Groundwood 101

This is a photo of the groundwood mill. The pulp testing station was behind the little dark window in the center of the building just above the power lines.

As it turned out, Richard was a good teacher but always seemed to be in a hurry. Sid left shortly after my introduction to Richard and once I got my hands into the pulp, I managed to forget about quitting for the time being. There was an hourly routine that had to be followed and then when there were problems, there would be extra testing to do. As long as there were no problems, there would be a 15 minute break every hour, once I got the routine down pat. Richard rushed through the tests as I intently watched and asked plenty of questions. He kept showing me short-cuts and I told him that I did not want to learn to do the job fast but I wanted to learn to do it right. I knew enough at my age that with practice comes efficiency.
The 'lab' had a stainless steel counter with various pieces of equipment, and a sink. The tests were to determine the specific gravity of the pulp, the ph, the nature of the wood fibres in the pulp, and the liquid to solid ratio in the pulp slurry. The samples of pulp were taken at various stages of the pulping process and the exact nature and characteristics of the pulp could be adjusted and manipulated at any given point along the path to the paper machines.
The test results were posted on a chart and placed in the window of the lab facing the work area. The foreman could see at a glance the results of the tests and had no need to speak to the tester unless he requested another test. The actual testing was something I took to right away and documenting the results in a neat and orderly fashion on the charts was enjoyable. Each test had its parameters and when outside those specifications, additional testing was required and a good tester would do this on his own before being told by the foreman. Had I been able to sit in the lab all day testing samples, I would have been a happy employee, but there was another aspect to the job that I dreaded and came to hate.
That was the job of collecting the samples. The samples came from various locations in the mill and I had to access each one of them and extract enough pulp to fill a one cup size stainless steel container. Each container was labeled and each sample was taken from a specific spot. Some of these spots were easier to get at than others. There were two samples that I particularly did not like taking. One was from a huge spigot that had great volumes of hot pulp gushing from a great height into a large holding tank. The sample was to be taken from the 'flow'. It require holding a small tin cup, welded to a long aluminum pole, in the edge of the torrent. The trick was to keep the cup from entering the current fully, for if this happened, the cup and pole would be ripped away, despite the tightest grip. The metal would then eventually find its way to some pump or some paper machine where it would do catastrophic damage, shutting down the whole mill for hours or maybe days. This would be the ultimate pulp tester sin and I was assured that it had happened, and not that long ago. Perhaps I was that pulp tester's replacement. I was afraid to ask.
But by far the worst sampling spot was a place called the outside tower. It required a climb to the highest spot in the whole mill complex. The first part of the climb was not too bad, but once outside the building, it became very intimidating and dangerous. There was a final flight of rickety old wooden steps that were fitted to the side of a concrete structure that had seen better days. The bolts that held the staircase to the wall and eventually to the top of the outside tower were rusty and loose. The guard rail was best left untouched lest it tumble to the ground in tattered fragments. Once on top of the tower, with only a narrow double planked walkway from the top of the stairs to the hatch in the tank, one had to battle the elements (forever present wind and rain), the slippery footing, and the fear of heights. Opening the hatch and dipping another cup on the end of a long pole, deep down until it reached the pulp, was an exercise of sheer will power. Even the exuberant and happy-go-lucky Richard, when he took me there for the first time, had a look of fear and intense concentration on his face as he battled his instinct to stay off the tower. When we climbed down to the safety of the main floor, he told me of someone a few years ago who fell through one of those hatches. It was in days previous when there were pulp digesters operative at the mill and they never found his body, which was eaten by the powerful chemicals that are present in bleached pulp. After telling me this story, he glanced back toward the stairway from which we had just emerged and said, "I guess dangerous."