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What is a metallurgist?

arcturusoilerI actually had every intention of going for a bike ride this morning, but I slept in till 6AM, which really doesn't give me enough time to eat, brush my teeth, get dressed, and meet the group at 7 AM at the marina.  Plus the temperature was near my limit at 41°F.

I guess I should be somewhat happy the weather has been so miserable lately (it rained all last weekend, it's barely even going to reach 60°F the rest of this week, and there's more rain forecast for this weekend), since my hand is still in the [very slow] healing process, and I have a good excuse not to ride, letting it recover more. But somehow that isn't much consolation.

So here I sit with nothing much better to do, than dwell on everything, and post to my blog, and explain the picture to the right.

Whenever anyone used to ask me what I do for a living, I would tell them I was a metallurgist. Of course not too many people were familiar with what a metallurgist does, so to simplify the description, I would just say I was an "educated mill hunky".

Back east, where I grew up, most people were familiar with the term "mill hunky", so that description worked pretty well, but it seems when I moved to Texas, and then California, not too many people knew what a "mill hunky" was, so I had to go into a more elaborate explanation.

Now it has become some what easier to explain what I do, as the term metallurgy (or metallurgist), comes up more often in the news, in TV shows and movies, especially when there is an investigation of an airplane crash, and while I'm not the type of metallurgist that does failure analysis, it does help to explain what I do more easily.

Anywaze, for those of you who don't know what a "mill hunky" is, that is the picture of one to the right [above]. A "mill hunky" is the man (or woman sometimes) that does the back breaking, dirty and dangerous work, manufacturing all the raw materials [we barely notice] needed to produce the products we take for granted everyday, i.e. our automobiles, airplanes, pots and pan etc.

[note]The picture, courtesy of David Rivas (who also works at Arcturus), is of one of the heaters, on the 50,000 pound hammer, spraying lubricant on 600°F dies to facilitate the forging process. (Just think of the old time blacksmith making horse shoes, but on a GRANDER scale.)[/note]

Unfortunately for the US, and the reason so few people have ever heard the term "mill hunky", is most of those jobs have been shipped overseas, where people are willing to work for peanuts, doing the type of work that made this country great. My only hope is we don't let any more of our manufacturing base vanish, as we navigate this economic crisis.

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