[TheForge] Re: shuttle

[Mike Spencer]

> I'm sure NASA appreciates all the useful suggestions from armchair
> engineers but remember, this really is "rocket science".

So it's thermodynamics and tensors and all like that, huh?  Simple,
inspired genius don't count, eh?

> ...I realised I've spent the past few years finding the best way to
> get relatively small pieces of metal up to forge welding heat and
> they spend most of their time on the best way to keep of few tons of
> metal below welding heat.

Well, hey!  So NASA just sends a novice blacksmith, a rivet forge and
some coal along on the shuttle.  On the way down, the smith tries to
get the the shuttle to a welding heat and fails.  Shuttle lands
safely.

Cello!  (Or is that "Viola!" what the French say? :-)


ObForge:  

Finally got the 7-1/2" vise that I fetched home a couple of summers
ago set up.  Former owners had discarded the mounting hardware and
welded it to a bench.  I made a tradidional mount (but fabbed, not
forged) and attached it to some 4x4 HSS post.  The whole thing drops
into a 4"+ x 4"+ socket (and a smaller socket for the leg) on a sheet
of 1/4" plate.  It't grossly In The Way but the vise and post can be
lifted out of the socket with a come-along and dropped on a dolly and
wheeled away.  Then the plate can go on the dolly and away.

Not entirely satisfactory -- the whole thing wobbles just a bit -- but
it'll give me a working Huge Vise while I try to decide where I want a
socket in the floor. (Would that be a Vertical Gazinta, Ralph? :-)


- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^

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