[TheForge] Long rambley YAK

Sat Nov 15 07:39:01 2003

You're surprised I pay attention to your opinions and respect your ideas
enough to ask myself, "How would Bruce approach this problem?" Just because
we've disagreed and even exchanged a sharp word or two doesn't mean I think
you're not worth listening to.

In the last year I've had two head slapping episodes where I would've saved
myself a LOT of work had I taken a page from your approach to problem
solving rather than doing it my way. Both incidents involve the recent home
built self contained powerhammer threads. I'd come up with what I THINK is a
good design for a self contained powerhammer if I could solve two problems:
Valving and a short link crank connection mechanism.

I wasn't satisfied with the Krause valving system and wanted something that
generated less heat and wasn't generating compressed air while at idle.

I did some research on valving but most of the patent drawings show rotary
valving that requires more of a machine shop than I have (cutoff saws, drill
press, lathe, etc.) so I spent uncounted hours with pencil and paper trying
to come up with something workable with off the shelf or lathe machinable
parts. Finally I decided to print the simplest valve system I'd found.
Something I'd procrastinated away as I have an ooold laser printer than
caches each page before it prints and takes forever; 45mins to print 13
pages. A real killer if I dad to print a large number of patent drawings and
text. <sigh> Then with individual pages, highlighters, graph paper and the
bottomless cup of coffee at the local coffee shop I set to actually STUDYING
the patent papers. Turned out to be Romper Room simple. <sigh>

I could be wrong but I don't picture you takeing a quick glance at a patent
drawing and making the kind of decision I did. I did poor research and
wasted a bunch of time.

The second example I did better and actually managed to reinvent the wheel,
Scotch Yoke actually. Still, had I been more persistent researching I
could've saved myself lots of time and skull sweat.

So yes Bruce, I use you to inspire myself to be a more persistent
researcher.

You're on the list because you're approach is as close to a polar opposite
of George's as there is amongst the regular posters. Where George has
invested years polishing his skills, making seeming simple tools do
extraordinary things, you have years of investment in academic education and
hence are more inclined to design tools that do extraordinary things for
you.

Both of these traits are things that make human beings great.

You adapt things Bruce. You took an "obsolete" mechanism that produces
linear motion using only swing arms and adapted it to a treadle hammer. A
wonderful adaptation. Then someone tells you the return spring pressure is
too heavy for comfort and you adapt a differential pully to completely
neutralize spring resistance at the treadle. Outstanding adaptation!

I don't think your weightless sledgehammer is practical enough to go very
far but if you simplify your grasshopper so it stops scaring people it'll
really take off. I'm not finding fault, I know how difficult it is to adapt
one mechanism to a different use and the grasshopper represents two serious
adaptations. This takes real mechanical vision and skill. It's also often
necessary to build prototypes more complicated than a final device needs to
be. For example my first propane burners were adjustable in every possible
way and took several hours to make, now they have almost no adjustments and
take me about 15 mins to build. I've refined the design.

I figure the grasshopper only needs a couple steps in refinement to become
the workhorse of treadle hammers.

So yes Bruce, you're one of the voices that are heard, a real contributor. I
don't say it to be complimentary or flatter you, it's just how I see it. It
was also a grossly shortened list of what list contributors inspire in me. I
would've listed the who and what in total but I figured I'd rambled on long
enough. . . .Oh okay too long already. <grin> Still in all, the four of you
I did list came to mind immediately, without a second thought. so there is
that. <grin>

Frosty
------------------------
If it ain't forged
it ain't real.
Wrought iron is.
The FrostWorks

Meadow Lakes, AK.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce Freeman" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 5:19 AM
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Long rambley YAK Effectively filtering theoffensive.

> Frosty,
>
> Gee, I made YOUR list of "inspirational" folks?  That's pretty
> flattering.  You certainly are on MY such list.  I think I've got more
> of your emails socked away in a "saved" folder than any six other folks
> on this list.  It's also pretty flattering to be on the same list as
> these other guys.  I'm no George Dixon when it comes to artistic skills.
>  Or even an Andy Vida, for that matter, whose artistic talents are only
> exceeded by his inimitable fluency in the language...
>
> Of course I'm not quite sure what it is to be complimented for
> "adaptation," but I'll let it ride...
>
> Bruce Freeman
>
>