Big Ugly

 

Big Ugly was the nickname of the oiler who helped me operate the cement kilns in Calera.  Until the introduction of computers, kiln burning required keen eyesight, analytical thinking, and quick response by the burner.  It was one of the most pressured positions at a cement plant.  The oiler was critical to successful burning of the kilns.

The two kilns at Calera were 450 feet long and 12 feet in diameter. Each burned 3-6 tons of coal and 75-83 tons of raw mix per hour when operations were smooth.  This produced 40-45 tons of clinker.  Clinkers, mixed with gypsum, produces cement.  Kilns were basically 450 pipe bombs, very dangerous and potentially deadly.

I had been an oiler prior to becoming a burner.   An oiler’s responsibility is largely preventive maintenance.  He is the eyes and ears of the burner.  If an oiler can diagnosis a potential problem, a scheduled time of repair is much better than an emergency.

Once another burner was out taking a visual inspection of the burning process.  Burners did this on fifteen-minute intervals under normal operation.  Bad raw mix could make the inspections more frequent.  When the burner returned to the control room, fire blew from the inspection door and looked like a fire-breathing dragon.  Bumfuzzled, the burner tried to analyze the problem.

His alert oiler saw the fire and ran to the control room.  He told his burner that he saw an electrical trainee and a dufus engineer carrying on of the control modules to the electrical shop.  The control module was the control for one of the major vent fans that created airflow equilibrium in the kiln.  The imbalance created more fuel and air than the kiln could handle.  The burner quickly ran down two of the Three Stooges and returned the control for the burner to get control.  Larry and Curley did not think removing the module would hurt anything.

Another critical piece of equipment was the clinker breaker.  Clinkers are normally marvel sized, but they can be from a tiny speck to six feet balls.  I have shot a couple of four feet clinkers with the eight-gauge tripod gun used to shoot sulfur rings that form in the kiln.  Clinkers larger than 2-3 feet will choke the system and will not enter the clinker breaker.

Clinker breakers are large hammers that break clinkers into manageable sizes.  Even though they are hardened steel, they wear and constant inspections of the belts, a total of six, that drive the hammers are vital.  Should a clinker breaker choke, the belts could burn into and the breaker stop.  If this happens, an oiler has a mess and a burner must start the process of slowing the kiln or possibly a shutdown if the belts are not replaced quickly.

I was working overtime on another shift when the oiler told me that one belt had worked loose.  It did not pose a threat, but he wanted me to know.  Three evening later, my oiler run into the control room in a panic.  He was frantic.  He said that we had a belt loose and we need to call in maintenance men to fix it. 

I told him that I knew it and that it had been loose for three days.  He assured me that he checked it a dozen or more times each shift.  I said that he looked at it without seeing it.  I told him the Bible talked about seeing but not seeing.

I told Big Ugly that I had done it too as an oiler.

And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive (Matthew 13:14 KJV).

*And he (John) stooping down, and looking in, saw (blepi-casual glance) the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in.  Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth (theori-thoughtful and calculated look) the linen clothes lie, And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.  Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw (eiden-conveys belief), and believed (John 20:8-5KJV).

* From Doctrine that Dances, Dr. Robert Smith Jr. (pp. 20-21)