We’ve been experiencing some downright brutal winter conditions here in Cincinnati, Ohio, for the past couple of weeks. This is merely a statement of observation; not a complaint…I moved here, on purpose, in 1991, and I surrendered my “complain about the cold” card at the A1A/Fernandina Beach exit on I95 as I left Florida. I say this only to introduce a curious tale of two friends, who literally couldn’t live much farther away from each other and still be in the United States. They, however, have both been rubbing it in my nose on Facebook about how much warmer it is where they are than it is in Cincinnati, where we all grew up.
I’ll start with Gregg: he lives in central Florida, and never tires of reminding his old hometown friends that it’s in the 70’s, and he’s risking a sunburn by going out on the boat this weekend. I’m sure many of us have friends like this, and they’re the reason that posts like this are so popular:
Then there’s Eddie. He’s not looking for sunblock for a day on the boat, mainly because the sun’s only been coming up where he’s at for few weeks now…see, Eddie’s in northern Alaska, where it was warmer EVERY DAY LAST WEEK than it was in Cincinnati. This is, of course, extremely out of the ordinary, and I have nothing but respect for the conditions that he endures through those winters. I still found myself being just as disgusted with Eddie as I was with Gregg for gloating about the weather last week. Hard to believe.
What I don’t find hard to believe, but still get a chuckle out of, is the days when we get multiple calls for our Vortex Tube cooling products. We joke about people needing cold air when there’s so darn much of it outside (here anyway,) but we’re well aware that there are plenty of industrial applications where heat is an issue, year round. And we’re eager to help.
Case in point: I had the pleasure of helping a customer recently who needed to keep a blade cool. This particular blade cuts plastic wrapping that is shrink fitted onto plastic soda bottles. Over time, the blade heated up, and they were getting a “ripple” effect on the edges of the label, which not only looked bad, but led to the wrapper peeling off when it got caught on pretty much anything downstream on the bottling line.
It’s a small blade, so they installed a Model 5215 Cold Gun Aircoolant System to blow a pointed stream of cold air at the cutting edge. This not only keeps the blade cool (which should result in a longer life) but it keeps any heat from transferring to the edge of the wrapping, resulting in a perfectly applied wrapper every time.
Do you have an application that might be improved with a flow of cold air? If so, give me a call and let’s talk. If it’s warmer where you are than it is here, I’ll even good-naturedly listen to your gloating. This does not apply to you, Gregg and Eddie. You guys are not cool at all. Not this week, anyway.
Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
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