Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Big Fire In Texas
(Reported as a "True stories from the field" footnote in my textbook "Organic Additives And Ceramic Processing," Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, 1996, Chapter 9, page 266.)
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BIG FIRE IN TEXAS
The tape casting process described in reference 44 of Chapter 8 was licensed to many companies. In the 1970s, the author was working in the pilot plant, trying to solve various potential problems in advance. When the process was scaled up to mass production levels, large amounts of wax ("PVB") vapor condensed and collected in the vent pipe and then caught fire. Melted, burning PVB drops went up the flue and landed on the tar-covered flat roof, which also caught fire. The author and his trusty technician climbed to the roof and put out the flames before the rather slow fire department arrived. This violated the safety rules, but a few minutes later would have been too late.
All the legally licensed companies were notified to trap the PVB residue and clean it out periodically. However, many companies around the world illegally (and secretly) used our process without being licensed, and of course we couldn't notify them. A few had pretty bad fires, although I never heard that anyone actually died.
One of those pirate companies (in Texas, making use of illegal immigrant workers) had a big fire from that cause. I went to a scientific meeting in Denver, and the owner of that particular company was at a beer party in the evening, after that day's lectures. As I walked into the party, he recognized me and grabbed me around the waist. He was a very big guy, a former football star while at college in Denver, and now he was wearing a cowboy hat and sharply pointed boots. In his other hand, he had a whole pitcher of beer (not just a mug). He banged on the wall for attention and then proceeded to tell everybody a story about how "This hyeer Dock-torr Shayn-feeld birned down mah factory!"
I thought surely I was going to get a beer bath, or worse. But he told about the fire, and how all the workers escaped, and then about how he had lots of insurance on the old rusty factory, so he bought all new equipment and started over again. It was a good time to be making ceramic "packages" with our process, for the then-booming electronics industry, so he made a ton of money.
Afterwards, he insisted on taking me around Denver in his Cadillac convertable, to other parties, where I met his various girlfriends. All I remember now is that, around 3 AM, one of the parties was in the back of a Chinese laundry. The next morning, I had to give an important talk at the scientific meeting. I was terribly hung over, and completely exhausted. I kept dropping the pointer and forgetting which slide I was talking about. Later, my friends jokingly told me it was one of the worst talks they had ever heard. (Fortunately, my boss wasn't there.)
Somehow my career survived all this, maybe because I wrote a lot of magazine articles and books. Note, however, that in the customer reviews of my books on amazon.com, along with some five-star compliments, the reviewers also sneaked in a few snide remarks. But that's OK, we all have our ups and downs.
---------------------------------
(Reported as a "True stories from the field" footnote in my textbook "Organic Additives And Ceramic Processing," Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, 1996, Chapter 10, page 282.)
SOILING ALL THE CARS IN THE PARKING LOT
In a company making spray dried and dry pressed ferrite ceramics, the centrifugal spinner in the spray drier was running faster than usual, making unusually small droplets. These became very fine dried granules, which got through the cyclone separator and went up out the chimney. A slight wind blew the granules onto the employee parking lot, where the black dust settled on windshields of cars. It had previously rained, the cars were wet, and the waxy PVA redissolved. Then the sun came out and dried the "ferrite" (fine black sand) firmly onto the glass. After work, people tried to scrape off the hard gritty deposits, but they permanently scratched their windshields. That included the company president. The engineer in charge of spray drying was summarily fired. (It should be noted here that the author was not involved in this particular incident! I heard about it later, and I managed to avoid such things with my own spray dried ferrite.)
---------------------------
For the first "war story" in this series, click on:
"Jack Got Murdered; Then My Project Succeeded !"
---------------------------
To download Dan's super-high fidelity jazz selections, click on:
MUSIC
For reviews of Dan's electronics book, click on this colored thing:
REVU
For more stories (but personal ones --- not engineering stories) click this:
"PERSONAL STORIES"
For a tag:
stories
youthful experiences
.
BIG FIRE IN TEXAS
The tape casting process described in reference 44 of Chapter 8 was licensed to many companies. In the 1970s, the author was working in the pilot plant, trying to solve various potential problems in advance. When the process was scaled up to mass production levels, large amounts of wax ("PVB") vapor condensed and collected in the vent pipe and then caught fire. Melted, burning PVB drops went up the flue and landed on the tar-covered flat roof, which also caught fire. The author and his trusty technician climbed to the roof and put out the flames before the rather slow fire department arrived. This violated the safety rules, but a few minutes later would have been too late.
All the legally licensed companies were notified to trap the PVB residue and clean it out periodically. However, many companies around the world illegally (and secretly) used our process without being licensed, and of course we couldn't notify them. A few had pretty bad fires, although I never heard that anyone actually died.
One of those pirate companies (in Texas, making use of illegal immigrant workers) had a big fire from that cause. I went to a scientific meeting in Denver, and the owner of that particular company was at a beer party in the evening, after that day's lectures. As I walked into the party, he recognized me and grabbed me around the waist. He was a very big guy, a former football star while at college in Denver, and now he was wearing a cowboy hat and sharply pointed boots. In his other hand, he had a whole pitcher of beer (not just a mug). He banged on the wall for attention and then proceeded to tell everybody a story about how "This hyeer Dock-torr Shayn-feeld birned down mah factory!"
I thought surely I was going to get a beer bath, or worse. But he told about the fire, and how all the workers escaped, and then about how he had lots of insurance on the old rusty factory, so he bought all new equipment and started over again. It was a good time to be making ceramic "packages" with our process, for the then-booming electronics industry, so he made a ton of money.
Afterwards, he insisted on taking me around Denver in his Cadillac convertable, to other parties, where I met his various girlfriends. All I remember now is that, around 3 AM, one of the parties was in the back of a Chinese laundry. The next morning, I had to give an important talk at the scientific meeting. I was terribly hung over, and completely exhausted. I kept dropping the pointer and forgetting which slide I was talking about. Later, my friends jokingly told me it was one of the worst talks they had ever heard. (Fortunately, my boss wasn't there.)
Somehow my career survived all this, maybe because I wrote a lot of magazine articles and books. Note, however, that in the customer reviews of my books on amazon.com, along with some five-star compliments, the reviewers also sneaked in a few snide remarks. But that's OK, we all have our ups and downs.
---------------------------------
(Reported as a "True stories from the field" footnote in my textbook "Organic Additives And Ceramic Processing," Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, 1996, Chapter 10, page 282.)
SOILING ALL THE CARS IN THE PARKING LOT
In a company making spray dried and dry pressed ferrite ceramics, the centrifugal spinner in the spray drier was running faster than usual, making unusually small droplets. These became very fine dried granules, which got through the cyclone separator and went up out the chimney. A slight wind blew the granules onto the employee parking lot, where the black dust settled on windshields of cars. It had previously rained, the cars were wet, and the waxy PVA redissolved. Then the sun came out and dried the "ferrite" (fine black sand) firmly onto the glass. After work, people tried to scrape off the hard gritty deposits, but they permanently scratched their windshields. That included the company president. The engineer in charge of spray drying was summarily fired. (It should be noted here that the author was not involved in this particular incident! I heard about it later, and I managed to avoid such things with my own spray dried ferrite.)
---------------------------
For the first "war story" in this series, click on:
"Jack Got Murdered; Then My Project Succeeded !"
---------------------------
To download Dan's super-high fidelity jazz selections, click on:
MUSIC
For reviews of Dan's electronics book, click on this colored thing:
REVU
For more stories (but personal ones --- not engineering stories) click this:
"PERSONAL STORIES"
For a tag:
stories
youthful experiences
