Engineering Johnson

Dress like an engineer

2012-01-25T19:50:00.002-06:00

Apparently Kurt has taken me to task over not posting so I had best address the issue by putting up something new to look at. I'll start with something which came to mind not long ago as I was reorganizing my closet.

I think more people need to dress like an engineer.

Now I know engineers don't necessarily have a great reputation for being well dressed, in fact I'm certain that at least some of us have selected clothing based purely upon the weather report and a basic evaluation of the thermal properties of the clothing. (Forecast says wind today, I had best break out the forced air convection formulas.)

Still, there are many career minded engineers out there and many of them realize there is truth in the old saying "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society." (Mark Twain)

Eventually this concern over the quality of wardrobe will cause one's mind to turn to ironing. In fact with our wide array of off the rack clothes and automatic washers and dryers, ironing is the most time consuming part of dressing oneself.

So what is the most efficient way to get your clothes pressed and wrinkle free? Personally, I favor the Ironrite. This device was initially dubbed the mangle ironer, referencing the then common clothes drying device better known as the wringer.

Eventually someone with a little marketing experience stepped in and provided a name that wasn't associated with unintended disfigurement and the Ironrite was born. These are by far superior to other methods of ironing because they don't require you to stand over an ironing board and because the danger of entanglement adds a bit of an adrenalin rush to an otherwise dull chore.

Of course most of us don't have access to these machines due to space limitations or the fact that a new machine of this size and quality would cost substantially more than today’s consumers would pay for any device without an apple badge, a touch screen, and a set of white earbuds.

That pretty much leaves you with the ironing board and handheld steam iron. While this approach is time consuming one can find some solace in the fact that steam irons are much better than the flatirons of years past. The biggest difference of course is the addition of a steam system.

Rather than rely purely upon direct conductive heat transfer, steam irons speed the pressing process by injecting steam directly into the fabric, simultaneously heating the fabric from within and utilizing the heat of vaporization to transfer more energy than would be possible by conduction alone. Of course this technology is still somewhat lacking in that there are currently no superheated steam or even pressurized boiler models availible to the average consumer. For this reason I recommend only ironing on days with very high barometric pressure as your steam can reach higher temperatures.

Consult your steam tables for further information.

Individuals located at higher altitudes are at a disadvantage here. Placing ironing boards at sea level (or just high enough above sea level to avoid electrocution) is preferable. Conditions in death valley are probably best for the utilization of a steam iron, but I suspect the drawbacks of going there to iron would outweigh the benefits.

As to how you should go about ironing your shirts, well there's a very simple system I use to iron as efficiently as possible. Just repeat after me: Collar, Sleeves, Front, Back.

I always start with the collar. Why? because a nice crisp collar is the most noticeable feature of a shirt and always conveys a good impression. Also it's the only part of the shirt which is consistently visible regardless of the other garments you are wearing, and if you're trying to be efficient, why would you bother ironing the parts of the shirt that don't show?!

Take your shirts out of the laundry and press the collar first, then hang them up in the closet until you know what you're going to wear with them. If it's the summer and you're dressing light, a nice vest might be in order, in which case you only need to iron the sleeves. This saves the time ironing the other parts of the shirt. Taking a few extra seconds to put a nice crisp crease along the top of the arm will make your shirt look nice and sharp and will completely avoid any suspicion that the remainder of the shirt is still sporting prune like wrinkles.

For more formal occasions when a jacket is required you must iron the front of the shirt, that is unless you decide to wear a three piece suit in which case having a well pressed collar is sufficient so long as you don't remove the jacket.

Now the back of your shirt...well if you spend a lot of time sitting down or you are very conscientious about keeping your back to the wall, I say don't bother ironing what nobody will see.

So to recap, if you don't have a mangle iron be sure to use a handheld steam iron. Only iron when the barometric pressure is high. Always iron your collar first. Only iron the other parts of your shirt if they will be seen.

If all else fails, just wear a turtleneck, sweater, and wrinkle free khakis.

Don't miss the next installment of engineering fashion when I teach you how to accessorize like a true technical professional.

Another year comes and goes

2012-01-01T08:26:00.004-06:00

Holidays with a twist

2011-12-24T13:47:00.003-06:00

It looks like I'll be taking an unscheduled break.

Have a Merry Christmas everyone, I'll see you next year!

Safety First - Teamwork!

2011-12-09T05:00:00.000-06:00

Harper Special

2011-12-05T00:01:00.000-06:00

I just received next year's farm bureau calendar. I like taking these to the office because while everybody else has pictures of cars they can't afford, landscapes they'll probably never see in person, or slightly too adorable kittens, I am the only person there with a tractor calendar. I flipped through it once to look at the different pictures and ~~Miss December~~ the December tractor caught my eye. It's a Sears Economy tractor in bright red shiny paint. Farm Collector did an article on these back in 2009 which gives a nice little overview, but the short version is that it's a tractor frame with mostly automotive parts for the mechanical workings. Farmers could either buy the complete tractor, with it's rebuilt Model A motor, or they could buy a kit and furnish their own model A engine and complete the assembly themselves. It's a neat concept for an inexpensive tractor.

Reading about the Economy tractor made me think about a tractor I saw at Old Threshers this year which was dubbed the "Harper Special." This little mechanical marvel was parked in the truck section with a little sign briefly explaining it's history. Apparently it was built in 1944 by xx Harper who put it together from junkyard scraps and some oak beams back in 1944. The date of construction is actually quite significant. During the war years many things were hard to come by and tractors were no exception. For several years the lend lease program had been sending tractors overseas to support allied farmers so they could keep crop production high enough to feed their armed forces. Then as the US entered the war many factories were re-tooled to produce hardware for tanks, jeeps, artillery and all manner of other military equipment.

It was in the midst of this that Mr. Harper apparently went to the junkyard and gathered together his own kit consisting of a model T engine, two transmissions (one a model T one a 4 speed stick) a rear axle from a truck, A set of wheels (which look suspiciously like something you might find on a manure spreader) and other bits and pieces of equipment.

The result actually has some very clever features. First off, the oak frame seems to have eliminated the need for any significant amount of welding, which probably simplified construction and avoided the need to beg a ration board for steel beams. Model Ts had been around for over 3 decades by this point. There were plenty of them in boneyards to be picked over but they were simple enough to be serviceable and there were enough old Ts still out there that parts were plentiful. The model T engine has an add-on water pump to provide better cooling than the typical buoyancy based circulation. The engine has also been equipped with a governor which is mounted next to the water pump.

Seen here, the governor is connected to the water pump by wooden pulleys. The flyball mechanism works the linkage which actuates the throttle on the carburetor on the opposite side of the engine. The whole thing is connected by linkage back to a lever by the operator.

Also interesting is the use of a dual transmission setup. The model T transmission is really a very simple forerunner of today's automatic gearboxes in that it uses a planetary gear set and bands to provide the forward and reverse gears. The clutch is integrated into transmission and occasional adjustment of the band would keep it in satisfactory condition. By leaving the model T transmission and engine paired together Harper was able to simply use the low gear pedal to engage or disengage the drivetrain. The two forward gear ratios on this transmission also meant that you could drive the tractor in both high or low range. The 4 speed transmission (presumably 3 forward 1 reverse) inline with the first gave the operator a decent selection of gear ratios to work with. Of course it was necessary to mount extensions on the model T pedals so the operator could move them, and the reverse pedal was removed, probably in order to keep someone from putting both transmissions in reverse at the same time and going forward by mistake.

Mr. Harper even planned well enough to add in a PTO pulley by mounting a gearbox (or at least a set of bevel gears) in between the two transmissions.

I doubt I would want to pull very much with this tractor, but I would bet that with the proper hitch mount it could pull a two bottom plow like it's Sears counterpart just so long as the ground was dry enough for the wheels to get decent traction.

Isn't it amazing what can be accomplished with limited materials and a little ingenuity!

It's not just a profession,

2011-11-29T21:25:00.006-06:00

It's a way of life. Once in a while I catch myself doing something and think, "I probably couldn't be anything other than an engineer." The latest incident came when I decided it was time to organize my closet. I took some measurments, started thinking about options and before I knew it I had it planned out in AutoCAD

Yep, planned complete with projected views. It was overkill but it did make me stop and think for a moment.

Engineers in my generation have little to no hand drafting experience. In fact by the time I was in school 2D CAD systems were passed over in favor of 3D modeling, at least in the world of mechanical engineering.

These are very effective tools that give us options nobody would have imagined just 50 years ago including the ability to generate ridiculously complex geometry that can be taken directly to CNC equipment.

The only problem I have with this is that when a computer program can do the heavy work for you it becomes easy to generate designs without having a thorough understanding of the geometry involved. Maybe I just worry too much about these things, but I still think there's something nice about being able to conjur projected views from just a concept and a few construction lines.

Change of season

2011-11-18T18:40:00.001-06:00

Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month

2011-11-11T06:56:00.002-06:00

Please take a moment today to reflect on what our veterans have given us, and if you know a veteran, stop and say 'thank you.'

Explosion Motors (In Broad Strokes)

2011-11-05T22:27:00.015-05:00

Last time I opened these books I shared some pages on basic 4 stroke engines. This week I’d like show you the section on 2 stroke engines.

Perhaps the biggest advantage of two stroke engines is the simplicity of the design. By using ports in the cylinder wall it is possible to build an engine with one valve or even none at all. The other, perhaps more obvious, advantage is that unlike the 4 stroke Otto cycle design you get a power stroke every revolution, so power tends to be quite good compared to heavy and more complex engines. This is however one of the great weaknesses of this engine types as well, because by condensing the intake, compression, power, and exhaust into half the number of strokes, you end up shortening the power and compression as well as overlapping the intake and exhaust. These changes really cut into your efficiency as high compression and a long power stroke are needed to thoroughly burn fuel. The overlapping of the exhaust and intake also cost some efficiency by allowing fuel to escape through the exhaust port. Add to that the constant flow of engine lubricant through the crankcase to the cylinder and you’ll always have plenty of unburnt oil products blowing out the tailpipe.

Considering all that, it isn’t surprising that two strokes aren’t common in the automotive world. Where they tend to excel is in small handheld tools (blowers, weed whackers, chainsaws, etc) where weight and power are the primary concerns.
The fact that the two stroke appeared so prominently in this text is testament to the fact that in the 1920s people were still very unclear on where the automotive industry was headed. Of course, the American Technical Society was not shy about including extra information in this text. In fact they actually put in a section on aircraft engines.

Brigid mentioned the Antoinette engine in the comments so I did a little looking. I had no success in my old texts, but I did come across a real aerial oddity while I was looking. So, find your white scarf and we’ll take off on a tangent.

This is a Frederickson 70 hp rotary engine. Actually, I should say that again. This is a ROTARY engine, meaning the crankshaft is fixed and the cylinders rotate, unlike a radial engine where the crankshaft turns instead. Having the engine rotate may seem a bit odd, but during the early years of aircraft development this configuration did hold some advantages compared with some of the other options available. This approach could produce a reasonably lightweight design without the need for flywheels or cooling systems. Of course I wouldn’t want to ignore the fact that you were mounting a rather large spinning mass on the front of a light weight machine that has only its wings to provide opposing torque. That’s not necessarily a problem if you only need to turn in one direction, but it’s certainly not conducive to straight and level flight.

Still, rotary engines like the Gnome Monosoupape (single valve) kept much of the early air power aloft.

The Frederickson design is apparently an oddity even for a period rife with ~~failed~~ experimental designs. It’s a two stroke five cylinder rotary design. There were only a handful of two stroke rotary designs, and from what I understand the commercial success of these was quite limited. The lack of valves and their accompanying pushers, cams and reduction gears does hold considerable appeal when constructing an aircraft engine, but there is one very noticeable drawback. Two strokes depend upon the compression of the fuel air mix in the crankcase to properly charge the cylinder during intake. That doesn’t work very well when you share a crankcase with four other cylinders at different points in their stroke. To get around this, I understand some designs like the Murray Willat Lamplough 6 cyl 2 cycle Lamplough used a blower system to maintain positive pressure on the crankcase.

Frederickson took a fairly simple approach and used a sleeve attached to the connecting rod by a swivel.

The lateral motion of the rod (relative to the cylinder) would move this sleeve back and forth, opening a port to admit the fuel air mix when the piston on the compression stroke and seals it on the power stroke thereby compressing the mixture prior to the intake phase. It’s actually quite a neat solution even if it might not be the best for maintenance.

By the time this design was developed, rotary engines were starting to fall behind their radial and inline counterparts. Rapidly improving design and manufacture meant that engines were becoming more reliable and able to rev to higher speeds, while rotary engines encountered dramatically greater wind resistance and higher structural stresses as the rev speeds went up.

Engines like the V8 Hispano Suiza became increasingly popular as did various flavors of radial engines. While the Gnome Monosoupape engine (probably the most common rotary design during the war years) topped out near 150hp, designs like the Hispano Suiza 8 cylinder entered production at 150 horsepower and quickly evolved to models producing well over 200 horses. These provided power for planes like the SE5a and various generations of Spad designs which had a significant impact on the balance of air power in 1917 and 1918.

I’ll start digging for more good tech manual material and see if I can come up with anything interesting for next time.

Be back soon

2011-10-23T03:23:00.002-05:00

I just have to catch a flight first.

Explosion Motors!

2011-10-12T10:01:00.000-05:00

This is the first of many such posts in which I hope to bring you interesting tidbits from old automotive texts.

It sounds more exciting than saying "Internal Combustion" but that's really what this is talking about. The name died out early in the automotive industry, no doubt to the dismay of steam car builders.

When the American Technical society published their automobile engineering reference in 1920 internal combustion was not particularly new, but the world was still not far removed from the early engines of the 1860s. This is highlighted nicely by the two page explanation of the combustion engine's evolution.

Among the more notable features of this history is the connection between steam engines and 'explosion' engine design. The Lenoir engine mentioned here not only looks considerably like a steam engine, but shares some very functional elements.

Note: not from this manual

Unlike most internal combustion engines, this is a double acting design, meaning that the cylinder is pressurized in both directions (at alternating times of course.) What's more, this is a non compression engine, meaning that that rather than having a combustible mixture drawn into the cylinder, compressed and then ignited, the Lenoir engine simply drew fuel and air into the cylinder, ignited them and allowed them to expand all in one stroke. This action has much more in common with the steam engine than it does with modern combustion applications, and it was short lived in commercial use because of its inefficiency

Moving on to more modern engines, the text explains the 4 stroke engine cycle first put forward by De Rochas and made practical by Otto.

I've seen this illustration in several texts and what I find interesting about it is that it's done using a T head engine, which was rarely seen in use after WWI. It make a very clear illustration of the four stroke cycle, but drawbacks in operation. Mainly, it requires two sets of camshafts and timing chains/gears and it requires a large headspace meaning the compression ratio of the engine will be reduced leading to lower horsepower output. The only real advantage of this design is that it's crossflow layout allows the intake side to be kept cool (typically by a waterjacket) so that the fuel and air drawn into the cylinder are less likely to reach a temperature/pressure ratio that causes early combustion (knocking.) The appearance of leaded gasoline solved most knocking problems and effectively killed this design in favor of L head (flathead) and overhead valve designs.

This section goes on to briefly discuss the concepts of compound gas engines, using the expansion of hot gases and un-burnt fuel for a second, usually larger piston, and double acting gas engines, which essentially require a double ended cylinder.

Both concepts have some theoretical merit but have since been deemed impractical for automotive use due to complexity or unsuitable functionality.

These books are full of interesting plates and lessons, so I'll be posting more excerpts this time next week.

I smell a series!

2011-10-09T10:01:00.000-05:00

Back around labor day I was at the Old Threshers Reunion. Now normally it's a family outing, but this year we couldn't have the normal get together so I just wandered around the grounds a bit checking out the old iron and the flea market. One of the ~~junk dealers~~ perveyors of fine mechanical merchandise had a stack of old textbooks that caught my eye.

He had a six volume set of automotive engineering texts from 1920! After a little negotiating I packed these back to the car and I've been sifting through them ever since. They're too much fun not to share, so I'm taking snapshots of the material so I can put some up from time to time.

This Wed I think "Explosion Motors" will be a good place to start!

Where the heck...

2011-09-20T00:01:00.001-05:00

. . . did this guy com from?

Has he been

A - Slowly renovating his old house?

B - Running amok in Southeast Asia?

C - Working in a weekend off during a trip to Australia?

D - Visiting steam and gas engine shows?

E - Attending the Gun Blogger Rendezvous

F - Visiting more steam and gas engine shows

G - That's a lot of stuff, no wonder he hasn't taken the time to post until now!

Stand by!

2011-09-10T18:09:00.001-05:00

Merry -----mas!

2010-12-23T23:50:00.001-06:00

Now why am I getting bleeped?

Where am I now?

2009-11-28T20:06:00.001-06:00

Where is EJ?

2009-09-04T21:47:00.003-05:00

I'm in Mt. Pleasant Iowa this weekend for the Old Threshers Reunion.

Where is my allen wrench?!

2009-08-23T16:51:00.003-05:00

Quote of the unspecified temporal interval

2009-08-13T05:59:00.001-05:00

Those who listened unwarily to that voice could seldom report the words that they heard. . . . Mostly they remembered only that it was a delight to hear the voice speaking, all that it said seemed wise and reasonable."

-J. R. R. Tolkien
LOTR The Two Towers

Why is it I think of this quote now whenever I see a politician giving a speech that warrants TV air-time?

Clarification

2009-08-11T05:59:00.000-05:00

It didn't happen to me, but sometimes I think it could.

Safety First

2009-08-09T11:49:00.003-05:00

Just a word to the wise here. Some safety warnings are more serious than others.

This one...

I'd say it's pretty serious!

Daylight on a cloudy day

2009-08-02T19:58:00.009-05:00

A couple weeks back people throughout the upper Midwest were treated to an unusual sight. Southern Pacific engine 4449 came through Chicago as part of a much longer excursion trip.

Engines like this were built fairly late into the steam era and as far as I’m concerned, they are at or near the pinnacle of American passenger locomotive design. The semi-streamlined look came into vogue after diesel engines had made their big debut in the rail passenger industry. Of course there were some bizarre overreactions by designers that turned lovely steamers into streamlined, if oddly proportioned, chunks of stainless steel. Unlike the retrofitted giants like “Big Alice the Goon” (which is a topic for a post unto itself) this locomotive has enough shrouds and curves to maintain a graceful appearance while still showing enough hardware to make it clear that she’s a no nonsense western locomotive.

The day the train rolled through it was clear that the word was already out long before the big spectacle. Dozens of people lined up on each platform along the BNSF line with cameras on tripods, video cameras and railroad scanners. I met some friends at a station just West of Lagrange where we thought the crowd might be a little thinner. It wasn’t too bad it was still difficult to find some place where your photo would be relatively undisturbed by your fellow train watchers.

The scanners called out the stations as the train passed. We knew it couldn’t be long when we heard a strangely un-diesel-like grade crossing whistle in the distance. We all assumed out positions, meaning we probably all looked like a bunch of idiots ducking and swerving our heads to frame the best view.

The light was surprisingly close to our position when it first appeared. I snapped my first glimpse of the engine.

Then another as it came into full view.

Once more in the center of the frame

And then several seconds of blurred cars, some in Daylight limited red and orange, some in silver, Pullman green and eventually a Hiawatha orange observation car.

At this point I think railfan D (the guy on the left) is laughing at railfan Dave who was apparently blown over from his somewhat awkward perch. The train was traveling at near 50 mph so it made quite a commotion.

And then it was quiet again with only a lingering haze over the tracks to remind us of what had just happened. Seventy years ago nobody would have thought twice such a sight. Now that it’s rare we can see how beautiful a sight it really is.

Ooh, look, I have a blog!

2009-07-19T18:28:00.004-05:00

If you're still checking my blog, you are either a very loyal follower or you are really in need of some entertainment.

For the last few months I've been holed up in various hotel rooms and offices in between visits with real estate agents. I really haven't had the energy to put up any new material. I do have some articles in the pipeline but they won't be ready until I have a few calm days to work out my thoughts.

For now at least, I'll be loading up some simple posts to be posted automatically, then I'll probably start writing again next month.

In the mean time, there is some excellent reading material in the blogs listed to the right. Enjoy!

mmmm, bacon!

2009-04-16T18:31:00.006-05:00

It's not just for breakfast anymore!

I recently ran across this over at make blog. You'd have to be borderline insane to think of this, but I have to admit it's cool.

The Flaming Bacon Lance of Death

Basically it's a bacon powered torch. It sounds nuts, but it's essentially a lot of oxygen being forced through an oily substance so that it burns very quickly. I bet that with the O2 hooked up you could burn up all of the bacon grease in nothing flat.

Who wants it crispy?!

Visual pun

2009-04-15T06:30:00.000-05:00

Don't forget!

Nothing says Easter...

2009-04-12T06:00:00.000-05:00

...like an egg in a basket.

Happy Easter

What time is it?

2009-04-10T20:01:00.000-05:00

A little church in Tennessee

2009-04-07T20:05:00.010-05:00

About this time 147 years ago thousands of weary soldiers near Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River saw the close of the second day of the battle of Shiloh.

The battle began on the morning of April 6 with a Confederate attack led by General Johnston’s army. A night of quietly waiting just a few miles to the south of the Union camp paid off as the Union encampment was nearly taken by surprise. Union troops fell back quickly in the early morning hours as they struggled to form cohesive lines of battle. A few rallies, combined with a somewhat uncoordinated confederate attack eventually slowed the advance enough for the Union troops to establish defensive lines around what was known as the Hornet’s nest.

I had the chance to visit this battlefield a few weeks back. It was a dull, and appropriately somber day to visit a battlefield, but still pleasant enough to spend some time walking along the sunken road in front of the hornet’s nest.

Click Here [+/-]

I began at Ruggles’ batteries, on the western side of the Confederate lines. From here, the Confederate artillery bombarded the Union lines from across Duncan field during the afternoon of the 6^th. All the while, the Union troops also endured frontal assaults and flanking fire.

Crossing the field I began to walk down the sunken road, which marks the Union line for most of the day of April 6. This area received massive amounts of fire throughout the day, only falling into Confederate hands late in the afternoon.

Standing here, it's amazing to think about the amount of fire taken by the soldiers in this position, and perhaps it is equally amazing to think of Confederate troops staging attacks across this open field.

I continued on to the east, following the Union line. Eventually it proceeds into more wooded areas.

In these areas a few seemingly abandoned monuments rise up along the path, marking the positions held throughout the day.

Eventually the Union line emerges into an open area where an orchard once grew. Soldiers reportedly said that the bullets clipped so many blossoms from the trees that it looked like falling snow. The orchard has recently been replanted, and in another decade it may start to look much more like it did during the battle.

Only a little further north is the site of Shiloh’s bloody pond, where wounded soldiers nursed their wounds until the ponds waters turned red.

It’s a serene scene now, but in 1962 this would have been a chaotic place with wounded soldiers and abandoned equipment all around the pond. It’s hard to believe this was once such a dismal place.

On this end of the line, the Union troops could have easily lost the battle. Had Confederate troops exploited a collapse in the Union lines, they could have forced them away from Pittsburg Landing, which could have ultimately led to a Confederate victory. Confusion in the Confederate ranks kept them from exploiting the Union weaknesses, due at least in part to the loss of General Johnston who was wounded in battle, and bled out, not knowing the seriousness of his wound.

Eventually the Union lines fell back, forming a line around Pittsburg Landing. In the evening hours, reinforcements were ferried across the river to join Grant’s troops. Come the morning hours the Union counterattack began and Confederate general Beauregard suddenly found himself outnumbered and outgunned. A hard day of battle followed in which the Confederate forces were pushed back South, eventually retreating toward Corinth, leaving only a field hospital and a rear guard.

It was a horrifically bloody battle that would grab the attention of the nation. It was reported as the battle of Shiloh because of the small church by this name that stood in the middle of the battlefield. Ironically enough this name means “place of peace.” There is still a church here today that holds regular services, and there is a smaller log structure that has been constructed here as a reminder of the church that stood here during the 1860s.

Click here to close.

Today in history...

2009-04-07T06:01:00.001-05:00

Special post tonight, stay tuned.

That's quite enough!

2009-04-06T21:51:00.004-05:00

I think I've reached my limit on snow

Even in Chicago, this should be over by now.

Don't be fooled!

2009-04-01T07:30:00.003-05:00

Today I have a word of warning for my fellow travellers. If you happen to be using the toiletries provided by your hotel, don't just assume that the pale blue liquid is going to be mouthwash.

You might be in for a nasty surprise if you try to gargle this. Luckily I didn't learn this lesson first hand, but a coworker who shall remain nameless had the unpleasant experience of having his mouth washed out with soap before he began cursing.

Come out to Como

2009-03-25T21:12:00.006-05:00

If you happen to be in the Memphis and have some unsatisfied carniverous tendencies, drive south to the town of Como Mississippi. It's not a very big town by any measure and most travellers wouldn't have a reason to take the Como exit off of I 55. But for those who know about the Como Steakhouse, it's well worth the trip to eat here.

They have some great aged beef here, and if you walk away from a meal hungry, it's nobody's fault but your own. I'm also told they serve great fried olives (don't laugh, this is Mississippi, it's the way food is prepared here) that are stuffed with pepper jack cheese. And for dessert you can enjoy a nice piece of bourbon pecan pie. Of course, I've never tried the olives or the pie. Not only am I unable to eat another bite after even one of their small cuts of meat, but I'm not entirely certain that I can handle two new forms of vice in my life.

Or would you rather be an engineer?

2009-03-09T22:01:00.002-05:00

I should really start turning the light out when I leave for a while.

For the last month or so I've been pretty much covered with work and I've been bouncing back and forth between Chicago and Batesville MS. All of this work has made me wonder though, how many other people would be willing to do this kind of job? Does anyone else like long lines in airports, late nights working in strange factories, panicked phone calls about broken machines in far away places?

OK, I don't either. Still, you might find that you have the right mindset to make it as an engineer on the road. Just test yourself in these scenarios and see how you do.

Click Here [+/-]

You have just finished packing your suitcase. You are scheduled to fly out early in the morning on the red-eye flight. Just as your head hits the pillow the power blinks out for about two seconds. You know that you'll need an alarm to get up in time to make your flight.
Do you:
A. Reset the alarm clock and hope the power doesn't go off again
B. Call a trusted friend (or wake-up call service) to insure that you'll be woken up on time.
C. Stay up all night making sure the power doesn't go off again
D. Roll over and go to sleep because your cell phone and digital watch will wake you up anyway

The correct answer is D. There should be at least one battery powered digital device around that makes noise or else you obviously don't have an engineer's passion for gadgets.

You wake up on time and drive to the airport in the dark. As you park you reach for the headlight switch but the knob falls off in your hand. You can grasp the end of the stub to which the knob was attached, but you can't grip it well enough to turn it.
Do you:
A: Leave your lights on and hope you can get a jump start when you come back.
B: Call your friend (the only one you know is awake because he already woke you up in question one) and see if he has any advice.
C: Pop the hood and disconnect the battery.
D: Grab the vice grips you keep under the passenger seat and use them to turn off the headlights.

The best answer here is D because you should have tools handy at all times (no self respecting engineer would be caught without vice grips unless airport security confiscated them.) Partial credit will be awarded for anyone who answers C as this should solve the problem. It's just too much work to be the best answer.

You check your bags and have plenty of time to spare because you answered D on the last question. What do you do with your spare time?
A: Get an overpriced coffee and scone at one of the Coffee Kiosks in the airport.
B: Find a seat and enjoy some people watching while you wait for your flight.
C: Get out your laptop and search for free WiFi in the terminal
D: Go through the metal detector multiple times with progressively increasing numbers of coins in your pockets to see how much it takes to set it off.

C is the most likely answer here, as being offline for too long can lead to email withdrawal. A has one redeeming feature in that it involves coffee, but that doesn't offset the fact that it is overpriced and way too trendy. Answer D is worth bonus points because it demonstrates curiosity and creativity in testing an otherwise annoying device. If you wrote in "Spend some time trying to figure out why the banners in the tram station saying 'We're glad you're here!' are facing the people who are leaving town," then you have potential but you might be headed for something a little more philosophical in nature

You arrive at your destination and spend a very long day working on all manner or technical problems. When you finally finish it is almost 2 AM. You are hungry but cannot find any 24 hour diners on the way back to your hotel. You do, however, have a pack of ramen noodles from a convenience store. Your hotel room has no microwave, bowls, spoons, or forks. What do you do?
A: Go to bed hungry.
B: Alternate bites of dry ramen with swigs of water. Try to ignore your bleeding gums.
C: crush the noodles into a water cup and try soaking the noodles in luke warm tap water. Eat them quickly enough and you won't care that it tastes lousy.
D: Use the coffee maker in your room to heat water, soak the noodles in the carafe, and use the plastic coffee stirrers for chopsticks.

If you have to ask which one it is, you should stop reading right now. I have actually made ramen in a coffee maker, and when you're hungry at 2AM, it tastes really good!

You finish your work the next day, fill out an exit report and gather your bags for the trip to the airport. Just as you are ready to walk out the door a supervisor shows up with a piece of equipment he wants you to take home with you. You inspect the equipment and it shouldn't be a security risk as long as it's in checked luggage, but you only packed a small suitcase for this trip, so there's no way this thing is going to fit in your luggage. Your accountants have told you to avoid the extra bag charges, and you don't have the option of carrying this thing onto the airplane.
Do you:
A: Tell the supervisor just to ship it himself.
B: Try to sneak out of the plant before the supervisor notices.
C: Pay the extra luggage fee and fight it out with accounting later.
D: Find a box that's big enough to hold the equipment and your luggage so that you only have to check one item at the airport.

Once again the answer is D. I've had to do this at the last minute before leaving. Once I even got to the airport and scrounged an extra box and tape from the rental car office!

You catch your flight, collect your luggage and head to the parking lot. Arriving back at your car you remember the problem with the headlight switch. You take a moment to consult the repair manual (which you have conveniently tucked into the compartment next to the jack and tire tool.) According to the manual you will need to take apart half of the dashboard to reach the back of the switch and fasten it back in place.
Do you:
A: Take the car to a garage so a mechanic can disassemble your dashboard and repair the switch.
B: Continue to use the vice grips indefinitely.
c: Take apart the dashboard yourself and repair the switch
D: Ignore the manual and find your own way to reach the switch that only takes 10 minutes rather than 10 hours.

It's a bit of a stretch to assume that anyone reads the manual first, but as far as I'm concerned it doesn't matter because the correct answer is D: Ignore the manual. And as for answers B and C, well one is too simple and the other is too much work.

So how did you do? Let me know if you came up with the right answers on every question because I need some extra help!

Click here to close.

Quote of the unspecified temporal interval

2009-02-02T06:01:00.003-06:00

Coffee is a beverage that puts one to sleep when not drank.

Alphonse Allais

Public Service Announcment

2009-01-26T22:09:00.005-06:00

True Blue Sam forwarded this site to me because I'm in Mankato MN right now.

Apparently I'm in a 'hidden tourist mecca' with some neighborhoods that never drop below 70 degrees F.

I don't know where those neighborhoods are or I would be staying there.

The view from where I'm working is somewhat more bleak.

Oh and it was a brisk 5F when this picture was taken. Where are those 70 degree neighborhoods?!

Monday again

2009-01-26T06:01:00.000-06:00

Some days there's not enough coffee in the world.

Nothing up my sleeve valve

2009-01-17T08:00:00.002-06:00

I think I might be approaching steam engine overload after the last few posts, so it's time to focus on some internal combustion technology instead.

If you've ever heard of a Willys Knight then you probably know it has a somewhat unusual engine.

While most automobile engines use a poppet valve system, the knight was known for having a sleeve valve system instead. Now if you're reading this page, there's a better than average chance that you know the difference between a sleeve valve and a poppet valve, but just in case let's do a little review.

Your typical auto engine runs on a 4 stroke system, where every two rotations of the crankshaft can be divided into 4 main phases: intake, compression, power, and exhaust. During the intake and the exhaust strokes it is necessary to open valves for fuel and air intake and venting the exhaust gases. A poppet valve is usually positioned in an arrangement something like this.

Taken from Audels New Automobile Guide

A spring holds the valve shut while a cam actuates the valve during the brief period that it needs to be opened. Different valves are actuated by different cams so timing the valves is fairly straightforward.

A sleeve valve system looks more like this.

Rather than having two or more valves in the top of a cylinder there are two sleeves inside the cylinder and around the piston. The sleeves are controlled by connecting rods, linked to a small crankshaft which takes the place of the poppet valve's camshaft.

Interestingly enough, the sleeve valve system seems to have more in common with a steam engine than an internal combustion engine. Early steam engines had slide valves that controlled steam inlets and exhaust, but these sleeve valves are much more advanced than most steam chest slide valves in both timing and design. A common problem with slide valves was 'cutting' of the sliding surfaces due to force from the steam pressure in the cylinder, but a sleeve valve that wraps around the cylinder has pressure on all sides and so there is virtually no unbalanced force to cause cutting of the valve surfaces.

Each sleeve has two ports in it on opposite sides. One port is for exhaust, one is for the intake.

On the intake stroke, the left hand ports align creating an opening for fuel and air to be drawn into the cylinder. As the piston passes bottom dead center, the ports in the sleeve pass the intake passage sealing the opening. The piston continues upward compressing the fuel air mixture in the now sealed cylinder.

Near the top of the stroke, the fuel air mixture is ignited by the spark plug. The sleeves travel downward but stay just far enough out of alignment to avoid opening the exhaust or the inlet port.

Taken from Dyke's Automobile and Gasoline Engine Encyclopedia

As the piston approaches the bottom of the stroke the ports on the exhaust side of the cylinder begin to align so that the spent gases can be pushed out on the upstroke. Meanwhile the intake ports remain misaligned so that the exhaust is not forced back into the carburetor.

This design did have some significant advantages over the poppet valves of the teens and twenties. The sleeve system was quiet, mostly because it used connecting rods rather than push rods and tappets which create a loud clattering sound.

Eliminating the pushrods and valves also held some potential advantages. In the days of weak alloys and sometimes marginal heat treatments poppet valve timing was unlikely to stay consistent over long periods of time, and problems with carbon buildup, poor valve seating and valve bounce all impacted performance and required frequent maintenance.

The knight sleeve valve system did not suffer from these types of problems. The connecting rods and secondary crankshaft used for the sleeves reduced problems with timing, and eliminated the danger of mistimed valves being struck by the piston. There was no need to regrind and seat valves, and carbon buildup on the valves was not a problem. In fact, it's believed that carbon buildup tended to help the performance of the knight engine because it made the seal between the sleeves tighter, leading to better compression.

The reduction in maintenance compared to other common engines was probably why the Knight was billed as having the 'engine you will never wear out." That was a bit optimistic of course. The same carbon buildup that helped to seal the sleeves better also caused plenty of wear on the sleeves, eventually making them loose enough to make the knight a real oil burner.

Eventually improvements in engineering and materials eliminated the primary disadvantages of poppet valves. Once maintenance concerns were less of a problem, cost and performance made poppet valves the clear winners in most applications. Still, the sleeve valve design is fascinating, and I'd love to be able to take one of them apart some day.

New Year Fireworks

2008-12-31T11:59:00.007-06:00

I'm bringing in the new year with some fireworks, but not the kind that you might be thinking.

When I was in Mt Pleasant this year I expected to see a night time steam traction show (where steam tractors are run at night so you can watch the sparks fly from the smokestack.) To make the show more interesting they throw sawdust into the firebox so that you get plenty of embers in the exhaust.

I knew I wouldn't be dissapointed when I spotted the sawdust next to this Reeves engine, so after dark that night True Blue Sam and I grabbed my tripod and camera and headed back to the fairgrounds.

Four engines were puffing away gently, not causing much of a fuss. It was too dusty for me to use my flash without being blinded by the glare of the cloud settling over me, but a few time exposure shots caught the flashes from other cameras lighting up the Wood Brothers engine nicely.

The engines puffed quietly on while their fireboxes were loaded up with wood and sawdust, throwing up only thin plumes of sparks.

Then one of the steamers built up enough steam that the safety valved popped, sending a plume of steam forward over the top of the stack. As if on cue, all of the engines opened their throttles and the show began in earnest.

The towers of embers built and swirled and seemed to take on a life of their own. It was a sight that truly could not be forgotten!

Happy New Year!!

How do you add a little spark to your party?

2008-12-24T07:48:00.000-06:00

Butane seems to do the trick.

Now that my holiday party has been concluded, I'm off to Southern IL to spend some time with the family.

Merry Christmas!

The beauty of an ugly machine

2008-12-11T21:30:00.000-06:00

A comment by KurtP under the Tornado post reminded me of something I'd like to share.

I mentioned that the Tornado looked to me almost like a brand new model locomotive. It's not just because of the clean, fresh appearance, but also because of its general design, and to a great extent, the design of steam locomotives which was common in England. Great care was obviously taken in designing this Peppercorn class engine, and while its semi streamlined design is intentionally quite smooth and uninterrupted, the fact that it is practically devoid of visible piping and accouterments hanging on and around the boiler gives it deliberately tidy look which shouldn't be surprising for an English design.

For comparison, I would like to show you this locomotive. The Chicago and Illinois Eastern 1010.

This locomotive has the same basic wheel configuration. It was also intended for passenger service and it is similar in size, yet the two machines are worlds apart.

While one has its fixtures tucked under shrouds and concealed behind running gear, the other proudly flaunts its fittings, pipes and air tanks out in the open. One has a streamlined cab with polished brass window frames, the other has a square cab with a canvas sunshade hanging lazily over the engineer's window. The Tornado has graceful running boards which follow the line of the boiler and firebox, seeping back to a streamlined. The 1010 looks square and clunky by comparison.

Still, the fact that everything is visible is much more appealing to me. You can see all of the major external components of the locomotive, upgrades and modifications are usually quite obvious and sometimess tell a story about the locomotives history. One interesting item in this case is that the driving wheels do not all match. The middle driver is a boxpok wheel, short for box spoke. These wheels are made with wide, hollow spokes (hence the box label) which made the wheels lighter and easier to balance. I'm not certain whether or not this locomotive was built with this wheel, but it was not unusual for railways to upgrade their locomotives with these wheels when they were upgraded in the 30s and 40s. Rather than go to the expense of replacing all of the wheels, shops would replace only the drivers that had the most need for counterbalancing. It looked odd, and I'm sure no English engineer would want anything to do with such an 'unsightly' practice but it was a cost effective and common practice in the states.

Of course to be fair, the Tornado is a much more modern design. The Peppercorn class came about some 30 plus years after this locomotive was built in 1911. Had the 1010 been built later on it might have had a very different appearance. One of it's sister locomotives, number 1008, was built at the same time as the 1010, but was 'shrouded' in 1940 to pull the Dixie Flagler, a passenger train that ran from Chicago to Miami.

This picture of the 1008 is available from Yesteryear depot. The appearance is much like other locomotives streamlined in the 1930s and 40s. Shrouds were simply placed over the locomotives to give them a more streamlined look. It did give slightly cleaner lines, but didn't really give them the polished look of the Tornado, and locomotives like this were the exception in America, not the norm.

The Tornado may be a beautiful engine, but I'd still rather see something like the C&EI 1010.

Quote of the unspecified temporal interval

2008-12-10T19:30:00.001-06:00

A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.

- Mario Puzo

Of course, this quote would have NOTHING to do with this.

Christmas Spirits?

2008-12-04T06:25:00.004-06:00

Hail to the Studebaker

2008-12-03T06:01:00.000-06:00

This week my travels bring me to Canton Ohio home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I've been in this town many times and only stopped at the HoF once, and that was to get something from the gift shop.

If I have free time here, I'd much rather go to a much smaller, less known museum: the Canton Classic Car Museum.

It's not a huge museum but it does have several very nice old cars, including most of the Marshall Belden collection.

One of the jewels of their collection is the 1937 Studebaker President. Now Canton can be a rough town, and that's been true for quite a while. Back in the 1930s the Canton police bought a riot car, which was designed to be bulletproof (or at least strong enough to withstand a shot from a .45) This car was used for over 50 years without a breakdown. It spent most of it's time transporting money, but it was occasionally used in more hostile situations where the armor plating was necessary.

It's been restored recently, complete with the extra thick windows and machine gun ports!

They don't build them like that any more!

The Tornado

2008-12-02T06:26:00.005-06:00

Recently I entertained some coworkers who were visiting from across the pond in England. They were here for long enough that there were some good opportunities for dining, target shooting, and touring. During the course of our conversations I picked up an interesting fact. There is actually a brand new steam locomotive in Britain which has recently been completed. When I say new, I don't mean, completely rebuilt, I mean built from the ground up. The new locomotive was based upon existing plans, and locating these must have been an adventure in and of itself.

The end result is beautiful. When I first saw the pictures I could barely believe that it was real. The glossy paint and bright colors made it look more like a brand new model than the real thing. But it is indeed real, and it has recently completed testing so that it can be used on major railways in Britain. I hope that future generations get as much enjoyment from this locomotive as I have from the many antique steamers I have seen.

For more information check out these links.

www.a1steam.com
BBC News
Daily Mail
Wikipedia

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T20:17:00.002-06:00

In a few days I should emerge from the turkey induced coma and start posting again.

Pie Chart

2008-11-13T19:14:00.002-06:00

Thank a Veteran Today

2008-11-11T10:59:00.002-06:00

Photo courtesy of Shorpy.

Ninety years ago today the guns fell silent in Europe, signaling the end of 'The War to end all Wars.' In 1938, the US Congress proclaimed this an official holiday "dedicated to the cause of world peace" named Armistice Day. Sixteen years later we had seen a second world war and Korean conflict. Congress saw fit to make this day Veterans Day in honor of veterans of all wars.

Unlike Memorial day when we honor our fallen veterans, today is a day to recognize both the living and the dead who have answered their country's call. We owe these men and women a great debt of gratitude, so please thank a veteran today.

The Silver Medal Tape

2008-11-10T19:26:00.002-06:00

It is with great pleasure and some amusement that I report, I am a recipient of the coveted "Duck Tape Award." I am flattered beyond words, so I will let 'Uncle Green' do the talking instead.

Farmers Fare

2008-11-09T12:05:00.005-06:00

This summer I was taking some pictures of steam traction engines when I came across one with an open smokebox.

I had been contemplating writing a post on boiler design, so I figured this would make a great illustration. I rushed over and took this photo.

Of course you can see the arrangment of the flues which run from the smokebox to the firebox and up above the exhaust steam is directed up into the smokestack to create a draft to draw air from the firebox, and down below...

Wait, those shouldn't be there. Why are there metal grates and hooks in the smokebox?

Ah, smoked sausage. That makes sense. I'm not sure they would be up to Brigid's standards, but they sure look tasty!

One word of caution though, If anyone else feels the need to try this approach to feed your next threshing crew, just make sure you're burning wood that day and not coal!

Quote of the unspecified temporal interval

2008-11-05T19:19:00.001-06:00

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.

John Quincy Adams

Election Day Special

2008-11-04T00:01:00.001-06:00

Campaign season finally ends today! Perhaps I'll be able to take these off...

...or maybe I'll need them even more.

The problem with any election is that even when it ends, one of the politicians still sticks around for a few years. Oh well, or words to that effect.

LSMFT

2008-11-03T19:02:00.003-06:00

Lucky Shots Mean Fine Targets!

The results from the October E-Postal results are up over at Traction Control. I actually made a decent showing this time (thanks in no small part to True Blue Sam's TC Contender.) Of course Mr. C still doubled my best score, but I have learned not to doubt his abilities with a pistol!

Better yet, I already shot next month's target and I think I actually got a perfect score on one sheet. We'll know for sure at the end of the month.

Visual pun

2008-10-31T04:22:00.002-05:00

Happy Halloween!

GOOD MORNING!!

2008-10-23T06:22:00.003-05:00

IT'S INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY!

DOES ANYONE ELSE FIND IT ODD THAT MOST CAPS LOCK KEYS ARE NOT PRINTED IN ALL CAPS?

Remedial Sandbox Training

2008-10-22T06:20:00.001-05:00

I used to think that the people who serviced telephone and electrical lines were rather hardy souls who didn't mind hard work, venturing out in inclement conditions, and getting a little dirty when the occasion called for it. Either some tenderfoot officials have crept into the system or else someone on the road commissioner's staff could use a little extra work.

The ditch here is not unusually deep or wide here, and I think that an average person in decent shape should be able to hop across with little trouble. Even if the ditch is a little difficult to hop here, it's even smaller a few yards up the road. Still, this culvert has been installed recently to provide access from the road.

Never mind that this culvert is as tall as it wide, or that there's probably a field access culvert within easy walking distance. The great thing about this is the way it was installed. According to a reliable source this was put in using a backhoe!

Time to go back to the sandbox for a little remedial training.

All Steamed Up

2008-10-18T23:03:00.001-05:00

When Heron of Alexandria created the first steam engine, he had no way of knowing what it would eventually lead to. It was almost two millenia later before labor levels and metal working technology were right to create the industrial revolution, but when it did happen, it was the steam engine that provided the driving force.

When you're looking at these industrial giants it's easy to forget that they don't actually produce any energy. While the steam engine is what provides the motion to run mechanical processes, it is the boiler that captures heat energy so that it can be applied to a wider range of uses. It breathes life into other machines.
At first glance it seems that boilers would be quite simple, or at least not much more complicated than a teakettle. However if you want a boiler to run something a little more powerful than a whistle, there's quite a bit of design and planning work that has to go into it.

Different machines require different volumes and pressures of steam. More steam requires a higher rate of heat transfer in the boiler, which requires a larger fire, more surface area to transfer the heat from the fire, and the fire will require more airflow in order to maintain efficient combustion. It also requires a larger volume to accommodate all the steam you need as a reservoir (in order to keep the pressure from dropping too quickly) and the large amount of water you'll want to keep the temperature stable when adding cold water to replace the steam leaving the boiler. If that sounds as if it's complicated to figure out, well, it can be. That doesn't mean the basics aren't fascinating.

Click here to read on! [+/-]

Vertical boilers have a straightforward and rugged design. If you have a gas powered water heater in your basement, it's basically built on this pattern. A tank is constructed with a flue (exhaust passage) going from the fire below the tank to the top of the tank. Boiler design is essentially the same only there are usually multiple flues in order to provide more surface area for heat transfer. The fact that the boiler is so much taller than the firebox means that there is plenty of water above the heated surface of the firebox, known as the crown sheet. If the crown sheet were to become dry they would get much hotter than usual, weakening it and making an explosion much more likely especially if water came back in contact with the overheated metal and began to boil rapidly. Luckily, since this design is much taller than it is wide, the boiler would have to be nearly empty or turned on it's side before that happened.

These boilers were often used for portable applications. Steam donkeys (portable engines for winching), early fire engines, earth moving equipment, small steam powered boats, and even small locomotives like the Tom Thumb and early Climax engines. They were well suited to situations where they were jostled about, but that's not the only thing that made them practical. Vertical boilers take advantage of natural convection (heat transfer with natural, not forced, air movement.) The hot air and smoke from the firebox naturally rise into the flues where they provide additional heat for the boiler. As the smoke and air rise, fresh air enters the firebox below, giving it more oxygen to burn, and making the fire burn hotter. This would keep the fire burning hot even without use of bellows or blowers to force air into the fire. (Although occasionally blowers were still used to get more steam out of these boilers.)

The speed with which these boilers could be steamed up made them ideal for situations where they were used infrequently or on a moments notice. That's why early fire engines used this type of boiler, it could be fired and ready to use in 30 minutes or less.

Horizontal boilers

These come in several different flavors.

Older, permanently mounted boilers were often built into brick enclosures. This gave them both support and insulation, helping to reduce the energy needed to keep them hot. An example like this has the firebox built directly into the end of the boiler. You might notice the space below the fire, where the ash settles. There is a grate between this and the rest of the firebox, and much of the air for the fire comes in through here. The smoke goes out through horizontal flues running to the other end of the boiler and out a chimney. This design is fairly simple, but not overly powerful because there is limited space for the fire, and a limited air supply In order to make a more powerful boiler, it's necessary to use a different design that can accommodate a larger firebox.

More complex installations like this one, were externally fired, meaning that the firebox was completely separate from the pressure vessel. This particular arrangement had the advantage of having doors for the firebox, the ash pan, and the flues all in the same location, making it possible to service the boiler almost entirely from one side. This also provided for a very large firebox and plenty of area to transfer heat to the pressure vessel.

The locomotive boiler, as you might guess, was most commonly seen on its namesake, but it could also be found on fixed boilers, portable steam engines, steam tractors and other applications.

The locomotive boiler is easily distinguished from other designs by the location of the firebox and smokebox. Like many boilers, the smokebox and firebox are at opposite ends of the boiler with flues running from one end to the other. A locomotive boiler has a large firebox that extends below the rest of the boiler with a grate and ash pan below, allowing air to travel directly up and through the firebox. The firebox is surrounded by water on all sides except the bottom in order to gain a larger surface area and keep the firebox sides from overheating.

Fireboxes came in varying sizes and shapes, usually depending upon the fuel that was used. Wood fired boilers typically need to have a tall narrow firebox that can be stacked full of wood. Coal requires a wide flat grate area so that a large amount of coal can be spread out in an even layer across the bottom of the firebox because a very deep bed of coals will become too dense for air to pass through and eventually suffocate itself.

The fact that a locomotive boiler has the firebox and smokebox on opposite ends is quite important. A smokestack right above the firebox would allow the boiler to steam up quickly because, like the vertical boiler, it would generate airflow due to the rising of the hot air and the natural convection type heat transfer, but it would not generate as much power. If the smoke goes up the stack too quickly, it actually reduces the fuel available for your boiler. To understand this better, think of a campfire. The bed of coals throws off quite a bit of heat, but if you add fresh fuel or force air through the coals you will get tall flames which rise up much higher than the solid fuel. This is the result of hydrocarbons and other chemicals being released from the fuel source. The heat of the fire causes the more volatile compounds in the fuel to turn into gases which are then burned in the form of visible flames.

In the case of a locomotive boiler there is usually a large volume of otherwise unused space in the firebox in which the gases from the fuel can be burned. Sending these gases down a set of flues to the other end of the boiler allows more time to burn the fuel and plenty of surface area to transfer this extra heat to the water. (This is more important when burning lignite and bituminous coal as they will have more volatile chemicals than anthracite, which burns with a very short flame.) Of course, in order to produce the gases from the solid fuel the fire must be quite hot. To achieve the necessary temperatures, most fuels require plenty of airflow. Since a locomotive boiler gets fairly little natural convective draft, it is necessary to add air to the fire through other means. To do this, exhaust steam which has been used by the steam engine is piped into the smokebox so that it travels up the smokestack. The rapid movement of this steam out the smokestack creates suction on the flues which causes suction on the firebox. The hot gases from the firebox are drawn into the flues, causing fresh air to be drawn into the firebox, helping the fire to burn hotter.

Like the firebox, the shape of the smokebox is also influenced by the fuel being used. If the draft up the smokestack is forced by a blower or the exhaust from a turbine it is relatively constant. But reciprocating steam engines create short bursts of exhaust causing fluctuation in the suction on the firebox. For engines burning hard coal or wood, this isn't an issue, but when using soft, powdery coal like lignite, this is can be problematic. Engineers have said that with a lignite coal, a strong draft can "suck the fire right out of the stack." While this may be a bit of an exaggeration, it's a pretty good description of what happens with softer coal. Small pieces of coal particles will continue to burn even while they are carried down the flues and through the smokebox. Early locomotives typically prevented this by way of special smokestacks that caught sparks and cinders. Larger boilers made it impossible to put tall smokestacks on top of locomotives so this had to be incorporated into the firebox.

The Chicago Burlington and Quincy incorporated smokeboxes of this design on western locomotives. The baffles and screens redirect the airflow so that burning embers collect in the bottom of the smokebox rather than going out the stack. In some cases smokeboxes like this were quite obvious because of their large size. The best example of this can be found on the CB&Q where locomotives that were otherwise identical would have dramatically different smokeboxes depending on where they were expected to operate.

Of course, all of this work on the smokebox would be wasted if the draft did not produce a proper air supply to the firebox. The fuel in the firebox rests on a grate which allows air to pass through it. This is vital to keeping a good fire. Drawing air through the coals provides oxygen directly to the solid fuel, helping it to burn hotter, and it warms the air so it is easier to consume the gases being released by the burning fuel. If cold air is allowed into the firebox, it will not thoroughly burn the volatile gases produced by most fuels. Even worse, the cold air will come into contact with portions of the firebox and the flues. This cools the metal causing it to shrink slightly. This shrinkage puts stress on any affected joint in the firebox and could eventually lead to leakage around flues and staybolts. The firebox door provides the most common source of cold air into the firebox, as it must be placed above the grate in order to feed the fire. A good fireman would keep the firebox door closed unless it was necessary to feed or check the fire. Sometimes a fireman would open the firebox door to reduce steam in a boiler, especially when the boiler was 'popping off' at an inopportune time (the pop valve releases pressure from the boiler with a very loud hiss or roar.) This was effective at reducing the rate of boiling in the boiler, but as I said, it can lead to leaks in the firebox which can be very difficult to fix.

There is one more key feature to a boiler that cannot be left out when discussing horizontal boiler design. Virtually all horizontal boilers are designed with a steam dome on top. The reason for steam domes is tied to the design of steam engines. Piston engines don't like water. They can handle a little condensation in the steam, but too much liquid is a problem because it can turn a steam piston into a hydraulic piston, which will invariably result in a failure somewhere in the cylinder or piston. Even without this problem, dry steam provides a much more efficient energy source for running any steam engine.

The simple answer to this problem is 'put the intake above the water level in the boiler. This is technically correct, but when water boils it splashes quite violently, throwing a mist of hot water into the air. If the intake is not sufficiently high above the water level of the boiler, the mist will get into the steam supply to the engine. Add considerations like, water being sloshed around in a running locomotive or moving steam tractor, and it's obvious that the intake needs to be a considerable height above the water in the boiler. The steam dome allows for this without the need for a drastic increase in boiler size. The dome can also be made with a baffle or separator plate that leaves very little open space between the boiler and the dome, which helps to prevent water from splashing into the top of the dome. Steam separators are also used in some applications to remove moisture from the steam, typically by forcing the steam to make a sudden change in direction, throwing water droplets out of the flow.

Most steam domes can be readily identified as a hump in the middle or back of a boiler. Locomotives often appear to have several domes, but only one of them is a true dome. The others are sand boxes used to give wheels more traction. You can tell the difference by looking for details like tubes leading from the sand dome down to the wheels of a locomotive (on sandboxes) or whistles, throttle linkages, and large steam pipes on the steam dome.

There is one other type of horizontal boiler worth noting, the return flue boiler. These were used in steam tractors and stationary applications, though I won't take the time to write up the details as True Blue Sam already has a good post on this type of boiler. The simple explanation is that the firebox is built into the bottom of the boiler, spanning virtually the entire length of the pressure vessel. A smokebox on the end opposite the fireman provides an opening to connect the firebox with the flues which take the smoke back to the fireman's end of the boiler, where they enter a crescent shaped smoke box and go up the smokestack. This design has potential efficiency benefits as well as maintenance advantages over locomotive boilers.

For more information on boilers I would recommend looking into the books Steam Power Plant Engineering by G F Gebhardt and the Cyclopedia of Locomotive Engineering by C F Swingle where I found some of the illustrations above. They are both in the public domain and available from Google.

Click here to close.

Off we go...

2008-10-17T14:01:00.001-05:00

I'll be back for the weekend with a few posts to share!

It's the law...

2008-09-28T18:30:00.000-05:00

"No sir, I don't care if it's rational or not, I'm just here to enforce it. Do you realize that I clocked you travelling at 2 to the 5th power? You're lucky you weren't going 2 pi faster or this ticket would cost you an extra 5 factorial bucks! "

(Feel free to jump in with a joke about a cop and a glazed torus.)

2008-09-24T06:30:00.005-05:00

Dirk Pitt had it right. I need a loft over a hangar to fill with big toys and treasures from my adventures. Sadly, I have money for neither the treasures nor the hangar, but that doesn't mean I can't have any fun hobbies. My personal weakness is model railroads, but for those who enjoy somewhat more functional models, the world of miniature steam engines is open to pretty much anyone who can fit a lathe and milling machine into a corner of the garage.

The complexity of these models is often quite astounding. Here (below) is a model of a compound Corliss engine. Like the real thing, steam is used in the smaller cylinder before it is exhausted to the larger cylinder. Both cylinders provide power to the crank and flywheel, which move the linkages needed to control the four valves in each cylinder.

If you don't want to waste time with a boiler or compressed air system to run an engine, there is another alternative. Stirling cycle engines don't need a pressure source, they just need a temperature differential (usually provided by an alcohol burner)

If you're interested in model engines, check out one of these websites for more information.

PM Research

Stuart Models

Lutz Hielscher

Coffee that's out of this world!

2008-09-15T04:30:00.001-05:00

Or maybe I'm just full of beans.

Old Threshers 2008

2008-09-07T18:10:00.005-05:00

Last week I took a couple of vacation days and headed to Iowa for an event that I look forward to every year. The Midwest Old Threshers Reunion is a 5 day event ending on Labor Day. It's a wonderful chance to celebrate American history and experience the things that have shaped the midwest for over a century.

I can't cover everything, but I'll at least hit the high points until I can look at some things in more detail.

Click Here [+/-]

There are plenty of demonstrations of the festival's namesake activity; threshing. Most of the threshing here is done with steam tractors, though there are occasional demonstrations with actual horse power and slightly more modern tractors.

There are also plenty of other activities demonstrated here including corn shelling, hay baling and grinding.

Tractor enthusiasts fill up a substantial portion of the fairgrounds every year with a wide array of different makes and models of tractors. Some are original, some are restored, and some look even better than they did the day they were built.

All of the tractors are on display out in the open where you can get as close as you want, and spend time with the owners.

Is that Alexander Botts?

The tractors are not just on static display either. There are parades where owners can show off their machines in front of the grandstand and plenty of equipment for the tractors to power.

Here, an Aultman Taylor pulls into position by the veneer mill, in preparation for turning a few logs into paper thin sheets of wood.

Combustion engines aren't the only things powering equipment here though.

Here a Keck engine blasts out the boiler tubes as it starts threshing a wagon load of wheat.
This restored Reeves engine has some of the most beautiful paint you will ever see on a steam tractor.

A trip to one of the on site museums will lead you to the powerhouse where steam engines of the stationary variety are operated daily throughout the festival.

I've posted about these engines before and yet there is so much material yet to be covered.

There are also plenty of gas engines on the grounds of all sorts of varieties.

Sometimes you'll run across rare and unusual models here. This is an Edwards two cylinder motor owned by Bob Zvacek.

This engine was probably too complicated to be a commercial success when it was first released. It's still a fascinating machine and Mr. Zvacek was nice enough to run it for me. I'll have to post the videos some other time.

If you get tired of walking around the grounds, I recommend hopping on a train.

The fairgrounds has it's own narrow gauge railway with three operable steam locomotives to pull trains. I was lucky enough to be spend some time as a conductor over the weekend. It was great fun, especially since it gives you the chance to meet some very nice people.

Of course if you've had your fill of steam trains, you can always ride the Midwest Electric Railway which operates trolley and interurban cars on a circle of track that connects the campgrounds and the pioneer village with the rest of the fairgrounds.

There are also plenty of cars and trucks on display and on parade throughout the entire weekend.

There are even a few motorcycles on display.

Those things alone should be enough to wear a person out, but if you have any energy left there are plenty of other attractions around.

Like the Pioneer Village where Sanford Lee (aka Prof. Farquar) regularly entertains.

There's the print shop, where festival fliers, newsletters, and other publications are printed on antique machines.

There are blacksmith demonstrations at both the North and South ends of the fairgrounds...

...and far too many other demonstrations, vendors, and exhibits to list here.

It's a wonderful event, and if you're willing to stick around into the evening hours you may even witness a truly beautiful event; steam engines at night!

Click here to close.

I'll be back soon!

2008-08-31T22:51:00.003-05:00

I've been conducting some business. I'll be back soon!

Click Here [+/-]

Click here to close.

Fun with numbers

2008-08-17T10:54:00.003-05:00

This week, near the end of a long day at work, I was sitting in a conference room with some accountants from out of town. They were thinking about hitting a local 'riverboat' to waste a few hours and some money at the blackjack tables. They checked out this place online and noticed that there was a game variant called 'twenty one plus three.' Not remembering that they had an audience, one accountant asked another,
"What's twenty one plus three?"
Absentmindedly I replied,
"It's twenty four."
The room was silent for a moment before erupting in chuckles and disparaging remarks about accountants.

The lesson: Make sure your remarks are not taken out of context!

The P-39

2008-08-15T19:14:00.005-05:00

This week's post comes to you courtesy of the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton OH. I just spent the week in Dayton and although I did not have time to visit the museum, I managed to dig these photos out of my archive. As I've said before, this is an amazing museum with a very large collection and you have to have plenty of time if you want to get the most out of it.

These pictures came from the WWII hangar.

Meet the P39 Airacobra. These were produced by Bell Aircraft Corporation beginning in 1939 and used in combat throughout WWII.

If it looks a bit odd for an aircraft of that era, there's a reason. Most propeller driven fighter aircraft were designed around an engine and prop in the nose of the aircraft. This design was different, it centered around an Oldsmobile T9 cannon which was actually made to fire through the center of the prop. This was a particularly large and bulky weapon and the desire to make it fire through the propeller made it necessary to find another location for the engine. The engineers at Bell settled on a mid-engine design.

That's what the P39 looks like on the inside. The engine sits behind the pilot and a driveshaft (which looks surprisingly thin to me) runs to the nose of the aircraft where it is joined to the propeller with a gearbox. This design gave it very different characteristics from the other fighter aircraft at the time. The location of the center of gravity made the aircraft nimble, with a roll rate comparable to or better than many of its contemporaries. This also led to a tendency to go into flat spins if there was not enough weight in the nose of the aircraft. (Aircraft which were not carrying ammunition had to be ballasted in order to be safely flown.) The plane also had to be equipped with unusual nose wheel landing gear system.

The engine location meant that the nose could have a very streamlined and efficient profile, but putting the engine compartment behind the fuselage meant that there was no room left for gas tanks. This meant that the fuel tanks had to be installed in the wings. This limited the fuel capacity (though it was often supplemented with drop tanks) meaning that the plane was typically limited to short range missions rather than long range patrols. The plane's operation was also limited because it was underpowered compared to many other aircraft. The single stage supercharger limited it to low altitude work, which is unusual considering that it was originally designed in response to a request for a high altitude interceptor aircraft. This was later resolved with the introduction of the P63 kingcobra that had a more powerful engine and different wing profile.

Pilots in the US and the UK typically did not find the aircraft very appealing. Aside from some complaints about having to fly with a high speed driveshaft between their legs, they found that the lack of power and high altitude performance severely handicapped their work. They were still quite effective as low altitude interceptors, which made them useful for quite some time. Unfortunately the tactics used in the western European theater did not allow the full potential of these planes to be explored. The US mostly used fighters for escorts on high altitude bombing runs, and the airacobra was not able to perform well at these altitudes.

It was the Russians who really used the plane to its full potential. They needed escorts for low altitude bombing runs and fighter bombers for ground attack. The airacobra shined in this role. Not having the engine in the nose meant that when the plane was making ground attacks, the engine was not up front and was therefore not very vulnerable to ground fire. The nose cannon also provided a very stable firing platform with an incredible amount of power. This made the airacobra an effective ground attack aircraft. It's commonly believed that the airacobra was used extensively as a tank killer, though some have questioned this as armor piercing rounds were not available for the P39’s cannon.

The Russians most certainly used this in fighter duty against the Germans in the air. This is where it developed a very good reputation as a fighter. Low altitude battles were the airacobra's forte because it had enough power to compete with other fighters and because of its considerable maneuverability.

In air combat altitude is quite important. It can be traded for speed and speed gives you the ability to escape from a dogfight. This fact has saved many fighter pilots from attacks by aircraft with superior maneuverability. But when you eliminate the ability to dive out of a fight, maneuverability becomes much more important and this is where the airacobra performed well.

It didn't hurt that it was incredibly well armed. The T9 cannon could fire a 1.3 lb projectile! Of course with ammunition of that size and weight, you couldn't carry very many rounds, or fire very fast, so the cannon was supplemented with either two or four machine guns mounted on the nose (In the conventional manner) and three machine guns mounted in each wing. Supposedly, some Russian pilots removed machine guns from the wings to improve the roll rate of the aircraft. They apparently felt that the nose guns were sufficient for their purposes. I can't blame them.

It's hard to think you need more firepower when you have one of these!

Highway to where?

2008-08-10T21:08:00.002-05:00

You guessed it; I'm back on the road this week.

The Instant Engineer Kit

2008-08-08T06:03:00.003-05:00

"You have to be born to it." That's what my supervisor said about our types of jobs. This was after I related an incident that had occurred a few weeks earlier.

I was in a manufacturing facility (a regular occurrence in my position) when the plant manager came into the office to review my work. When I opened my computer, he looked at my desktop wallpaper with one eyebrow raised, so I explained that it was from the Atwater Kent radio factory during the 1920s. He looked at me with a somewhat bemused expression and said "You know, most people have pictures of family or vacations on their desktop, not a factory from the 1920s."

Skipping ahead to when my supervisor first saw the photo, he glanced at the picture then looked back again with the slight grin that he always has when his curiosity has been aroused. I told him about the plant manager, and he replied "You have to be born to it."

I don't know if I believe that, but I suspect there is a grain of truth to it. I didn't have much exposure to industrial environments when I was young. I did, however, have plenty of exposure to machinery, even if most of it was made more than a few decades before I was. So maybe there is a reason why I enjoy the kinds of things I work on.

Enjoying my job is a big part of being able to do it well, or at least I think it is. But that's not to say that there aren't things that can help you be an effective engineer.

Recently True Blue Sam introduced me to his "ACME Instant Forester Kit" It's a compilation of the data and tools that are needed to generate a forest management plan. Of course, you should have at least a basic understanding of what you're doing before the kit will do you much good, but if you have some basic knowledge, it has pretty much everything you need.

Inspired by this kit I've decided to put together a list of the essential tools that I use for my job.

Presenting the ACME Instant Mechanical Engineer kit.

Click Here [+/-]

Information (or more precisely, correct information) is your biggest ally on the job. That is why the first two items on my list are books.

The Machinery's Handbook:

If you ever set foot in a machine shop or draft a single mechanical drawing, you should have this book, as it is full of every type of design related information imaginable. I have the 26th edition, which is relatively recent, but I have a certain fondness for older, well worn copies. They feel like old bibles when you hold them, and fittingly so as such books have guided machinists and engineers for generations.

Of course, if you don't like carrying around a book the size of an unabridged dictionary (or have a problem with small print) you can always get the CD version and read this book straight from your computer.

Gieck's Engineering Formulas:

The Machinery's Handbook's theory based cousin is a much more portable, if somewhat less practical, resource. Geick's Engineering Formulas has been around for more than 30 years, but is something of a recent discovery for me. If I were a little more paranoid I might think that knowledge of this book was intentionally withheld. Why? Because for about $35 this book gives you all of the formulas that I have in about $700 worth of college text books. Admittedly, there is not much of an explanation for most the formulas, but I was still awed by the fact that most of my 4 years of college (OK 5 but who's counting?) could be condensed into one little book. Even better, every other page is blank so after you derive more useful or specific versions of a formula you have plenty of room to add it to the book.

Also in the photo above you'll notice the next item on the list.

Mechanical pencil:

This may seem silly, but I actually do consider this important. Back in college I always used plain old #2 pencils. I felt no shame in picking these up from the classroom floors in the evenings so I rarely had to pay for writing utensils. They were great for scantron style test forms (where you have to fill in the bubbles) because you could use a blunt tip and get nice even coverage. They worked well for written exams too , with the exception that they often blunted too quickly. You could see this in my exams as the writing would start out with nice even lines and then slowly decline into broad graphite swaths. Then I would have to get out my pocketknife (occasionally frightening TAs who led overly sheltered lives) and touch up the pencil. The cycle usually repeated several times an hour.

I will sharpen no more!

A 0,5mm mechanical pencil provides a consistent, thin line that is perfect for doing sketches. Better still, there's no time wasted touching up the tip on your pencil (which is important when you're transcribing data in a hurry.) Of course you better remember to carry extra graphite or you'll be in a real bind, because it's often hard to find the 0,5mm in many storerooms.

What good is a pencil with nothing to write in?

The log book:

If you're trying to look important or you're filling out forms on the go, a clipboard may be more your speed, but sooner or later most engineers are going to need an actual book to keep track of their information.

It used to be common to take these to a notary at the end of each day or week and have each page stamped to certify that you had generated the ideas on the date shown. Now that we have so much electronic communication, there are plenty of timestamped records to document what we say and do. Still, the log book is indispensable for keeping track of your actions in the field or your experiment, because if you're working around heavy machinery or in dirty environments, you just can't walk around with a computer.

I should note, however, that when you work in a manufacturing environment it's best to make sure your log book has a few battle scars. Walking into a machine shop with a pristine logbook is like showing up in a white shirt and kakis. You'll look like you never do any work. Cuts, grease stains, and smudged fingerprints are all appropriate methods for breaking in your log book.

The calculator:

I have yet to meet an engineer that does not rely on a calculator at least part of the time. Since the introduction of the first electronic pocket calculators in 1970, scientists and engineers alike have been relying upon them to process data more quickly and efficiently. Of course there are always concerns about computational errors, but these are possible with mental and manual calculations too. With today's reliable electronics, the only likely cause for calculation error is G.I.G.O.

Powerful graphing calculators are increasingly common even among high school students. They are probably overkill for most people, but having a programmable, equation graphing, formula storing, and upgradable calculator comes in handy when you're having to do some mental and mathematical thinking.

Personally I like my HP 48GX. I've had it for more than 10 years, and it has served me well despite an occasional ding or dent in the case. What's special about this calculator is that it's designed to work primarily in Reverse Polish Notation (RPN)

What? you've never heard of it? Most people haven't, and most people won't believe me when I say that it's just as easy to use as a standard calculator. In fact, I find that it's even easier to program.

Still, some people can't get used to using a calculator without an = key so I carry around a backup calculator which I frequently lend to people who can't figure out how to use the good one.

The catalog:

And I do mean THE catalog.
If you haven't seen the McMaster Carr catalog then you need to go here immediately. This catalog has everything but the kitchen sink. Wait, never mind, those are on page 1965.

The only problem I have with this catalog is that it makes it too easy to become a catalog engineer. There is a solution to most of your engineering problems in this book and it is much too easy to get in the habit of opening the catalog every time you are looking for a gadget to fix one of your problems. Still, it's a very handy thing to have on the shelf.

The multitool:

If you carry a toolbox anyway, you don't need one of these. (Though I'd be willing to bet that you have one anyway.) Multitools, be they Swiss Army knives, Leatherman tools, or some similar knockoff product are an important tool for everyday life, but I've found that they are equally important as a tool for engineers.

They aren't really suited to heavy work, but they will occasionally save you from taking the time to find a screwdriver or a set of pliers. They're also very good for what I consider to be 'parlor tricks' in which you run across an unusual problem and solve it with only what you have in your pockets. (Hopefully an appreciative audience will be present.) This sort of thing doesn't really reflect upon your ability of an engineer, but it can do wonders for your reputation among mechanics who think engineers can't turn a wrench or less creative individuals that don't like to get their hands dirty.

And with that we move on the the last (and perhaps somewhat facetious) item on the list.

The coffee mug:

I cannot sing enough praises of this little device. Whether it is a travel mug, demitasse, insulated mug, tall mug, short mug, or plain old standard issue ceramic model it is something no engineer should be without. It helps me wake up in the morning, it can carry a cheerful (or pithy) message, it provides refreshment, and an excuse to get up for a walk to the coffee pot (or to the porcelain one.) I usually use an insulated mug with the company logo on it because it keeps the coffee warm through entire meetings or late into the afternoon when everyone else has stopped drinking coffee and the pot has been turned off.

Of course, I am almost never without the typical ceramic mug. It's a nice, simple, functional design. Plus, it serves a vital purpose! It leaves a very specific kind of stain on your engineering drawings. How else are you going to convince people that you stayed up all night working on them?!

Bonus item: The portable planner. [+/-]

I needed a way to plan my daily tasks, keep track of things on my to do list, store useful contact information, hold business cards, keep receipts, plan trips and record my daily activities. Oh and all of this needs to fit in my back pocket, or else I won't be able to keep it with me when I need it. As usual, I put together my own solution to this problem.

The leather cover is from an At-A-Glance calender, with an elastic band added to hold it closed when it's not in use. Inside I've added my own favorite calender (cut down to fit neatly inside.) The back of the calender has room for post its and miscellaneous information. Phone numbers and other contact information are written inside the front cover. A clear plastic sleeve (like you use for a passport) is stapled to the calender's cover. That's where I keep my to-do list. A scratch pad sits in the pocket on the left, I use it to plan my day's activities. The receipts and business cards go in the pocket behind the scratch pad. This thing even holds a pen.

Generally when I need to do something, it goes on the to do list. When appropriate I transfer it to my daily list on the left and scratch it off of the original list. At the end of the day I tear off the daily list and either move things to the next day or log them in my calender. It has the advantage of not only keeping track of the work I have to do, but allowing me to track of the tasks I've performed on any given day. You wouldn't believe how often it comes in handy, and as far as I'm concerned, this is more effective than a pda or smart phone, because I never have to charge it (though I do occasionally get new pen cartridges)

Click here to close the bonus item.

Click here to close the post.

Misheard Headlines

2008-08-01T05:30:00.001-05:00

Maybe I should pay better attention to the news channels.

All this week I could have sworn that they were talking about McCain and the Deli Llama.

Monday again

2008-07-21T05:30:00.000-05:00

Don't disturb me until I've had my coffee!

Proper planning prevents...

2008-07-17T19:47:00.002-05:00

Look carefully at this picture. It would appear that the crew in the picture just finished installing the barriers around the sidewalk. These are typically used to keep cars off of sidewalks. What could possibly go wrong here?

I wish I could see this scene a few moments later.

Pie Chart?

2008-07-15T05:44:00.001-05:00

Genius

2008-07-11T16:33:00.002-05:00

Are summer chores getting you down? Are you tired of mowing the lawn every few days?

Maybe you should consider an automated lawnmower. You could go here and pay a bundle for a fancy new robotic system, or you could just do this

click here[+/-]

Click here to close

Quote of the unspecified temporal interval.

2008-07-09T16:15:00.003-05:00

Today's quote comes from the Brigid's corner of blogosphere "Home on the Range" where it's hard to visit the site without either getting an itchy trigger finger or getting hungry. (Perhaps it's a strange combination, but I like the blog.)

In a post on Saturday she wrote about her work and the impact it has on her. This line caught my attention.

I worry about fate less; yes sometimes you are simply the bug on the windshield by being at the wrong place at the right time but I've also found that a good portion of our misfortunes arise, not from fate or ill health or thevagrancies of the winds, but from human rancor, fueled by innate stupidity, and those ever present justifications of the same, hell bent idealism and proselytizing mania for the sake of religious or political effigies.

How true it is! Bad things sometimes happen just by chance, but more often than not we sow the seeds of our own discontent.

Monday morning!

2008-07-07T05:31:00.002-05:00

July 4th

2008-07-04T19:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Independence Day!!

From Chicago

Gun Control and the Lost Art of Argument

2008-07-02T19:41:00.010-05:00

If you’ve seen the news lately you no doubt know about last week’s ruling on the Washington DC gun ban (D.C. vs. Heller.) I don’t think there was anything too surprising about the main points of the decision. Even some gun control advocacy groups correctly predicted the outcome was going to be against the ban.

I have read the majority and minority opinion. In general I found the majority opinion to be quite well argued and well structured. The main conclusions of the majority reading are straightforward.
1. The second amendment expresses an individual right which is associated with but not restricted to the ability to serve in a militia, therefore an individual’s possession and use of arms for lawful purposes is protected by the constitution.
2. This right is not unlimited and can be restricted, such as the banning felons or the mentally ill from owning firearms, the prohibition of carrying of firearms in certain manners in certain places as prescribed by law, and various regulations on the sale and transfer of weapons.
3. The prohibition of an entire class of arms in common use for lawful purposes and laws rendering such arms unavailable for lawful use conflict with the second amendment and are therefore unconstitutional.

There are many questions about gun control that the ruling leaves unanswered; however this is the first case which truly focuses on the meanings and implications of the second amendment. I’m sure more cases will follow as other laws are challenged.

Interestingly enough, the majority decision has probably written the playbook for future gun control efforts. Anti-gun politicians and gun control advocacy groups will no doubt be focusing on the potential weak points that were discussed by Justice Scalia. The main strategies will probably involve declaring weapons as unusually dangerous, widening the definition of ‘sensitive areas,’ increasing difficulty or expense in licensing or selling firearms, restricting the legal uses of firearms, and making the legal transportation of firearms difficult.

This was only the first of many legal battles that will be fought on this subject. Other cities, like Chicago, will be forced to defend their gun control laws. I’m quite confident when I say that Chicago will politicians will fight tooth and nail against legal challenges, which brings me to the second focal point of this post.

Mayor Daley responded to the Supreme Court decision very soon after it was released, and while I find his response interesting, it’s not because of the subject matter. It’s because of the way in which he is trying to argue against the ruling.

The Chicago Tribune’s CLTV station presented a 4 minute unedited speech by Chicago’s Mayor Daley on their website. It was introduced as Daley’s response to the D.C. vs. Heller ruling. I’ll try to forget for a moment that this is about gun control because I think what’s really important here is the structure of what’s being said. It’s not a sound argument against the Supreme Court’s ruling; in fact I would consider this more of a random tirade about firearms, firearm owners, and the federal government. Still, this contains many argument techniques that seem to pass for legitimate debate all too often.

Here is a dubbed version of the speech.

Let’s take a careful look at this speech.
For a breakdown of the specific statements (and my responses)

click here.[+/-]

1. Mayor Daley begins by implying that the justices (of the Supreme Court) do not live in the real world. He is attempting to cast doubt upon the Supreme Court’s ability to make a decision that is realistic and appropriate without providing any specific reason. One could reverse this argument and claim that Mayor Daley’s origins in a politically powerful family, his nearly 4 decades in public office, and his security detail have detached him from the real world as well.

2. He indicates that guns are doing bad things to America and says we should not love guns. This implies that guns themselves or the presence of firearms causes bad things to happen (in spite of the fact that firearms have no free will, nor the ability to act on their own) and attempts to reinforce this statement with a personal opinion.

3. At this point he attempts to placate some gun owners by saying that he has no problem with gun collectors and hunters. This is a dubious claim for a man who will twice more repeat that America loves guns and indicate that this is a bad, frightening, or incorrect thing. He also continues by casting doubt on the ability to (legally or safely) transport firearms or the need of people to have multiple firearms. That doesn’t seem to be supportive of hunters or collectors.

4. He asks how do you get a gun into your house, and offers facetious comments about possible modes of firearms transport. He seems to be implying that the transportation of a firearm is dangerous or illegal. The answer is easily found in the Illinois laws regarding the legal transportation and possession of firearms. Of course, listeners who are not familiar with these laws might be inclined to think that this is an unresolved issue or loophole created by the Supreme Court’s decision.

5. He presents a theoretical case saying that having a gun in your home will cause your child to shoot himself or someone else. This is a purely theoretical case meant to prey upon the fears of parents that allowing firearms in their homes will result in their children being killed. There are a tragic few children killed in this manner, however this argument seems to absolve the parent and the child of all responsibility. Organizations like the NRA have firearm safety courses for children which attempt to educate children as to why they shouldn’t play with or point firearms at people, and parents have a responsibility to remove access to firearms until their children are sufficiently mature to make this unnecessary. I and millions of other people in the US grew up in households with firearms and yet we did not kill ourselves or others just because of the presence of guns.

6. He asks if people can have one gun, 20 guns, or 30 guns. The answer to this one is yes, but that’s not the point. At first I didn’t understand the purpose of this question, but my background makes it seem perfectly normal for a person to have a closet or safe which contains a dozen or more firearms. Firearm ownership in Chicago is severely restricted, so the only time most people see firearms is when they are used by the criminals or the police. In this environment, people with multiple firearms are mentally connected with shootouts and dangerous situations, so this question is actually an attempt to awaken fears of firearms. This also plants the seeds for future gun control efforts involving limits on the number of legally possessed firearms.

7. He asks "can drug dealers have guns who are not arrested?" To this I ask, if they are known drug dealers, why have they not been arrested? Does the presence of a firearm make a person more or less guilty of drug trafficking? No! If they have broken the law they should be prosecuted for these transgressions whether or not a firearm is involved. If they have broken a firearm related law, they should be prosecuted for it.
There are very clear laws in place that deal with felons and firearms. Basically, if you are a felon it is ALREADY illegal to have a firearm and the recent Supreme Court decision specifically states that it does not invalidate or change laws of this sort. (Not that any law actually stops felons from acquiring arms through illegal means.)

8. Daley asks, can gangbangers have guns? See item 7 above.

9. He says, it seems like America loves guns...so we send all our guns to Mexico. This is followed by the implication that sending guns to Mexico causes gun violence. Can you cite a source to justify this? I find it highly unlikely because my guns are safely locked away here in the USA! This statement doesn’t even make sense.

10. He continues to say that Canada is upset because we're exporting all our guns to Canada and they never had that [gun] violence [before.] Wait, this is after we sent all of our guns to Mexico? I don’t think so! This seems like an attempt to blame violence in Canada on the US and guns. There’s no logical connection, and I’m quite certain there has been violence Canada that had nothing to do with US citizens or guns exported from the US.

11. Mayor Daley asks why our streets should be open to someone carrying a gun, when we are banned from carrying a gun in various government buildings. This is misdirection. The ruling has no direct connection to carrying a firearm in public. What Daley is really doing is demonizing the federal government and Supreme Court.

12. He asks, what does this do to police officers? This affirms that police officers have the right to keep arms in their homes just like any other citizen. As for how it impacts their jobs, whenever a gun ban is lifted they will have to be re-trained in order to recognize the difference between legal and illegal ownership, and it might also be a good idea to brush up on laws regarding the justifiable use of force. Police forces all around the nation have been doing their jobs in legally armed communities for longer than any of us have been around, and most of those communities have lower crime rates than Chicago!

13. He asks, do we have [or rather, require] ID tags on everyone who can carry a gun in their home.
Oh, I know! We’ll make gun owners wear special patches. We’ll shape them like stars so we can tell the gun toting rednecks that they’re being deputized. (Those knuckle dragging idiots will eat that up!) Then if people without a star are disturbed by the gun owners we can just round up the gun owners and put them in their own separate community where they won’t bother anyone else.
Please pardon the sarcastic analogy.
If you actually did try to require ID tags like Mayor Daley suggests, you would have to put ID tags on virtually every sane, law abiding person because sane law abiding people have the right to have firearms in their homes! What’s more, if you did publicly identify people who did have guns and people who shouldn’t, criminals would adapt. Homes with firearms would be burglary targets when people were not home, and any guns acquired during these burglaries would be used against people and homes which clearly were not allowed to have guns.

14. Do they have a right to carry a gun to and from their car or on the CTA? This type of thing is already covered by Illinois state laws, and these laws would be essentially unaffected by the recent ruling.

15. Daley says that it seems like Washington DC (presumably referring to the federal government) protects itself from guns and asks why it is so difficult to carry a gun in and around the capitol building. This is another attempt to erode the position of the federal government by trying to create anger against it. This issue was covered by the second main focal point in the majority opinion (the non-absolute right discussion)

16. We have more police officers at the capitol building than for the people of DC. I’d like to see someone confirm this but I’ll assume that it’s true for the sake of argument. This was apparently intended to support statement 15, but it actually answers (perhaps unintentionally) the question posed in item number 11. The capitol building and other government buildings have large numbers of peace officers present to preserve order and protect the innocent from unwarranted violence. Therefore the need for weaponry to be used in self defense is much less than the need for weaponry in the rest of DC where the density of police and other keepers of the peace is much lower.

17. Mayor Daley implies that the Supreme Court says you have a right to carry a gun on the street. In reality the Supreme Court did not closely examine this question, though it was noted that certain restrictions on the carrying of firearms had been upheld in lower courts. This essentially renders Mayor Daley’s implication false.

18. He says, “It is frightening that America loves guns.” This would seem to be in conflict with the portion of item 3 that refers to gun collectors.

19. He indicates that what the decision says (presumably meaning implies) is that those who are rich and powerful always feel safe and those who do not have power do not feel safe. He continues to say that they (the Supreme Court) are setting themselves aside from the rest of America. The ruling says nothing of this sort. Again he is attempting to discredit the Supreme Court as he did beginning in statement 1.

20. Mayor Daley then implies that the Supreme Court is saying that the answer to the issues (possibly referring to gun violence) is that everyone should carry a gun and says that he doesn't understand how they came to this thinking. This is clearly a distortion of the ruling by substituting a requirement for a right.

21. He says he is very disappointed by the number of victims killed and wounded, presumably by handguns. He then rambles on about people being injured, suffering, and consuming tax revenue without actually connecting it to the Supreme Court case or explicitly connecting this with gun control of any kind. This is being used to evoke sympathy and sadness while implying some vague connection with handguns. It’s a blatant substitution of emotion for logical argument.

22. Mayor Daley says that insurance should be required for people have guns in their homes and implies this is because you might shoot a police officer who enters your home without identifying himself and indicating he has a search warrant and that you might accidentally shoot your neighbor as a result of this same situation.
Let me be clear about this, if a police officer does not identify himself and present you with a warrant when entering your home, he is not doing his job correctly and is in violation of your 4th amendment rights!
Furthermore, Illinois law clearly states that you are justified in the use of deadly force if you reasonably believe that the use of deadly force is necessary to prevent the imminent death or great bodily harm to you or another individual, or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony. There are similar (and more specific) statements made regarding the use of deadly force in the defense of a dwelling. (Read it yourself!) So if a police officer who has not identified himself as a police officer enters your home in such a way that gives you reason to believe he is putting you or another in grave danger, your use of deadly force may be defensible under Illinois law.
Attempting to require insurance for gun owners is likely an attempt to eliminate (or greatly reduce) gun ownership by making it too complicated or too expensive for citizens who do not have the time or money to meet all of the regulations. Moreover, requiring someone to purchase insurance for an action specifically protected by state law is preposterous. Requiring a person to purchase insurance for a deliberately committed illegal act which has not yet been committed is tantamount to punishing a person for an as of yet uncommitted crime without any trial.

23. Daley asks if this (ruling) will lead to everyone having a gun in our society. This is a tactic to scare those who are afraid of firearms similar to item number 6.

24. He then implies that the Supreme Court believes that universal gun ownership 'is the answer' though he does not specify to what. He denounces this decision. This is a clearly another distortion in which Daley seems to replace “individual right” with “individual requirement.” Having thoroughly butchered the content of the ruling, he then declares that the ruling is wrong.

Click here to close

For the overview of the argument techniques, keep reading.

Approach 1: Imply something by using a question (and then don’t answer the question.) There are 10 questions in this speech which are used to distract people from the subject, scare people and imply things which are untrue. No effort is spent trying to directly answer any of these questions, even though many of them are clearly answered by either the ruling or the pre-existing laws. This is a highly effective distraction tactic because people who do not know the answers to these questions think you are raising valid and thoughtful points which challenge an opponent’s statements. Plus, when you are asking a question (not making a statement) it is difficult for others to effectively claim that you are lying. As an example, the 5th question in the speech asks why our streets should be open to someone carrying a gun when we are banned from carrying a gun in various government buildings. Many people may interpret this as meaning that the recent ruling will allow people to carry firearms in public even though this has nothing to do with ruling.

Approach 2: Demonize your opponent. There are 7 statements in the speech implying that the Supreme Court or the federal government in general uses double standards or that they try to oppress common or underprivileged people. If people are angry or afraid they will not usually take the time to listen to a logical argument, so if you can make someone the target of irrational fear or rage they can no longer use logic against you and must resort to emotional appeals.

Approach 3: Use Hyperbole or exaggeration to support your argument or distort your opponent’s argument. I counted at least 5 statements in this speech that were either exaggerations or outright distortions. If you were to take the speech as the absolute truth you would count America (presumably the US) responsible for causing all of Canada’s gun violence because we’ve apparently been exporting all of our guns there. (That’s right after we exported all of our guns to Mexico.) This is a pretty wild yet surprisingly common technique. As long as nobody openly challenges the exaggerated statement the speaker can make uninformed people believe that he has just supported his argument. What’s more, if the exaggerations are repeated by others they are given more perceived credibility from the repetition, until they are believed to be facts. This is probably most effective if done in bulk as people can get bogged down fighting the incorrect facts rather than the conclusions drawn from them.

Approach 4: Present an extreme theoretical case to scare or outrage people and then blame the opponent or his cause. I identified two cases of this approach in the speech. Both imply that a theoretical situation with tragic consequences is caused by the presence of firearms and is manufactured to evoke an emotional response. Aside from blinding the observer to logic, this can have an effect on our memories (adrenaline typically enhances memory) so that the next time the subject is brought up, people remember the emotional response and possibly the theoretical example for use as a point of argument. Again, if it is repeated it becomes a fact in the minds of people who have heard it enough times.

Approach 5: Change the argument. Most of the speech actually seems to do this. There is no discussion of the content of the Supreme Court’s ruling, but rather a series of statements and questions that are vaguely related. This is used to cast doubt upon an opponent or his cause without actually confronting the subject. Daley indicates at the end of the speech that this ruling may lead to everyone in our society having a gun. He has substituted the Supreme Court’s protection of an individual right with certain limits with the creation of a national requirement to bear arms. It has nothing to with the actual court ruling, and yet Daley is presenting this as the court’s argument. And after this he jumps directly too…

Approach 6: Declare victory! Now that the opponent’s argument has been changed to something unsupportable, or your argument has been altered to look more reasonable, declare the debate over and bask in the glory. This counts on people remembering the last thing that is said in a speech and not remembering (or understanding) exactly how they arrived at the last statements. Of course once the debate is over its much harder to directly challenge the false statements or logic, and people will leave without a clear understanding of what was being debated.

Of course these techniques don’t actually prove anything but when you are appealing to people who are easily swayed by emotion or someone with a short attention span, these approaches are actually effective ways of convincing people that you are correct (even if they’re not quite clear what you’re correct about)

What’s worse is that these techniques are often used to support a tactic which is applied in all sorts of arguments; bombardment.

It took 4 minutes for Mayor Daley to give the speech above and yet it took me a good 60 minutes or more to formulate and type proper responses, and that was after I broke apart all of the responses into manageable units. Logic simply takes longer than emotion, implication, and unsupported arguments.

The only practical defenses against the bombardment techniques like these are not to argue at all (in which you essentially forfeit in the debate) or to fight dirty by using the same tactics of misdirection and emotional appeals. This could leave you forever locked into a vicious and illogical struggle.

Trying to fight back with logic and reason is like trying to win a grenade tossing contest. You might be able to toss back or defuse the first few arguments that are thrown your way, but sooner or later you’ll get caught by one you can’t defuse fast enough or else you will be overwhelmed by rate of the bombardment.

It’s a shame that emotion can be conveyed so quickly and reason so slowly, because it obscures the truth with vague half-truths and even lies supported by stirring imagery and confusion. Once enough people have been convinced that something is right or wrong, the herd mentality takes over. It’s partly because some people are just willing to be followers or to belong to a group. It’s also possible to reach a sort of ‘critical mass’ situation where people hear mostly the same (potentially incorrect) arguments over and over until they believe that they are normal and correct. Once someone fits into a group of like minded people they are insulated from other ideas and possibly even less comfortable around people who challenge their views.

The more I watch politicians and TV, the more I see irrational argument. If only more people read and analyzed what our founding fathers said and wrote, perhaps they would see what real debate and argument is.

Political commentary

2008-06-04T20:30:00.003-05:00

It's rare that I talk about politics, but in this case I'm making an exception.

I'm really sad to see Hillary leaving the race (assuming the news is correct of course.) It's not that I really want her in office, I just hate to break up the trio.

Wind in the wires

2008-05-04T21:56:00.002-05:00

I checked in on the Mavromatic blog the other day and found a couple nice shots of a SE5a model airplane. It reminded me of a visit to Dayton last year when I had a little bit of time to check out the National Museum of the USAF. If you're not familiar with this museum, rest assured that there is nothing dull about this facility. The collection is huge. I was in town over a weekend so I decided to spend an afternoon at the museum. I started in during the early aviation years and made it up to the end of WWII before I started to feel overloaded. I realized that I had seen less than HALF of their collection!

One of the many planes on display is an SE5a and I was thrilled to see it! This plane has been fascinating to me partly because it was so different from some of the more iconic fighter planes of WWI.

The box car like fuselage conceals a Hispano-Suiza engine (either 150 or 200 hp depending upon when it was produced.)

Unlike many planes of this era it had a V style engine rather than a rotary engine.

Planes like the Sopwith Camel had a large rotary engine, where the crankshaft was fixed in place and the cylinders rotated around it. This created huge amounts of torque. It made the planes quite difficult to fly because you had to constantly fight the twisting motion created by the engine. Of course that torque also meant that these planes could make incredibly quick turns. . . in one direction!

The SE5a didn't have the same maneuverability as your rotary engine aircraft but it's high speed made it very effective with the right tactics. The SE5a could outrun any unmodified German fighter of its day and had impressive structural integrity (for it's time) that enabled it to dive at high speed without breaking up. Basically, the SE5a couldn't out-turn most other aircraft, but it could outrun them, attack, and dive away fast enough to avoid pursuit. When used properly it could be highly effective because in a plane like this, a pilot could choose both when to initiate and end an attack.

What a neat plane!

An engineer's perspective

2008-04-27T21:41:00.002-05:00

I have learned that certain groups of people tend to view everyday things in remarkably different ways. Most of the engineers, accountants, or math and science types that I have met are very keen on taking a structured approach to everything. Sometimes it just looks ridiculous.

And with that, I give you this week's post, which was sent to me by friend Barb.

Be warned, watching this video may make you want to calculate the aspect ratio of a feline.

Spring is here...

2008-04-18T20:27:00.002-05:00

...and everything is turning green!

I'm not exactly sure what kind of vine that is, but I think the car is about to be squashed.

Quote of the unspecified temporal interval

2008-04-09T20:33:00.000-05:00

So far I have been speaking of theoretical science, which is an attempt to understand the world. Practical science, which is an attempt to change the world, has been important from the first, and has continually increased in importance, until it has almost ousted theoretical science from men's thoughts. ... The triumph of science has been mainly due to its practical utility, and there has been an attempt to divorce this aspect from that of theory, thus making science more and more a technique, and less and less a doctrine as to the nature of the world. The penetration of this point of view to philosophers is very recent.

- Bertrand Russell

Time is running out!

2008-04-05T08:11:00.004-05:00

Only a day left to get your hands on the ultimate train set! I ran across this while browsing ebay for kicks, and I'm pretty sure this is the only time I've encountered anything of this sort in an online auction.

For the uninitiated, live steam model railroading is about as close to the real thing as a model railroad can get. Most live steamers are actually big enough to ride, which makes them much more interactive than your typical electric train set.

For example, every year at the Old Threshers Reunion, one of the displays is a live steam model train ride.

Kids (and some adults) love to line up for rides on this little train even if the ride takes them only takes them about 200 feet and then back again.

Even the simplest live steam operation requires a huge commitment of time and money, and no doubt quite a bit of commitment to the hobby. It's a shame to see someone who has to sell their trains on ebay, and it's even more of a shame to see that there are currently no bids!

I certainly hope that someone buys this and gets to enjoy it for years to come!

back-roads.

2008-03-30T21:31:00.001-05:00

This weekend's post comes to you from Winchester Virginia. Unfortunately coming home this weekend wasn't particularly practical, but I'm still trying to make the most of it.

Winchester is a pretty small town compared to Chicago (what isn't?) and I've heard people from my office complain about how small it is and how little there is to do around here. There aren't nearly as many activities here as there are in some cities, but if you're willing to venture off of the beaten path you never know exactly what you'll find.

Last fall I was here when a peculiar situation arose. I needed to find some unusual parts that I figured I could get at a hobby shop. So I hit the phone directories and found a place called "Cain's Trains and Hobbies." After a phone call and a few minutes drive off of the highway I found this little shop.

I figured I was in for a treat when I saw this Plymouth switcher sitting next to the shop. Apparently the proprietor also works in construction and trucking, so he was well equipped to haul off this narrow gauge gas mechanical locomotive when a local industry wanted rid of it.

Inside there was a surprisingly good selection of merchandise from various scales as well as some miscellaneous parts for kit bashing, and of course the brass parts that I needed for work.

The service was great too and I really liked the little touches like the overhead tracks and the little Z scale model by the door.

And if you're not into trains there are plenty of antique shops if you take the time to look. They range from the outrageously up scale to the very rustic.

There is some terrific scenery that you can enjoy, especially if you get a chance to ride one of the area's scenic railways. (You knew I would get back around to trains eventually!)

That's all for now. More later on my travels and maybe a bit of old iron.

Resurrection

2008-03-23T21:30:00.000-05:00

I suppose I'm stating the obvious, but I haven't been posting much for the past several months. I could cite plenty of specific reasons like being on the road, being swamped with work, hobbies, and socializing. Really, I think I just lost the urge to write for a while, but it's springtime now and I've decided to resurrect this blog for a while. I'll be putting up some new material on at least a weekly basis for a while now.

I'd like to start off with an additions to the blogroll.
It's time to introduce the enthusiastic new blogger 'True Blue Sam" who has put up quite a few posts over at his new blog. We have several areas of common interest and it will probably come as no surprise that we are related. (In fact, my picture made it into his banner on the far right!) He has some good material to work with and it looks as though he will continue to put up good posts for the foreseeable future. With any luck we may combine our efforts and do a little blogging together in the future.

Pittance of time

2007-11-11T11:00:00.000-06:00

This video has been around for a while, but if you haven't seen it before or if it's been a while, please take a few minutes to watch.

It's a really touching tribute to veterans!

News that isn't.

2007-09-10T21:06:00.000-05:00

When you spend a weekend working out of town, it's really easy to end up in a hotel room at night watching the news channels and their ad nauseam coverage of news that really isn't news. In particular the newscasters were all enthralled with the latest Osama tape. I suppose that it's more news-worthy than the 6 straight hours of Paris Hilton reporting that I had to sit through in the Detroit airport, but I still find it amazing that there would be so much gawking and chattering about why the most wanted (or unwanted) man in the world would dye his beard.

It sure makes newspapers more appealing.

Do not fear when your enemies criticize you. Beware when they applaud.

(Vietnamese proverb, as quoted by Vo Dong Giang.)

One helluva happy fella!

2007-09-02T08:15:00.000-05:00

Old Threshers

2007-08-31T07:47:00.001-05:00

Old Threshers Reunion is this weekend. I've posted about it before, but there's really no substitute for going to Iowa to see it.

Travelling

2007-08-23T06:34:00.000-05:00

This is my third week in a row of being on the road, but at least I'll be taking some vacation time soon. Check back in a few more days for some posts.

Quote of the unspecified temporal interval

2007-08-08T05:44:00.000-05:00

The great liability of the engineer compared to men of other professions is that his works are out in the open where all can see them. His acts, step by step, are in hard substance. He cannot bury his mistakes in the grave like the doctors. He cannot argue them into thin air or blame the judge like the lawyers. He cannot, like the architects, cover his failures with trees and vines. He cannot, like the politicians, screen his sort-comings by blaming his opponents and hope the people will forget. The engineer simply cannot deny he did it. If his works do not work, he is damned.

- Herbert Hoover, Opening Quote of Chapter 5, Introduction to Aeronautics: A Design Perspective by Steven Brandt et Al.

This quote came up recently in a discussion with a coworker. It seems even more important than usual given last week's news from Minnesota.

For pet owners servants

2007-07-26T06:06:00.000-05:00

How to Give A Cat A Pill

Pick cat up and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if holding a baby. Position right forefinger and thumb on either side of cat's mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in right hand. As cat opens mouth pop pill into mouth. Allow cat to close mouth and swallow.
Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa. Cradle cat in left arm and repeat process.
Retrieve cat from bedroom, and throw soggy pill away.
Take new pill from foil wrap, cradle cat in left arm holding rear paws tightly with left hand. Force jaws open and push pill to back of mouth with right forefinger. Hold mouth shut for a count of ten.
Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of wardrobe. Call spouse from yard.
Kneel on floor with cat wedged firmly between knees, hold front and rear paws. Ignore low growls emitted by cat. Get spouse to hold head firmly with one hand while forcing wooden ruler into mouth. Drop pill down ruler and rub cat's throat vigorously.
Retrieve cat from curtain rail, get another pill from foil wrap. Make note to buy new ruler and repair curtains. Carefully sweep shattered figurines and vases from hearth and set to one side for gluing later.
Wrap cat in large towel and get spouse to lie on cat with head just visible from below armpit. Put pill in end of drinking straw, force mouth open with pencil and blow down drinking straw.
Check label to make sure pill not harmful to humans, drink 1 beer to take taste away. Apply Band-Aid to spouse's forearm and remove blood from carpet with cold water and soap.
Retrieve cat from neighbor's shed. Get another pill. Open another beer. Place cat in cupboard and close door onto neck to leave head showing. Force mouth open with dessert spoon. Flick pill down throat with rubber band.
Fetch screwdriver from garage and put cupboard door back on hinges. Drink beer. Fetch bottle of scotch. Pour shot, drink. Apply cold compress to cheek and check records for date of last tetanus shot. Apply whiskey compress to cheek to disinfect. Toss back another shot. Throw tee-shirt away and fetch new one from bedroom.
Call fire department to retrieve the friggin' cat from tree across the road. Apologize to neighbor who crashed into fence while swerving to avoid cat. Take last pill from foil-wrap.
Tie the front paws to rear paws with twine and bind tightly to leg of dining room table, find heavy duty pruning gloves from shed. Push pill into mouth followed by large piece of steak. Be rough about it. Hold head vertically and pour 2 pints of water down throat to wash pill down.
Consume remainder of Scotch. Get spouse to drive you to the emergency room, sit quietly while doctor stitches fingers and forearm and removes pill remnants from right eye. Call furniture shop on way home to order new table.
Arrange for Humane Society to collect mutant cat from hell and call local pet shop to see if they have any hamsters.

How to Give a DOG a pill

Wrap it in bacon.

Little Chapel - Where?

2007-07-05T22:34:00.000-05:00

I'm on vacation this week, so I drove down to southen Illinois to see the family for a little while. We decided to tour around the countryside one day and we ran across this sign.

I've seen little chapels/churches before. I know that when you see a sign for a little church you can usually expect something like this.

This is "The Little Brown Church" just north of Waterloo Iowa. It is a typical small country church.

But this is the Little Chapel Church of Southern Illinois

No, the little church is not behind that humongous building. That building really is The Little Chapel Church

After a closer look we determined that the building was about 400 feet long by 200 feet wide with 37 separate air conditioning units! There is also a day care center with a playground, a huge parking lot, and a bus barn.

I think the "Little Chapel Church" is a very nice name, but as a description it requires more than a little imagination!

Power to the Pulleys

2007-07-02T21:20:00.001-05:00

In my old technology posts thus far I have talked about power sources, but i have yet to talk much about how this power is utilized. In the modern world where every little gadget, power tool, and machine seems to be driven by electricity, it's easy to forget that all of that power has to come from somewhere. Electric cords just blend into the background, and battery powered devices eliminate the cords entirely, but this is an incredible luxury compared to what was previously done to operate machines.

Look back at my post on the Aldie Mill in Virginia. You'll notice the power from the waterwheel is transferred directly to the millstones by way of large shafts and gears. This works well for one or two devices, but what if you want to transfer that power to multiple machines? When the mill was upgraded over the years, it began to use roller mills, similar to these. To completely process grains, you typically needed several units. In order to power them, the mill began to use line shafts.

Here, one of the waterwheels is connected, by way of a large pair of reduction gears to a pulley. This would, when operational, have a large belt connecting it to a much smaller pulley on another shaft. That shaft could then be extended to nearly the length of the building. Wherever power was needed for a roller mill, fan mill, or other device, a pulley was placed on the shaft. That pulley, and another belt, would transfer power to the machine below.

Of course if you can do this with water, you can do this with steam or gas engines as well. This is why most older engines either had a large pulley attached to the crankshaft or else had a wide flat flywheel that could be used to run a belt.

To make this a little easier to understand, let's look at a model.

This miniature machine shop is made up mostly of kits from PM Research who display and sell their wares at the Old Threshers Festival. Here, a model steam engine is connected to a line shaft, via a belt.

This shaft runs the length of the building, and is connected to other shafts and machines, all of which could be powered by the engine at the same time.

Of course, this has some potential complications. Very seldom will all of the machines in a shop need to run at the same speed, yet when they are all running at the same time, you can't just change the speed of the steam engine to suit one particular machine. This is why different sizes of pulleys are used. Two pulleys of different sizes act in much the same way that two gears of different sizes will act. A large pulley when connected to a smaller pulley, will cause the smaller pulley to spin at higher RPMs. By using this knowledge, you can have a line shaft that spins at a set speed throughout a facility, and yet have machines running at various different speeds.

To complicate matters further, some machines needed the ability to be adjusted to run at multiple speeds.

You may notice in this picture that some of the machines shown have a pair of multiple diameter, almost conical pulleys. These are connected with a thin belt that runs between one pair of pulley diameters at a time. Adjusting the belt to one set of diameters or another, changes the diameter ratio and therefore the RPM ratio of each of the pulleys. So each diameter on each pulley represents its own speed, almost like a modern selectable gearbox. (Incidentally, if you make the pulleys perfectly conical then you would be creating a continuously variable transmission.)

Sometimes it was necessary to stop a machine entirely. This created another problem because nobody wanted to shut down an entire factory just to work on a single machine. It became necessary to isolate machines from the line shaft. I'm sure there were several possible methods for this, but the simplest was simply to move the belt to an idler pulley. Either on the machine or on the line shaft, a free spinning pulley could be mounted so that when a machine needed to be stopped, the belt was simply moved from the main pulley to the idler pulley, where it could not transmit any power. Similarly, a belt might be allowed to go slack, so that there was not enough friction between the belt and the pulley to transmit any significant force. Both methods worked, even though they were far from perfect.

Still, systems like this were used in all manners of facilities from machine shops and factories, to grain or textile mills, and other manufacturing facilities. Over the years, they would be used with waterwheels, steam engines, gas engines, diesel engines, and eventually, they would even be adapted to run under power from large electric motors.

The line shaft system did have drawbacks. All of the moving parts created plenty of friction, so efficiency suffered. It also required considerable time and effort to make sure that all of the line shafts were well maintained and lubricated. Safety was one of the primary drawbacks of a line shaft operated facility. Even though machines could often be disconnected, it was rare to completely shut down a system, so people were often injured by working on moving equipment or trying to put belts back on pulleys after they had slipped off. Unguarded belts and pulleys can be particularly hazardous because of their ability to catch appendages or loose clothing and pull people into moving equipment. The same can also be said for the line shafts themselves. Keeping out of moving machines required considerable care and attention, both of which were hard to come by in the typical old bustling factory.

All of these problems could not be ignored, and when electric motors became smaller, economical, and readily available, factories began using machines powered by electric motors instead. Sometimes, entirely new machines were purchased that had motors built in. In some cases though, shops would refit their existing equipment to run without a line shaft.

Here is an example of an old drill press that would originally have be run by a belt from a line shaft. It has since had an electrical motor mounted on it, which turns the pulley that was originally used to power the drill. The adjustable speed pulleys are still intact, and the old mechanism has not been changed. In fact, except for the motor and an on/off switch, this drill press is virtually identical to what would have been found in any old machine shop. Home made conversions like this one, no doubt offered a cost effective way of running old equipment, even when maintaining an old line shaft system became impractical.

Today, this sort of system has faded out of use in most places. Your best chance of seeing a line shaft driven shop would be in a museum. If you get the chance, though, it's interesting to see a shop like this in action.

For a much more mathematical look at this topic, take a look at the belt and pulley page over at Harry’s Old Engine

Perspective

2007-06-25T17:05:00.000-05:00

I'm heading home from my latest trip very soon. (Singapore this time.) I'll need a couple days to get my feet back on the ground, but after that I have a brand new essay to put up, so stay tuned!

Smart Shoppers Everywhere, shop at...

2007-06-10T17:45:00.000-05:00

What kind of freight?

2007-06-08T18:12:00.000-05:00

As strange as it may seem for air freight to go by truck, I think it would still be faster than waiting for flights right now. (I had the misfortune of picking a time and place to fly that corresponded directly to a national weather service thunderstorm warning.)

Quote of the unspecified temporal interval

2007-05-29T21:17:00.000-05:00

True Blue Sam just referenced this quote. I think it's particularly appropriate considering the earlier post.

"For the want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for the want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for the want of a horse the rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the enemy, all for the want of care about a horseshoe nail."

-- Benjamin Franklin

Fixed?

2007-05-29T19:20:00.000-05:00

I know that necessity is the mother of invention, but these must be the red-headed step children.

Miss Me?

2007-05-28T22:20:00.000-05:00

Once again, I'm back. Since my last significant post I've spent about 2 weeks in South Africa and some time in Ohio, but I'm back at home for about a week!

I'll be putting up a few posts soon, Starting with a brief essay I've been contemplating for a few months: The Mundane Detail

The Mundane Detail

2007-05-28T21:51:00.000-05:00

If you’ve seen the movie ‘Office space’ then you probably remember the scene when the three main characters discuss how their money skimming scheme has gone awry and discover they will probably be going to prison. Michael, reveals what has given them away…

“I always do that. I always mess up some mundane detail.”

Yep, $300,000 and a prison sentence, traced back to a ‘mundane detail’

It’s the sort of thing that I have encountered too often. People don’t place value on things that seem simple or ordinary, but these are the things that often end up being important.

Shortly after I began my job, I was given a bit of advice. I was told that in spite of all the calculus and differential equations I had been taught in school, that the most important math skills to have were basic counting skills. Why? Because no matter how well you design parts, if you don’t order enough of them you’ll be throwing your work away. I realized this style of thought applied to many other things as well.

Here are a few examples.

It’s common for engineers to design a just few parts of a much larger system, in fact it is typically necessary because few people have the knowledge necessary to design an entire machine from the foundation up. One of the many problems arising from this is that incompatibilities may arise in a design. It’s worse yet if the parts cannot be tested, except at considerable expense.

In my first case, the parts being designed had to be taken overseas for testing. When they arrived, it was found that they were missing a feature that they required. It was a simple feature; three lines and a little text on the drawing would have solved the problem. But the parts had already been made when this was discovered. Even worse, tickets had been purchased, promises had been made to customers, and machines had been shut down in preparation for the testing. Three lines could have cost quite a lot of money if it hadn’t been for a stroke of luck in having a good machine shop nearby.

The second situation isn’t quite so nice. It involves a million dollar piece of equipment to be used as part of a much larger machine. It takes considerable work to properly install one of these, and there are plenty of other parts that are needed to complete the job. By comparison, these parts are inexpensive. A few hundred dollars worth of parts seems inconsequential compared with the overall price of the unit. If only that were true!

An error resulted in a few hundred dollars worth of parts not being shipped. Those parts weren’t available elsewhere, so when the shipment showed up without them it was a problem. There was no time to get more parts shipped, there was no local supplier, and no simple way to fix the problem. The only way to get around not having the right parts was to spend two days cutting holes in this million dollar piece of equipment while it was on the floor of a machine shop that is better suited to much less precise work. And that’s after waiting a day and a half for instructions from the engineering department, that had to be disregarded in the end because they were apparently not able to fully evaluate the situation from overseas.

The end result was a high potential for a botched installation, two or more days wasted production, and at least a man-week of time and labor thrown away. That’s worth quite a bit more than a few hundred dollars. And of course, whoever packed the boxes for the shipment, probably had no idea of the importance of those parts and the consequences of losing them. If every shipment was like that, he could go on shipping 99% of the parts that were ordered, and still leave all of his customers with a very low rate of satisfaction.

Mundane details like this are like quicksand, you’ll never know there’s a problem until you’ve stepped in it and start sinking. It’s an overlooked detail that partially responsible for my extended stay in South Africa. For what it’s worth, I was not the one who overlooked it, but that’s little consolation since things that aren’t my fault are often my problem.

Of course when forgotten details multiply, then things begin to look less like quicksand and more like a whirlpool. On a recent trial I had to rely upon four suppliers for parts and raw materials. The supplier I dealt with the most received a design which I had carefully checked, and I had multiple conversations to confirm the delivery date and address to insure that everything went smoothly. After all of that, things did indeed go smoothly, but not with the other suppliers.

One supplier made a part with a significant manufacturing error. Either through haste or misinterpretation of a drawing, the part was unsuitable for use without significant modification. (Modification that involved hand shaping metal that is supposed to be made to aerospace like tolerances. Talk about risky business!) That problem was solved, but there’s more.

The third supplier does much of their design work in house, and seldom provides details for fear of losing designs to other shops and therefore losing business. Because of this, it isn’t clear if the design was incorrect or if the manufacturing was simply sloppy with no inspection process. Either way, the equipment had to be jerry rigged to make it work, and as soon as the trial work was done it was boxed back up and sent back for rework. We lost time and the supplier will have to bear unnecessary expenses to correct the error. Still, the trial was still possible, or at least it was until the last supplier put the last nail in the coffin.

It turns out that some material shipped was unsuitable for the trial. Observations in the field indicated that it was probably not what had been promised prior to shipment, and might not have even been what its label said. We scrambled to do a few tests with other material, and we were able to confirm that everything else was working fine, but without large quantities of the requested material, the trial was essentially dead in the water.

All of the errors were simple ones that could have been avoided by a careful look at the parts that had been made or a little extra care in the manufacturing process.

Had I not been through trials like this before I think I would have been completely frustrated with the entire situation. Having a trial thwarted is bad, but having to solve all of the other problems first really adds salt to the wound. Still, there’s nothing to do but make sure everything is corrected then remember what went wrong so you can plan to avoid the problems in the future.

If there’s a lesson to be learned from this, I suppose it is that details can be simple, and even boring, and yet still be insanely important to your work or others, so try to stay sharp, and don’t overlook the little stuff.

An afterthought: I am not immune to this problem myself. I would like to comfort myself with the thought that the details I miss are more subtle than the examples listed here, but the truth is that nobody is perfect. Of course that doesn’t mean we can’t strive for perfection.

Saturday in the park

2007-04-29T06:09:00.000-05:00