff training" without realising they were being trained by their staff. Those who thought they could order a militant unionised workforce around like a mob of swaddies either had to totally change their outlook or disappear. Their workforce would smartly tell them to get stuffed and even shut the place down. Senior management being told that he/she has to go or we stay on the grass until they are gone.

    It is funny, isn't it, how many ex-service people end up working for a govt. body often involving a uniform like police, warders, postmen and so on.

    I've seen ex military looking like square pegs in round holes when outside the service. Some adjust, most don't. Those who do usually become well respected in their work places, those who don't move on . The attraction of a government job used to be certain conditions carried over from the military, such as long service , and super I believe. When I left I drifted to a few jobs, not knowing what I wanted to do, except I promised my wife I would not go away again, which is why I knocked back a job with a mate welding the gas pipeline. I steamed a coal fired boiler at the P.A. hospital for a while, didn't want to get stuck there, fitter at Redcliffe hospital, same again, could have had a job at Southbank, in the boiler room, the ex tankie RSM from Larrakeyah was something to do with hiring and firing , but one look at the robots working there turned me off that. Evans Deakin shipyard offered me a job as a boiler maker, which interested me , but at the same time Australia Post offered me one too. I took the Aus. Post job, best thing I ever did. After 25 years retired with most of my sanity intact, the job kept my brain active, and kept me fit. And helped set me up for a very good retirement.

    Not long after I started at the Post Office, Evans Deakin shut down, so I consider myself fortunate. I also ended up as a Union Rep. after 21 years in the military. Got to know the highest level of Union management,[ and some high level Post Office management] stood on the picket line at Pinkenba during the wharf strike , got to know some of the wharfies' at the Brekkie Creek through my uncle, a long term wharf man. The Ghost, Shadow, Hydraulic, a long list of characters , some of whom carried revolvers, I never asked why. I just seemed to float along where ever life took me, trying hard not to take things too seriously. Come to think of it I've had a great life, and it aint over yet.
    I’m pretty sure the dinosaurs died out when they stopped gathering food and started having meetings to discuss gathering food

    A bookshop is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking

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