old codgers/geezers with war stories

[Dave Fleming]

Not to hijack the lead keel boring thread in B&R.
Thought we might have a go at the war stories here.

My first entry:
I was still a 'green pea' apprentice at Anderson and Christofani in San Franciso. Lucky to know a knot hole from my arse hole. :rolleyes:

Foreman Eddie Banks assigned me to drill some fastener holes in a box of about 20 Zincs.
The ones with the copper wire sticking out of one end for attachment to external underwater fittings.

Eddie gives me the drill bit, points to a bench mounted drill press and walks away. All I knew at that time was the on and off switch for that machine! I chucked up the bit and proceeded to hold the Zinc and pull on the spider wheel handle to lower the quill. That bit had just kissed the surface of the Zinc when it stuck in the soft metal. The Zinc was torn from my fingers and the copper wire was whipping around biting my hand.
I let go of the spider handle and shut off the machine. The quill immediately retracted with the Zinc still stuck on the bit. I wrestled the Zinc off the bit and restarted the machine.
This time I had a grip of death on that damn Zinc.
Bam, same bloody thing happened only the copper wire gave me a nice cut on the knuckles before I could get my hand out of the way.
Shut down the machine, wiped the blood off my knuckles, pulled the Zinc off the bit and sized up the situation. Just then Dabber a sweet fellow whose elevator did not go all the way to the penthouse came into the shed. He came over and tittered a second or two and then proceeded to show me how to clamp down the Zinc, lower the speed of the drill press by changing the belt to a different pulley setting, took the bit out of the chuck, went over to the grinder and ground a shallower cutting angle. All the while talking half to me and half to himself shaking his head.
Dabber showed me the newly regound bit, explained the reason for changing the cutting angle, installed the bit back into the chuck and had me try again. Ah success at last! He patted me on the back and walked away still talking to himself.

That night after work I bought Dabber a few beers at the nearby saloon.

That wasn't the only time Dabber came to the rescue of this 'green pea'.

Good soul he was. ;)

[Ken Hutchins]

Well I’ve got to tell about that 30 inch dia. Grinding wheel.
First day on the job as a toolmaker apprentice at GE Pittsfield, ma. I was rather unique because GE always hired apprentices with some college and strong academic background, but I had neither as I was a graduate of a vocational high school. So the first day on the job the foreman Jack Hart asked me if I had ever run a cylindrical grinder, heck yes sez me we had 5 of them in school and I ran them all, I really like to grind. ;) Oh good says Jack I’ve got 23 apprentices who don’t know what end of a screwdriver to hold who need work and you know how to grind. There are 3 grinders near the end of the shop on the right, take a look at the one in the middle, it is setup for grinding the ends of some crankshafts, the parts and print are there. If all looks OK start grinding. Ok sir and off I go. smile.gif
After getting the machine hydraulics warmed up and looking at what had to be done I got ready to grind. Now I was swearing to myself about the dumb sumabitch who moved the wheel 4 inches back away from the part to be ground, heck all we ever did was move the wheel back 1 turn of the handle. Ok so now I got the wheel within a few thou of the part and I get to wondering about an odd handle that machine had, hmmm back – fwd on the tag beside the handle, I wonder what that is for???? :confused: Might as well move the handle and see what it does!! :D
Remember those 4 inches, yes the wheel rapidly moved in the 4 inches, no room for that move, Oh shite!!! :eek: First day on the job, my goose is cooked!!! :( Unless you have shattered a 30" dia wheel you have no idea how much noise, dust, flying pieces, it creates. :eek:
An hour or so later when Jack had the time he wandered by as I was installing a new wheel and said, “I thought you knew how to run a grinder?” He never stopped just kept on walking. Jack and I really got to have a good working relationship he retired about a year after that fateful day.

[mmd]

STEPPING A MAST THE ISLAND WAY

(What follows is an account of my first witness to stepping a mast in a 60-foot catamaran at a Caribbean boatyard. I had just joined the firm as designer/manager. Although I was technically the guy in charge, the shop owner, Earl, decided that as I was new and therefore inexperienced in the Island way of doing things, he and the yard mechanical guy, Morty, would step the mast. This is the letter that I sent home to my wife describing the events of the morning. Names have been changed to protect the guilty. - mmd)

Earl had arranged for a crane to come in today at 8:30AM to step the mast on Glen’s boat. When it arrived at 9:45, of course everybody in the shop stopped work so that they could watch, or worse yet, help. The usual madhouse ensued with no one in control and everyone yelling at everyone else. I went down to the boat to get my two cents in and found that the "crane" was one of those retractable ones on the back of a tandem flatbed truck like a Lockhart's Building Supply truck. I told Earl that this was way too small for the task, but he was adamant that it would do fine. I suppose it was cheaper than a real crane. I presume that the owner told him that the lifting capacity was fine, and Earl refused to entertain the thought that limited height might have a detrimental effect, so we continued.
I then was informed that the crane operator - actually there were three of them, so they could all yell directions to each other and our crew - had never stepped a mast before. No matter - it's just another lift! So Morty proceeded to rig the mast for hoisting with a twist in the harness, requiring that the mast be rotated 180 degrees while in mid-air, creating difficulties in the sling and nightmares trying to sort out the wires for the standing rigging. Of course, nobody was told what they were or were not to do, as that sort of stuff gets worked out during all the yelling and arm-waving during the lift.
The mast goes up in the air, gets twisted around, and somehow gets aligned with the mast step. Seven people are standing around the base of the mast waving their arms in the air and shouting directions, while not a soul is holding on to any of the control lines on the mast. Remember the too-small crane? Here's where it comes in. When the mast foot is properly on the mast step, the crane can't reach over the boat far enough to stand the mast upright. It is leaning at about 15 degrees toward the crane. Remember now, this thing is 55 feet long and weighs about 1000 lbs.
Not to worry, though. Our seven or eight directors at the mast step know what to do. Somebody starts yelling an explanation that if the crane boom is lowered, it will shift the centre of the lift over the mast step. Within three seconds everyone is yelling to the crane operators in a great panic that they must lower the boom right now! Seeing all this frantic flailing of arms and hearing a great cacophony of yelling at him to lower the boom, the crane guy operating the controls does just that - quickly.
The inevitable happens of course. Lowering the boom has the desired effect of tilting the mast upright over the mast step. Lowering it quickly imparts enough momentum that the mast continues past upright and sails gracefully towards the other side of the boat. Now please recall the 180 degree twist as the mast was raised. This has had the effect of turning the hook of the crane so that the rope in the hook rests against the safety clip of the hook instead of in the bight of the hook proper. As the hook suddenly goes slack, the rope very easily bends the safety clip and slips out of the hook.
When the clot of directors at the base of the mast suddenly realize that the mast is now fully in free-fall and heading for the Coast Guard station, they begin to frantically shout for some one to "grab de lines, mon, grab de lines!" They fail utterly to comprehend that it is they who are supposed to be manning "de lines", and that there is no one else around to help.
So we watch in horror as the $20,000.00 mast falls across the roof of the building shed beside the Coast Guard station next door. Half-inch steel wires whip across the newly painted deck and topsides of the boat. The masthead antennae and the masthead navigation lights, broken free from their bases by an errant safety line, are launched in a graceful high-speed arc like grenades into the adjacent paved parking lot, where they explode on contact. The mast crashes down on the corrugated roof of the building shed, buckling it down by better than two feet. The mast takes this hit at about it's halfway point, so now it acts as a malevolent see-saw, intent on getting revenge on those that let it fall. It's bottom end pitches up violently to about head height, narrowly missing a couple of the directors, who are too thunderstruck at the enormity of their error to have given thought to trying to save their sorry asses. Apparently miffed at missing this opportunity to draw blood, the mast butt end crashes down on the edge of the newly installed boat roof, bounces, smashes down again, shimmies a staccato of damage, and finally slides down the roof support rail, scraping paint all the way.
Then there was that pregnant pause that follows every sudden overwhelming accident. It lasted what seemed like about fifteen seconds, and then followed by a great outburst of excited noise from the assembled crowd. In such happenings, this wave of human voices usually calls out in shock or dismay or shouted questions of the health and well-being of their friends and co-workers. Not here. Those uninvolved were squealing and laughing in glee, totally immersed in their good fortune at having been so lucky as to have witnessed such a spectacle that they cannot even remotely be blamed for. Those involved in the fiasco were intensely and loudly seeking to lay the blame for the event on someone – anyone - other than themselves. After all, they couldn't be responsible because they had been giving the orders - someone just didn't listen to them!
To place the final few brushstrokes on this canvas of calamity, Earl, the owner of the yard who had been the orchestra leader of this sorry soap opera, decided it was just about the right time to get in his truck and be someplace else. The yard was in disarray, the mast was stuck in the roof of a building and possibly just so much scrap metal, the boat was badly damaged...

His timing was dazzling - as he drove out the driveway of the yard, he waved greetings to Glen and told him to come see me as I was just then supervising the stepping of his mast.

So how was your day?

[uncas]

Paladin...Chuck...where are you?

[mmd]

Whomever cleaned up the mess here - thanks!

[Gary E]

Hers's another wild time...

Back in the early 60's we were developing a N/C automatic tool changer for a horizontal milling machine. This was a powerfull machine with 50 HP so we needed the big 50 Taper tooling. The machine was comming along rather nice, and soon the Co VP and a gathering of onlookers were standing at the front of the machine to watch it work. All went well while the arm, much like your right arm reached up and over your shoulder to grab the tool in a drum at the rear of the machine. It would now rotate overhead and stop out front to wait for the next arm to exchange the tool in the spindle with the new tool in this arm.

Well... next came this 8 in Dia Face mill... this is HEAVY...and as it came to a stop out front it dropped the tool right at the VP's feet. Good thing he wasnt standing 2 ft closer it would of really done some dammage.

All he said was, let me know when you've fixed it.

[paladin]

Sorry Jamie...been under the weather for a couple of days.....
In 1965 I had finished the Piver AA-31 that I had started. About Midway through construction I discovered Jim Brown Searunners so insted of the crossbeams I built "mainstrength bulkeads" pioneered by Jim Brown and Ed Horstman. I sailed the boat to Thailand....and in the process managed to bend a chainplate. The wind up the Gulf of Siam I think must be a constant 30 knots. The tri didnt have a centerboard and the rudder was a small counterbalance one just waiting for a broach....we did.....
I limped into Chomburi to do repairs...and found a small yard. The first problem was getting the boat ashore...and with a "mai pin lai, kup" (no big thing) I was told it would cost 4 cartons of american cigarettes.....well O.K....
The men then cut some small trees for rollers..rigged a bridle..we brought the boat as close as possible to shore....then they brought down an elephant to tow the boat ashore..and not a scratch....then..they set up some 55 gallon drums and within the hour had about three dozen men there, who lifted up the boat manually and set it on the drums..and were paid one pack of cigarettes each.....
A couple of days later I took the bent chainplate to a local metalsmith. He understood that it was 316 stainless, and yes he could make me a new one..price..100 baht (5 dollars)and one carton of american cigarettes.....three days...
Three days later I returned, the gentleman politely asked for two more days....
again I returned..he apologized for the delay...He had trouble putting in THE EXACT TWIST AS THE OLD ONE.
edited fer spellink

[ 12-11-2005, 04:59 PM: Message edited by: paladin ]

[Gary E]

So we wreck a grinder or bust a window or drop a tool, maybe even sink a boat....

How whould ya like to be the trader that did this...

06:26 Botched stock trade costs Japan firm $225 mln - AP

The AP reports that Japan's government rebuked the Tokyo Stock Exchange and one of the country's biggest brokerage firms Friday after a typing error caused Mizuho Securities Co. to lose at least 27 billion yen, or $225 million, on a stock trade. The glitch roiled the Japanese market, and jitters over the reliability of the exchange's trading system contributing to a 1.95 percent drop in the benchmark Nikkei 225 index Thursday. The trouble began Thursday morning, when Mizuho Securities tried to sell 610,000 shares at 1 yen (less than a penny) apiece in a job recruiting firm called J-Com Co., which was having its public debut on the exchange. It had actually intended to sell 1 share at 610,000 yen ($5,041). Worse still, the number of shares in Mizuho's order was 41 times that J-Com's true outstanding amount, but the Tokyo Stock Exchange processed the order anyway.Mizuho says it tried to cancel the order three times, but the exchange said it doesn't cancel transactions even if they are executed on erroneous orders. By the end of the day, Mizuho Securities -- a division of the nation's second-largest bank, Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. -- had lost at least 27 billion yen. That total could escalate, however, as more trades settle, Mizuho Securities spokesman Hideki Sakuma said Friday, adding that the mishap was sparked by human error.

[Dave Fleming]

We turn on the 'way back machine' once again.

Scene: apprentice Dave is up on the scaffolding surrounding an Alioto Bros. fishboat working near Manuel and Mario, the Portugese shipwrights.

Manuel was from the mainland and Mario was from PICO in the Azores. Sorta like, one from north of the Mason Dixon line and the other from south of it.

They were fastening a new plank with ship spikes. I was following up hitting off the high spots with my trusty Stanley 5 1/4 hand plane.

The two of them are jabbering away in Portugese with the voices increasing in volume with every sentence.

Manuel sees me and says David, we need a spike set we forgot to bring one up. I look over at them and Mario says we don't need a set for just a couple of spikes. We will just use our top mauls.
I just shrugged and went back to planing off the high spots of the rest of the replacement planks.

All of a sudden I feel a hot sharp pain on the top of my right hand. I look down at it and there is blood spurting from a nice slice across it.

I say some explitive and start climbing down off the scaffolding.
Eddie Banks comes over, asks me what happened? I shrugged, showed him my hand. He looks up at the two 'M's', askes them what happened?

What happened was Mario used his top maul face up as a spike set as Manuel hit it with the face of his top maul!

Ayup, two tempered tool faces hit on each other.
A nice edge splinter from one of top mauls had fractured rocketed across to slice my hand and off somewhere into San Francisco Bay!

Still can see that scar as I type this.

Not good to hit one tempered face with another, or so says I.

[Canoeyawl]

I have a good friend that was blinded in one eye the same way...two hammers. It was an ugly thing.

[Tom M.]

Originally posted by Canoeyawl:
I have a good friend that was blinded in one eye the same way...two hammers. It was an ugly thing.Me too. We were framing a house. We finished the wall, and were ready to stand it. Mikey sunk his hammer claw into the top plate to help him lift it off the deck. He left the hammer stuck in there while we stood the wall. After it was braced off, Mikey borrowed a hammer to knock out his own hammer which was 8 or 9 feet in the air by now. He took a sliver of metal in the eye. Its blind now. That's a hard lesson.

Let's hear from some more real geezers. :D Not just guys like me with all their teeth.

[paladin]

I gots almost all my teeth, missing one molar....and they is all mine....

[Ken Hutchins]

Back at the apprentice shop, my first foreman Jack retired so time to break in a new foreman, well Arnold was a nice guy sort of quiet and timid, he went through the program but never ran many machines and went on to various management jobs then gets to be apprentice shop foreman. :confused: Well Jack had told him that I was a good resource for machining knowledge redface.gif Realising that the day would happen when he would have to instruct apprentices. :eek: Arnold came to me while I was running a 60" Blanchard grinder and politely (nervously) asked me to teach him how to run it because someday he was going to have to teach the newby's. Everyting went OK he was nervous as hell, but managed to learn the basics.
Not wanting to forget what he learned, a few days later he proceeded to teach someone how to run the grinder. Ah Ha !!! this man has determination and all that, someday he just might succeed as an apprentice foreman. BUT there is one more lesson to learn about running a Blanchard ya see there are times when it happens and the result is lots of loud banging noises etc, that being when a part flies off the magnetic chuck and flies around hitting the sheet metal shields. When that happens you have to keep cool shut it down and raise the wheel head. Well I explained this all to him, but how do I know he is going to do the right thing at panic time? :confused:
TEST time let's see if my student really learned his lessons. :D So as he is explaining it all to the newby smart arse me sneakes around the back of the machine and just as he made the first spark with the wheel I womped the back of the machine with a piece of bar stock. :D Everyone else in the shop figured had figured out what I was going to do so there was a full audience and they all thought I was going to get fired. :D Well poor Arnold jumped up and back about fell on his butt, then regained his composure and finally did what he was supposed to do.
After he finished teaching the newby he came directly to me and said you somabitch I knew you were going to do that to me and I kept saying to myself, when it happens, keep cool and do the right things, but I couldn't help but jump, I was too dammed nervous, you got me real good you B$#@$%$. :(

[Alan D. Hyde]

:D :D

Alan

[Gary E]

I was told this one by a guy who saw it...

Long after leaving the shop and becoming a "Machine Tool Sales Engineer"... he sold a split table planer.

For those who know metalworking machine tools you know what that is, for the wood working fellows let me explain. This machine has 2 tables that run on bed ways and pass under a bridge that holds the cutting tools. The 2 tables can be bolted together to hold one part aprox 8 ft wide by 40 ft long or the tables can be unbolted and one 8 ft x 20 ft table is parked at an end for seting up while the other table is cutting. These tables run back and forth very fast, 50 to 80 ft/min is not unusual.

So, now this is instalation time in the customers shop and the Sales guy is showing this feature to the customer. He unbolts the table and starts the table running forward, and it's pushing the unbolted table right off the ways about 8 or 10 ft and right through a concrete block wall. Opps !!!

[Canoeyawl]

Table saw safety…
This is a story involving a boat-builder who will remain anonymous. The lapstrake method that he used for planking involved gluing a small wedge on the outside of the frame to adjust each frame for the next lap and provide a limber hole. These were put on at the end of the day to be ready for fairing in the morning. The wedges were cut freehand from scraps of the frame material on the table saw.
Well, he was cutting a mess of these at the end of the day and one of them got caught in the blade and flew right up in his face - Bang. No safety glasses etc. The piece, it was about 6 inches long by 1 inch tapering to zip, stuck in his forehead! We heard a little exclamation and while watching him, he reached up and felt his forehead. Of course his hand and face were immediately covered with blood. It is truly amazing how much a wound in the head will bleed! Well, the man was weak at heart and when he felt the piece and looked at his hand covered in blood he promptly fainted. Now we have a boat builder out cold fallen by the running table saw with a mahogany wedge embedded in his forehead…sticking straight out, right between his eyes! After deciding that he wasn’t dead or even dying and attempting some first aid, (this was like pulling a nail from a tire, don’t do it if your far from home) he regained some consciousness, and was driven to the hospital to have it removed. It was a strange greeting at the E.R. All ended well and after that, safety glasses became the norm. But, whenever that saw was turned on, he would look over and advise to no one in particular, “that machine can be dangerous”!

[Old Bingey]

When I first got out of the Navy (the same fall Kennedy was shot) I took a job at a trailer factory to make a little money so I could stay in the boat building business a little longer. It was a piece-work operation and the pace was sort of hectic. There were two guys who built the little flimsy roof trusses and shot them down with big air staplers. They worked like an automatic machine. One guy worked the ladder and the staple gun and the other guy passed up trusses. They had two guns and, when the guy on the ladder ran out of staples, he handed his gun down to the guy below and got passed the other gun with a stalk of staples already in it. He would clamp it between his legs and plug up the hose and... You guessed it. This one time the gun shot when he plugged it in and stapled his penis to his leg... all the way into the femur... cement coated divergent chisel point three inch staple... and that leg was elevated one step higher than the other and he couldn't let it down so we had to take him off the ladder on a pallet with the fork lift. I was the one who had to take him to the doctor because I was the only one who had a flat bed truck. Though he was a tough customer, he was becoming wary of the whole operation. The doctor was this old country type GP like they had in the old days and came out to the parking lot to assess the situation. He looked at his patient and the staple countersunk about half an inch down in the problem area and went back into his office. When he came back, he had a pair of Vise Grips. "What you gonna do?" wailed the tough guy. "Hold him Bingey."

[ 12-14-2005, 02:06 PM: Message edited by: Old Bingey ]

[Keith Wilson]

Hey, this is more fun than politics! I’ll add one. I hope to be a geezer someday.

A few years ago I was one of the engineers for a job in the northern suburbs of Detroit, building a bunch of automated machinery to assemble passenger-side airbag inflators. Now a first-generation airbag inflator is really a controlled pipe bomb. Outside is a 2-1/4” diameter steel pipe with a bunch of holes, inside that is a cylindrical metal and ceramic filter, and inside that is the propellant, disks about like half-scale hockey pucks. The propellant is mostly sodium azide, Na N3.

When your car hits something, an igniter a bit like a blasting cap on one end of the thing sets off the propellant. The sodium azide decomposes into metallic sodium and lots and lots of nitrogen gas. The nitrogen inflates the bag in about 50 milliseconds, hopefully before your face goes through the windshield, and the sodium reacts with everything in sight, making nasty crud, which one hopes stays inside the filter. The propellant disks are coated with an even more reactive mixture to get it going quickly, and this ignition coating is kind of powdery and doesn’t adhere very well.

One of my areas of the plant was the room where a couple of robots unloaded the propellant disks from their boxes, oriented them, and stuffed them down inside the inflator shell. The orienting process was really problematic; it took a couple of tries to get it working correctly, and it scraped off a little of the ignition coating, making shavings which accumulated on the machine. The company that owned the plant installed a vacuum system to keep the dust down, but unfortunately they didn’t think about it very hard, and used a standard metal cylinder with cloth filter bags to collect the dust.

The ignition coating shavings are not all that reactive under normal conditions; you could put a pile of it on the table and light it with a blowtorch, and all it would do is fizz and sputter, but under high pressure (like inside an airbag), it was pretty explosive. Also, they had recently changed propellant suppliers and coating processes, and the new ignition coating was much more powdery than the old one, and made much finer dust.

So one of the pant maintenance guys was up on top of the robot station making an adjustment, and must have made a spark with his tool or something; at any rate there was a flash and a pop, and he set a world record for the 100-yard dash out of the building. The flame then traveled up through the vacuum piping and into the filter, which contained some 75 pounds of ignition coating powder in a nice tight steel container. This went boom, knocking over the building wall on top of my poor robots, shearing off an 8-inch water pipe supplying the building sprinklers, and flinging small pieces of the room in which it was located about 300 years in every direction.

Amazingly enough no one was seriously hurt; there was no one in the room with the filters at the time of the explosion, and the only injury was in the office, when the suspended ceiling fell down and a light hit someone on the head. We then had the edifying experience of moving the whole line (or what was left of it) 1500 miles and putting it back together in a godawful hurry, but that’s another story.

[ 12-14-2005, 04:26 PM: Message edited by: Keith Wilson ]

[Gary E]

Keith,
Good that no one was hurt... and that reminds me of..

When I was a service man for a machine tool co one of our jobs is installing new machines and this one was at a Military research facility out in the woods south east of Washington DC. Driving down the only road to this place a ambulance passed me in full speed going the other way and I thought nothing of it...

As I was checking in at the gate they not only took away all matches and cig lighters but also the reasons to have such implements of destruction. Ummm, what's this about I wuz thinking... then an escort drove me to where I was to go and on the way we passed a building with no wall on this side... and a lot of bricks etc laying all over the place... The escort said... the buildings are made weak like that so that happens a lot, no biggee...Ok...on to the building where I checked out the machine, handles turn, spindle runs, etc etc... "LOOKS GOOD TO ME GUYS"...everything runs fine... You do know how to use it right???? (hope hope hope).... I mean it is a simple tool and cutter grinder and they dont have much in the way of complicated settings...yeah, no prob sez one fellow...

Ok..Bye... any trouble you know the number...

I left fast.... before they blowed up another building...

[Kermit]

I'd like to join in and tell y'all a story of my own, but this geezer has C.R.S. :confused: :( ;) :D

[Bayboat]

This happened in about 1950 which I guess makes it a valid geezer story. Another yard jockey and I were insalling a heavy oak stern wale on a fishboat. The stern overhung the ways so we were working off a platform over the water. The wale had been steam-bent, but not quite enough, so we drew it in with a Spanish windlass and big clamps and drove some boat nails to fasten it. First and last mistake. As I drove the last nail, the windlass jumped its spike and unwound, the clamps fell off, and all the nails pulled out with a loud squeak. The wale sprang out and caught the two of us about waist high and dumped us into the water. Hearing the commotion, the foreman peered down at us and said, "Hey, youse guys er not gittin' paid fer swimmin'."

[J. Dillon]

:D :D :D

[Gary E]

I think if Jimmy were reading this thread he would tell us about this.....

On April 28, 1979 tow boat M/V CAHABA, commanded by Capt. Jimmy Wilkerson, was dropping 2 barges, with coal, through the non-lifting East span of Rooster Bridge on the Tombigbee River (mile marker 200), with intent of then running the tow boat around through the West bridge span which does lift & then catching the barges downstream of the bridge.
Pilot Earl Barnhart & 2 deckhands were placed on the tow to cast off the safety wires & winch wires.

Then his luck changed and this....

http://www.cargolaw.com/images/disaster2002.towboat06.GIF

Read the rest of the story here,,,,,
http://www.cargolaw.com/2002nightmare_towboat.html

[PeterSibley]

Once upon a time abut 35 years ago I was working as shaft sinker / mineral sampler on a nickel prospecting job in the highlands of Papua New Guinea,about 7000 feet up in the mountains.

We had worked on this site for around 2 months, had the shaft down around 100 feet through some of the most dangerous ground you have ever seen...slimey yellow clay and bassalt boulders,had all our sample s and had packed up.A couple of ton of gear ,a VW motor/compressor,tools ,air winch,mineral samples of course,med supplies...everything.All packed up on the helipad on one side.The helipad is around 50'x50' ,built of bush timber ,but strong.Oh yeah, the geli...40 sticks all by itself (with the food)...the dets are over on the other side,diagonally across the 50'x50' helipad.

That night we had a storm :( Not the kind of storm you see in ordinary places.Continuous lightning,one on top of the other,for hours....thunder so you couldn't talk :eek: i sounded like an artilary barrage must sound.Totally sense numbing.It went on for hours.I went to bed and slept :rolleyes: I was young :rolleyes:

The next morning was a surprise! No gear , no samples.40 sticks of jelly made a big bang ....ably helped by a direct lightning stike on the largest concentration of iron for 30 miles.

I got fired.Reason...not the explosion,just getting on the two way that morning and open casting that we had had a problem :D The Mines Department heard about it and the company couldn't hush it up.Serious crime . :D

Edited to say...I know I'm not old enough to post on this thread but I reckon its a good story smile.gif

[ 12-30-2005, 06:09 AM: Message edited by: PeterSibley ]