My dear old dad was working for Wairakei power station, with a now third most efficient rating in New Zealand and why well here's how it went.
They where grinding the surfaces of B' plant station floor for holding the turbines that it housed.
A tricky application that is required the floor to be perfectly flat. the problem was as they employed the grinders to the concrete floor the machine was not making the surface flat as it should, so after much executive umming and arring they turned to my dad to ask if he had a solution, He replied no not readily available.
But his immediate boss "Emily" knew my dad well and again asked could he come up with a solution, Dad said I'll see.
He came home and thought about it and understood what needed to be done.
The next day at work he got a baked bean tin and drilled holes all around the perimeter of the tin made it's upper and lower end of the tin so it could fit to the bottom of the grinder.
He then bent the pre-made holes on the side of the tin so they resembled a cheese grater effect.
The Grinder was then put into action with a water hose applied to stream water to the outside of the bake bean tin the grater effect sucked in the water and proceeded to force the water out through the bottom of the grinder surface releasing all the remaining grindings away from the newly flattened surface.
Upon seeing this my dad mentioned that's all right but I think I need to make a better one that will work more efficiently.
The projects executives boomed
NO your not touching it,
They where so elated with the baked bean prototype, too impressed infact to allow dad to complete the work and make an actual application that the prototype confirmed would work.
So now "B plant power station" in Wairakei New Zealand has a rating of the third most efficient power station in New Zealand instead of the best power station as it would have been had the prototype been changed with a fully utilized anti-grindings remover.
And what did dad get for is ingenious work, well it was a pay rise of NZ$0.03 yes that three cent per hour raise instead of maybe a couple of grand $2,000.00 for is on site inventiveness just goes to show two things.
1. management of your billion dollar project might be in the hands of idiots
and
2. never say to the boss yes I can do it before asking how much it worth to you.
all in the best possible taste aye.
And of course a round of applaus for Ted v/d Kleij
Grinder Improvement
