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the feature industry this month is....
Chocolate Factories
Construction millwrighting is definitely a job in which you get your hands (and clothes) dirty. However, some dirt is easier to take than other kinds. A guy I know once impressed his neighbour's kid all to heck when coming home from work with dirty coveralls. The kid asked, "what's on your clothes?" and the answer was, "chocolate!". Yes, chocolate is made in another kind of factory, with machines, conveyers, and all the usual things which need millwrights to install, fix, and maintain them. An appropriate feature industry for the month of Easter!
Last month the quick lesson was about arc welding, the number one welding method used on construction jobsites. Most people know that you can also weld with gas (a burning oxygen-fuel mixture). In fact, in high school shop classes, the subject of "welding" often begins with gas welding and then moves on to arc later. That is usually the last time a working millwright ever thinks of gas for welding, though: it's just too slow compared to arc. What we DO think of gas for, however, is cutting.
It is the rarest of job sites in which one does not see a torch setup, consisting usually of an oxygen bottle and an acetylene bottle. There are some jobs a grinder or saw just can't do in terms of cutting steel: a hard-to-get-at place, maybe, or just too long an expanse of it. Maybe the building you're in has no electric outlets nearby, or you're not in a building at all. With the torch flame set up correctly, gas cutting is the fastest, easiest, and sometimes the only possible method of cutting steel. Not only that, it may even have a safety advantage: grinding produces a lot of aluminum dust from the wheels' abrasive material, and breathing that has been linked to Alzheimer's disease. Of course, some situations may prohibit an open flame--but a truly explosive atmosphere would not allow grinding, either, due to the sparks.
The basic method to cut with a torch is to:
The reason this works is that the torch is oxidizing the metal before its melting point, and the oxide produced then also melts at a lower temperature than the parent metal and is blown away by the high pressure oxygen stream. It's almost like magic!
Quiz Question:
How many safety precautions can you list for working with oxy-acetylene cutting materials?
Chocolate comes from the beans harvested from the cocoa plant. These beans are cleaned and then roasted to loosen their shells. When cooled, the shells are removed from the center part of the bean, the really important part! These "nibs" are then ground up into "liquor". Like coffee beans, cocoa beans from different parts of the world have different flavours and are blended for various end products. The cocoa "butter" is squeezed from some of the "liquor" in presses, leaving a cake of pure cocoa. This is then pulverized. Sugar and condensed milk are added to the liquor and processed until it becomes "crumb", a coarse brown powder. The crumb is rolled smooth, and cocoa butter is added to form a paste. The paste is then in its turn rolled smooth, and poured into molds, spread evenly, and cooled. Other ingredients (nuts, for example) may also be added near the end stage. Of course you then have the wrapping and packing stages similar to almost every kind of product, and then all that's left is the buying and eating!
Here are a few links to sites related to chocolate making:
The Swiss Chocolate homepage explains in great detail the history, manufacturing steps, and the differences between chocolate types and related confections (eg drinking chocolate, etc): http://www.chocolat.ch/
Godiva Chocolate's site has chocolate trivia, also gift services, and you can order online: http://www.godiva.com/
At Hershey's site you can take a virtual plant tour and see great photos (including some of the millwright's machines): http://www.milkchocolatebar.com/
Daval Chocolates will teach you about their filled truffles, as well as health effects of chocolate and geography of bean-growing: http://users.aol.com/davalchoc/frameEn.htm
The Recreational Food Newsgroup has fascinating FAQ's on chocolate, including cooking with chocolate, and more weird trivia: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/food/chocolate/faq/
In no particular order, here is how to avoid the obvious hazards when working with gas torches:
Anybody think of more?
See you on the next monthly update of the Construction Millwright Feature Page!
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