Steam Engine Part 2 (aka Let's Melt Some Metals)

Alright, this is the second part of the story on my steam engine project. I'll try to keep it brief this time. Last time, we completed the frame portion so now, we worked on the cylinder part used for the actual piston assembly itself.

Basically, we used this machine called Lathe which is quite spectacular really, when you first use it. Good ol' wikipedia helped me out on this one.

A lathe is a machine tool which spins a block of material to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, or def ormation with tools that are applied to the workpiece to create an object which has symmetry about an axis of rotation....

Metalworking lathes are commonly provided with a variable ratio gear train to drive the main leadscrew. This enables different pitches of threads to be cut. Some older gear trains are changed manually by using interchangeable gears with various numbers of teeth, while more modern or elaborate lathes have a quick change box to provide commonly used ratios by the operation of a lever.

Source: Wikipedia-Lathe

So there, you have it. Check out the site for much more descriptions. Anyways, I decided to post some pictures of the cylinder. Enjoy =].

Facebook To The Rescue

In a world where social networks like Facebook and MySpace are becoming more and more popular, it's very easy get caught up in all the madness. I remember getting a Facebook account when I was a Freshman in college and I could remember a time when I depended on Facebook for news and information about my friends-seriously, phones and hanging out are way overrated. No, actually, I think that Facebook was a waste of time; however, I still use it for some reason =). The ever so useful Wikipedia reports that as of July 2007, Facebook has over 34-million users worldwide. With numbers like that, you should be able to find your friends or anyone easily right? Right.

Well, at least one person should be thanking Facebook. CNN reports that a victim of a hate-crime attack used Facebook to recognize the suspect.

After the attack, the victim started looking on Facebook to see if he could find the person who attacked him, according to Lt. Alberto Jova of the Metropolitan Police Department's Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit.

When he found a profile of someone who looked like his attacker, police investigated, then created a photo spread of possible suspects. The victim picked Cooney's photo from the photo spread and Washington police worked with Georgetown University Public Safety officers to arrest him.

Source: CNN - Victim Uses Facebook To Finger Suspect

Well, if you ask me, that racist b#$tard should rot in jail. It makes you wonder how many friends he had on his list. This would not have been possible if it weren't for Facebook. Now, if only Facebook could give me back the one million hours that I wasted....

Let's Melt Some Metals!

So, I have a bit of free time today (which is rare) so I am actually going to write something.

Since I am writing my very first actual engineering post, I believe the foundation is a good topic to start with. Any products such as cars, bridges, houses, and even a chair will require some sort of manufacturing process put into it. Sand-casting is of particular importance to me because it is a method that we use in my Manufacturing Process class lab. It is quite simple when you think about it, albeit the dangerous aspect of it. So what is sand-casting really?

No, I am not going write a report about this but I will try to explain the process. Really, sand-casting is just what it sounds like-sand + casting. Although, you cannot use regular sand; green-sand molds which is not necessarily green, but it should contain a little bit of clay and water for bonding. Patterns come in different forms and sizes but really, it is important to make the pattern slightly bigger to compensate for the shrinkage that occurs when the metal cools down. So we start off with a metal container that could be separated from the middle (becoming two separate parts) with the top part being cope and bottom being drag. So basically, the pattern is attached on the molding board (think of it as the floor) of the drag. Next process is kind of crazy!

We shovelled a bunch of sand on a sieve (aligned on top of the drag) and shook it continuously which causes a bunch of smaller sands to fall onto the drag-process is called riddling. Seriously, I do not know who came up with the term "riddling" but it sure is tiring (especially if have to do it so many times). Fast forward to the fun part, assuming that we rammed the sand as hard as we could every time, the sand should be pretty tightly packed-which is good. Last thing we want is the sand collapsing. We removed the pattern then we created a hole through the sand (should lead to the pattern) so we can pour the metal into it. Has anyone ever seen the process of melting a metal?

For this particular project, we used aluminum which was melted on a furnace. I know this may sound crazy-but, seeing molten metal in person is almost a once in a lifetime opportunity. It was marvelous. Dang, it took a while and it was obvious how powerful that furnace is from the noise it was generating. Seeing molten metal in person was quite astounding. Just the thought of metal not having control over its form at such high temperatures was crazy. Other students were taking videos and pictures with their camera phones but I thought that was a little weird. So we let the metal cool for about thirty minutes.......BIG MISTAKE.

The metal piece that we built had so much deformities that it was not even funny. Thirty minutes was not sufficient and it was probably the amount of water that was responsible. See, the water in the sand did not have enough time to evaporate so it probably reacted with all the high pressure vapors in the casting---->really, ask a chemistry major for the actual explanation because I really do not know. Good news is that 90% of all the metallic parts formed that day were defective. It is always nice when the mistake of a lot of people can quite nicely cover yours =). So, I brought home an actual deformed metallic part. In case you were all wondering about we were going to use these parts for, it is supposed to be for a miniature steam engine which is quite nice. Currently, we are building the piston in lab.

The shortcoming of sand-casting becomes obvious when you try to mold a very detailed pattern. Also, sand-casting itself, is not a very controlled process. Slackers could skip a few rammings and they could end up garbage. A different process would be required for those parts with really intricate details such as die-metal casting. Unfortunately, the actual die-metal casting process is beyond the scope of what we cover in lab although I may talk about it later in future posts if I am in the mood.

My first post

Wow. I never could have imagined that posting a first blog entry could be so frustrating just sitting here for what seems to me like an eternity. By the time I finish this sentence, it would have been twenty minutes. Wow. So, what's hip to write about these days?

Although I am tempted to write about celebrities, world news, or some other important thing like Lindsey Lohan's DUI arrest, I will instead post something more essential for all your daily lives. No, I will not ramble on about my life (not too much anyway). Instead, I will try to post some helpful stuff pertaining to life in general and even engineering (because I am a student). Who knows? Maybe I'll even throw in some naked pictures of Vanessa Hudgens (which are very much coveted by perverts alike). JUST PLAYING..please don't sue me Mr. Lawyer sir. No really, stay tuned.

It's amazing what you learn even in a trivial class (at least to me) like English. Something that happened at work today reminded me of the phrase "We seek to confirm not to question our ideas". You see, we're reading this book "Don't Believe Everything You Think" by Thomas Kida and rather than bore you with the summary of this book, I will just cut to the chase.

Basically, that phrase applies to our everyday lives. For example, once we hate someone, we think everything they do is annoying. Really, that's true. Your brother punches you in the face and you think everything he does is annoying-walking, talking, smiling-even breathing. So how does this apply to me?

At work today, I made this really, really small mistake of confusing a Schwinn Sierra GS and Schwinn Voyageur when I was showing it to a customer. Basically, I got lectured in front of another employee which PISSED the heck out of me. Seriously, this guy said, "You should shadow me one weekend so I can show you things b/c I'm the best at everything at this store, I know everything." Geez, for those of you that are not familiar with a Schwinn Sierra and a Schwinn Voyageur-they are nearly identical. One is a hybrid and the other is a comfort bike. That's basically an orange and a tangerine. Was it so difficult to pull me to the office and lecture me there. I got a little pissed off but I didn't say anything. Actually, for a week now, he's been pissing me off but I just meditated every time to relieve my anger. Uh huh..."meditation" =).

A few minutes later, this same guy walks up to me and brags about how he screwed over Home Depot by returning an item that was two years old. Then, I got to thinking. Subconsciously, within the recesses of my mind, I remembered a week ago that the same b@#tard told us about a guy who tried to return a worn-out shoe that had been used for at least a year. Our store, having a satisfaction guarantee policy, accepted it. This same b$#tard reluctantly accepted the worn-out shoe and later told us about "karma" and how it's going to affect this customer's life from now on. Then, it occured to me, this b$%tard evinced hypocrisy. I mean come on, you can't lecture us about "karma" one week and brag to us about how you screwed over Home Depot. Well, it happens.

Bottom line is, it's weird when you are surrounded w/ people you dislike (not necessarily hate). Weird things starts happening in your head and everything they do seems to piss you off. Such is the significance of "not questioning our own ideas".

Well, until next time folks. I'll try to post something as much as possible but having seven classes plus work is just a tidbit exhausting. See you soon.