iclark
04-09-2009, 12:08 AM
back in the spirit of the thread:
not making sawdust but mistakes none the less:
~35 years ago, one of my co-workers ordered a metal "water tank" (for quenching, probably, but I don't recall for sure). the tank came in all full of cracks and leaked like a sieve. he tried to reject it. the purchasing agent would not allow him to reject it because he had not speced that it hold water.
~30 years ago, I was setting up to measure some material properties in a horizontal furnace tube at 1000*C. we purged the tube with some hydrogen-nitrogen forming gas and I used some teflon tubing to run the vent to the room's primary exhaust duct. at one point I turned up the purge gas flow rate and left the lab to get something. while I was out of the room someone came by and turned off the room's exhaust system. when I got back, the teflon was melting and vaporizing with no exhaust. I got the exhaust back on quickly and turned off the furnace, but I do not recommend teflon fumes to anyone.
also about ~30 years ago, we needed to slide a furnace vertically. we had some round steel rods that we could mount vertically. I came up with the bright idea of using a couple of brass bars to slide on the rods. in order to make sure the holes lined up, I first drilled the holes through a single 1"x2" bar from the scrap bin and then cut the bar in half length ways. unfortunately, the brass bar I used had not been annealed. as I cut it in half on the bandsaw, the 2 sides of the cut curled away from each other. I had 2 1"x1" bars ~12" long with a half inch curve. I was mad enough that I got a big hammer and straightened them and then reamed the holes. it worked, but it irritated me for years whenever it didn't slide smoothly.
~25 years ago, one of our grad students needed a water cooling jacket for an experiment so he took a sketch to the shop. he requested 2 parallel flat copper plates with a 1" hole in the centers and 2 concentric tubes silver soldered to those plates one 1" ID and one 4" ID and with feed and drain tubes on opposite sides. what he got was 2 rectangular parallel plates with the 1" holes and 2 parallel 1" tubes welded to the plates on each side of the hole. each tube then had a single pipe welded at right angles to it. his adviser kept it as a desk ornament until he retired. few people ever believed that it wasn't a joke.
I should stop before I get to the embarrassing stuff.
Ivan
not making sawdust but mistakes none the less:
~35 years ago, one of my co-workers ordered a metal "water tank" (for quenching, probably, but I don't recall for sure). the tank came in all full of cracks and leaked like a sieve. he tried to reject it. the purchasing agent would not allow him to reject it because he had not speced that it hold water.
~30 years ago, I was setting up to measure some material properties in a horizontal furnace tube at 1000*C. we purged the tube with some hydrogen-nitrogen forming gas and I used some teflon tubing to run the vent to the room's primary exhaust duct. at one point I turned up the purge gas flow rate and left the lab to get something. while I was out of the room someone came by and turned off the room's exhaust system. when I got back, the teflon was melting and vaporizing with no exhaust. I got the exhaust back on quickly and turned off the furnace, but I do not recommend teflon fumes to anyone.
also about ~30 years ago, we needed to slide a furnace vertically. we had some round steel rods that we could mount vertically. I came up with the bright idea of using a couple of brass bars to slide on the rods. in order to make sure the holes lined up, I first drilled the holes through a single 1"x2" bar from the scrap bin and then cut the bar in half length ways. unfortunately, the brass bar I used had not been annealed. as I cut it in half on the bandsaw, the 2 sides of the cut curled away from each other. I had 2 1"x1" bars ~12" long with a half inch curve. I was mad enough that I got a big hammer and straightened them and then reamed the holes. it worked, but it irritated me for years whenever it didn't slide smoothly.
~25 years ago, one of our grad students needed a water cooling jacket for an experiment so he took a sketch to the shop. he requested 2 parallel flat copper plates with a 1" hole in the centers and 2 concentric tubes silver soldered to those plates one 1" ID and one 4" ID and with feed and drain tubes on opposite sides. what he got was 2 rectangular parallel plates with the 1" holes and 2 parallel 1" tubes welded to the plates on each side of the hole. each tube then had a single pipe welded at right angles to it. his adviser kept it as a desk ornament until he retired. few people ever believed that it wasn't a joke.
I should stop before I get to the embarrassing stuff.
Ivan