marinepride
Banned
12 years and counting as a heavy industrial mechanic (steel mills, grain silos etc.) Anyone else in this line of work? I'd love to talk about tools,welding, electrical.
Maintenance mechanic here
- Thread starter marinepride
- Start date
Premium08
Well-known member
Hell yeah, Maintenance Tech here at an Aluminum Extrusion plant and just recently started up a Cast House next door. We have to do it all where I work, no separate electrician and mechanic. Electrical is my primary skill, but since working where im at ive become pretty skilled in other areas, I love to weld, still need help when trouble shooting hydraulics. Worst part about maintenance is PM's and the times where theres not **** to do and the day drags along. How the heck do you keep your box that organized? I'll organize mine and within a few days all the **** ends up in the top drawer!!!
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1/2 Cup
Member Emeritus
Welcome from downunder, enjoy.
OP
marinepride
Banned
Ty all! @premium8 I'm also working at a aluminum casthouse built by hertwich
as to the toolbox...i have ocd lol.
as to the toolbox...i have ocd lol.Premium08
Well-known member
Ty all! @premium8 I'm also working at a aluminum casthouse built by hertwich
Well I'll be our cast house is hertwich as well. Those damn Austrians are a pain in the *** to work with.... it wouldnt happen to be Alcoa you work for would it??
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marinepride
Banned
Sure is! Barberton, oh.
Premium08
Well-known member
Haha, cool deal. Christian felsner (I think thats his last name) left during our installation to come sort out an issue yall were having. I work for Service Center Metals
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marinepride
Banned
I know christian lol
Premium08
Well-known member
All there names are Christian, hahah, except for rudy
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marinepride
Banned
Yup. 5 Christians and counting.
Premium08
Well-known member
We gave them all nicknames so we knew who we were talking about. Were you there for the installation of yalls plant?
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marinepride
Banned
No. 4 months on the job. Plant is 3 years old.
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marinepride
Banned
Summit racing? Yea..that's a dangerous place lol
Premium08
Well-known member
So hows the plant running? Lot of maintenance? We are still waiting on our boss to get some PMs together for us, we've only been up and running for a few months now. So far things have been running pretty smooth though. Biggest issue we have all the time is with the charging machine getting hung up in the melter.
Oh and our chip hopper gets clogged all the time.
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Oh and our chip hopper gets clogged all the time.
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marinepride
Banned
The chip system is terrible. My big issue is the UT machine.
CDD
Well-known member
Industrial Mechanic here for 13yrs and currently back in school to become a license auto mechanic 
OP
marinepride
Banned
Premium08
Well-known member
How have yall done this for so long? Im going on 3yrs in maintenance and it seems I find myself either bored like crazy or running around like a mad man trying to rush and fix something. Pretty stressful at times and I dont see myself wanting to do this for a long time.
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marinepride
Banned
Stick with it. If you need a different plant..go get it. It'll be worth it.
MagnumForce
Well-known member
Capital Maintenance here.
Fabbing all kinds of stuff, machinery tear down and set up, capital equipment pm's, air and weld gas lines, etc.
I am everything from a fabricator to a pipe fitter to a process tech and an industrial engineer.
Love my job, always doing all kinds of different things, never get's boring can get pretty stressful though!
If it is not related to production maintenance or building maintenance I do it. Smoke Eaters, Chillers, Fans, Racking the list goes on and on. Facility is 100k sq ft with 300 employees and only 2 of us on the job.
Fabbing all kinds of stuff, machinery tear down and set up, capital equipment pm's, air and weld gas lines, etc.
I am everything from a fabricator to a pipe fitter to a process tech and an industrial engineer.
Love my job, always doing all kinds of different things, never get's boring can get pretty stressful though!
If it is not related to production maintenance or building maintenance I do it. Smoke Eaters, Chillers, Fans, Racking the list goes on and on. Facility is 100k sq ft with 300 employees and only 2 of us on the job.
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CDD
Well-known member
Good luck men!
Yep know the felling very well.
Same here.
I have to take care of the production machines and also I have to weld, fabricate, program PLC's (most of them Allen Bradley SLC 500), Hydraulics, Pneumatic, machine setup, order parts, take care of inventory regarding spare parts for machines, give a hand to fix forklifts, scanning truck fleet (International) and take care of electronics failures, etc. etc
What get's me stress is when line operators try to sabotage the machines in order to stop production when they have a problem with their supervisor.
The thing is that I know all the machines now by hart and when I ask them what went wrong they get temporary amnesia
OutsideMachinist
Well-known member
OP
marinepride
Banned
I just want to play with my tools all day lol
Katodog
Well-known member
As of June it's been 29 years as a maintenance mechanic for me. A little over 24 years working in bowling as a mechanic...machine maintenance, electrical, electronic, carpentry, plumbing, hvac, etc.. I don't know it all but I know enough to fake knowing it all. You can get a lot of experience on a ton of stuff working in that business, when you're a mechanic for bowling you're basically everybody; Mechanic, electrician, plumber, computer tech, janitor, etc.. There's no gold at the end of the rainbow, you basically work for the paycheck and nothing in the way of retirement (unless you save money yourself). When you're out, you're out. Not even a handshake, just a boot up the *** as you walk out the door.
Now I work for O'Reilly Auto in one of their distribution centers. I look at the stuff here and a lot of the time I'm saying "Hey, I know what that is, I can fix that...". To me a motor is a motor, a wire is a wire, a photo cell is a photo cell. Put a tool in my hand and point, and I'm good to go. It may look different or be built different, but it's all the same to me. Gives me the ability to adapt to new work environments fairly easily, but I sure do ask a lot of random questions from time to time.
Problem with being a maintenance mechanic is that when you work on your home you wind up with nothing to do because everything is done. Makes for very boring days sometimes.
Now I work for O'Reilly Auto in one of their distribution centers. I look at the stuff here and a lot of the time I'm saying "Hey, I know what that is, I can fix that...". To me a motor is a motor, a wire is a wire, a photo cell is a photo cell. Put a tool in my hand and point, and I'm good to go. It may look different or be built different, but it's all the same to me. Gives me the ability to adapt to new work environments fairly easily, but I sure do ask a lot of random questions from time to time.
Problem with being a maintenance mechanic is that when you work on your home you wind up with nothing to do because everything is done. Makes for very boring days sometimes.
OP
marinepride
Banned
I know how that is. I'm a electrician, mechanic, welder, fabricator, plc/robotics tech, rigger etc.
Premium08
Well-known member
What get's me stress is when line operators try to sabotage the machines in order to stop production when they have a problem with their supervisor.
The thing is that I know all the machines now by hart and when I ask them what went wrong they get temporary amnesia
dont have to worry about production sabotaging equipment here. We get weekly bonuses based on pounds of metal produced, so if we aint running we arent making no money
I Have my wife to keep me busy with projects she wants done around the house. But I does get boring on my days off when I cant think of anything to do
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CDD
Well-known member
To give you my reason I have to refer to one of Katodog sentences below for my decision.
This is the main reason I'm back in school. I have work my *** off to the point that I now have back problems. This is why I want to become a license auto mechanic. Does it make sense with my back problems NO and I know it. But I love being able to repair stuff and once I get done with school I want to continue and become an auto electrician.
That's a very interesting approach.
Unfortunately I don't think that where I work corporate would be happy to give out bonuses since they expect the same effort (production) from everyone.
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marinepride
Banned
Made some room lol
