bridgecity's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Work It's hot here. I work alone in an unairconditioned garage in south central Texas. I wear a noncirculating full-face respirator when I work. I wear large 36 decibel noise cancelling headphones. I wear leather gloves and a leather apron. My hands are pressed up against a 1/8th inch steel billet which is pressed up against a 2 horsepower belt sander running at 1800 rpms. It's regularly 110 decibels in the garage because of machine noise. I make knives in the stock removal method. Grinding stainless steel against the belts until they do what I want. I heat-treat the knives in a kiln at 2000 degrees for up to 3 hours at a time. The kiln is less than 5 feet from my body at all times while I'm inside the unairconditioned garage. Use of fans is minimal because too much airflow blows too much dust around. To much airflow can cause warpage in a just-cooked 2000 degree knife. I'm constantly covered in steel dust and sweat. All of my fingers have leathery burn callouses. My ears ring constantly. My chest is raw from jets of steel dust shooting off the grinder and down the neck of my shirt. My legs and feet constantly hurt. I don't breath so good. I've been doing this for years now. So many years now I no longer have any opinion about any of this. 1:50 p.m. - 2018-07-12 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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