CLSranch a journal to compensate my lack of memory.

[farmerjan]

Hope things are going along with this short stint of work..... miss your postings....

 

[CLSranch]

Howdy all. Just letting everyone know I'm still alive. Still working, although not really welding after they found out I can fit and they don't have any fitters on our crew.(bad management choice) They thought about it after hiring 5 welders and a foreman who can't fit as another crew. Irritating lisenting to a welder say, I need you to fit for me, I can't do it, I hired in as welder. Well, so did I. That's my rant for the day.

I hope everyone is fine.

 

[Baymule]

As long as they pay you, weld, fit, both mean a paycheck.

 

[CLSranch]

Well I've left the AR job and made it to north west IA for a short shut down. I head to NE today or tomorrow to be ready for another shutdown. On the way home from AR i had a nice little blow out on the camper that not only ripped the floor out AGAIN, it also busted the furnace. While changing the tire I was wondering what those wires hanging down went to, the fridge or furncace??? it's the furnace and Iowa is having lovely 28 degree weather.
My first night here after sitting down after work a d@m cat started to come in from under the fridge from the hole in floor. It's about the size of 3 or 4 footballs. I need to take some pics, it's impressive what a tire can do. It's about time for a new camper.

So how is everyone else?

 

[Baymule]

I’m sorry for your tire misfortunes, but I can’t help laughing at the visiting cat! At 28F degrees, the cat was probably looking for a warm spot. What a disappointment for the cat, that your furnace didn’t work! Hahaha!

 

[farmerjan]

D#@N... you are more of a Murphy's law person than I am....... I am sorry for the blowout and subsequent hole and other problems.... Did you at least get a small electric space heater to be able to use? Can you at least slide a piece of plywood to block the hole?
What kind of "shut downs" are you working at? Not versed on your type of work.

Hope the family is doing okay at home.

 

[CLSranch]

I already had some electric heaters. Hopefully they work If I run out of propane. More than once I've gone home and went through a whole bottle of propane and the electric heaters flipped the breaker (even on low) and it froze my water line and/or my water pump. The pump is currently bypassed. I usually keep a little heater on low in the bathroom, have to turn it up a bit right now. I'm also boiling water when off work.
Shut down here is on an Ethanol plant. Refineries are known for them. It's scheduled maintenance kinda. They "shut down" the plant so they can fix things before they break, replace lines and add tie ins for future lines without blowing up the plant, which happened somewhere in Ne a couple of days ago. btw Not the whole plant but a tank.
The hour$ are usually good. 7-12s or 13 days on 1 off with 12 hr days. I used to like working that much for 4-8 wks then I can stay home for a while. Now I don't like more than 60 hours a week. Had 53 hrs by Thur this week. With years of apneia I don't like 12+ hrs anymore.

 

[CLSranch]

I took some pictures of the hole and exposed wires and water lines but I can't get them to load on the puter. Why would you not put the water lines on the inside of the frame where the tire can't expose it and it would have 6" more insulation.
Also the spring was slammed up against the PROPANE line while changing the tire. Something I didn't look at on the first blow out. Another engineering fault.

 

[CLSranch]

This is from inside. It's the linen drawer.

That's the furnace wires and the water lines. The shiney insulation and tape on the water lines is from the first blow out where I insulated them seperately before insulating and redoing the bottom.

That's my foot. In a Justin I wear an 11.
There is also the cross brace that holds the trim.

There is the bottom of the furnace that you may be able to see how it's crushed.

If you knew what to look for you could see the parts of the linen drawers.

 

[CLSranch]

This is from inside the camper after pulling out the linen drawer. You can see all the particle board that got threw/blew in there. It used to have some gravel and dirt in it after the first blow out, even at 40mph.