Lessons Learned - first of many - Page 2

Holy crap man.

I just had an incident too where I had a lesson learned... USE TIEDOWNS.

I had a basketball hoop with backboard still attached in the back of my truck.. Backboard caught wind, took the whole thing airborne at 60mph. I'm VERY lucky that there were no cars behind me. It tore up the road pretty good.

Obviously your situation is much more dangerous, but it seems as scrappers, there is a bit of a learning curve on things, and being a new scrapper myself, sometimes its the simple things in life that we overlook.

Patriot, if it's as cold and snowy up there as I'm hearing, you probably enjoyed the warmth of that fire.

Uh....speaking of mistakes, I was scrapping at an old farmstead yesterday with the wife and a bothersome romex wire was hanging low between two buildings so I used the skidsteer palletfork to rip it down and then told the wife to take the bolt cutters and cut it off the buildings where it was still attached. She obeyed and then came walking toward me, kinda ghostly white and said "There were alot of sparks flying when I cut it". Oops......should have checked to see if the power was on. Good thing for insulated handles on the bolt cutter.

!!!!!!!!!!

Holy crap. She's lucky.

Funny you mention that. I opened up a VHS Tape Degausser/eraser the other day, and hit the jackpot (30lbs of varnish covered spooled copper) since it's essentially a giant electromagnet. There was a big box next to it that said something like "WARNING: LETHAL VOLTAGE. DO NOT OPERATE WITHOUT COVER ON". I'm assuming it's a very large capacitor. I have no idea how to ground this thing, but I'm curious about seeing what's inside. Lol

Originally Posted by Yunkman

Patriot, if it's as cold and snowy up there as I'm hearing, you probably enjoyed the warmth of that fire.

Uh....speaking of mistakes, I was scrapping at an old farmstead yesterday with the wife and a bothersome romex wire was hanging low between two buildings so I used the skidsteer palletfork to rip it down and then told the wife to take the bolt cutters and cut it off the buildings where it was still attached. She obeyed and then came walking toward me, kinda ghostly white and said "There were alot of sparks flying when I cut it". Oops......should have checked to see if the power was on. Good thing for insulated handles on the bolt cutter.

I thought you liked your wife. At least you let her use the insulated cutters. And it is cold and the bad part is the wind. I am sticking to my plan, preparing iron regardless of the weather until the price adjusts. Just hard to move in all these clothes.

Had a 20 minute day.

First, do not try to replace windows on a 20 minute day. Glass is brittle. Broke two windows before I tried Plexiglas. Lesson two, do not try to drill a hole in Plexiglas on a 20 minute day, it is also brittle and will break.

Skid steers on tracks will freeze up on a 20 minute day. We had rain, then an ice storm, followed by 4 in. of snow. The skid steer was working throughout the weather and when the mud froze, it locked the tracks. Took a propane heater, chisel, and hammer to get it moving again.

Trucks have a hard time on a 20 minute day. Noticed bad vibrations and it turned out to be ice caked inside the rims. Propane heater back to the rescue.

Do not assume metal is safe from a 20 minute day. Tried to load the skid steer into the trailer and the back bracing buckled.

Oil becomes syrup, grease will not go into zerks, and skin freezes to metal.

A neighbor stopped after about eight hours of this adventure and asked why I was working in the freezing rain. I told him I had nothing better to do and it was only a 20 minute day. He asked what a twenty minute day was. I responded that 20 minutes is how long it took a beer to become slush.

The moral of the story, 10 hours in freezing rain was only another 20 minute day.

I had to chuckle on this one. I also know what a 20 minute day is and boy can it be frustrating!

Yunk,

You probably now have an "electrical apprentice souvenir"! A set of cutters with a hole zapped in the jaws--by cutting a hot wire--or more correctly, cutting between two wires--a hot and a neutral.

Your wife has a lot of gumption to be out there working with you. She's a keeper!

Jon.