Break Time!

Back at the panel plant. As I wrote earlier, the plant was actually an old aircraft hanger. It had been built at the Stead Air Force Base, north of Reno, during WWII. After being declared ‘surplus’ sometime in the 50’s, it had been dismantled and moved to a hillside location on Tampa Avenue, just above the city. When reconstructed, it was over 300’ long and about 80’ wide. It was probably close to 40’ high and had 3 overhead cranes installed. There were additional buildings connected to it and these were used by the plasterers when finishing the panels.

Al Solari had owned the empty building for quite awhile but hadn’t used it for anything, and so when we made it into a ‘panel’ factory, we had to do some renovations. Such as adding water and electricity. The former owners, a cabinet manufacturer, had removed much of anything valuable and what was left didn’t work.

One of Mr. Solari’s ‘virtues’ was his thrifty nature. He hated to spend money. So the overhead cranes were not repaired. Nor was the heating system. Or cooling. In general, the roof kept us dry and that was about all we could expect in the way of comfort.

We had built large, flat and level framing ‘tables’ to build the panels on. These tables would allow us to clamp the framing components into the required shape and hold them steady while we welded them together.

The framing components were cut with a large ‘chop’ saw and then placed on the table, all laid out according to the drawings we had from our designers. Al Solari had decided to save money by consulting with structural engineers only when absolutely necessary and doing the drawings in-house by hiring a draftsmen and a helper. Our design team.

The welding began. The studs and track were all made from painted steel and as you welded, the smoke from the burning paint would creep under your welding hood. Pretty soon we were all coughing and complaining of sore throats. Solution; install a fan at the end of the table. Did I tell you how cold it was in this building? If it was 20° outside, it was 15° inside; no sun. The fans were only run when the temperatures rose into the 30’s and we resigned ourselves to the coughing.

Some days, after a lot of welding had taken place, you could look up into the trusses above you and the smoke obscured any view of the roof itself. Part of that smoke came from the fires we built in 55 gallon drums. There were always a couple of these fires going and it was the job of one of the plant ‘go’fers’ to keep the fires going by breaking up old pallets. All coffee breaks were taken standing around the barrels and warming our hands. And Al Solari had the habit of showing up at break time every day. 10 minutes. No more.

Another note; we all wore welding protection clothing, 'leathers'. But these thin leather jackets wouldn't fit well over down filled jackets, so the one thing that would keep you warm, was removed. For those times when we simply couldn't or wouldn't remove the warmth... we suffered later, as the sparks would burn holes in our nice down filled jackets and soon there were little feathers floating in the chilly air.