Double Tuiles - a night of breakdowns

Day 5 of the 6 day shift cycle. Shift 8:00pm till 4:00am
Tiles made: Double Tuiles Rouge (no idea the amount maybe 2000)
Dry Tiles unstacked: Rives Cartreuse Gauche Terron

Man - what a cockup - quelle bordel!

It the start of the shift I said to Ludo that it was going to be an easy night. The press on Double Tiles pracically runs itself. And we were making them in Rouge - ie: no added paint or colour so it should have been even easier.

This is a Double Tile.

The first thing that went wrong was that the Double Tiles coming out of the Sechoires (dring rooms) weren't dry. Either a problem with the sechoire or the guy hadn't turned on the heat. whatever. They weren't dry. So we stop the press and have a confab. Ludo reckons that with the sechoire turned on and working the tiles won't be ready to come out for another 3 hours.
OK, the chef d'equipe says - put the press to bed, and change the filliere and coupeur (play-dough shape attachement and wire cutter) to make Faiteaux, and make them until the Double Tuiles are dry.
So Francis and I get started on that. Meanwhile the tiles coming out of the sechoire are now Douilles (Tiles with chimney holes) and they have to be spraypainted a colour called Valmagne Cuivre - a coating of white and then a spray of black and a spray of straw. But the spray gun for the straw is now not working.
Ludo gets to stripping the spray gun while I fire up the Faiteaux.
But the Faiteaux wire-cutter is going bezerk and cutting the clay into little bits, not nice 50cm long tiles. Well I scratch and I try but I can't get it right. Ludo can't help because he's got his hands full with the spray gun problem.
We call the mechanic. He finds that the clutch mechanism on the wire cutter is seized and the whole thing has to go to the workshop for repair. The chef d'equipe is tearing his hair out. How about, he suggests, while waiting for the Double Tiles to dry (another hour away) we just spray and stack the Douilles?
No can do, says Ludo, coz the spray gun is dead.
Right, take a break and then prepare for Double Tiles. So we have to rince and clean the 3 spray machines that won't be used for Valmagne Cuivre any more, but pirate a spray gun to replace the duff one that WILL be needed to spray the Rives that we will be stacking when we make the Dioubles.
Got that? The big stumbling block is that the wooden chassis that the wet tiles sit on are not one size fits all. There are 2 basic types for our press and they can't be mixed.
While Ludo cleans the ongobeuses (spray caninets) I change the play-dough attachment and cutter. Again.
Finally, about halfway through the shift we get started, and ran OK for the final 4 hours.

and I got to clean the tremies again