Wednesday, March 26, 2014 --Hi gang! Two weeks worth of catching up to do so here we go! Two weeks back we had a fair crowd and most went upstairs to gab. Thursday, March 13, 2014 --Wayne brought along some chemicals, including a liquid called Isocil and some cupric sulfate powder, both to try out as antibacterials in the soluble oil sump of the wet abrasive cutoff saw. Sadly the MSDS on both of these chemicals indicates it’s not healty to breathe the vapors: in operation the saw puts out copious quantities of coolant mist. Breathing it in is a bit of an occupational hazard. -MSDS for Cupric Sulfate: sciencelab/msds.php?msdsId=9923598 -MSDS for Isocil was impossible to find although there is something called Isocil PC and that info is here: pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC36488#Toxicity --Tom touted the benefits of Wolfram Alpha; more details please? --Bruce L was trying to find a mathematical formula by which one could divide a cone into three equal volumes. I understand this has something to do with determining a frustrum? More info please: was a method determined and what the heck for?? --Ed had a crazy idea that one reason pterodactyls could fly was because the mass of Earth was less back then and gravity was less. Wayne, Tom and Joe promptly got out their smartphones and had a go at calculating how much the mass of Earth had increased in the last 65 million years! According to their measurements though gravity has only increased by a fraction of one percent in all that time! So it turns out that the real reason pterodactyls could fly is probably because the atmosphere was much denser. --Ed and Mark J worked on the variable pitch prop drawing. Mark was having a little trouble understanding how the inner mechanism did its thing so Ed made some sketches with pen and paper to clarify the operating principles. With luck Mark will have a dimensioned drawing soon. --Roger brought along some widgets that he needed to weld up. Once he figured out that AC was the wrong process he managed to connect the dots in a jiffy with the DC rig. --Rich G brought along an oscilloscope from Chimera. It seems the device does everything except work! Sadly nobody was avaiable to take a look at the problem; maybe this week?? Rich has also been arranging a worktable for the Sherline cnc mill and later on in the evening he gave a demo in the back shed That was about it for the week B4 last; now for last week! ------------ Thursday, March 20: Well last week we went for quality rather than quantity! The only folks to make it were Tom, Bruce M, Ed and Rich G. --Ed’s still trying to establish some method of accessing usenet via shell and Tom spent a fair chunk of the evening making it possible. Although one can view usenet this way, the higher functions such as posting and mailing seem to be disabled and no attempts to make those work could be found. Later in the week Tom made a ‘house call’ and managed to get an interface working on the house Mac. Sadly Ed had to leave before Tom was finished so he’s still a little in the dark as to how it works. With luck we’ll get it all sorted this coming Thursday. --Ed has put aside the model boat project so that he can concentrate on the hybrid trike, getting it in shape in time for Maker Faire. As mentioned in a previous newsletter Bruce L observed that the drive axle bearings are coming apart so Ed’s first project is to dismantle the driveshaft and replace the wimpy bearings with much heavier duty ones. --Meanwhile Bruce M and Rich G went out to the shed and they spent the evening messing with the Sherline cnc system. Last week Rich made a tooling plate that he’s clamped to the work table of the Sherline. This tooling plate is covered with holes, all tapped ¼-20. With homemade clamps he can now quickly secure various things to be machined. Rich has been using a Linux cnc programming language and has enabled a texting program to cut letters into chunks of plastic sign board material. --Well that’s the news from headquarters; please fill in the blanks, eh? --And in Chimera news various members of our gang have been hard at work getting various bits of machinery in operation. Rich, Bruce M and (yet another!) Bruce Shapiro have been trying to diagnose the problems with the drive motor on the donated Bridgeport mill. Additionally Bruce S has donated a cnc plasma cutter and considerable time has been spent getting it set up, then moved to a new location, as close as possible to a recently installed 50 amp wall outlet. Remember Chimera is still looking for a ready-made shop space: the current one won’t be ‘legal’ for public occupancy for close to a year and that’s a loooong time to wait! --Next gathering: this coming Thursday evening. By then we will have endured 3 days of RAIN so don’t try to park in the meadow or your ride will sink in the slop! --Sooo have we got a volunteer burrito-getter??
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 17:16:00 +0000
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