[WaltGraham]

I posted THIS elsewhere earlier and since it was a bit O\T it might have gotten missed. My father and I both worked there for a spell, he as a guard just after WW2 and myself for a summer with a roofing crew from Tennessee.

There would be mishaps there periodically which we'd hear (and feel) across the river. An explanation would follow in the paper a few days later sometimes accompanied by a picture of a fragment of jewelry or of a wristwatch...

 

[dfariswheel]

I once sat in on a talk by a Dupont exec who talked about the old days at the Dupont black powder and later explosives manufacturing site.

The buildings were lined up down a creek and were very heavy stone with roofs slanted toward the creek.
The roofs were as flimsy as possible and just enough to keep out rain.

This was so when (not if) there was an accident the force of the blast would be channeled upward and toward the creek and the stone buildings would contain the blast and prevent a chain reaction in the other buildings.

Men killed in a blast were invariably found some distance on the other side of the creek.
This came to be known inside the company as "Being blown across the creek", and over time that became used throughout Dupont as the term for any kind of a serious accident even in plants not involved in explosives work.

Apparently that term "Blown across the creek" in reference to an accident where someone was injured was in use inside Dupont until fairly recently when PC finally ended it's use.

A friend of mine used to do some commercial repair work in Southern Illinois and there was a commercial explosive plant there.
He said it's in literally a swamp of worthless land.
The "buildings" are absolute shacks deliberately made as flimsy as possible.

When coming to work the workers strip to the buff and put on nothing but cotton coveralls and rubber shoes.
All tools are made of bronze.
There was no electricity in any of the buildings.
All this is to prevent any static electricity or sparks from shoe nails or tools.

He said the workers were mostly older employees and had a rather fatalistic attitude, even though the number of accidents was way down from the old days.

 

[SpecialEd]

The duPont Hagley Mills are just a couple miles from my house. True facts there dfariswheel, except for one small correction. The mills are situated on the Brandywine River (it looks more like a creek) so they went across the river. The duPont company which was the largest employer in these parts for years, lived, breathed and preached safety but they had a doosey or two across the Delaware River in their NJ facilities too. Nothing recently.

Here you can see one of the old mill buildings with the wooden roof angled towards the river.

 

[Charlie Petty]

I've been in a couple of plants where primers are made. The basic mix is about the consistency of silly putty and it made at a remote location on the property and transmitted in one pound batches in rubber bowls.

The "cells" were the mix is worked are always on an outer wall and one side is designed to blow out and there is only a small port in the interior wall where the charged plates can be passed through.

The plates are stainless steel and have 1000+ holes and are charged on a large marble slab with a constant flow of water across the surface. The operator takes a glob of mix and using a rubber squeegee spreads it evenly on the plate to fill all the holes. There are different size holes in the plate for small or large primers. The excess mix is returned to the bowl and the plate is passed though the port into the plant where the rest of the assembly process is done.

 

[CaptainGyro]

I am reminded of the 1953 movie "The Wages of Fear" about transporting truckloads of nitroglycerin across mountains in South America. Great movie if you haven't seen it.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wages_of_fear/

 

[WaltGraham]

I am reminded of the 1953 movie "The Wages of Fear" about transporting truckloads of nitroglycerin across mountains in South America. Great movie if you haven't seen it.

Which in turn reminds me of this.

 

[SpecialEd]

Which in turn reminds me of this.

Which reminds me that we discussed both of these films and the soundtrack by Tangerine Dream years back when Dean was here. Apparently that thread is no longer with us.

 

[IrishCop]

While I haven't seen either of those movies, I distinctly remember an episode from the tv series The Millionaire with a similar plot line. I checked, and sure as heck, it aired in 1958 starring Richard Jaeckel. Now I would have only been about three then, so I assume I caught a rerun or something. I know I was very young and had to ask my dad what nitro was.

Guess copyright law wasn't quite so stringent back then...

 

[dfariswheel]

Brings back a memory from when I was a kid.

My uncles on my mom's side all worked the oil patch in Texas and Oklahoma in the 20's through the 50's.

I remember one of my uncles telling me about working a boom in Oklahoma with a casual friend from the same area in the Ozarks.
The friend took a job hauling nitro used to blow wells because he wanted to make money as fast as he could.

He transported it in a Ford Model A truck with ropes and springs, sort of a bungy cord-like setup, with the nitro suspended in the bed of the truck.
In those days they hadn't learned how to de-sensitize nitro so it was real touchy, especially in the summer heat.

He said the friend had very black hair when he started, but within a few months his hair had turned snow white in his early 20's.

One really hot summer day it blew.
My uncle said that all they ever found was a piece if the Ford crank shaft over 1/2 mile away.

He told me the hardest things he could ever remember having to do was going home to tell the guys mother that he was dead and that there wouldn't be a funeral.
He'd told his mom he was a driller.