The recent thread about RedEx has reminded me of an almost on-topic story ... When I lived in darkest North Devon, I spannered for a mate with a workshop. One night (we did all our best work at night with the doors shut and the phone off (except to ring the takeaway)) one of the lads turfed up to do some work. He wanted to "do a bit of portin' an' polishin' to his cylinder head, see". He was allocated a bit of bench to work on, which was hastily cleared of the accumulated detritus accumulated by the daytime denizens, victims of horrendous HSS(1). He was sorted with overalls, goggles, earplugs and facemask, and instructed in the use of the air grinder. The air grinder is a nasty vicious bit of kit, being a cylindrical weapon that you hold in your hand, plugged into an airline and fitted with an abrasive or cutting bit which spins at up to ~20,000 rpm courtesy of the progressive trigger under your thumb. He wanted to clean up the inlet and exhaust tracts of the cylinder head and match them to the appropriate manifolds, so a fair bit of material had to be removed. We did a couple of little demos for him, then the Red Phone rang. It was the Police with an RTA that had to be cleared from a main road - stat. This was a regular sort of call, and a major earner (as well as keepimg us well-in with the Busies, like). So off we shot in a couple of wreckers to go and drag the casualties in - leaving the nervous neophyte in charge of the workshop, telephone and coffee machine; air grinder clutched firmly in his (trembling) mitt. The last(2) instruction was "put plenty of oil in the inlet" as the speed of spin can really wear an air tool like this - so the airline has to be frequently unplugged and machine oil run in, to keep its bearings lubricated. Well, we were out for a couple of hours prising bent cars apart and dragging them back to the Police pound. When we got back we wedged in the door to the khasi and the usual fight for First Wee ensued, then coffee was molished. The we noticed that the workshop was unnaturally silent. There was one light on - over the bench where the lad had been working. A shadowed figure hunched over the bench, filing. The light switch was made and the place came back to life as Wonderful Night-Time Radio One burst out of the speakers. The figure hardly flinched as we approached. "You alright, Brain?" (name slightly changed to protect the fuckwitted) ... "Oi be OK" came the reply. "'Ow be ee snackin' fer" drew no response, bar the filing hand trembled a little as he continued to work feverishly. As he slowly turned to face us, his distress became apparent. His eyes were reddened, his face smeared liberally with machine oil. His open pores held pints of the manky stuff. When I say he was fucking plastered with oil - he was fucking *DRIPPING* oil everywhere. His hands were coated, his hair was plastered. His overalls were sodden and his boots squelching. "Oi dun moi best", he quavered. "Oi can't hold the grinder no more, it's too 'ot and too oily". He was best part of deaf too, as his hands had been too oily to put the dripping earplugs back in once they had squeezed out. He'd gone through four pairs of goggles, the poor fucker, as each set in turn had filled up through the ventilation holes with oil, past the point of transparency. "Oi dun put plenty of oil down 'er inlet, but 'er still got too 'ot to 'old, see" was his eventual stopper. "'Er was like 'oldin' an eel, 'er was so loively", he wibbled. He'd put plenty of oil down the inlet, OK. The inlet tract ... in the cylinder head. Have you *any* fucking idea how much oil you can spin away from a cutter spinning at ~20,000 rpm? Oi'll tell 'ee. Lots, because he'd opened a new gallon of machine oil and there wasn't much left in it - and the previous one had been more than half-full too. He was wearing a fair bit of it, he was standing (with some small difficulty) in a considerable puddle of it and the walls and window and ceiling had more than their fair share too. Even the radio was well-lubricated. There ain't no fuckwit like a Devonian fuckwit, Oi tell 'ee. And then there was the Day Of The Plasma Cutter ... 1. HSS - Horizontal Surface Syndrome. You see a flat bit of space, and you _have_ to clutter it. It's compulsory. Good Workshop Practice *cough*. 2. Along with "coffee is 10p a cup" ...
