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How do you stay cool ?


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Here in the low and damp I change shirts every time the sweat soaks it, say every 1 to 3 hours.

Also, a sugar-free sports drink cut 3:1 with water in the cooler, damp towel around the neck that gets cold water poured on it, sun hat with bandana worn Lawrence of Arabia style.

Being ancient and decrepit older and wiser than in my youth, I will go sit down in front of a fan, on go into the AC when it gets too bad.

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I have an old wool slouch hat that I also wet along with a wet head band and towel around my neck. Stay hydrated with water & coffee. In the shop I have a swamp (evaporative) cooler that helps greatly. When my tee shirts get soaked with sweat it helps cool me off through evaporation so I just wear them till I'm done then take a tepid shower.

When my wife makes me mad, I count to ten while taking slow deep breaths.:)

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Not a whole lot of evaporation going on when the humidity is high so I'll change shirts as needed along with having some cold water. I keep a mini fridge in the shop to keep some cool beverages in. If I'm out working in the heat I'll take a soft cooler with some cold water bottles and a few frozen water bottles in it. 

My last trip out clearing scrap from a packed shed I made the mistake of only taking one spare shirt. The job took longer, and was harder, dirtier  and hotter then I planned for. This weekend we clear out in the stables/ barn so I'll take more cold water and shirts then I think I need. 

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Aus, what are your summer temps like? Here in NV we get 3 months of 38C or more (100F)with lows of 27C (80F) and a week of 43C-46C (110F-115F) with lows of 32C (90F).  Last night coming home from Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada it was 32C at 1am. A typical day would be 100F+ possibly until Midnight with the low temp of 80 at 3am, then it is triple digits again at 9am.  And the wind just makes it a big convection oven.  We get monsoons during the month of July that will bump the humidity up to very sticky levels and give us forecasts like 108 and chance of thunderstorms. You also see a lot of virga (rain that evaporates before it lands). The lowest humidity I have seen posted was a few years ago at the airport 113F and 1%.  We are usually in the single digits to low doubles during the summer.

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Our summer temperatures in Sydney can be 40+ depending on location. But only on some days and then with very low moisture it is not that bad. Most of the summer month are between 25 and 35 with the occasional peak.

i don't know how it is up there but in Australia the media tends to report peak heat as if it was the end of life as we know it. We have one suburb in Sydney that is in a valley and tend to get extreme temperatures, even when the surrounding areas have much more moderate temperatures. Invariably it is Penrith that hits the news with it's record temperatures. 

I like to look at the weather dudes reading the temperatures and pulling grave faces as if we just declared war on China. 

 

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If you are somewhere where the humidity is low realize that you can get dangerously hot without getting wet from sweat.  The sweat evaporates fast enough that you never get "sweaty."  Drink when you are not thirsty but make sure you have some electrolite input.

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14 hours ago, BIGGUNDOCTOR said:

Aus, what are your summer temps like?

Well, as Marc said we are often in the mid forties. I spent 18 years in Mount Isa, Western Queensland, where temperatures in excess of 40 degrees occurred for extended periods over Dec/Jan/Feb. It was usually dry heat though without the oppressive humidity of the coast. Between 45 and 50 it's searing heat - hot enough that your tyres stick to the bitumen on the roads and your eyes dry out fast if you don't blink enough. I was painting steel veranda posts once and the paint was drying on the brush. Those are the days you stay out of the forge!

I now live on the Tablelands inland from Cairns where the climate is much less extreme. At 3000 feet it's cooler than Cairns and frosts are common in the winter. Nice to get the forge going these mornings.

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George, that is how you tell the locals from the tourists here. The locals are packing water. The tourists are the ones face down on the sidewalk from heat exhaustion or worse heat stroke. 

Funny when you see people driving with oven mitts on. I have recorded seat temps of 165F and dash temps of close to 250F when I forgot the sunscreen in the windshield.

We have a high heat advisory in effect today. It was 113F yesterday and looks like more of the same today. Hello summer...

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Iced coffee (I prefer McDonalds sugar free iced coffee), lots of it.  Cotton shirts and pants (Levis), boots, and welding caps.  My shop has two huge fans mounted in the rafters.  But, most of all, a shaded shop porch, under which I can sit and watch the grass grow.  I understand heat.  I grew up in West Texas and have worked in East Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, etc.  Now, I can just walk out my back door and there is the Sandy River (Oregon) - cool water from the melting snow on Mt. Hood.  If all else fails, the house is air conditioned!

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Americans still use the Fahrenheit temperature scale.

Centigrade temperatures are not readily translatable nor familiar to most of those folks.

The centigrade temperatures that Ausfire and Iron Woodrow are using;   translate to

30 C. = 86 F.

40 C. = 104 F.

50 C. = 122 F.

C. / F. mental conversions are clumsy and somewhat laborious. Multiplying by 5/9's and 9/5's are a pain.

www.rapidtables.com is a good website to save time. (there are many others).

Using our cell phones is great. But the data just might be going to Facebook, Google, K.G.B., C.I.A. etc.

Shades of big brother, and 'Beloved Zuckerburg' !

Regards citizens,

SLAG.

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Centigrade AKA Celsius.

Makes sense to use a decimal system for temperature when other systems like currency and dimensions are decimal also.

To put it simply; 0°c is freezing temperature of water and 100°c is boiling of water.

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Fahrenheit is a decimal system, we measure temperature in tenths and hundredths of a degree.  It just does not use 100 gradations between two arbitrary temperatures like centigrade does. Nowhere in nature does it say we have to use the freezing and boiling point of water to base a measurement system on. Why not absolute zero or the cosmic background  temperature as a starting point?      Now the foot and inch is just weird....

(remember all the fuss when currency went decimal in GB?)

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OK, now everyone go back and convert any degree measurements mentioned to degrees Kelvin.  No matter what scale is used we all have to be careful of not getting overheated and there are times when it is just too XXXX hot to go near a forge, even unfired or turned off.  Cool drinks, breeze, and shade are our friends.

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Since salt tablets are no longer available, I can recommend a product called endurolytes. It is a balanced electrolyte designed for those crazy people who run 100 mile races across the desert  luckily they work just as well for people who just sweat a lot for whatever reason.

i do a fair job of staying hydrated, but often end up with twitchy legs keeping me awake at night. I've learned that means my electrolytes are shot and i need to take some endurolytes.  A smarter man might mix them in their drinks and prevent the problem in the first place  

 

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7 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Fahrenheit is a decimal system, we measure temperature in tenths and hundredths of a degree.  It just does not use 100 gradations between two arbitrary temperatures like centigrade does. Nowhere in nature does it say we have to use the freezing and boiling point of water to base a measurement system on. Why not absolute zero or the cosmic background  temperature as a starting point?      Now the foot and inch is just weird....

(remember all the fuss when currency went decimal in GB?)

Fahrenheit was based  upon brine mixed with ammonium chloride, the melting point of ice and "average human body temperatures" wasnt it? 

Pretty arbitrary to me...

Anything is decimal if you divide it by 100.

100 graduations between three phase points of a substance that makes up so much of the world around us seems to be a pretty fair way to sort things out....

How many humans have access to absolute zero temperatures to form a reference point?

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6 hours ago, George N. M. said:

 just too XXXX hot to go near a forge, 

Too fourex hot? I dont mind a goldie on a hot day.

Im assuming you must have used an extreme vulgarity, but cant work out what four letter word fits there!

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On 6/21/2018 at 3:48 AM, ausfire said:

Nice to light the forge to get warm this morning. Winter solstice today. Frost on the high ground. Brrrrrr.

We do try to stick to the high ground you know.

Frosty The Lucky.

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