Thursday 8 March 2012

practice make perfect, really?

smelter boot, quiet fancy tho [oliver.com.au]
Well it may be applied to most of cases from learning how to cook, sewing, gardening, picking up boys, got picked up, even writing a blog. But, I think there're somethings that require more than just practice. Today, My boss's colleague sent someone to me. He asked me to teach this guy how to melt aluminium and cast it into iron mould to form various shape.

When I met the guy, errr..., I do not have a confident with him, even before he open his mouth. [yeh don't judge the book by it's cover but mostly I managed to justify before hand]. So, I hand him over some long sleeve kevlar gloves, a smelting apron, a face shield , and a pair of steel toes smelting boots and walk toward smelting area. I showed him how to turn everything on one at a time whilst he took notes. Then an hour later the Aluminium has melted. I showed him how to bail the ladle and pour them into cast iron mould. When his turn comes I [accidentally] looked down to the floor and saw the boots he's wearing. "Stop right there... and get out", I yelled. He got confused, I walked towards the nearest phone and dial his boss number. "Richard, I am here to teach him how to do casting, not how to wear boots", I said. "What are you talking about?" his boss lost in my sarcasm. "How am I suppose to have a confident on this guy handling two kg of molten state metal at 800C when he fail to identify which one is left boots which one is right boots?". And the argument over the phone continued.

I stared at him during the phone argument, then he start switching his boots to the appropriate foot. The conclusion, I shall give him three chances, so i did. The next time he pour the molten state, he has no idea when to stop and the molten metal spilled all over the place. The second time he failed to aim where the molten metal should go. The third time, he splash the molten metal to my sleeves, lucky enough I managed to response quickly by flicking the splash with my kevlar. It burnt my sleeves and some small grain penetrated thru and leaves two tiny holes about 1mm deep on my upper arm. Second thought, this is probably one of those things where you need more than just practice, but also you need brain and confidence to do the job.

I sent him back to his boss, and tell him to tell his boss what happened today in smelting section. I'm still pissed, the hole is not painful anymore, but left a mark on my arm.***

14 comments:

  1. He indeed need more than practice especially when handling with such dangerous material

    u cant make him practice with that molten metal just to get better at handling it unless u want to burn down that whole lab xD hahaha

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. haha... I think what he needs is a tiny winy scale of alloy melting and shape it with machining instead of casting. Which I do not have the budget to get new instrument for it.

      Delete
  2. hmm.. what u do actually .. sounds tough :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am metallurgist/materials engineer :D

      Delete
    2. waaa.. sounds complicated.. ok, i wont ask more for details.. later my simple brain cannot digest...lol ;p

      Delete
  3. i like scarred men... very sexy!!! lolllllllll

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. my scar is tiny :p because I flicked that splash before reaching my right arm, just some grains burnt my upper arm sleeve

      Delete
  4. Wah.. i thought you do office work pula cause you always skype me during work.. LOL! Now can picture you all sweaty at work.. hohoho!! =PP

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. haha, I am in office only to break up bills, write report or waiting for the process happening

      Delete
    2. and yes, it's sweaty down there especially in summer, hate it

      Delete
  5. wow you actually have to do such job as well! how interesting!
    but very hot right? XD

    he sounds really dumb... ops :X

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. from the boots, yes... :p
      what scares me is the checklist, he always forgot to have everything on before the procedure starts

      Delete
  6. I understand how u feel.... i had somewhat a same case like you but just in the culinary side xD! Some ppl are really dumb that u just feel like wanna slap them and shake them while screaming "WAKE UP!!!" x.x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hahaha.... - a L E x -, thank you, that is exactly how I feel.

      It's like, safety checklist is there, use it!
      The boots, cmon, can't you feel it's unfomfortably wrong to wear left boot on the right foot
      The aiming, imagine if that was sperm, it'll just spill all over the bedsheet, but this is molten state alloys, I dont plan to loose one limb for such idiocracy.

      Delete

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...