"That kid that don't know nothin'"

Most of the blow off valves are set around 14.7 psi but a few of schlumberger's trailers had been monkey'd with so you could run em up to 17-18 and that hose would be dancing all over the place. Instead of a blower like most pneumatics have we had big V twin compressors mounted on the trailers.....builds up air way faster than a blower. Other than always being dusty I loved running cement

 

Um I never said beat on them, if you reread it I did say tap on them! I use a claw hammer bc I store it in my hose in my hose tube and use it to pop the camlocks back open when finished. and haven't used a rubber mallet since I got a new trailer a few years ago.

 

In the oilfield on the cement side of things anyways we had the threaded fittings you beat on with a hammer......was always jealous of you guys with the quick connect cam style

 

LoL….Indeed I have...and that is exactly what I thought.

 

Longstreet knew it but couldn't go against Lee's orders...Giving Pickett the order was the last thing he wanted to do.....I don't blame him.

 

The three made light generals. Modern equivilant would be one stars. Lee was overall commander 4 star he had 4 corps commanders Jackson, Longstreet, Hood and Ewell. each of those would be three stars. Then the next layer down would be regiment, brigade level generalships at one star. Even some divisional below corps. (One corps, three divisions then 9 Regiments and so on.)

Below that you got into Colonels Majors Captians and on down.

The Union had a slightly different and more weighty problem of Command. For example General of Army he has to go through 9 levels all the way down before the army moves on orders.

Lee only had two to move and two more below for the entire army to get the word on orders and move. Much faster, agile and quick in getting everyone the same page. The unions command was so clumsy at times Lincoln in the white house was issuing orders himself to the battlefield in real time via telegraph.

 

Something you might wanna add to your collection of things would be a hacksaw and two 5 inch hose clamps. If you wear a product hose, you can cut an end off, shorten it, and use the hose clamps to clamp the fitting back on. A simple utility knife would work to cut the hose, but the hacksaw is much easier.

 

Anyone who takes the time to climb Big Round Top and look south and east will see nothing but US 15 in the valley for miles. That valley pretty much runs to Frederick and divides to DC and into the Shennandoah.

If Longstreet had gone around it's one of the big controversary of that battle.

Just a tidbit. The Confederates via troops had physically started taking Little round top outright unopposed coming across from Devils Den.

General Warren with the Union saw what was happening out of pure chance looking that way and whistled at two or three unrelated Units on the road near there in the rear and told them quickly get up there refuse the Left which is fixing to be collasped and if the Confederates had cross over Little Round top with no one there to resist, there isnt anything except about 90 artillery guns parked and cassioned in reserve, the entire supply wagon convoy which is in the hundreds and the headquarters for Meade then General of the Army and so on. The entire fishhook of the Union lines from Little Round top Wheat field will be rolled up straight to town and attack culps hill from behind. It would have been such a massive defeat and washington, Baltimore and Harrisburg would all be defenseless. (Washington was NOT defenseless. A system of forts and seriously BIG artillery all around. The kind capable of killing 500 and hurting twice that with a proper double canister blast at 300 yards.

I have fought the washington scenario and tried to penetrate the defenses and found that half the army would have been wasted, destroyed and ineffective, fought out while the rest trickled in one by one easily destroyed by Union Reserves coming out of the Mall area to the threat area. If I kicked in a fort (Door) and then massed for a day to hammer through the front living room so to speak, the Union reserves and artillery not committed would have been brought up in a short time to mow the army down.

DC was in those days unbelieveably strong. If you had equally heavy seige artillery and about 300,000 to hold pressure 24/7 against DC's defenses, eventually they will fail in about 5 to 8 days as exhaustion sets in for the defenders. Grind em in and take the place.

 

and hose seals. Little rubber circles. Piles of them.

Also C Clamps, the kind you use a screw driver to tighten after you slide one over the pipe and it's rubber over connecting to the next pipe You cannot allow yourself to run out of C clamps.

My first time to Arlington Pentagon Silos I was close but not quite on directions so I bounce across a old railyard to get there off road. The rails ripped all of my C Clamps right off the product unloading pipe making it impossible to unload.

5 trucks worth of C clamps and a hour later I was hooked up and unloading.

The one thing I never did was to load off a rail car. OF all the things Ive done with bulk, I know absolutely nothing about putting product INTO the tanker. However there is a capped pipe for that purpose availible on the right side of the tankers we had. Just never used them. Pretty good caps too considering that one valve had to be closed when unloading.

 

Okay, you tap on them with your trusty claw hammer. Fine. You know the difference between beating and tapping. A lot of drivers don't.
On our dry bulk tankers the drivers keep the fittings clean since they usually pull the same trailer all the time. If it got to the point where somebody had to use a hammer, no matter how lightly, to close or open the camloc ears they probably let the fitting go too long between cleanings.
We haul mostly cement, flyash, lime, and ammonium nitrate. The trailers have vibrators but the rubber mallet still gets used. A good long handled wire brush comes in handy too.