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Posted by David Sherman [216.18.131.123] on Friday, September 25, 2009 at 17:14:49 :
In Reply to: Re: ITS A TIN LEAD ALLOY posted by Dave Royal [75.81.253.97] on Friday, September 25, 2009 at 15:51:34 :
I used to have a neighbor who was a retired welder for Weyerhaeuser in Everett, WA. He worked in the pulp mill from about 1940 to 1970 when he retired. He described "lead burning" to me. All the acid pipes in the mill were made of lead with burned joints and the tanks were lined with sheet lead. They would weld the lead (not solder it) using a small tip on an acetylene torch and a pure lead rod. Clouds of lead smoke would be generated while doing this. They knew it was bad for the health, so lead burners were paid more than regular welders, and the regular welders weren't asked to do an lead burning. My neighbor didn't do any lead burning, which is probably why he lived to be 80 in good health. He said the lead burners typically got so poisoned that they couldn't work after 10 years, but some guys would want to do it anyway because the pay was better. Obviously OSHA wasn't so active back then. He had lots of stories of gruesome industrial accidents, like the man who went through the hog and they only found out when his hand came out on the chip belt. He said Weyerhaeuser figured on losing about 2 men per mill per year on the average due to accidents.