Well, this is a busy time of year for me as is it is I’m sure for most everyone.  For me I am doing my company’s financial year end, Xmas shopping, cooking and getting ready for company.  But when a customer’s machine is down, it still means we have to make the parts even it means starting on them at  8:00 pm.  Some of our incoming orders have slowed because of the holidays, but that means we can catch up on jobs that have been pushed on the back burner. This year we are only taking a few days off.  We are hoping next year to shut down for a week or two over this holiday.   We have never just shut down and gone away.  Because we have our own shop, we can make our own hours. It’s pretty great that I can work till 10 pm because I know I don’t have to get up the next morning at 6 am.  Or when we’ve just had a fabulous snow fall, we can take a few hours in the morning to be the first ones out on the trails.

There are always pro’s and con’s when you’re your own boss.  You have to tell yourself to get to work.  Sometimes you have to pass on a weekend of snowmobiling because of customer demands.  We rarely take weekends off.

I want to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday!

There are so many reasons why I know I made the right career choice, but here are a few.

1. Creativity - with problem solving projects I either help the client or give them ideas on how to manufacture their parts.  Sometimes the client is not involved and it is up to me to figure out a way to manufacture their parts.

2. Independence - there are so many different ways to tackle jobs and every person will tackle jobs differently.  I have the ability to make my own choices of how to complete a job from beginning to end.

3. Empowerment – knowing I have the skills to do my job.  After my years in the trade, I am confident I can complete projects properly. 

4. Hands-on – I tried the desk jobs, but it didn’t take.  I like to be on my feet and staying active.  I love using my hands to make parts.  I take a piece of plain round stock and make a specific useful part in the end.

5. Responsibility – it is up to me to make the parts right.  If I let a part out the door out of spec, I have no excuse.  You can’t complain because someone else didn’t do his or her job.  If the part is not right or did not meet the deadline…. It’s my fault.

Yes I love my job!

Are you one of the lucky ones who knew what they always wanted to do as a career?  I never had a dream job or career goal.  I just muddled along from job to job; usually assembly type jobs because they paid fairly well.  When I was 26, I had been working at Boeing for five years as a Stores Keeper/Parts Picker when I found myself laid off.  It was a great paying job considering I had no college or university education. After almost a year on unemployment I received a letter asking if I wanted to take a ten-month machining course.  After doing a little research, taking a tour of the school, meeting the instructor and finding out there was a 99% chance of a job after graduation, I said yes.  This class was for former Boeing and Bristol Aerospace employees who had been laid off.  Most of the students were just there to extend their EI and hope to get a recall back to work.  I was in it for a new career.  This experience changed my life. I could be as creative as I liked, bringing new projects into class. We also had in-class projects of course, but we were able to modify them.  or do our own projects of the same difficulty instead. 

During this program you went out for work experience for four weeks at the end of the school year.  I was hired on full time after week three in a custom machine shop.  I got to make  many different varieties of parts, mostly small in size.  To this day I still prefer small parts as I don’t particularly like having to use cranes to lift material into the machine.  When companies know you’re at the entry level, they give you entry-level work.  As your skill increases, the difficulty in machining parts increase.  Most of the parts were small quantity runs, 30 parts or less.  A lot of the parts were being created to replace a worn or broken part. Sometimes they would be engineered parts that we would make just from drawings.

After 3 years at this company, I moved on. But I have not forgotten the skills and techniques I learned from my mentors there.

It’s hard to believe that just a few weeks ago the temperature was above zero.  For those interested in the trade, there is always plenty of work to be done outside.  I am in the maintenance division, and maintenance continues right through the winter season.  When the temperature drops to -25 degrees, it is important to add on the layers.  It may make moving quickly a little difficult, but it allows you to work at a comfortable temperature.  I’m moving into my second winter season with Hydro, and I have learned a lot about survivng the cold.  This year I have invested in a good pair of -100 degree composite winter boots, and was also issued insulated coveralls.

The majority of our maintenance is integrity checks.  This includes a visual inspection of the apparatus, operation and functionality of heaters, and general condition.  This involves a lot of walking, and in some of our stations, it is important to have no skin exposed.  Frost bite can occur in minutes.

Some work days are easier than others.  On certain days you look at blue prints all day, order material, and solve job related issues.  Those days are tough on your mind, but easy on the body.  Today was completely the opposite, no problems, no orders, just working hard.    The heating and cooling system at the new MPI claim centre is quite involved and heavy duty.  In the middle of the hallway on a trapeze hanger system, we have 3- 4″  mains, a 3″  main and a 1 1\2″  line.  Getting them up in the ceiling space and onto the hangers is another job in itself.  Each length of 4″ pipe weighs 230 lbs and is awkward to carry because they come in 21′ lengths.  We came up with a good game plan and the job went pretty smooth.  In just 5 hours of work, we hung 190′ of 4″ steel pipe.  At the end of the day we were all exhausted, but you feel good about yourself for being able to accomplish a lot.  In my next blog I’ll have some pictures attached so you can see how it all looks when it’s done.

A hydraulic cable cutter was brought into the shop to have the plastic guard reinforced. It had been riveted together and reinforced previously but had not held up to continuous use.

I wanted to create a design that would stand up to being roughed around and being used repetitively. I decided to create corner paneling that ran along either side of the plastic cover. I made this out of aluminum diamond plate. I chose aluminum to keep the cutter around the same weight, and the diamond plate was for cosmetic reasons. I tig welded the corner panels together for a nice clean finish.

I reinforced the inside of the plastic guard with regular flat aluminum because it was hidden and did not need to have the diamond plate appearance. I clamped the aluminum paneling onto the plastic guard, and drilled 3/16” holes to insert aluminum rivets. I placed a strip of diamond plate across the top of the hydraulic cutter to keep the guard in place; I riveted this on as well.

The reinforcement added to the structural integrity of the guard.

Here is the cable cutter with the guard removed, prior to any modifications taking place.

Here, I am tig welding the corner seam of the top paneling for the guard.

The final product.

Finally, winter has hit! There is a little bit of snow, not very much but enough to make it feel a little more like the holiday season. But the cold, wow what a shock! A few mornings of -45 degrees is harsh, but  it is good for business.  The cold brings in a lot if tow ins. You know, people not plugging the cars in, or batteries dead and frozen or in most cases weak. Cars are not really designed to operate in our harsh winter conditions . But yet, they do. Winter after winter they survive all the cold long days.

 Did you know that a car battery at cold temperatures has a voltage near 12v (only 25% charged.)  The less charge, the less time or amps it has to crank your car. If your battery is bad or weak, you will find out on the first cold day of the year, especially if you’re not plugging in you’re vehicle.  

The worst thing on a engine is a cold start. The oil is like honey, everything is stiff.  The oil has to make it’s way from bottom to the top before any lubrication happens. So the time that takes is vital to engine wear. Plugging vehicle in keeps the block warm and makes a cold start a lot easier. It’s less stress on the battery and with the engine being warm, you’ll have interior heat quicker.

After we replaced the broken bushing on the AVR, we needed to test both the capacitance value of the bushing, the integrity of the vacuum bottles, and the integrity of the current transformers.

Current transformers (CTs) are placed inside the AVR, and are used for protection.  The CTs are constantly monitoring the current through the bushings.  For example, if a fault current of 800 amps flows through the bushing, that 800 amps is transformed to a lower amperage (the value is dependant on the winding ratio of the transformer) and sent to an electronic relay.  Through preset values, the relay will give the AVR an open command.

Here is what the relay looks like.

To test the polarity of the CTs, we connect a loading transformer to each phase, one phase at a time.  In this case, we only tested B phase (the centre phase.)  120Vac/15A (white, black & green wires pictured below) is connected to a variac.  A variac is a dial that is used to turn the voltage & current injected up and down.  It works similar to the volume knob on your car radio.

From the variac, two leads (red & black) are connected to a loading transformer.  A clip-on ammeter is attached to one of the large orange cables to monitor the current output from the high side of the transformer.

From the loading transformer, two orange 4ought cables are connected to the connector atop the bushing.

We can tell if the CT polarity is correct, and also if the CT is functioning properly when the current on the relay display matches the current output at the ammeter.

Objective: To modify an existing stair platform and fabricate a new stair platform to specs. These stairs will be used to enter a site office trailer and need to be portable. The railings and the stairs needed to be removable.

Job Steps: (modification)

- No blueprint was given for this job, however specific measurements were given to follow during the modification and fabrication processes of the stairs.

- The first step was to modify the existing stairs.

- The platform itself needed to be shortened to a certain length, to do this a grinder with a cut off disc was used.

- The side with the existing stairs was the side that was chosen to be shortened because new stairs needed to be fabricated for it anyway.

- New legs were then cut from aluminum tubing to replace the two that had just been cut off.

- These were then tacked on using an Aluminum Mig Welder.

- Cross bracing was used underneath the platform to give it more stability, however these had to be cut away with the rest of it, so modifications needed to be done to correct the cross bracing and connect it to the two new legs.

- This portion was then welded up solid.

- Perf-o grip grating was used to build the stairs, along with aluminum channel.

- The stairs had to meet a certain code when it comes to the height between each step.

- After the stairs were built and welded together, fabrication of the railing was the next step.

- Mounting brackets were made using aluminum tubing, channel and rod to support the hand railing.

- Tubing was used for the railing, there had to be two sides of the platform with railing, the left side and the back, as well as following up the stairs.

- Precise angles needed to be followed when creating the railing for the stairs.

 Job Steps: (new fabrication)

- Due to the outdoor location of the platform it was required to be built of aluminum channel and perf-o grating.

- Legs were then built with cross bracing using aluminum tubing.

Following that, the job steps were basically the same as the modified stairs that were done previously.

 Comments:

This had been the very first platform stair project I have worked on. It was definitely a learning experience, however so is every new project I am introduced to here with Hydro. You never know what to expect when you come into work each day.

As an employee for Manitoba Hydro, part of my responsibility is to be relocated to different parts of the Province while in any training program for any trade. Even though I have my Journeyman Red Seal Certificate I am still rotated like other welder trainees because I have not yet bid on a permanent position with Hydro.

I have been situated in Winnipeg for 3 months shy of 2 years and have worked out of 3 different weld shops in and around the city. Unlike several other trades with Hydro, as a welder there are only minimal locations around the province that have weld shops. These locations are Winnipeg, Brandon, Selkirk, Great Falls, Grand Rapids, Jen Peg, Kelsey and Gillam.

As a welder, we got rotated approximately once a year, however this may change according the the demand at certain locations. If there’s work someplace else you’ll most likely get sent there. I put in a request to get sent to one of the northern locations because I’ve been yearning to gain the northern experience at a Hydro Dam.

I was so excited when I received my notice of rotation saying I was going to Grand Rapids. At Grand Rapids I’ll be working shifts of eight on and six off. I will be working a shift opposite to their permanent welder, so I’ll be able to experience working on my own in the weld shop.

My start date for Grand Rapids in January, and I am definitely looking forward to sharing that experience with you.