Well.........................not exactly, but far too close. Was a guest tonight at a regional meeting of engineers. The featured event was a tour of the Ash Grove Cement plant as described in this link. http://www.ashgrove.com/pdf/Chanute_FactSheet.pdf
The tour started off with an elevator ride to almost the top of the 427-foot preheating tower shown in the top photo in the link. We were on the top main floor so probably at about 380 feet. We walked over to the handrail to look down on the top of the huge sign of the American flag as seen in the top photo. There are no walls, just handrails around the perimeter of each level. After about 15 minutes at that level we walked down stairs to two levels lower. The steel, open-grate stairs are on the outermost edge of the structure. There is nothing but air below the outside edge of the handrail. That sort of sucks the air out of your lungs. After several minutes on that level we repeated the process to go down another couple of levels. Still far too much air underfoot. One doesn't want to stop to admire the view unless your day job is as an iron worker or steeple painter. Once back on terra firma we walked a mile or so from building to building to observe the process of converting limestone, shale and clay (plus the secret ingredients) into cement. One huge hemispherical building ,that I nicknamed the Fortress of Solitude after Superman's secret hideout, has a circular mountain of crushed rock that is continually raked with a huge triangular device probably 60 feet high by 40 feet across at the bottom to gently get a uniform supply of the crushed rock to enter a huge conveyor system for transport to the building where shot put-sized steel balls in a rolling drum eventually reduce the material to powder. The continuous action eventually reduces the steel balls to about 3/4" diameter before they are removed.
All in all, a very interesting way to spend the evening.
That's a good sized plant. Stuff like that always fascinated me. Would have loved to been there to see what a Kansas farm boy acts like when he's 400' in the air. 😉
I ran the lab for an asphalt producer once-upon-a-time and a couple of times a year I would visit the Dolese quarry and crusher down in Richard's Spur, Ok. Periodic sampling is boring work. I found out quickly if you sit and stare at a conveyor full of material for a while, when you look away your eyes are screwed up and it gave me horrible vertigo. I started taking books to read to keep me from staring at the conveyors.
Holy Cow, post: 395112, member: 50 wrote: Well.........................not exactly, but far too close.
And don't it feel good!
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Holy Cow, post: 395112, member: 50 wrote: Well.........................not exactly, but far too close. Was a guest tonight at a regional meeting of engineers. The featured event was a tour of the Ash Grove Cement plant as described in this link. http://www.ashgrove.com/pdf/Chanute_FactSheet.pdf
The tour started off with an elevator ride to almost the top of the 427-foot preheating tower shown in the top photo in the link. We were on the top main floor so probably at about 380 feet. We walked over to the handrail to look down on the top of the huge sign of the American flag as seen in the top photo. There are no walls, just handrails around the perimeter of each level. After about 15 minutes at that level we walked down stairs to two levels lower. The steel, open-grate stairs are on the outermost edge of the structure. There is nothing but air below the outside edge of the handrail. That sort of sucks the air out of your lungs. After several minutes on that level we repeated the process to go down another couple of levels. Still far too much air underfoot. One doesn't want to stop to admire the view unless your day job is as an iron worker or steeple painter. Once back on terra firma we walked a mile or so from building to building to observe the process of converting limestone, shale and clay (plus the secret ingredients) into cement. One huge hemispherical building ,that I nicknamed the Fortress of Solitude after Superman's secret hideout, has a circular mountain of crushed rock that is continually raked with a huge triangular device probably 60 feet high by 40 feet across at the bottom to gently get a uniform supply of the crushed rock to enter a huge conveyor system for transport to the building where shot put-sized steel balls in a rolling drum eventually reduce the material to powder. The continuous action eventually reduces the steel balls to about 3/4" diameter before they are removed.
All in all, a very interesting way to spend the evening.
I've worked in a coal fired power plant a good bit in the last couple of years. Almost all the 14 floors were made of open steel decking. The top floor had some spots where you could look straight down to the ground. After a while you just don't even notice it any more. That plant is the first (and only) place I've worked that had elevations in feet and inches.
Andy
@ Andy Bruner
That is what you get when a bunch of White Hatted Engineers are in charge of things 😉
Had to put up with the same inside IP Co Paper operations, everything was feet and inches and we measured everything with a Lufkin Chrome Clad Highway tape in feet and tenths.
The Cason Coal plant was pretty much the same.
I thought your story was going to be like the one a friend told about his brother in law. The BIL was an inspector for all the grain elevators in the area. He came down from the top one day and told the owners "There's a lot of mold on the corn in silo 2. I went out and got samples, see?"
The owner replied, "Silo 2? It's empty."
Turns out the guy had walked out on a layer of moldy corn that was stuck at the top when the rest was removed. Nothing underneath. He took the rest of the day off.
Bill93, post: 395193, member: 87 wrote: Nothing underneath. He took the rest of the day off.
He should've went and bought a lottery ticket....
Mr. Cow, you should have reviewed their safety award record before you visited. They have not won an award since 2010.
I took a 18 month tour of Holcim's Devil's Slide Cement Plant at Morgan, Utah. I started out as a surveyor for one of the contractors and then the last year was the owners ÛÏmechanical surveyor.Û I was quality control for location of all the equipment being installed. I ended up doing much of the layout as some of the contractors surveyors were not up to the job. Our preheat tower was just 250 feet tall. I been all through the guts of a cement plant. Buildings, mills, conveyors, silos, kiln. At 125 million it's the largest construction project I ever had that much responsibility. That was 1996-7. When it was done I was glad it was over, good money, but very hard stressful work. Two hours driving to work and back every day also.
AND, Cow
I KNOW WHERE CHANUTE IS!!
A few short steps and I'm looking nearly 20 miles at that tower. The old "smokestack" is long gone, but, when I was kid, I referred to the smokestack as "the skymaker" because it frequently appeared to be creating the clouds. I suppose, in a way, it was.
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That would be quite the experience, that's for sure! I've thought about going to the lookout similar to that at the Grand Canyon. As long as I did not look at my feet, I think I would be fine.
Being elevated and on a solid surface is not a problem for me. Going up and down a ladder is an entirely different story. The third rung of a ladder is too high for me and has been as far back as I can remember. Put me in a helicopter, set me down where Williwaw was working the other day and I would be perfectly fine. It must have something to do with the likelihood of falling as determined by some tiny section of my brain. I have spent many days working on roof tops without a problem. The problem is climbing up and down the ladder to be there.
Holy Cow, post: 395330, member: 50 wrote: That would be quite the experience, that's for sure! I've thought about going to the lookout similar to that at the Grand Canyon. As long as I did not look at my feet, I think I would be fine.
Being elevated and on a solid surface is not a problem for me. Going up and down a ladder is an entirely different story. The third rung of a ladder is too high for me and has been as far back as I can remember. Put me in a helicopter, set me down where Williwaw was working the other day and I would be perfectly fine. It must have something to do with the likelihood of falling as determined by some tiny section of my brain. I have spent many days working on roof tops without a problem. The problem is climbing up and down the ladder to be there.
Fall of 1975 I was working for a consultant that was also the "City Engineer" of several small hamlets spattered around central OK. One project involved the "rehab" of a 1940 vintage water tower. Very little surveying was involved in putting the docs and specs together but I got my chance to be involved in the project....The tank had been drained for the project but the engineer wanted some photographs on the inside of the tower storage...and asked for volunteers. Hungry babies, a pregnant wife and a persistent landlord kept me scrambling for any OT I could get...I volunteered.
On a Saturday, without any safety harnesses or the help of OSHA I scrambled up the caged ladder to the main catwalk. By the time I got there my knees were shaking. I then had to climb another ladder up the side of the tank to the top, and then halfway up the cap to the inspection plate. This was done by belly crawling along a 'ladder' welded to the top with no cage...scared the holy crap out of me to be up there. I was able to get the inspection door open and snap some pics of the inside with the aid of those crazy little flashcubes (remember those?).
I had actually gotten acclimated to being up there and almost started enjoying myself when it was time to "back" down in reverse. I now know how a kitten feels when he keeps climbing to the top of a tree and can't figure out how to get down. It took three times as long to get down as it did for me to get up there.
That was the last time this cracker will ever attempt to scale a water tower...
BTW - the contractor must have done a good job..that was over 40 years ago and the tower still holds water.
