Week of 10/24: Hands on work

Week of 10/24: Hands on Work in My Field

This is one of the furnaces I got to work with

Hello again, for this week I was asked to go and do something "hands on" in my field and then report my experience. Luckily for me, I have already had hands on experience in my field. In the summer I worked for my dad, usually just as a manual laborer, but I also got the opportunity to work with some of the more in depth material around the shop. 

I was allowed to work with furnaces, like the one shown on the right, to see the more in depth processes of heat treating. In case you haven't seen some of my other posts, heat treating is the process of heating and cooling steel to strengthen it, relieve the stress in steel, or to make steel rust resistant. In modern times, the furnaces are almost completely ran by computer. However, I still got to see the recipes put into the computer, and was able to learn about the entire process about how they work. These furnaces work in a unique fashion, that is used only by this heat treating company. I learned all about the mechanics, and the chemistry that goes into it. This type of work has always interested me. 

Whenever I consider studying something else, I cannot think of another field that sparks my interest as much as metallurgy. I find all of the fascinating and love that I was given the opportunity to start work in this field at a young age.