No kidding. I really hope he passed out and asphixiated before he drowned. Being sealed up into a small space filling with fuel is nightmare fuel.
Yeah, that sounds like manufacturers the world over. Software is the same: Hard to sell new units if there's no "improvement".
I did just look up capacitance and it seems to be related to energy storage so maybe it doesn't apply as no electricity is stored in a welding cable.
Well, the electrons flow along the cable, but they have to come from somewhere. Ideally something with high capacitance like the earth or your giant metal tank. Assuming I understood your story right of course.
I really have to wonder how much that woman cost the company by the end. What was her qualification exactly?
I'll deal with last question first. The job was at a shipyard in Mobile Alabama back around 1995 I think.
When I first got there for a big push to quickly build casino barges for the newly legalized gambling industry she was just one of the welders like me.
She was later made a foreman because she's female and black and they wanted her for an example of how you could move up in the trade.
Actually, I could weld way better than her, had a very good relationship with all my coworkers, and was far more civil, organized and better educated on welding procedures. But then, I went to trade school to learn welding and was top of my class. But then, I'm white, love to make jokes, was only there on a subcontract rather than actually being an employee so, there's that.
She harassed me daily but never once threatened to fire me while she did fire almost one person a day, and for sure at least two or three guys a week. All black guys. So, being puzzled by her actions and attitude I asked a black coworker I was on good terms with what was going on with her, why was she always getting into it with the guys and firing them. Seriously, what was her angle?, because it seemed like she was on some kind of a mission.
My coworker started laughing and said, "Bro, she's after that white head and it's yours!". I'm confused and asked, "So why fire so many black guys?" He chuckled, "She's working her way up to you.". So firing black guys was her cover to fire me. Damn. I really didn't take him seriously though.
Also, I caught her in her office trailer with another guy while they locked the door and seriously overstayed lunch break. Of course you know what they were doing when the guy was lazy, got away with not producing more than a couple feet of weld a night and sleeping on the job.
Eventually the harassment came to a head when she tried to set me up for a reprimand by lying to the supervisor. I even proved she was lying and she went crazy screaming at me in front of the supervisor.
After I got her to walk off I turned to the supervisor and said, "See how she treats me and lies? I need to be moved to another project on one of the other ships, please!".
So he agreed to move me and after only one day sent over a friend of mine who also happened to be black. Before I left I told the supervisor they really need to put a check on her behavior as it's gonna get out of control and knowing some of the rough guys on the crew, she was going to end up hurt somehow. For me, this just seemed obvious.
We loved it. We had an old white guy for foreman who was easy to get along with and we could work our shifts with zero stress of being yelled at for no reason.
Then one day, before our shift really started we see her standing on the back of a ship across the water, just staring at us. We just stand there looking back wondering what her interest is. Maybe she thought we had been fired? For what? Because she didn't like either of us? We started doing a bit of strut dancing and grabbing our crotch just to tease her. Mistake?
Next day both of us got pulled off that ship and sent to another ship where she had just happened to come on for the project. Did she arrange this? Within minutes of starting my shift she escalated an argument with me and demanded to test a tool I claimed I need to turn in because it wasn't working properly. I had every right to turn it in and get a new one but she wouldn't allow it. She demanded to use my welding hood and I told her, no way, no how is she going to use my personal welding hood. It's my property, I paid for it and it's personal since it's going right over my face. She fired me right then and there and though I went to the office to complain they backed her up.
I went down to the bay to sit and watch the moonlight on the waves and drink beer. Next day I called in for a new job and was to leave the morning after. So I'm sitting on the bay another night just drinking beer, except now I'm in a good mood. The only other white guy on the job stopped by and told me my coworker had also been fired right after I left the yard and he had been fired. He was pissed as hell but told me that early that morning after the shift finished and she left the yard someone ran her off the road and she has a broken neck. She'll never walk again and will most likely end up a quadriplegic. Do I feel bad for her? Not really. She wouldn't let guys who have families work in peace, wouldn't respect us, berated and screamed at us, fucked another employee during work hours and at lunch break, played favorites and lied about stuff and tried to set me up. I had nothing to do with it but a good idea who did and that's between him and God. Personally, I think she got what was coming for her. Me, I'm a mild mannered guy who hates conflict but when something like this happens to a real horrible person, I find it hard to feel bad.
I also once had a supervisor who drank, let his friends who could barely weld be foremen, lied about stuff and had criminals on the crew and eventually fired me because one of his friends didn't like me.
The afternoon I was fired I had a talk with God about it. Next day I was calling around and got a new job and before I took off a coworker came to me and told me that the supervisor had been killed on the new Harley he had just purchased. Oh, forgot to mention, he was shacking up with a female employee who basically was his unwilling sex slave and wanted out. He was also married but when your wife is a thousand miles away, it's hard for her to check up on you. So that's two people who fired me who died a short time later. Gives me the creeps but I didn't feel bad about either.
Lest you think something is off here I should mention, I've worked for people I highly respected who I miss to this day and for people I despised because of how corrupt and abusive they were. When I've met people who were a pleasure to work with, I've always missed them when the project was over.
Welding equipment: While things like rod holders have shown little innovation and maybe don't need it, things like power sources have shown all sorts of innovation over the years I've been working. Some features I've loved and some not so much. The best machines are ones that are purpose built for a specific function when a company orders a whole truck load of them. Those can come with very few innovative features, sort of like beef and potatoes simplicity. I like that because new welders always start messing with unneeded features and settings.
Eventually the harassment came to a head when she tried to set me up for a reprimand by lying to the supervisor. I even proved she was lying and she went crazy screaming at me in front of the supervisor.
Man, I've dealt with people like that before, but thank the gods never in a serious position of authority over me where I couldn't afford to just walk away. It's truly incredible how much effort they'll expend to persecute someone who's burst their bubble.
They seem to do best in middle management type positions in large companies where their superiors don't really keep an eye on what's going on below them. That or public institutions where the funding body just pays out every year without asking for results. The only solution I've ever worked out for dealing with them is to stay the hell away.
That's the first time I've heard of them getting outright murdered before though. Makes me wonder how often it happens.
I've given a bit of thought about how this kind of situation could be avoided, my conclusion was that every association on a project should be as free as possible, so everyone's just subcontracting for their superior. The ones who are impossible to work with would very quickly run out of workers, and the ones who are a pleasure to work with would attract the best. The unions would hate it, but I hate them so that works out too :P
Welding equipment: While things like rod holders have shown little innovation and maybe don't need it, things like power sources have shown all sorts of innovation over the years I've been working. Some features I've loved and some not so much. The best machines are ones that are purpose built for a specific function when a company orders a whole truck load of them. Those can come with very few innovative features, sort of like beef and potatoes simplicity. I like that because new welders always start messing with unneeded features and settings.
Out of curiosity, if I wanted to get started with welding (not as a career, just as a skill) what would you recommend to get started?
I have a Miller wire feeder that can use CO2 gas for shielding. I think I spent like $1200.00 on it.
I know that's a bit pricy but it works fairly well. Not as well as the $2,000.00 units I used for work but those ones require other equipment to run them so it's more thousands of dollars.
If you want to go super cheap just start off with a simple Lincoln welder. The old ones can be had for around $100.00 off of Craig's list. They run off of 240v. You'll need to install an outlet for it in your garage. Usually breaker boxes are located on the side of your garage so clear a space inside your garage as close to the breaker box as possible and run a circuit into your garage.
If you go to home depot you can pick up an instruction book on how to do it properly. It's actually very simple to do this.
Then you'll need to get a hood and some welding gloves. A four inch angle grinder is a must have thing. You can get 1/8th inch cutter wheels, 1/4th inch grinder wheels and some flapper wheels to smooth out stuff for painting.
A torch kit with a cutting head is a good investment but you can live without it. Find an Airgas distributer near you and look around in their lobby for any other stuff you think you might need. They have more stuff than Home Depot or Lowes and you can rent oxygen and acetylene tanks as well as CO2 tanks if you opt for a wire feeder.
The thing is with a wire feeder, you'll need to learn how to run the thing. The cheap ones like I have work ok but sometimes have issues you need to trouble shoot. Always make sure you use the proper size tip for the wire gun. If it's too small a diameter the wire won't go through. If it's too large and or you don't put the proper rollers in the wire will jam all the time. They come with a set of rollers you need to install depending on the size wire you run. For those cheap wire feeders you really can only run the .035 wire effectively. I don't care what the manual says, the machine really only runs the smallest wire available.
Mine can run off 240 or 120. It also runs welding rods and has settings for TIG welding, so someone who is very creative and wants to try various processes, it would be a great starter.
Who knows, you may really like welding so maybe you should keep your options for home use open.
But then, learning by starting with stick welding is really the best place to start and here's why: Stick welding is a slower process and easier to control and learn. There's no technical issues involved other than setting your current properly and there's books you can pick up at Home Depot to help you with that.
You can go on youtube and watch tutorials on welding so there's that. Not as good as having someone like me to coach you first hand but it helps. I can do small projects with concrete simply because I started watching videos and learned from the pros to improve my techniques. Sure, I can't do big projects professionally but I've had people stop by and praise my work as being better than a city contractor so I'm jazzed about that.
Another thing about stick welding is, since it's a slower process you can actually see how the puddle reacts as the bead forms and get a better feel for what's happening.
The problem with a wire feeder for a newbie is that I'd worry that they might feel overwhelmed by the machine and issues that would come up and frustrate them. Then the damn thing will just gather dust in the garage. However, if like mine you have multiple functions then you can just use the same machine for stick welding. When you've got that down you can head down to Airgas and pick up a tank of gas and switch over to wire feed. If you're good with machines, then it won't be a problem to set it.
Hope I helped you but I can't just tell you what machine exactly to get as I don't know you well enough to say for sure.
Another thing you might want to consider is where your steel you will be using comes from. Thing I love about steel is that often times, it's just laying about not being used and readily available. I've used odd bits of steel by cutting, grinding and repurposing in ways the average guy wouldn't even think of just because I can weld.
For instance, old steel bed frames that go under a box mattress. That stuff is wonderful steel. It's harder than mild steel, flexible, welds up fine, easy to cut with a grinder and has many uses. Imagine how many times people just toss that stuff in a dumpster because they have no use for it.
Right now I am looking for an old bed frame to create a stand for a barbecue grill I am making. I have one already but by my measurements, I need a couple more. I just grind off the rivets and cut to length. Easy peasy.
At my Grandpa's trailer I used the frame under another old trailer house I had yanked out and welded up the support for a redwood deck for him. For that I used 6013 1/8 welding rod and an old Lincoln stick welder even though I had my wire feeder there. No need setting up the wire feeder and paying for gas when stick welding was fine and much cheaper to use. The small cylinders for my wire feeder run about 70 bucks. BTW, when they are empty you just trade them in for a full cylinder. You never buy cylinders as they are always just traded for a fresh one. Airgas likes to pretend you are renting the cylinders but there's no monthly charge. Recently they sent me a notice about my cylinder cause I've had it almost a year and haven't finished using it up. No charge, just a reminder I have it. LOL. They're keeping check.
BTW, I love your idea about being able to choose your foreman.
I was on one job where I got into it with my foreman for telling jokes at the safety meeting. I didn't like it that we arrived for the safety meeting and are standing there listening to his dumb ass jokes while we are standing in the cold and dark. WTF dude? I am thinking. So he fired me and then another foreman on the same job said, "ah man, you can come work for me.". LOL. Pissed the other foreman off but who cares. I think what I said to the Joker foreman was, "If you're gonna tell us lame jokes for half an hour I'm gonna go set up, we have work to do". I started walking off to the job site and he went off. Some sense of humor right? Only laughs at his own jokes, when he should have been proud of me. The other foreman was a much nicer guy.
Hey, if you're really serious about learning to weld on your own and have questions in the future feel free to hit me up, OK? I don't mind helping out at all, in fact, I love it. Just get a welding machine ok? That's number one project for you right now.
(post is archived)