Saturday 21 November 2009

A Legacy of Analysing

Reading through my peeps earlier this morning and particularly the post by Grandma Nina, made me think of helping the Machinist the other day. 

Together, we were working on the stainless steel walls for the Pie Shop's kitchen. Local council's don't mind stainless steel walls or tiled walls.  Financially, it is cheaper for us to line them with stainless steel (a no brainer). Anyway, what the Machinist does is cut the length of stainless to size, fold the edges, 'rough' up the rear side of the steel sheet with an angle grinder, add glue along the roughed up lines, then add wood board to the steel sheet.  The reason he does this is so that the steel sheets remain taught, as the wood gives them extra strength.  It is a long, tedious and labour intensive process as each wall sheet weighs A LOT and we struggle to get them into place to match up with the steel framework and brackets the Machinist has already welded on the wall.

(That was a mouthful. Hope you can follow...)

To get back to Grandma Nina's thoughts on being particular about the work she does, (and in particular - parylisation by analysation), it struck me how alike she and I are in this particular 'field'.

Case in hand:

We had cut the stainless steel sheet to size on this machine:



Then we had to fold the edges on this machine:



We shuffle the stainless steel sheet into position, so that the marks on the steel line up with the folder guides.  The Machinist looks to me and I give him the 'nod' (or not) and he then presses a button and the machine folds the steel.  I was having trouble analysing whether the marked sheet lined up EXACTLY with the guides.

Me to self:

"Is it 1mm out?"
"What will happen when the guides come down - will they push the sheet a little?"
"Should I allow another one milimetre just in case?"

Then the Machinist to me:

"Are you ready?"
"Are you sure?"
"I'm waiting for a response from you.  Don't give me the thumbs up.  Give me the nod, then I'll know".

After all the heat in the workshop, it was unbelievingly, refreshingly good to take a dip in the pool, where all thoughts of accuracy, analysation and hot, heavy work faded into the depths of chlorine-shocked water.

5 comments:

Joyful said...

Sounds like a well deserved dip in the pool!

Ken Devine said...

We are similar in that to get way from the cold, damp and windy weather, we take a hot steaming shower. Okay, perhaps it isn't quite the same.

I enjoyed the post...It's funny! It's life! It's warm and human!

I'd love to see pics of the progress of the pie shop.

I reckon it'll have the biggest on-line opening in the history of pie shops.

Batteson.Ind said...

I'm exhausted just reading! I think my brain would just explode.. along with my temper probably... I can't remember the last time i went swimming..... ?

@eloh said...

Steps forward, you all will need a vacation once she's finished before you open her up!

ADRIAN said...

I perceive a posh pie shop progressing. Good luck.

CATERPILLARS & KEEPING IT REAL

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