A First Job Story, by JF

Recovery Boiler…Part 1… My first Pulp & Paper  job (1953-1954).

The Extra Board was a group of unemployed men meeting shifts to hopefully obtain work .It was formed as a way of filling vacancies in paper and pulp mills many years ago. If a person was out for a shift at any level in the line of progression, the vacancy would be filled by “setting up” to the vacancy; the extra board guy would fill the job at the bottom, usually the labor job.  This job could and did occur in any department in the plant.  It saved a lot of overtime and other monies because the extra board guys only got paid for the night or two they worked and with no benefits.  The jobs were not permanent.  Usually some person would say “we need a body” and we’d flip for it or the department would request a particular person.

My first job as a member of the extra board was “punching spouts” in the recovery area; I won the flip.  There were four small boilers (built in 1939) with many spouts to punch (clean off).  Each one inadvertently collected green liquor crystals and/or “slag” from the molten chemicals on the tubes or spouts and the build-up had to be periodically knocked off through small holes that ringed each boiler.  In addition, all of the molten chemicals poured out of the boiler through a spout which dumped into the green liquor tank.  The spout was enclosed in  a “doghouse”, not that any of the information was conveyed to me.  I punched away not knowing what I was doing. 

I was given a short metal rod (five feet) and told to have at it.  Each punch, made by moving aside a small round window, brought a spatter of molten slag.  At 2,000+ degrees, it will burn nearly anything, not to mention it is highly caustic and will chemically burn your skin.  They did give me a pair of safety glasses.  In addition, the noise made from the molten chemicals hitting the water in the green liquor tank was horrendous and continuous.  It was like thousands of stones,and maybe a car or two, being thrown from a great height and landing just above your head on a tin roof.  That’s right, no hearing protection.  Maybe that’s why I can’t hear now 50 plus years later.

A guy came around (he had to shout in my ear) and said I didn’t need to punch the doghouse spouts.  This was fine with me as it looked awfully dangerous.  About an hour later, the foreman (or said he was) came and asked why I hadn’t punched the doghouse spouts.  I positioned myself beside a doghouse and punched with my 5-foot metal rod and jumped aside.  Fire shot out and hit the wall on the other side of the room…no kidding!  This was repeated on each side of all the doghouse spouts.  Several days later, I found out from a friend that there was a 15-foot rod that was used for the doghouses.

When the evening was over my face had many small burns as did my shirt which was too burned to ever use again.  I couldn’t hear for a couple of days but my take home pay was $9.50 which got me through the next week at college.  That money was a huge amount for 8-hours pay in 1953.  Funny, I never won the coin toss again to work on the recovery boilers.

JF