Working in a cold shop

Note: The opinions expressed in this post are solely those of the author.

The weather has been pretty cold here over the last few months. We aren’t getting any younger, and neither are our machines. Bones, gears, and electronics don’t function like they did when they were new. Our shop doesn’t have the luxury of heat, but we get by a little easier in the winter than in the summer.

I know this is just eastern North Carolina, but we aren’t used to the cold like all you crazy Northerners and Midwesterners are. We don’t have wicked backyard slap shots to talk about or heater block cords to plug in. It’s just cold.

Some of you are feeling the pain of working in a cold shop. You probably make do with warmer clothes and, among other things, laying down beads to keep you warm. Hopefully, the cold is almost over, and warm weather is in our near future.

Personally, I like working in the cold. I don’t do a lot of welding at work, but ever since we got our laser, the shop has been pleasant to work in. We ended up ducting our laser’s chiller inside during the winter to keep us warm. The temperature surprisingly increases about 15-20 degrees. Granted, the mornings are still cold when everyone gets to work, but things heat up after a couple of sheets are cut. That is, after we get the machine started.

Electronics hate the cold. We had to put a small space heater inside the chiller at night so it would fire right up in the morning. The water wasn’t frozen; our shop is just so cold that nothing wants to work correctly. It’s funny when everyone starts to care a little more about how much laser work we have when it is cold! Our crew even tries to provoke Jason Barnes, our laser operator, to come in to work an hour early so everything will be warm when they get there. Yeah, right!

Our steam genny wouldn’t work the other day because the pump was frozen. We had to build a small shelter around it and turn on the space heater. You just have to laugh at stuff like that and know the job will eventually get done.

If you go out the roll-up door in our shop and don’t shut it promptly behind you, someone is going to shout at you. The open door tends to suck the life right out of the shop. You look around and everyone seems to stop working for a second and mumble some obscenities to themselves. At least one person says something funny out loud, and their sentence ends in “it’s cold.”

We were at the break table the other day and Marty Perry, our TIG welder, was complaining about the cold. We were quick to let him know he’d better enjoy it while it lasts, because summer is right around the corner. Summers in eastern North Carolina are pretty brutal. We don’t have air conditioning, just fans.

We don’t miss many days at the shop because of weather, though. My dad and I drive an hour and a half to get to the shop and usually make the drive, even in less that optimum road conditions, to keep the shop going. We ended up going to work one day this year when the roads were the worst. Long story short, we got an extra passenger in the truck that day because his vehicle shot off into a tobacco field. He had another 45-minute drive ahead of him, and we thought it was best for him to check out the shop and find another ride home.

The next day was supposed to be worse, so we closed the shop. This has happened only a few times in the past 10 years I’ve worked there. As it turned out, the roads were better that day than the day before but better safe than sorry. Our schedule was kind of slow, so not working for a day wasn’t too hard on production.

3/8 in. mild steel welded assembly.
Photo courtesy of Barnes Metalcrafters.

A lot of crazy things have happened at the shop because of the weather. Thankfully, the cold is starting to pass, and work can continue without as many layers of clothing. We have some cool machines and some cool temperatures, but there are always bigger fish stories out there. Please comment or e-mail me if you have one.

Check out some of the shop's work in the slide show.

Slide Show | 6 Images