[TowerTalk] lost processes......way OT

[Alan NV8A]

On 07/09/2016 10:03 PM, lstoskopf at cox.net wrote:
> A Chem E relative of mine who worked in the Pacific NW in a plant where they made Vanillin out of some tree byproduct related that they cooked the stuff in big vats before processing.  Had for a long time.  One day an old guy that worked there took a prolonged vacation and soon the brew started developing more and more foam that ran over everything, so much so that they had to start  using smaller batches.  He came back and was quickly surrounded by quality control to see what he did.  The batch started to foam so he reached up on the wooden wall, pulled off a little tar paper and threw into the mix.  Foam stopped.  When asked why he did that he commented that years ago he saw a bit of the stuff fall into the batch which stopped the foaming so he just always did it that way.  Undocumented, luckily!

Many decades ago I heard about a plating works where the long-time 
operator retired, and under the new guy things just didn't work right. 
They called the old guy back in to see what they might be doing wrong, 
and he said, "I always spat in the tank." I think the result of the 
investigation was that the old guy was a tobacco chewer, and something 
in his saliva acted as a catalyst -- or something like that: it's been a 
long time.

73

Alan NV8A