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SYSK Selects: How Jackhammers Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, this is Chuck here on a Saturday. It's beautiful,
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Speaker 1: it's sunny. It's actually rainy and cold. But maybe by
0:07
Speaker 1: the time this rolls around it will be beautiful and sunny.
0:10
Speaker 1: But I know in February six two sixteen, it was
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Speaker 1: not beautiful and sunny because we released an episode that
0:17
Speaker 1: has gone down and stuff you should know history as uh,
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Speaker 1: from our point of view, quite possibly the most boring,
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Speaker 1: worst one. So I thought I would pick this one
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Speaker 1: and rerelease it into the world and just see if
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Speaker 1: it's as bad as I thought it was. This is
0:32
Speaker 1: our very very infamous episode on Jackhammers. Yes, we did
0:36
Speaker 1: an entire episode on Jackhammers and here it is right now.
0:43
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You should Know, a production of My
0:46
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to the podcast.
0:55
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's
0:59
Speaker 1: over there, which means time for Stuff you should know.
1:03
Speaker 1: The Jackhammer edition coming at you. That's right, the most annoying,
1:09
Speaker 1: one of the most annoying sounds. And I know you
1:11
Speaker 1: hate the leaf blower. Yeah, it's established. I think the
1:16
Speaker 1: camera up there. Sure, yeah, but we don't live in
1:20
Speaker 1: New York if we lived in New York Jackhammer b
1:22
Speaker 1: number one. I feel like I've never stayed in a
1:24
Speaker 1: hotel in New York where there wasn't a jack below me,
1:27
Speaker 1: not even a chance. Every single time leaf blower. It's
1:33
Speaker 1: a lot more frequent down here in Atlanta than the jackhammer.
1:36
Speaker 1: Not a lot of leaf blowers in New York City,
1:38
Speaker 1: not a lot of leaves. Well, that's not necessarily true.
1:41
Speaker 1: You've been somewhere you are. Uh So we don't usually
1:44
Speaker 1: um shout out to thank you at the beginning of
1:47
Speaker 1: an episode, but we got a couple of gifts that
1:51
Speaker 1: are so special we want to do that. So Peter
1:55
Speaker 1: O'Donnell in the gang at built Sharp Knives b I
1:59
Speaker 1: l T Sharp out of Philly. H sent us, sent
2:04
Speaker 1: me a chef's knife, sent you a filet knife beat
2:08
Speaker 1: and it's one of the most gorgeous pieces of like
2:12
Speaker 1: handmade craftsmanship I've ever seen. It's amazing. I cannot wait
2:18
Speaker 1: to catch a fish. Oh dude, I can't wait for
2:20
Speaker 1: that for you cut that thing open, yeah, after it's dead.
2:25
Speaker 1: Uh really, you can't lock the head off while it's
2:28
Speaker 1: still alive. They think you're supposed to you're supposed to
2:32
Speaker 1: hit it with a hammer. I think some people do. Um,
2:35
Speaker 1: I do not. These things are gorgeous. I mean the
2:38
Speaker 1: blade itself, I mean the hand make these, the handle,
2:40
Speaker 1: the weight, it's just it's a piece of art. And
2:43
Speaker 1: not only that, it is the sharpest thing I've ever
2:46
Speaker 1: seen in my life. It's like dangerous. Um, but I
2:50
Speaker 1: don't want to you know, it's dangerous. They're knives. They're
2:53
Speaker 1: supposed to be sharp, but wield it with respect. Well yeah,
2:58
Speaker 1: well they're respectable. Live so um that you can actually
3:02
Speaker 1: go into tumbler. You can just search hashtag knives. You
3:06
Speaker 1: should know one word and it uh it chronicles and
3:10
Speaker 1: pictures and short captions or brief captions the process of
3:15
Speaker 1: them making our knives. It's awesome. Yeah, it's just really
3:17
Speaker 1: neat and I just love like handcrafting and forging steel,
3:21
Speaker 1: like those are lost arts in a lot of ways,
3:23
Speaker 1: and um, they're doing it right man, they're really beautiful.
3:26
Speaker 1: Cool man. So anyway, thank you, Yeah, thank you guys. Thanks.
3:30
Speaker 1: It was really cool. So jack hammers, yeah, jack hammers.
3:33
Speaker 1: If they were sharpest built sharp knives, they'd be onto something.
3:37
Speaker 1: But I don't know if it would work. Quite the same,
3:39
Speaker 1: Probably not so. Um, Yes, it's true we are actually
3:43
Speaker 1: talking about jack hammers, and yes, it's true that jack
3:48
Speaker 1: hammers are about what you think they are, but they're
3:51
Speaker 1: also kind of interesting when you start to look into them. Right.
3:54
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well yes, so think about I didn't realize this.
3:56
Speaker 1: This article points it out. Jack hammer is a hammer
4:00
Speaker 1: and a chisel, but it's a hardcore hammer and chisel. Yeah,
4:05
Speaker 1: and it takes out of the equation largely the human
4:08
Speaker 1: who's back and shoulder muscles have to be involved in
4:12
Speaker 1: every single strike of that hammer and chisel. You're talking
4:14
Speaker 1: John Henry and the sledge hammer, Yes, exactly, because prior
4:19
Speaker 1: to the advent of the jackhammer about eight fifties, by
4:24
Speaker 1: the turn of the last century, we had jackhammers kind
4:27
Speaker 1: of down pat um. It was sledge hammers and pick
4:32
Speaker 1: axes to remove rock. It was a real deal that
4:37
Speaker 1: was like killed people like it literally could kill you
4:41
Speaker 1: with that kind of work. Yeah. I mean, mining is
4:44
Speaker 1: still a very dangerous job, but pre Industrial Revolution mining
4:49
Speaker 1: was no fun um, dangerous, deadly, and even if you
4:55
Speaker 1: didn't die, it's just brutal, brutal back baking work, baking work, slinging,
4:59
Speaker 1: as sledgehammer. Yeah, you ever slung a sledge it's the worst.
5:03
Speaker 1: It's it's hard work. You ever used the jackhammer? No,
5:06
Speaker 1: I haven't. It's awful. Well, that's the thing. It's better
5:10
Speaker 1: than the sledgehammer. Yeah, well in some ways. But it's
5:13
Speaker 1: brutally difficult. It is. It's probably one of the most
5:16
Speaker 1: brutal tools you can use on any kind of site
5:20
Speaker 1: and for any kind of project. There aren't that many
5:22
Speaker 1: tools that there. They're gonna take as much out of
5:24
Speaker 1: you as the jackhammers on your body. Yeah, because they
5:28
Speaker 1: weigh about a hundred pounds, like a normal heavy duty
5:31
Speaker 1: jackhammer weighs about a hundred pounds. You have to hold
5:34
Speaker 1: it in place upright, because you don't want to jumping around,
5:37
Speaker 1: although it's probably not going to anyway. It's it's designed
5:40
Speaker 1: not to jump around, but you still have to. Um.
5:43
Speaker 1: You want to kind of keep it in a fairly
5:45
Speaker 1: confined area, which means you're using your muscles to study
5:48
Speaker 1: it while it's going up and down at a very
5:51
Speaker 1: very fast rate. Some of those things UM impact with
5:55
Speaker 1: the ground one thousand to forty times a minute. It's tough.
6:00
Speaker 1: It's it's the only tool that and the hardwood floor,
6:05
Speaker 1: um skimmer, you know, like the orbital floor cleaner. You
6:10
Speaker 1: can use that on like put a standing pad on
6:12
Speaker 1: a hardwood floor, and that thing. And the sledge hammer.
6:16
Speaker 1: The only time I've ever used tools that I felt
6:18
Speaker 1: like we're controlling me and not me, not controlling the
6:21
Speaker 1: tool until you get it. Once you get it, it's
6:24
Speaker 1: a little better. But at first, when you first start
6:26
Speaker 1: to use it. You can rent a jackhammer, you know. Yeah,
6:30
Speaker 1: I mean, if you want to bust up your driveway,
6:32
Speaker 1: you can go do it yourself. If you're a fool,
6:34
Speaker 1: make sure that you don't need the driveway anymore before
6:37
Speaker 1: you do that. Yeah. Yeah. But um, once you get
6:39
Speaker 1: the hang of it, you kind of can wield it
6:41
Speaker 1: a little bit. But it's tough. I mean, it feels
6:44
Speaker 1: like I have no power or control over this thing, right,
6:47
Speaker 1: I can imagine you know. So, Um, it is a
6:52
Speaker 1: very difficult tool. But again, the alternative is early death,
6:57
Speaker 1: and the other alternative, which is to call someone to
6:59
Speaker 1: do it for you, is the best option of the three.
7:03
Speaker 1: But so say that you are um King Carlo Alberto
7:08
Speaker 1: of Sardinia and the years about eighteen thirty something, eighteen
7:11
Speaker 1: forty and you want a train tunnel built through a mountain,
7:18
Speaker 1: and the tunnel is gonna need to be twelve kilometers long.
7:22
Speaker 1: You do call somebody else, but that somebody else you
7:25
Speaker 1: call goes. I don't know what to tell you, buddy.
7:28
Speaker 1: We could try pick axes or whatever, but you're not
7:31
Speaker 1: still gonna be alive by the time we finished. What
7:33
Speaker 1: can we do? And actually this call for a twelve
7:36
Speaker 1: kilometer long tunnel through a mountain in Sardinia prompted the
7:40
Speaker 1: early um the early forays into developing pneumatic tools like
7:45
Speaker 1: a jackhammer. Yeah, in eighteen forty eight it got named
7:48
Speaker 1: Jonathan Couch built a what he called a percussion drill,
7:53
Speaker 1: and this had a bit that was it went through
7:56
Speaker 1: the piston of a steam engine, so it was piston driven.
8:00
Speaker 1: Then uh contemporary Joseph Foul actually attached it to the
8:03
Speaker 1: piston and then he started in eightf one using air
8:08
Speaker 1: which is pneumatic to power it. But these were still
8:11
Speaker 1: attached to a piston. And it wasn't until Charles Brady
8:17
Speaker 1: King when he actually has given credit for inventing the
8:22
Speaker 1: traditional looking handheld modern jack modern pneumatic powered jackhammer, right,
8:28
Speaker 1: and he gets a lot of credit for stuff that
8:30
Speaker 1: was already built. Like a lot of people say he
8:33
Speaker 1: was actually the inventor of the automobile. No he wasn't.
8:36
Speaker 1: Oh well, he was the inventor of the gasoline powered automobile.
8:39
Speaker 1: No he wasn't. He was the first guy in Detroit
8:41
Speaker 1: to build and drive one around. Yeah, and he did
8:43
Speaker 1: end up inspiring and mentoring Ransom Olds and Henry Ford
8:47
Speaker 1: and some other early car manufacturers and is almost single
8:50
Speaker 1: handily responsible for making Detroit motor city. This guy, but
8:55
Speaker 1: he also Stanley right? Uh? And what's from his eights? Freely?
9:00
Speaker 1: I like that guy's stuff? What do you mean didn't
9:02
Speaker 1: he get kicked out of Kiss? Oh? I think he
9:04
Speaker 1: was sort of not invited back. Yeah. I think it's
9:08
Speaker 1: a money move. They don't have to pay the nameless
9:12
Speaker 1: other guitar player nearly as well. He was a founder
9:14
Speaker 1: of the band. Right, How do you get kicked out
9:17
Speaker 1: like that for money? I think Paul Stanley and Jean
9:20
Speaker 1: Simmons probably own Kiss Incorporated. I know. Anyway, Um, Charles
9:28
Speaker 1: Brady King Uh, he put Detroit on the map as
9:31
Speaker 1: far as auto manufacturer goes. And he did do a
9:34
Speaker 1: lot of refining of pneumatic tools, including the jack hammer.
9:38
Speaker 1: And he does hold the pattern, he did hold the
9:39
Speaker 1: patent for it. Yeah, and he had been a lot
9:41
Speaker 1: of stuff. He was a sharp guy. And the pneumatic,
9:45
Speaker 1: the fact that it's pneumatic, which means air powered, compressed
9:48
Speaker 1: air powered UM is the reason why most jackhammers today
9:53
Speaker 1: are still compressed air powered. It's because of the mining
9:59
Speaker 1: application an it. Yeah, like when you mind, you're releasing
10:03
Speaker 1: a lot of potentially explosive gases and uh, you can't
10:09
Speaker 1: have something like a steam engine that's combustion powered down there, yeah,
10:13
Speaker 1: or you can't have an engine in there releasing exhaust. Um.
10:18
Speaker 1: And you can't have a jackhammer that will spark a rock. Um.
10:24
Speaker 1: Well that might happen no matter what. Right, Well, no,
10:27
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. You can't have that among volatile gases.
10:30
Speaker 1: So you've air driven is the perfect key, because it
10:33
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if that hoses a thousand feet long. You're
10:37
Speaker 1: not gonna lose power because it's gonna be Yeah, it's
10:40
Speaker 1: gonna be compressed air up against compressed air, and up
10:43
Speaker 1: on the surface. You've got a diesel engine that's powering
10:45
Speaker 1: a piston just like in your car, and the piston
10:48
Speaker 1: moves up and down the cylinder. As it moves down,
10:50
Speaker 1: it compresses the air in the cylinder and pushes it
10:54
Speaker 1: down into a storage tank where it sits a compressed
10:56
Speaker 1: air and that's released out the other end through the
10:58
Speaker 1: hose and it ends up into the jackhammer. And yeah,
11:01
Speaker 1: no matter how far away it is, it's still going
11:03
Speaker 1: to be just as powerful. And that compressed air is inflammable,
11:08
Speaker 1: so you can be a happy miner all the live
11:09
Speaker 1: long day. Well, buddy, you're getting excited, so that means
11:12
Speaker 1: we need to take a break and put this pill
11:15
Speaker 1: under your tongue and we'll come back right after this story.
11:37
Speaker 1: How you feeling now, relaxed? Good? I love the title
11:43
Speaker 1: of this next section, Air powered destruction. Um, you can
11:47
Speaker 1: get an electric jackhamer. If you've ever gone to a
11:50
Speaker 1: hardware store, they have these kind of smaller handheld jack
11:55
Speaker 1: hammers that, um, you can take up like your bathroom
11:59
Speaker 1: floor tile pretty well with it plugging into the wall.
12:02
Speaker 1: Has a little chisel bit on the end of it. Um,
12:06
Speaker 1: But that's small. Beans. You can't do a driveway or
12:10
Speaker 1: concrete or asphalt with with something like that, or a
12:12
Speaker 1: twelve kilometer tunnel through a mountain in Sardinia. No, you
12:15
Speaker 1: need the big T shaped jack camera. And here's one
12:19
Speaker 1: of the things that didn't really occur to me. One
12:21
Speaker 1: of the reasons it works so well is because it's
12:24
Speaker 1: so heavy. Right. It's not like things say, well, let's
12:26
Speaker 1: make this thing way fifteen pounds or twenty pounds to
12:29
Speaker 1: make it easier to run, which they probably could. Yeah,
12:32
Speaker 1: you maybe could do that, but it would jump all
12:34
Speaker 1: over the place. Yeah, you want that thing super super
12:36
Speaker 1: heavy because that's part of the power and forced behind it.
12:39
Speaker 1: That's right. So these things are pneumatic, right, And just
12:41
Speaker 1: like on the compressed air compressor up on the surface
12:46
Speaker 1: when you're done in the mine, they actually have a
12:48
Speaker 1: jackhammer has a piston in a piston in a cylinder
12:53
Speaker 1: in it, right, Okay, And it's it's actually a really
12:56
Speaker 1: kind of simple when you cut the thing open and
13:00
Speaker 1: draw a cross section of it, which we did, yeah,
13:03
Speaker 1: on our hands for crib sheets. Um you you you
13:07
Speaker 1: can see that. Really the whole mechanism comes down to
13:10
Speaker 1: a trigger valve, right, that's right. So what you have
13:14
Speaker 1: here is you got the pressure chamber. The compressed air
13:16
Speaker 1: enters that chamber activates the trigger valve. And it just
13:21
Speaker 1: because of the compressed air opens and shuts really fast, right,
13:24
Speaker 1: and so the trigger valve moves the air either above
13:27
Speaker 1: the piston or when it closes, the air goes down
13:31
Speaker 1: below the piston, which means chisel goes up, chisel goes down, right,
13:35
Speaker 1: because the piston is striking the top of that chisel bit,
13:39
Speaker 1: driving it downward when the compressed air comes in and
13:42
Speaker 1: pushes the piston down. And then when the valve closes
13:46
Speaker 1: and the air goes underneath the piston, there's also a
13:48
Speaker 1: spring in there that brings the drill bit back up.
13:52
Speaker 1: Because it wouldn't work very well if you knock it down.
13:55
Speaker 1: They had to go down and reset it. And apparently
13:57
Speaker 1: the earliest um, the earliest Jackhammeer had that very designed
14:03
Speaker 1: that feature. That was it like it go bam and
14:06
Speaker 1: then you definitely like reset it bam and then reset
14:09
Speaker 1: it and they're like, this isn't gonna work. Yeah, that's
14:11
Speaker 1: sort of like the pneumatic cattle punch that they that
14:17
Speaker 1: what's his face used in no Country for old men.
14:19
Speaker 1: One way, it's exactly like that. Not very good if
14:22
Speaker 1: you're trying to bust up concrete, but good if you
14:25
Speaker 1: want to put on a cow. That's right. It doesn't
14:28
Speaker 1: stunn them. It does the eternal stunt. I think it
14:31
Speaker 1: stuns a cow and then they kill them. Oh I
14:35
Speaker 1: thought it they put it into the brain to kill
14:37
Speaker 1: the cow. I don't think it actually. I think it
14:40
Speaker 1: can and probably does sometimes, but I think the main
14:42
Speaker 1: purpose of it is to stun the cow, so it's
14:44
Speaker 1: not like it's just dazed and out of it when
14:47
Speaker 1: it when it, they kill it. Oh yeah, yeah. Uh.
14:51
Speaker 1: Hydraulic jackhammers, it's the same. Uh jackhammer would kill a cow.
14:57
Speaker 1: Hydraulics use fluid, same principle, but it doesn't use air.
15:01
Speaker 1: And if you've ever seen the they have jackhammers you
15:04
Speaker 1: can that are really large that you can't handle as
15:07
Speaker 1: a person, but it's like attached to a backhoe or
15:09
Speaker 1: something that's for big, big jobs. And those are usually
15:13
Speaker 1: um hydraulic and pneumatic. Right, but probably not every time.
15:17
Speaker 1: I'm sure someone in the construction industry will correct me
15:20
Speaker 1: on that. Well. I went and looked, and if you
15:22
Speaker 1: go on Alibaba that you know that's I has everything
15:26
Speaker 1: and they have hydraulic jack hammers for sale. What's ali
15:29
Speaker 1: baba is that like Skymall. It's like China's Amazon, but
15:33
Speaker 1: they sell everything on it. It's nothing like Skymall. Do
15:38
Speaker 1: you think everything's like skymallers because you want a skymall
15:41
Speaker 1: to come back? I sure do. Um, but they it
15:44
Speaker 1: did seem like all of the back hoe attached um
15:47
Speaker 1: jack hammers were hydraulic that I saw. Okay, all right, well, um,
15:53
Speaker 1: here's what happens at a thousand hits per minute. That
15:58
Speaker 1: chisel bit and if you're breaking up rock. They're different
16:01
Speaker 1: kinds of bits. A pointy bit if you're breaking up
16:04
Speaker 1: like a driveway or something is really good, or you
16:07
Speaker 1: can use a flat bit for other applications. So yeah,
16:10
Speaker 1: if you're breaking up a driveway and all you want
16:12
Speaker 1: is for the driveway to go bye by, Yeah, the
16:15
Speaker 1: pointy bits the one you want because it's not a
16:17
Speaker 1: controlled cut. The the the like a flathead screw driver
16:22
Speaker 1: style bit is the kind that where you can really
16:24
Speaker 1: kind of control where the cracking goes right or if
16:27
Speaker 1: you wanna, uh, like I said, if you're taking up
16:30
Speaker 1: your floor tile and you have the handheld version, that's
16:33
Speaker 1: what you want to scoot it underneath the tile and
16:35
Speaker 1: chip it up and there's actually there's like, um, some
16:39
Speaker 1: insane mathematicians have actually like tried to figure out how
16:43
Speaker 1: you can predict how cracks propagate. Yeah, there's like um
16:48
Speaker 1: for the most efficient jackhammering pretty much like what bit
16:51
Speaker 1: will work best, and like where to place it and
16:53
Speaker 1: how to how to use it. But um, one of
16:56
Speaker 1: the things that I didn't understand before is that when
17:01
Speaker 1: you are jackhammering, you you are creating different types of
17:07
Speaker 1: uh uh flaws basically in this solid say, concrete structure, right,
17:13
Speaker 1: And when you're doing that, the first flaw you're doing,
17:15
Speaker 1: the first flaw you're creating is this um kind of
17:18
Speaker 1: surface powder that the the initial chips you're making are
17:22
Speaker 1: actually powder izing and and congealing around the drill bit, right,
17:27
Speaker 1: And that powder actually transmits the impact of the jackhammer
17:33
Speaker 1: throughout the rest of the concrete pad in that immediate area,
17:37
Speaker 1: and that actually starts to create cracks. So you think, well,
17:40
Speaker 1: it's just the drill bit creating crack. It gets in
17:43
Speaker 1: there enough. Actually no, it's it's generating like these different
17:47
Speaker 1: materials from the very concrete itself, and it's using those
17:51
Speaker 1: materials to distribute the force and create cracks that ultimately
17:56
Speaker 1: start to spread and propagate, and as they spread and propagate,
17:59
Speaker 1: they get bigger and bigger, and then a chip comes off.
18:01
Speaker 1: And when the chip comes off, the amount of force
18:04
Speaker 1: that's generated and there goes down again and you have
18:07
Speaker 1: to build it back up by more jackhammering. But eventually
18:09
Speaker 1: these larger cracks that you're making come together and then
18:12
Speaker 1: big chunks break off. And then when a big chunk
18:16
Speaker 1: breaks off, you want somebody to come in and clear
18:18
Speaker 1: the chunks away while you move the jackhammer, because you're
18:21
Speaker 1: just gonna be breaking up those chunks. And that's not
18:23
Speaker 1: the point of jackhammer anymore. Now. The point is you're
18:26
Speaker 1: trying to remove whatever material in his bigger pieces as
18:30
Speaker 1: can be removed, you know, right, like by like a
18:34
Speaker 1: bacco with a bucket or something. Um. Obviously it can't
18:37
Speaker 1: be too big because you might have to break up
18:39
Speaker 1: in a smaller bits. If you don't want a three
18:41
Speaker 1: million little tiny rocks at the end of it, right,
18:43
Speaker 1: you're not breaking it into gravel. No, the machines that
18:46
Speaker 1: do that. Um, some of these things actually when when
18:52
Speaker 1: you create a crater, that's good, but you don't want
18:54
Speaker 1: your crater full of junk. So some of them actually
18:58
Speaker 1: have air water that blast the stuff clear as you're going,
19:02
Speaker 1: which is pretty neat too, Yeah, which is a it's
19:05
Speaker 1: a big that's an issue because the stuff that that
19:09
Speaker 1: dust that accumulates that forms what's called the crushed zone,
19:13
Speaker 1: that powder that distributes the force um is actually can
19:18
Speaker 1: be a health hazard. And there's actually a lot of
19:20
Speaker 1: health hazards with jack hammers. Uh. And we'll talk about
19:24
Speaker 1: them right after this, all right, Josh, health hazards of
19:47
Speaker 1: jackhammering um that dust is no joke. Well, before we
19:52
Speaker 1: go to health hazards, let me say this. What you
19:54
Speaker 1: and actually can be a health hazard. It can be
19:56
Speaker 1: dangerous when you get your bits stuck. Uh. And the
20:00
Speaker 1: general rule of thumb is you don't want to put
20:02
Speaker 1: the bit farther down. You don't want to keep going
20:06
Speaker 1: down farther than the length of the bit, because if
20:09
Speaker 1: you get your bit stuck, then it's really tough to
20:11
Speaker 1: get back out. Yeah. And while it may give you
20:13
Speaker 1: a little break, your boss didn't gonna be happy, or
20:17
Speaker 1: if you're renting that thing by the hour at your house, yeah,
20:19
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be happy. Yeah, because you just used
20:21
Speaker 1: all of the force of that compressed air to jam
20:24
Speaker 1: that that chisel bit several inches into concrete. Yes, it's not.
20:30
Speaker 1: You need like King Arthur to get that out. Yeah,
20:33
Speaker 1: so move it around, um inches at a time so
20:35
Speaker 1: it doesn't go straight down into one spot. And you
20:38
Speaker 1: want a sharp bit as well. Obviously a dull bit
20:41
Speaker 1: is gonna get stuck easier and it's not going to
20:42
Speaker 1: break up the material as well. Um. And like you
20:47
Speaker 1: said at the beginning that the jackhammers one of the
20:50
Speaker 1: noisiest tools around, it's the worst. It might be the
20:53
Speaker 1: noisiest tool. Jack hammers um create a noise at about
21:00
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty decibels from why this article says, Yeah,
21:03
Speaker 1: that is the that is the sound of a jet
21:06
Speaker 1: engine taking off. That's how that's how loud those things
21:10
Speaker 1: are and driving here, no joke. I passed a dude
21:14
Speaker 1: using a jack camera, huh. And he wasn't wearing your protection,
21:18
Speaker 1: you know. I was just about to say, is I
21:19
Speaker 1: bet you've never seen a jackhammer operator not use your protection?
21:24
Speaker 1: I never have until today. That's nuts. Isn't that a
21:27
Speaker 1: weird coincidence? Though? It is totally weird and like just dumb.
21:31
Speaker 1: He's like screwed, I got health insurance. Uh, construction headphones
21:36
Speaker 1: are a must. Um. And because we're talking about how
21:38
Speaker 1: how much it wears you out. If you're on a
21:41
Speaker 1: road crew, Um, you're probably gonna be rotating out jackhammer duty. Yeah,
21:46
Speaker 1: it's not like Chuck, You're on the jackhammer for ten
21:49
Speaker 1: hours today for the rest of your life. Yeah. Yeah,
21:52
Speaker 1: And it's a it's a real thing. Like people who
21:55
Speaker 1: use jackhammers as their profession, they do face a lot
22:00
Speaker 1: of problems. That dust is you know already mentioned that,
22:03
Speaker 1: but concrete has a silica and that's been proven to
22:06
Speaker 1: cause lung cancer. And so a lot of these jackhammers
22:10
Speaker 1: will have a like a water sprayer at the end
22:12
Speaker 1: of them that just constantly is introducing water that keeps
22:16
Speaker 1: the dust on the ground and like a puddle. All right,
22:19
Speaker 1: And what's the different or the deal with this. I
22:21
Speaker 1: know you didn't get a chance to look at it,
22:23
Speaker 1: but you sent a pretty interesting thing on the negative
22:27
Speaker 1: effects of vibration on the human body. Yeah, it's weird.
22:30
Speaker 1: What's the deal there? So vibrations are very odd. They
22:34
Speaker 1: used to belong in the realm of Eastern Europe behind
22:38
Speaker 1: the Iron Curtain. They did a lot of research in
22:40
Speaker 1: the effects of vibration on the body, and it does
22:44
Speaker 1: everything from cause insomnia to digestive issues to motion sickness.
22:50
Speaker 1: And this is bad vibration. I mean there's also like
22:51
Speaker 1: good vibration. There's also good, good, good vibration. There's there's
22:56
Speaker 1: vibrations that that that that vibrated a certain frequency certain
23:01
Speaker 1: hurts and I don't remember what it is, but it's
23:03
Speaker 1: like a low it's like a low frequency vibration. And
23:08
Speaker 1: there's there's something called whole whole body vibration which UM
23:12
Speaker 1: apparently GM is dealing with a problem right now. They
23:15
Speaker 1: have like their their largest UM I guess maybe they're
23:20
Speaker 1: Tahoe or something, but they're large SUVs. They had to
23:24
Speaker 1: really strengthen the cage so that if it rolled over,
23:28
Speaker 1: it wouldn't crush the bottom of the truck, wouldn't crush
23:32
Speaker 1: the roof. But the thing is so rigid that when
23:35
Speaker 1: it goes at like highway speeds, it vibrates at this
23:38
Speaker 1: this frequency that's perfect, and it's giving the driver's motion sickness.
23:43
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's all this weird stuff that happens from
23:45
Speaker 1: vibrations and exposure to vibrations, and so that's whole body.
23:50
Speaker 1: There's also hand arm vibration and um, there's something called
23:54
Speaker 1: raynodes phenomenon and it's basically like your hands being exposed
24:00
Speaker 1: to vibrations for that many hours out of a day.
24:03
Speaker 1: And this can happen too if you're if you're working
24:06
Speaker 1: with like a gas powered weed whacker all the time,
24:08
Speaker 1: or but especially a jackhammer operator is going to run
24:11
Speaker 1: into this. This circulation gets basically cut off from all
24:15
Speaker 1: the the exposure of vibration in your fingers and it
24:18
Speaker 1: can get so bad, especially when it's cold out, that
24:20
Speaker 1: they just turn white. It's called blanching. They lose sensation
24:23
Speaker 1: if you're lucky. If you're not lucky, there's a tremendous
24:26
Speaker 1: amount of pain in them. You can't grip things, and
24:28
Speaker 1: if you're a jackhammer operator, that's a big problem because
24:32
Speaker 1: you need to be able to grip the jackhammer. Yeah,
24:34
Speaker 1: and um, I mean weird psychological issues brought on from
24:38
Speaker 1: like fatigue, that constant noise, headaches, and the insomnia that
24:42
Speaker 1: can all lead to you know, you're kind of losing
24:45
Speaker 1: it a little bit. Yeah, Yeah, you never really thought
24:47
Speaker 1: about that. All of it put together, it's called vibration sickness.
24:50
Speaker 1: And we're only now just starting to like really understand it. Uh,
24:55
Speaker 1: shrapnel is also a danger, of course. Um and and
24:59
Speaker 1: these are you know, if you're on a construction site,
25:01
Speaker 1: you know all this stuff. But since you can go
25:04
Speaker 1: out and rent a full fledged jackhammer because you want
25:07
Speaker 1: to take out your driveway this weekend, I think a
25:09
Speaker 1: lot of people go into it lightly. Like I've seen
25:11
Speaker 1: those things on the road. I can do that. Be careful,
25:15
Speaker 1: like don't do it and flip flops or tennis shoes,
25:19
Speaker 1: you know, get get your big heavy hobnail boot. It's
25:24
Speaker 1: the great Larry Munson said, put those on. Get your
25:27
Speaker 1: ear protection where, eye protection where long pants, and you know,
25:32
Speaker 1: don't be a dummy. It all seems like basic safety issues,
25:36
Speaker 1: but I bet you there's been a dude with short
25:39
Speaker 1: pants and a flip flops they tried to jackhammer something.
25:43
Speaker 1: Jackhammer right there. It'll happen. Oh. They also important thing
25:49
Speaker 1: too if you're doing this at home. Um, and you
25:51
Speaker 1: don't like your sidewalk um that leads to your house,
25:55
Speaker 1: get the electrical and gas companies out there. And I
25:59
Speaker 1: don't think they charged for it, or they might, but
26:02
Speaker 1: they'll they'll come out there with a little spray can
26:04
Speaker 1: and they will show you and draw paint on the
26:06
Speaker 1: ground where your gas lines and your power lines are
26:09
Speaker 1: because you do not want to jack camer into either
26:11
Speaker 1: of those. Not fun, Be careful, don't be a dummy.
26:15
Speaker 1: Well that's ours a huh yeah, jack hammers the most
26:19
Speaker 1: interesting tool on the on the planet. I actually got
26:22
Speaker 1: one more thing, believe it or not. What uh? In
26:25
Speaker 1: two thousand because these things are so loud, you know, uh,
26:30
Speaker 1: the Department of Energies Brookhaven National Laboratory released a helium
26:35
Speaker 1: jack camera called the Raptor, and it had some of
26:39
Speaker 1: these things come with rubber boots to try and soften
26:42
Speaker 1: the noise, but I don't think they do a great job. Um,
26:45
Speaker 1: this thing actually less than the noise to eighty seven decibels.
26:48
Speaker 1: It's like nothing, nothing that's like how loud I'm talking
26:51
Speaker 1: right now. But apparently it never like caught on. Then
26:55
Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven, another equipment maker had an electric
26:58
Speaker 1: model that said it's faster than neumatic and it's only
27:02
Speaker 1: a hundred decibels and they have sold a few. But apparently,
27:05
Speaker 1: like breaking into the construction industry with a new type
27:09
Speaker 1: of tool is super hard to do. I think in
27:12
Speaker 1: New York especially, they were very resistant. The unions were like,
27:15
Speaker 1: really won't work, We're not using those. That seems like
27:18
Speaker 1: where they should do it, because um I looked it up.
27:21
Speaker 1: Apparently six of noise complaints and from in New York
27:28
Speaker 1: City we're jack hammers. That's almost thirty four thousand complaints
27:33
Speaker 1: in a year jack hammering New York. And supposedly you're
27:38
Speaker 1: not supposed to do it after six or before seven am,
27:42
Speaker 1: but there they allow it in certain cases, and I
27:45
Speaker 1: feel like that is like all the case is chuck
27:47
Speaker 1: in a hotel nearby. It started five. That's all I got. Uh.
27:53
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about Jack Camers, you
27:55
Speaker 1: can type that one word into the search bar at
27:58
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. And since so I said
28:00
Speaker 1: Jack Camera, it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call
28:05
Speaker 1: this cool program for kids in Austin, Texas. Oh yeah,
28:09
Speaker 1: I hope you guys are doing well. I've been listening
28:11
Speaker 1: to the show for for some time. I'd like to
28:13
Speaker 1: thank you for giving me the edge on many debates
28:16
Speaker 1: and discussions. I live in Austin, Texas, and I'm writing
28:19
Speaker 1: today let you know about a program I recently started
28:22
Speaker 1: working for but I think you'll appreciate. It's called a
28:24
Speaker 1: Totally Cool, Totally Art t c t A. It is
28:28
Speaker 1: a free after school program designed to reach out to
28:31
Speaker 1: utes youth and give them some exposure to the arts.
28:35
Speaker 1: The class I teach is called the Art of Machines,
28:39
Speaker 1: and we build various contraptions. We have sent you an
28:42
Speaker 1: example project, which we call bugs that the students building
28:46
Speaker 1: our class. Did we get this? We haven't got in yet.
28:48
Speaker 1: I don't think, all right, I don't think i've seen this, Brian.
28:51
Speaker 1: So you sent it? Awhile ago, Oh we did? If
28:54
Speaker 1: you did, I don't know if we got it. I
28:57
Speaker 1: don't know. We haven't got any all right. So if
29:00
Speaker 1: it's recent, Brian, then it's on the way. If not,
29:03
Speaker 1: then send it again. That was one of a kind. Uh.
29:06
Speaker 1: See what you think about is the proto time? I
29:09
Speaker 1: hope not, he said. My dogs go crazy for these things. Uh.
29:13
Speaker 1: This is the actual anniversary of the program. We're trying
29:16
Speaker 1: to let people know about it so it can be
29:17
Speaker 1: around for another twenty years. We also have other classes painting, film,
29:22
Speaker 1: fiber arts, and photography. Anyway, I was just hoping maybe
29:25
Speaker 1: you could give a quick shout out for totally Cool,
29:28
Speaker 1: totally Art in Austin. It's so totally cool and you
29:31
Speaker 1: can just look that up on Google or go to
29:33
Speaker 1: uh h t t P S colon slash slash Austin,
29:38
Speaker 1: Texas dot g O V slash t C t A.
29:42
Speaker 1: That's nice. That's a secure site. Yeah, that's from Brian
29:45
Speaker 1: fried tog and good work, buddy. And we're gonna be
29:47
Speaker 1: in Austin for south By Southwest this year. Yeah. Do
29:50
Speaker 1: you know if they're if we're gonna be selling tickets
29:52
Speaker 1: or if there's like a registry or what. I don't know.
29:54
Speaker 1: We'll find out and let everyone know. But I believe
29:56
Speaker 1: it's going to our deal Live podcasts going down Sunday night. Yeah,
30:00
Speaker 1: and um, but we're going to be around cooltown cool
30:05
Speaker 1: look out for us Sunday night. Okay. Indeed, uh if
30:10
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch of this, you can
30:12
Speaker 1: tweak to us at s Y s K podcast. You
30:14
Speaker 1: can join us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff you
30:16
Speaker 1: Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff
30:19
Speaker 1: Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always
30:21
Speaker 1: joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you
30:23
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30:28
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