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I learned something today

Redneck_Sophistication

Redneck_Sophistication

Super User
If your going to drain the oil out of your lathe with an unknown capacity I would recommend not just letting it slowly -15 flow into a 12L container and not think to check on it over night.

On an completely unrelated note I am doing product testing on “greasweep” natures super absorber. I’ve chosen an 8 foot wide puddle of thick as shit gear oil on my shop floor.

Will update
 

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Redneck_Sophistication said:
If your going to drain the oil out of your lathe with an unknown capacity I would recommend not just letting it slowly -15 flow into a 12L container and not think to check on it over night.

On an completely unrelated note I am doing product testing on “greasweep” natures super absorber. I’ve chosen an 8 foot wide puddle of thick as shit gear oil on my shop floor.

Will update
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consider yourself blessed.

I have seen on more than one occasion a heating oil dealer that pulled up to a home and promptly poured 100s of liters of heating oil into a basement not realizing that the homeowner converted to natural gas heating, and the hvac contractor failed to remove the tank fill pipe when they cut out the heating oil tank.

There is not enough greasweep in the world for that mess
 
boilerhouse said:
There must be some god in charge of this sort of thing 'cause when draining just about any sort of sump or gearbox, it doesn't seem to matter how well I plan in advance or what precautions I take - I end up with oil all over the shop floor.
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And I bet that anyone that has done alot of engine oil changes in their lifetime has forgot to put in the oil pan drain plug before refilling. I know I have. But only once so far.
 
TorontoBuilder said:
consider yourself blessed.

I have seen on more than one occasion a heating oil dealer that pulled up to a home and promptly poured 100s of liters of heating oil into a basement not realizing that the homeowner converted to natural gas heating, and the hvac contractor failed to remove the tank fill pipe when they cut out the heating oil tank.

There is not enough greasweep in the world for that mess
Click to expand...

I know someone who’s family had that happened to way back when

I believe insurance had to completely gut the house and replace nearly all the contents from the smell alone.

I’ll have to heat it all up
To stand a chance of getting it sucked up it’s so thick right now.

I contemplated burning the shop down for a good while, figured that would do it.
 
Redneck_Sophistication said:
I know someone who’s family had that happened to way back when

I believe insurance had to completely gut the house and replace nearly all the contents from the smell alone.

I’ll have to heat it all up
To stand a chance of getting it sucked up it’s so thick right now.

I contemplated burning the shop down for a good while, figured that would do it.
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yep in every case they have to gut the basement at a minimum due to the smell. they also write off the contents.
 
In pretty much every shop which I've worked, there has invariably been someone nicknamed "Exxon," for reasons that are in line with the subject matter at hand. Thankfully I have never earned that title but I've certainly made other mistakes of the same severity over the years, lol.

As my philosopher/pulp-mill-pulp-grader Uncle Marc says, "We're only human, miracles cost extra," lol.
 
Everett said:
In pretty much every shop which I've worked, there has invariably been someone nicknamed "Exxon," for reasons that are in line with the subject matter at hand. Thankfully I have never earned that title but I've certainly made other mistakes of the same severity over the years, lol.

As my philosopher/pulp-mill-pulp-grader Uncle Marc says, "We're only human, miracles cost extra," lol.
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one of our oil drain caddies is about 3.2 oil charges before it overflows onto the shop floor. All of us have tried to squeeze one more into it.
 
Well reporting back that absorbent from TSC is pretty good. I’d poured kitty litter around the edge of the puddle to stop the spread as I went to town for more.

Cat Litter lifted a lot of the oil, but there was still lots on the floor under it.
The greasweep pulled all of it off the floor and clumped up. Will still need some degreaser I’m sure but pleasantly surprised
 
Redneck_Sophistication said:
Well reporting back that absorbent from TSC is pretty good. I’d poured kitty litter around the edge of the puddle to stop the spread as I went to town for more.

Cat Litter lifted a lot of the oil, but there was still lots on the floor under it.
The greasweep pulled all of it off the floor and clumped up. Will still need some degreaser I’m sure but pleasantly surprised
Click to expand...

Right on and the winners are greasweep and the shop floor. LOL
 
I remember about five years ago we had an apprentice filling a 45 gallon barrel from a tote . The tote had a valve and spigot for pouring product into another container . She started the process of filling the drum , using a large funnel , slowly , so as to keep it under control , she then became bored , soon after got distracted walked away and forgot she was filling the barrel , came to the lunchroom for coffee break and ............. when we all returned to the shop floor it was an oil slick & cleanup like I had never seen or been involved in before.
 
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Another time , same shop different person .................... Servicing a big hydraulic crane , the hydraulic system holds the better part of a tote , you'd better have an empty tote to drain the oil into , not a 45 gallon drum and go for coffee ............................. massive cleanup that time too .
 
A big arsed polyethylene container that holds about 5 barrels of oil , they are for fleet owners and shops that use commercial quantities of lubricants.

Also used for shipping and dispensing agricultural products.

R.jpg
 
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Well glad I’m not alone lol

Crane reminded me of a mobile crane set up in the court yard of a school under construction we were working on years back.

Sets up with boom 180° Out, blows a line, decides to pack up swing around and leave. Sprayed the school and dumped an enormous amount of oil everywhere.
 
If anyone knows where Exshaw Alberta is , it's a small town west of Calgary on the edge of the Rockies , due to the seemingly limitless supply of limestone , there are a few plants there where cement is made , construction materials and drywall I believe .
Things evolve , expansions happen , They were doing construction in the plant , a large Crane was on site to hoist iron . The Crane had quite a bit of boom added and a luffing jib. A crane configured that way often will have large high pressure lines that travel up the boom to supply hydraulic oil to a winch , some times there is more than one winch , for hoisting or positioning the luffing jib. They blew a line , way up on the boom , anyone who knows about Exshaw understands that it's very often quite windy there due to the river valley that cuts through the gap in the mountains . When the line blew there was sufficient oil to spray almost the entire town , carried by the wind , dozens of cars got a complimentary car wash to calm the townsfolk down.
 
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We fill the coolant in CNC's at work with a hose. Manual shutoff...... There are 3 of us now in this dept, and none of us have been immune to forgetting.....Including a few guys that have left.

We have nicknamed the lake that forms too as Lake Okeedokey :D.

We used to do it with a bucket, but I had the water line run to the back when the addition was built, so we didn't have to keep walking to the front of the shop carrying buckets of water. There is a 4 hose manifold with hoses running to each machine except the lathe. Mostly its the water that evaporates, so it's easy to just fill it back up with water and check the concentration with a refractometer and add more concetrate if needed. It's a handy system, when you don't forget and get side tracked into another task while it's filling..... The last one the kid did, was not a bad one, but he was keeping an eye on HIS machine, but neglected to see the manifold had a valve open going to another machine (that was already full). I was sitting at my desk when I could see the banks of lake okeedokey start to rise under my door.....

I'd love to build a system with float switches, and a central sump etc, but TBH we barely had the budget for the bucket.....
 
Speaking of cleanup jobs....Ive heard this story by several people, so i'm sure its mostly true....but i wasn't there: In a mining town nearby here many years ago, a mechanic was working on a mining rock truck and had installed a new tire and was airing it up when the lunch bell rang. It takes a long time to fill one of these huge tires, so he went for lunch with the air chuck on and the compressor running. He knew he had 45 minutes or so. Well, as the story goes, lunch went a little long, and suddenly he remembered the tire...he ran into the shop and reached the air chuck just as the tire exploded. Apparently there were little bits of him and the tire everywhere, floor to ceiling and wall to wall. They had to hose out the shop with a firehose.

Never walk away from a job like that.
 
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