Vienna man one
By ROGER ADKINS
POSTED: January 6, 2008
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Roberts has been a lead burner for more than 40 years, starting his career at the former American Viscose in Parkersburg in the 1960s. Since then, Roberts has worked in nearly all 50 states and Canada in a trade that has less than 50 active workers, he said.
At its core, lead burning is a form of welding, but the nature of the material requires a special skill and precision. However, the decline of lead use has resulted in fewer and fewer tradesmen in the field.
“It’s a dying art. People don’t want to use lead, but it’s about the only thing you can use around sulfuric acid,” Roberts said. “As far as I know, there are less than 50 of us. Out of that, there are probably 30 or 35 who actually do work.”
Roberts now works for the Massachusetts-based New England Lead Co. Most of his work involves building and installing pollution-control devices for large manufacturers.
Many of these precipitators require lead materials because of the corrosive nature of the chemicals they remove from emissions, he said. He also installs lead shielding in hospitals and other facilities that use radiation-producing MRI machines.
“I’ve been with them now for 10 or 12 years,” he said. “I believe there’s only one other company that does this type of work.”
Working with lead requires precise technique, Roberts said. He learned to excel at it while cutting his teeth at American Viscose.
“If you’ve never done this before, it’s not something you can just pick up and do,” he said. “I’ve had people watch me for days and then say, ‘I can do this.’ I’d hand them the torch and the next thing you know, there’s a hole in the lead.”
Roberts still has his old training manuals from American Viscose and many of his original tools. Roberts hasn’t purchased a lead-burning tool since the 1970s. The reason for that is, well, they’re no longer manufactured. People in the trade these days have to make their own tools, he said.
“It’s a dying trade. It’s been dying for years,” he said.
Dying trade or not, Roberts has been able to make a good living doing the work he enjoys. He’s worked on many interesting projects and traveled the country, putting 50,000 miles on his new Chevrolet Silverado this past year alone.
“I enjoy it. I could have been a doctor, I suppose, done something different,” Roberts said. “I raised my family on it. It’s no more dangerous than anything else.”
In the early 1980s, Roberts was on a crew building a precipitator for a Canadian manufacturer. At the time, the crew was told the company was the largest manufacturer of acid in the world, he said. Roberts is still amused that, despite its size, technology made it possible for only six people to run the entire plant.
In addition, about a year ago, Roberts was part of a crew that built a 70,000-pound lead door at a facility in Nevada where MRI machines are built and tested. Once it was completed, one or two men could move the heavy door on its track.
“It had eight bolts holding up 70,000 pounds. One guy could shove the door open if he braced his back against it. That’s how free it swung. It doesn’t seem possible, but that’s just the way it was,” he said.
Some shielding jobs involved stacking lead bricks that weighed anywhere from 20 to 40 pounds, Roberts said.
“You sling those all day, you know you’ve done a job,” he said.
The pollution-control jobs usually involve welding lead tubes into the precipitator and installing large amounts of lead piping and other components.
Roberts said he also worked on a job for the military in upstate New York installing lead shielding around a nuclear reactor in the Trident training submarine.
That was the only time in his entire career when his lead count exceeded healthy limits. Throughout his career, Roberts said he has never experienced any lead-related health problems.
“I don’t know what lead poisoning is,” he said. “When I worked at American Viscose, we used to eat in the lead shop. We even took our breaks in there.”
After working around lead his whole life, Roberts said he can’t help but feel the overwhelming fear American people have of the substance is somewhat overblown.
Roberts, who plans to retire in August, lives in Vienna with his wife, Sharon. The couple has three grown children.
Contact Roger Adkins at radkins@newsandsentinel.com
