The Battle of the Dead Anacondas

Yes, I know, it's been a long time. And yes, I know that with my impending trip to Toronto, I should be packing. But there's still time; I leave for the airport in five hours.

So, in lieu of my trip, I figured I should at least attempt to update everyone on what's been going on, so as to minimize having to tell the same story eighteen thousand times.

To start, the big presses are gone, finally. It took us nearly three solid months before we could get the last pieces (35- and 50-tonne steel rollers) out the bay door at the west end of the plant. Of course, the last one was so immense, it nearly took out the door. (The photos are on my Facebook, for those who have access.)

Of course, that wasn't the end of the job. There was still a lot of (s)crap that had to get gone. And this caused some problems. They were chopping out steel every day with an acetylene torch, around lots and lots of sawdust. (Anyone who's read my previous posts knows how bad a thing this could be.) Every time they chopped through some metal, molten steel dropped to the floor below - often into small piles of sawdust. So, this had to be dealt with. And what they would often do is use a fire hose.

Now, this caused problems for me. The fire hoses are conveniently attached to the fire alarms. When water is used from the fire system, water pressure drops and triggers an alarm. Lazarus in particular tripped the system, sending me scurrying to the east end to reset the panel. And putting me into a heart attack. But at least we know that part of the system works. (God knows it should, I spent two weeks on that alone.)

Of course, with all the precautions in place, things can still go wrong. One of the guys was torching out an auger conveyor. From what I've heard, the thing dropped a couple of inches when he finished, kicking up a little dust inside it. And his torch was still aimed at the opening, which ignited the dust and caused a small flashover. No damage or injury, so we all managed to have a good laugh at his expense.

As for me, I've still been twiddling away at the electrical system, and had my major job for the last few weeks centred on the electrical room, getting it cleaned up and ready for use. One of our 40-foot motor control consoles (and half of the other one) is getting taken out and placed elsewhere in the plant, so Tesla and me have been busying ourselves vacuuming it out and getting the cables cleared out from it.

Most of the cables (Teck 90 industrial cable, for those who wish to look into it) have been small (width, not length) at three or four 14-gauge wires each. Others are not so small. (Andariel, I know you worry about my back - maybe you should look away.) There's cables I've been slugging around that are 60-100 feet long, and weigh in at a pound per foot. And those aren't the biggest in there, either.

And there's a lot of them, too. The floor to the electrical shop is removable, so you can get in underneath to repair/replace cables when needed. The crawl space underneath was full of cables for us to chop out. That alone we've been at for a week straight, and have cleared less than half. We've taken to calling them dead anacondas, because of length, though also because of how difficult it is to drag them out.

Though I suppose it could be worse. Those anacondas could be live when we cut into them.