Monday was our 20th day of temps of 90 or higher. Might also be our last day of 90 or more this summer! It sprinkled last night, and cloudy today!

 

I got all I could handle the last few years so this is kind of nice. Great for us guys who work with molten metal as well. The humidity wasnt really a factor the August. Never seen that before. The spiders have grown to freakish size though with all the skeeters to eat though. Freakish! Ewwwwwww. I kept my boots in the garage because there nasty from work, last week there was a wolf spider the size of a soda can a foot away. They are now in the closet!

 

Never seemed to matter what the temps were when working around hot metal. I worked 7 years at a steel foundry in my early 20's, and summer or winter never changed things inside. Only difference was when you stepped outside, and the temperature change was so drastic in the winter. I don't think there was a day in 7 years at the foundry that I wasn't soaking wet with sweat. At times when I had to go up on the bridge cranes to do a repair, it felt like my sweat was boiling on my skin. Sure never missed leaving that place!

 

So the weather guesser is back pedaling now! Supposed to be 90 degrees here Sat. thru Mon.!

 

I do not miss pulling wire on a lift. The shop I work at right now has very small melting pots with Zinc. Quite possibly the best conditions for metal work. They produce heat but nothing like a reverb. I do melt my boots while standing on the pot from time to time. Dangerous as heck, one slip and I'm shin deep in 800* metal. Zinc is maybe worse than any other metal when it hits your skin. It is similar to plastic in that it sticks and keeps burning. Most others bounce off. Sweat has saved my skin a few times Vall. Literally!

I came across this the other day. Tim agree's this describes Michigan to a tee. Our current tourist campaign is called Pure Michigan. This is a spoof that is dead accurate.
Warning language!

 

800*? We melted steel in an arc furnace that ranged from 1600-2000* and let it cool to 1300* to pour! Haven't felt heat until you're near a steel arc furnace when they swing the lid open to pour into a pouring pot!

 

Like I said this particular shop is a specialty shop. We specialize in miniature castings with our heaviest only weighing 160g. Not very big! Thats gross weight before runners and overflows are removed. Our flagship facility pours somewhere around 50# of aluminum at a time. Their furnaces are more of what you were used to. They hold 80,000# of metal were ours hold 500#. We dont even call them furnaces because they are really holding pots with 20 or so heating elements on the bottom and sides. 24"x12"x12" Not real big! Where the big ones are the size of a swimming pool.

I hate thinking of arc fired furnaces. The company my brother works for had a terrible incident where a man brought his children in to work and did the unthinkable. He put them in a cold furnace and fired it. He is currently being raped repeatedly if there is any justice. But anyhow, I hear arc fired furnace and I think of the articles in the paper constantly repeating the phrase. Sad chit!

 

Three days after I first hired on at the steel foundry, I came to work and they sent us all home. They were getting ready to do a pour on the nightshift, and had filled a pour pot with molten steel. They had it hanging from the crane and were headed down the pouring floor when the bail on the ladle broke, and poured tons of molten metal down on the floor. Three guys were instantly covered, and several others got burned from molten metal splashing them.
I was working production back then, before I got into the electrical apprenticeship program, and the ladle was headed to the small casting pouring floor where I worked. I had an uneasy feeling for months afterwards, and kept bidding on other jobs, until I finally got away from working with molten metal. We poured from a 20 ton pot into 100 lb. ladles, and then into small molds. I hated seeing that 20 ton pot hanging there the whole time we poured!

 

I bet! I worked at Briggs and Stratton for about 30 seconds in my life. We poured cranks, yokes and a few other odds and ends. I learned fast I didnt like iron. Too hot too dangerous. My cousin was a supervisor clearing people out after a spill and he was burned bad. I never went back. Neither did he. That was a brand new facility and I didnt like it.

 

Sorry to interrupt gentlemen, not sure if I'm in the right place or not but wondered if I could ask a question about my Camaro? (smilies don't work for me anymore otherwise there'd be one inserted here of course.)


So I got back home yesterday evening and went out to button up the exhaust as the last 2 clamps didn't arrive before I left for the week. Got that done and next task was to try and see where I was at timing-wise on the balancer in relation to the distributor pointing at #1. I'm right at 15* btdc so it should be pretty darn close to being where I want it. I hooked up the battery, pumped the gas pedal twice and it fired up instantly and ran for about 30 seconds at 2000 rpms before stalling like it ran out of gas. I pumped the pedal twice more and fired it right back up. I kept the rpms between 22 and 2500 rpms for another 30 seconds and it seemed to be running like a champ! It did stall again like it's running out of fuel if I don't keep it closer to 2500 rpms. I got out to check and make sure there were no water leaks from the repaired hose couplers and was shocked to see that the headers (mostly the middle 2 tubes) were cherry red! I'm assuming this was caused by too much fuel but find it strange that this thing keeps stalling like it's running out of fuel? It only ran for a combined 1 minute and it sounded great while running. Good throttle response, wasn't sluggish and it didn't reek of fuel like other times before. I didn't start it back up again this evening. Hearing it run today was the best it has ever sounded and/or behaved while it was running so I'm not sure what's going on there. Those tubes were RED as a melting pot! See, maybe I am in the right place after all?