I remember reading in a relatively recent issue of Coal Power Magazine that Powder River Basin (PRB) coal now accounts for about 40% of all the coal fired in the U.S. to produce electricity. Although lower in cost per Btu, PRB is unlike any other coal in that its easily crumbled, dusty nature requires special attention to its safe handling and storage; which can only be the result of thoughtful and deliberate attention paid to the details of operation.

Keeping in touch with some of my old firefighter brothers and now actively involved in the Power Generation Industry, we are learning – unfortunately through passed major industrial explosions involving the accumulation of combustible powder – that accidents have mainly occurred when operators underestimate, or dismiss entirely, the devastating potential of combustible particulate solids.

A mechanical failure within the conveyor system can cause enough heat buildup to start a coal fire. Inadequate lubrication in the bearing of a roller or the friction between a seized roller and the conveyor belt can buildup heat sufficient to ignite a coal laiden belt.

Although many such incipient fires may not have been as widely advertised as Russia’s recent Sayano-Shushenskaya hydro-electric castastrophy, they have occurred. (John Cowdrey will also point out that even this devistating catastrophy hasn’t hit the main-stream U.S. media.) Plant Operators throughout our industry speculate that the frequency of incidents may be rising with small contained fires occurring regularly at many plants. Continue Reading »

In a passage from Plato’s mentor, Socrates tells about a group of men shackled in a cave, a fire burning behind them as they face the wall, able to see only the shadows of objects projected in front of them. The men perceive the shadows as reality, for this is all they have seen their entire lives.

One man, however, is freed by a guard and is released from the cave. When he first steps into the real world, he is blinded by the brightness of daylight, but gradually as his eyes adjust, he begins to see the true nature of the world around him. It becomes clear that the cave is not reality at all. With his new-found knowledge, he rushes back to his friends to share this discovery, but the men only scoff at him; and some react with anger, believing that there is no other reality than the shadows in front of them. Continue Reading »

My boy had his first scrimmage today, playing for Falcon Hawks Youth Football. You’d never know by looking at him that he’s all of 7yrs old. Needless to say, I took over a hundred still shots and haven’t even gone through the videos yet. The coach hasn’t decided on any set positions for the players yet, still evaluating their potential strengths and areas of opportunity, so most players are playing Offense in some shots and The Big “D” in others.

The camera saves the pictures a little larger than the server will allow me to upload, so I’ve only posted the ones here that I’ve resized and will probably do some more this evening or tomorrow… then I’ll start on the videos.

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At the time of this righting, I’d set-up the font for the “tag cloud” in the right side-bar to automatically change size dependent on how many posts associated to a particular tag exist in the backend database that loads this site – the more posts assigned to a tag, the larger the font will become relative to the other tags. 1958 Chevy seems to be the biggest followed closely by Wind Turbine and Tractor. I’m hoping not to increase 1965 GMC too much right now, since that would mean I’m putting more time into this one instead of using it as a work truck for a while. But we’ll see. ;-)

When Mark H. & I were originally discussing my purchasing the truck from him, he sent some pictures; one of which showed these A/C vents under the dash. I thought it was cool (in more ways than one) but really didn’t expect it to be functional after all this time. When we got to where the truck was, he let me know that he had removed the compressor from the engine at some time in the past and further investigation in the garage today has revealed that the hoses between this under-dash evaporator/blower and the expansion valve & the rest of the system had been sliced clean through.

I also found that the lines to the condenser are either broken or missing altogether, so I’ve pretty much decided that this truck won’t have A/C (at least for some time) and I am in the process of removing all of the related components from the vehicle to clean things up. It’s still cool though. The bracketry will make it that much easier to mount some other belt-drive accessory to the engine like an air compressor, or a welder, a hydraulic pump, or or a three-handled skillet lifter.

I knew when checking out the truck that the floors weren’t in the best shape, but it’s only metal. After removing the A/C, seat, gas tank, floor mat, and insulation, I could get a good look at things to see what I’d be dealing with. The next couple of pictures show the “before” and there’s a few more in the gallery if you’re so inclined.

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The rolled pieces around the shifter hole are the floor. I understand that people do what they have to do at the time to get the job done, and sometimes all you have on hand is a can opener and a hammer.

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I was only able to put a couple of hours into this today since we had other things to do as a family, but I started cutting out the rust and didn’t stop until I hit metal that was good enough to weld to. This is what I came up with before stopping for the day:

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You can see that the cab floor structure is in sound condition with only the sheetmetal itself in disrepair – really not all that bad.

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Although I have some old hood sheetmetal left over from the tractor, I thought it would be too thin. Later in the evening Brian and Buddy Jr. stopped over to check on the progress and offered-up what appears to be some thicker shelving material they had in stock (it’s all inventory, Mike), so we tossed it into the garage with the hopes of filling the holes back in tomorrow.

I never did get to the dent in the hood, but Brian also lent me his slide-hammer. And since the hood is double-walled in the front, I’ll try that route before cutting out the inner panel to attack it from the inside and then having to put the inner-side back together too – but I suspect that’s the route I’ll have to go in the end.

We’ll see

Although we’ve been making such good progress lately on the projects I already own, we went out and picked up the ’65 GMC today. It was a short road trip – only about an hour-and-a-half one way, but we stopped for breakfast on the way out and met Mark H., the previous owner, right on time.

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We figured we had about an inch to spare between the Continue Reading »