This
is an oxyfuel welding/cutting setup.
The green (Oxygen) tank is an S, and weighs about 75 lbs empty, the black and yellow (Acetylene) tank is a WC and weighs about 90 lbs (Empty or full, the acetylene is dissolved in acetone so it doesn’t explode, and the acetone is most of the weight of the cylinder)
These tanks are ubiquitous at the steel mills, and as often as not they would have to be lugged to location. At the ripe old age of 18, as a millwrights apprentice, this task often fell to me.
There were carts, for sure, but most guys would just sling the cylinder up over their shoulder and start walking- most of the time, the roads were so bad, or the terrain so horrible, that a cart was worthless. And there were often stairs.
I was a big kid, and while I was chunky there was a lot of meat there too, so, damned if I was gonna let anyone show me up, I carried.
For the better part of four years, it seems, I ended up lugging an oxygen and an acetylene cylinder to some remote damned location to heat or burn or braze something, and I did so just throwing it over my shoulder. I can still do it with a pretty substantial weight. What Professor Hale alludes to in comments in the post previous to this one is very true; while we did have women on the job- many of them- they fell into two categories- women physically capable of doing the work but without the aptitude, and women with the aptitude that were just too small. When I was an oiler, I worked with one black woman, Kathleen, who was a great oiler- was great at topping off fluids and making sure stuff stayed greased, and that was great, she did her job proudly and well. I had to carry the grease gun and etc because she simply lacked the physical strength. And we had another girl, who had gotten her journeyman’s card by virtue of being able to break the neck of anyone she wanted, but who could not understand why some screwdrivers were “Plus shaped” and others “minus shaped” Now, there are and were men who fit these categories as well, but if you wanted someone to could carry the 160 lbs of gas bottles up 100 feet of rusty stair and once there change a 300 lb roller and tune and train a 1500 foot long conveyor belt, you got a guy. Everyone knew that and never questioned it. I don’t know if that has changed. I don’t really care. I know the women there were paid the same as the men despite flat out not being able to do the job, and that was thirty years ago. Everyone got paid the same.
Aside: the smallest acetylene cylinder is an MC. Know what the MC stands for? Motorcycle. Motorcycle headlights used to burn acetylene, and the small tanks were made for motorcycles.
Yep, dirty little secret… It’s called REALITY!!! There ARE significant differences…
I’ve had discussions with a number of women about self defense, and the necessity of situational awareness. “But I have a black belt in Curds and Whey!” I don’t care, you weigh 105 lbs soaking wet. The guy who attacks you is likely to be twice your weight,a foot taller, and have probably a foot longer reach than you have. The physics just isn’t there. You’ll never get close enough to land one of your black-belt punches, and if you did you’d probably only hurt your hand. So put the phone away, watch your surroundings, and let him pick someone else. Otherwise he’ll kill you, rape you, eat you, and sew your skin into his clothes and if you’re VERY lucky he’ll do so in that order. (OK, couldn’t resist going Firefly nerdy.)
Hey, there are a LOT of women I won’t fuck with, for a variety of reasons. but I’m damned if I’m gonna not notice that women are DIFFERENT.
I am here to protect them.
Still it almost makes me laugh in TKD when we do the sparring we are sometimes paired with the children that are trying the sport. We have one oriental girl that is about 3 feet tall and weighs maybe 40 pounds soaking wet. She still gives it good go even thought I am twice her height and 5 times her weight.
But when it comes down to tooth and nail, I think there are a couple of women black belts that might give me a go.
Doesn’t matter who you are, if you are not aware, you are at risk.
On one of my trips out of country, I had a conversation with a Dutch officer. He was chiding me four our backward ways since we weer still in the habit of discriminating against women and homosexuals back then. He told me that that they had women in a 155mm Howitzer battery that he visited and that that unit constantly won awards. After asking about piffle details like “who lifts the rounds to load the gun,” I learned that the Dutch Army is very old school and that the women in the unit do no work at all. They make it up by being pretty and not complaining about sexual harassment.
My response was, “the next time the Dutch win a war you can tell me how we should be more like you”.
My first job in the Army (story I haven’t written yet) was a crewman in a 4.2″ Mortar crew. In the 82nd, our 4.2″ were man portable. Every part of it was Heavy and the ammo was heavy. We had one Germanic God in the platoon who could carry the pieces like they were toys but everyone else needed assistance. I was all of 120 pounds at the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M30_mortar
I was only in that unit for a month when they transferred me to the 81mm platoon. Haha.