toxonix

Jesus Hernandes, W2 Katana video

2012-01-09T09:52:00.001-08:00

tiger

2012-01-03T13:53:00.001-08:00

SWORDS

2011-12-12T09:42:00.000-08:00

Lightbox isn't very good for hosting photos. It doesn't expose image urls. What's the point really.
This is supposed to be a postcard

http://lightbox.com/postcard/hUe_7JGnXnWN1Ic7BsrXHg

Phones are horrible at taking pictures of swords anyway.

Giant wet grinder build

2011-10-24T12:31:00.000-07:00

I'm building a big wet grinder for shaping steel after heat treating. This is a 18" diameter wheel, 4" wide at about 80 grit. It weighs 70 lbs and can spin at maximum 1400 rpm. To drive it I have an old Craftsman 3/4 HP 1725 RPM motor from table saw. Using the formula rpm*d1/d2: 1725 * 2.5 / 9 gives ~480 RPM.

The stand now has feet, the motor wired and installed and twist link belt driving the pulley. I'm looking for a simple pump for sending a mist of cooling water over the top of the stone. The pulley and motor need a housing to prevent water, dust, tools etc from falling into the moving bits. Don't want any foreign object damage with 70lb stone.

On the Road

2011-10-24T10:55:00.001-07:00

Steel eating rust demon

2011-10-17T11:24:00.000-07:00

exposed rust demon

rust demon hiding in a corner

Cut out the rusted area, leaving the rear structure in place for now to fit new sheet metal. The original shapes are duplicated using shrinking and stretching dies, and some hammering. Everything is ground back to clean steel.

New sheet metal butt-welded in after tacking. The structures behind the well were cut out and replaced too, but those are not visible anymore. The seam at the bottom is sealed with seam sealer.

The area is then primed with self-etching lacquer primer, left to cure and coated with a brush on urethane rubber rock guard about 1/4" thick. It's rubbery, but more like plastic so it doesn't hold water like rubber would.
Matching the texture to the original is difficult, and as you can see.

I'm looking for a person on my bike

2011-10-10T12:45:00.000-07:00

First, they stole my truck. Stealing a man's truck is like kicking his dog. Or stealing his dog.
Now just a few weeks later, they steal my bike (mountain bike, the kind you push with pedals). It stands to reason that.. some things just don't.. they ought not a' done.. anyhow I'm looking for a person on a big downhiller. It's an 18" Giant Reign X2 (grey/blue) with a dual crown Rock Shox 155-200 mm front fork. There aren't many big downhill bikes in Chicago (it's flat, no mountains), so it's not that difficult to spot one.

Photos from painting at night

2011-10-03T08:36:00.000-07:00

Turns out a half quart covers more than just the hood, so we brought out all the other panels we could find.

demonstrate proper 2 roller technique. They say you must have separate mind - left and right - to master this technique.

Watch paint dry

I enjoyed this; Micronaut

2011-09-29T10:14:00.001-07:00

particulate by Micronaut

Ambassadors to Mars

2011-09-27T12:26:00.000-07:00

EpoxyCast 60 for lens applications

2011-09-20T13:17:00.000-07:00

Castable Epoxy Resin (clear, tintable)

This has some interesting applications. Might not have the best light transmission properties or clarity, but it looks like making your own vintage tinted lenses for custom applications is easy with this stuff. It could be done with some air bubbles included for that extra-vintage look. Polishes and is very hard and durable. It's made by Smooth-On, who make the best epoxy adhesives available. I imagine something like a giant euro-lens cover would be difficult.
Looking for a casting epoxy to re-create the 500 SEC grille trim. The below picture (not mine) is all too common. The replacement parts for the below damage cost the owner $6000!!! That's a lot. There's nothing quite like OEM parts! But I have the original parts, in pieces, which can't be put back together. But with a solid mold made from the originals, duplicates could be made to replace things which are no longer available. Without the surrounding trim the grille looks kinda f-ed up.

Poor grille. It's plastic, and easily frangible.

TT3D: Closer to the Edge

2011-09-13T10:04:00.000-07:00

Snow Flake 2

2011-09-08T14:40:00.000-07:00

Snowflake

2011-09-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

That's Gangsta

2011-08-30T13:13:00.000-07:00

OK PPL, here's the correct way to do a ~~brown~~ Mercedes. Two tone white on ~~brown~~ green metallic, little Euro bumpers and ... Daytons?

Edit:

I'm red-green color blind, which provides some entertainment to others.

William (http://graphemica.com/) has been so kind as to provide an image of what I actually see, so you can see what it's like to be color blind.

Turret Lathe for < 1k

2011-08-19T09:32:00.000-07:00

I'm always looking for an engine lathe or turret lathe or a lathe that can do engine sized work. A turret lathe has a rotating turret with any number of tools to swing into position. This is mostly for manufacturing where tooling changes would slow down the production line. So a turret could be set up to drill, bore, face and part a piece without a single change. One-off parts don't really require that kind of efficiency, but nobody would complain about not having to change tools all the time.

http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/tls/2537936010.html

A site after my heart

2011-08-18T09:03:00.000-07:00

It's just a list of old rusty trucks for sale. Nothing local, but some really nice stuff that you don't see often. Or I don't see often anyhow.

How purty is that.

hand lettering done well

2011-08-12T13:50:00.000-07:00

Fast forwarded to the good bits:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=7umD6icrasU#t=195s

Good example of 280SE AMG

2011-08-11T10:56:00.000-07:00

Here's a nice but slightly rusty example of a W116 280SE with some AMG modifications. The trunk lid gets a flush mounted wing, and the front air dam is replaced with a larger one that reaches much lower and has a lip kind of like a splitter. There's no AMG badge on the trunk, and I don't think AMG did anything with the 280SE. These parts are probably from the AMG 6.9 program. Lorinser also had W116 parts, but also only did work on 6.9s I think. Hopefully we can restore the euro bumpers to their former glory. Also for reference here is the rear lower quarter panel and areas around the rear which are being repaired.

Nice rear wing

With AMG air dam

Factory air dam

nice

I don't think AMG had an engine tuning program for the M110. It doesn't make much sense to add power to that engine without changing the transmission.

Gyrocam + ZX10R + Nordschleife

2011-08-10T08:57:00.000-07:00

Annoying music stops shortly after things get going. The gyrocam works really well.

C126 Mercedes Resto

2011-08-09T15:42:00.000-07:00

I just pulled this one off the street. It's a 1985 500 SEC, euro spec with the M117 V8 engine, aluminum hood and trunk. It looks pretty bad, but there actually wasn't much wrong with it until I got it home and broke the driver's side window. The door dent put too much pressure on the window, which got stuck, then exploded spectacularly. That will be expensive. Also expensive is the grille, which can't be found for less than $400 anywhere. There are a few mechanical problems: high idle, a transmission mount is worn out or broken, it needs new brakes and shocks all around, the lower radiator hose fitting is leaking. God knows what else. It will have to wait until the W116 mentioned before is finished and prepped for paint. For the meantime it's sitting as far away from other moving vehicles as possible, because I find these are magnets for uninsured drivers, and insurance companies won't fix them anyway. Nothing like rarity to make it a target for morons. Kind of like the time I ran into our 300E. It just appeared in the rear-view as I was backing up. Just kind of jumped up behind me. That's the only time I've ever hit a parked car. So, never park these on the street.

Singer Porsche

2011-08-09T15:19:00.001-07:00

London riots: Fiery happy Miata

2011-08-09T11:22:00.000-07:00

Mercedes Benz C126 Coupé Development

2011-08-05T12:06:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, I became the owner of a 1985 Mercedes-Benz 500 SEC. It is another European grey-market vehicle like the W116 I picked up last fall. I may take before/after pictures, but the after could take a while.

Rowan Atkinson's UK Top Gear lap

2011-08-05T10:02:00.000-07:00

I've been waiting patiently to see this episode, but really just want to see Rowan's antics on the track.

Unfortunately today he shunted his rare McLaren F1 just outside of Cambridge and suffered a minor shoulder injury.
http://www.eveningstar.co.uk/news/update_tv_star_rowan_atkinson_in_hospital_following_cambridgeshire_crash_1_985153

July Coffee & Classics photos

2011-08-05T08:37:00.000-07:00

July 31st classics and coffee

2011-07-29T11:49:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday of the month classics meetup! I will be attending with my classic ford truck (hey it's over 25 years old!!) Ok its not Euro or in very good shape...

Temptations of the Day

2011-07-27T09:21:00.000-07:00

http://chicago.craigslist.org/wcl/cto/2508167856.html

77 Datsun 280Z,
very clean inside and out, although not orininal, Panasport minilite replicas.
Dubious interior stereo modifications, but otherwise looks almost like a track car.
Too rich for my pockets, but not a bad deal if its really sorted as well as it looks.

http://chicago.craigslist.org/nwc/cto/2513444760.html
74 F100 for $850, runs drives, someone put a tach on it. No details on engine or trans :(

http://chicago.craigslist.org/nch/cto/2509845540.html
Just posting this because it's in Evanston and it's under 1k.
Running MGB project car. Has a bit of the rust.

http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/cto/2514850258.html
complete euro headlights for W116
Aw crap. I guess I need these for the 280. There goes my paycheck.
I think I'm done looking at craigslist for the day.

3.0 CSI video

2011-07-25T13:27:00.000-07:00

There were a little over 8000 3.0 CSIs built, so they are getting pricey. I'd go for any coupe in this family, regardless of the numbers.

Temptation of the Day: 69 Toyota Crown

2011-07-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

Saw this on BAT. 1969 Toyota Crown (or Toyopet? ). 1960s Toyota lowrider/hot rod potential. I'm pretty sure it has no engine, and the price is up in the air. Something I don't need at the moment is another non-drivable car, even if it is sans-rust. Someone git it!

Auto Historica this Saturday (7/23)

2011-07-22T09:15:00.000-07:00

Auto Historica XI. Lots of Northshore owned European classics.
11:00 to 3:00 at the Highland Park Historical Society located at 326 Central in Highland Park.

2011-07-19T13:01:00.000-07:00

http://chicago.craigslist.org/nch/cto/2498090786.html
Euro 280CE. Many parts interchangeable with W116
This one also suffers the expected rust

http://chicago.craigslist.org/wcl/cto/2495362068.html
Bronco ugly, $850

http://chicago.craigslist.org/nwi/cto/2500010452.html
need more info. 630 csi is desirable collector, $2500 is about right

http://chicago.craigslist.org/nwc/cto/2498083662.html
'74 F100 longbed. Nice 'patina' $800, reasonable

http://chicago.craigslist.org/wcl/cto/2500977912.html
Triumph GT6 bring a trailer and $600. That's worth it. One of the best looking Triumphs.

Bavarians for rescue

2011-07-18T11:44:00.000-07:00

Nothing special.

An e23 (733i) only 300k miles, sitting for 10 years. I'm partial to e23 slant noses.
This one is probably a nightmare. But Wilmette is so close, why not take a look?
http://chicago.craigslist.org/nch/cto/2488097506.html

Und ein e30:
http://chicago.craigslist.org/wcl/cto/2496340666.html
Far, but so cheap. Electrical gremlins.

Seriously though, I'm waiting for a 70s New Class roller. So's that I can drop a M30 engine in it.

Tank fab for GL1000

2011-07-13T09:13:00.000-07:00

Tank build for GL1000. The tank's shape looks simple from the outside, but its actually pretty tricky underneath. The tank Honda designed sat below the seat between the rear wheel and transmission case. That puts the center of gravity lower and to the rear (when it's filled), and protects the tank in the event of a crash between the frame rails.

I've thrown all that good design out and built one to sit where it usually does, on top of the frame between the rider's knees! I wanted to move the battery into the space where the old tank lived, just in front of the rear wheel and centered. The old tank is rusty and will kill the carburetors.

As it stands

I expected A FEW leaks after welding up, but it was leaking like a sieve. I didn't bother to count.

Flux core TIG welding is very dirty. There are lots of pin holes and potentials for voids. This also has a lot to do with welding technique and prepping the weld areas correctly, but..

Filler Neck welded in

I'm grinding the welds down flat and laying another wider & hotter bead over them. So far this has filled any voids and killed leaks along the seams. I'm using pressurized air and soap to find pinholes, then grinding and laying a wide bead over the area. I don't think I could do such wide, flat beads with as much penetration if the first pass welds were not done. The top and bottom halves were shaped and tacked. Then the tacks were stitched together at the same heat, alternating sides to keep distortion low. All the tacks and stitches are hammered flat, then stress relieved. I did the tacking and stitching at the lowest heat with the wire feed a little higher than normal. Once all of the leaks are out and the pressure holds at 50PSI for a few hours, I'll etch the inside with a solution of phosphoric acid in water, dry it with MEK and use the liquid polymer liner to seal it. Then the outside will get smoothed/sanded and painted some color.

Lovely BMW 2002

2011-07-12T09:36:00.000-07:00

I saw this excellently prepared BMW 2002 at a party over the 4th of July weekend. I didn't get any pictures of it then. Image courtesy of http://fuelfed.wordpress.com/ which is also excellent.

Craigslist temptations of the day

2011-07-06T09:09:00.000-07:00

http://chicago.craigslist.org/wcl/cto/2478182570.html

Has 292, 3spd probably on the tree.
"not running now did run when parked 8 or 9 years ago"
Or 12. Who's counting.

$800
More like ... $600? $700? OK $750
Bring a trailer.

http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/cto/2466382726.html
75 F100 extended cab which is in much better condition than it should be. This truck is looooong. Extended cab/long bed makes it something like 18 feet. Good deal, nice color and remarkably intact for having lived in Chicago. Woo. Fuck.

$850
More like
Fuck thats a good deal.
Drive it home.

http://chicago.craigslist.org/wcl/cto/2471050077.html

I don't get this one.
Selling it or fixing it or what?
too much money for having been so crawled over.
$1200
more like $400
Bring a trailer.

http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/cto/2455877142.html

No real info on this one except it has:
"CLOTH INTERIOR"
"GOD WHEELS"

$2100
More like $800, but I guess with God wheels..

Excellent striping

2011-06-16T13:22:00.000-07:00

Nibbles

2011-06-14T15:18:00.000-07:00

Klien Nibbler

This is the best tool I've found in a long time. It's a sheet metal nibbler. It's for nibbling sheet metal, rather than shearing. I have shears, I have nibblers. I have 2 air nibblers. They are for getting the job done fast. They can nibble in square feet per minute measurements. This Klien nibbler is perfectly designed. It requires very little effort to nibble through 20 gauge steel. It's not the quickest, shears are probably quicker, but it does very clean, precise cuts. You can drill a small hole and start right in the middle of a sheet (try that with shears), you can cut tight radius curves, and it wont raise an edge like a can opener the way a shear does.

I think this tool is made in Lincolnwood, IL just around the corner from me. The design is simple and perfect. The materials, coatings and finish are perfect. The heat treating of the blade is perfect. This tool is designed and made by experts, in America. The parts are all high quality, adjustable and replaceable or easily repaired.

Almost every time I go to the hardware store I see a deal on some Husky or other house brand tool which is too good to be true. $9 complete 1/4" socket set, $4.99 ratcheting screwdriver set, etc.

The products in this container may come from China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Mexico or the USA.

The quality of the house brand tool varies as widely as its origin. It is most likely to break, but it carries a hassle free lifetime replacement warranty. The cheaper manufactures believe that brand loyalty is easily gained by convenience, low price and replacing any defective product for free. Customer Service!

Everyone replaces broken tools for free nowadays. The material cost of a tool or part is low compared to customer satisfaction. I find broken 10mm sockets all over the garage. I break 10mm sockets more than anything else. All of the broken ones are house brand X, none of them are American made SnapOn, MAC, MTF, SK or Klien tools. Broken tools waste time, which is worth more than money. I think.

The saved time and satisfaction of using a well made tool are worth the extra money, as is knowing that Your Country (America) still makes the best tools available in your country.

German tools are great, but we all know that it was the American industrialists who helped them out after WW1 that made them that way.

Adore

2011-06-13T13:52:00.000-07:00

My entry did not win the GRM/FFR design contest. I congratulate the winners. I liked some of the designs and renders very much.

SO, since I didn't win, here is a picture of Audrey Hepburn.

More rendered views

2011-06-03T15:21:00.000-07:00

The door seams are missing. I haven't figured out a clean way to do that with Wings3D, and it should have been done before smoothing

More Render

2011-05-13T11:03:00.000-07:00

I added the NACA duct to feed the cockpit. The airflow from the radiator is directed up via the larger vent behind it which follows the contour of the glass. The carbon front splitter is new. It will need some adjustable support rods as it provides most of the front end down-force. There is a rear wing modeled, but I didn't include it here.

M110 Vacuum diagram

2011-05-09T15:50:00.000-07:00

woot! I have most of them connected now, but there are a few hanging around. This one shows a single line to the distributor vacuum advance. I have a dual diaphragm distributor, one for advance, one for retard. The retard is not connected to anything, and I can't find a place to connect it. I imagine it has to go somewhere AFTER the throttle plate, only because the advance line (see #8 above) is BEFORE the plate. And it would only make sense for them to be on opposite sides of the throttle plate to me. The before side is lower pressure, at idle, higher at full throttle. The after side is highest at idle, lowest at full throttle. Why they needed a push-pull system is beyond my reckoning. If you connect them wrong the engine will either not idle at all, or have no power over 3000 rpm.

Oh OK, have at them.

2011-05-09T12:48:00.000-07:00

It appears the front side vent just vents into the rear side vent intake. This is just an illusion. The rear vent actually takes clean air from.. magic.

turbo for cheap?

2011-05-09T10:11:00.000-07:00

Remember: you get what you pay for. Here's a new turbo kit for $169. A good new Garrett/Honeywell turbo would be about $1200 or more. You could find a rebuilt or used one for around $500.

I did run into a test run by an engine builder's magazine where they strapped an inexpensive EBay turbo to a GM 355 V8 which had 150k miles on it. They dialed it up to around 800bhp with 8psi or so of boost. So, if plumbed in properly the cheap turbos do function, but they were not tested for durability. Repeated heating and cooling expands and contracts the cast iron exhaust impeller housing. It has to be very good cast iron, something that can withstand extreme heat ranges and pressures without cracking or exploding outright. The aluminum intake compressor will also expand and contract, but at different rates than the impeller housing. It has to withstand the high internal pressures of a compressor without blowing up. When these expand, the housing to turbine blade clearance shrinks, potentially causing the blades to contact the housing. This is unlikely, but in cheaper turbines where tolerances are guessed at, the gap must be overcompensated for. So, they can either be less efficient, or more prone to blowing themselves to pieces. Another consideration is the quality and tolerance of the floating bearing. The center rotating hub must float on a high pressure, externally cooled oil supply. This is almost always supplied by the engine's lubrication system, so it must be plumbed in and out of the existing oil loop. The quality and spec of the oil and the tolerances withing the bearing and center rotating hub are critical. As the steel shaft heats up, it closes the gap to the bearing. This clearance must also be accounted for at a range of temperatures. Some of the turbo kits just use a t-splice to take pressurized oil from the oil pressure sending unit line. I'm not sure if that's a good solution, as the flow is pretty restricted in such a small line. I wouldn't throw one of these turbos on an engine without adding an external oil cooler to prevent cooking off the engine oil. I would probably plumb the turbo directly into the cooling unit circuit. Most after-market oil coolers use an adapter plate at the oil filter connection to send off oil to a heat exchanger. This is not a bad idea in general, and requires no significant engine modification or machining. Expect engine oil to break down much quicker when run through a turbine. Water cooled turbines are much more expensive.

So, the turbo itself may look cheap, but to make it work properly you need the following:

-turbine: $170

-oil plumbing: $100

-oil cooler and plumbing: $150

-intercooler: $100

-intercooler and air intake plumbing: $150

So now we are at $670. That's still cheaper than one Garrett turbine without all of the plumbing. However, there are more problems which must be accounted for. What happens when you add a whole lot more air to an engine which wasn't designed for a lot of boost? The fuel/air mixture is now very lean. Lean mixtures are bad news. As you run a lean engine up the rpm range, things start to get really hot. There isn't enough cold, high octane gas to cool the cylinder down. Fuel starts detonating before the piston reaches its apex. This is where engines burn up valves, blow holes in pistons and in the worst case throw rods through the block. The maximum fuel pressure and injector capacity isn't enough for the additional air; it can't keep the air/fuel mixture rich enough. A rich mixture prevents detonation to some degree, as does high octane fuel or possibly adding an ethanol mix. Some engines will run fine at lower RPMs, but as the turbine spools up and the engine starts breathing a whole lot more, the injectors run out of capacity. The easiest solution is to run higher capacity injectors and add a high pressure/high flow fuel pump. Electronically controlled engines with detonation sensors, MAF, O2, and EGT sensors can alter ignition timing and fuel mixture to get optimum fuel burn without detonation. Older engines without a feedback loop may use air flow to regulate fuel flow similar to a carburetor, but using a pressure regulator rather than the Venturi effect/float system. So the fuel system must be altered to either run richer overall, and not lean out at the higher RPMs, or run a mixture regulator manually which can be adjusted manually. So, considering the fuel system alterations, the cost will be well over $1200, which is still reasonable for turning a boring 180bhp into 400 or so clutch smoking horses.

And then back to the original reason for this post, will the EBay compressor hold up for a reasonable amount of time, or will you be left with a cheap dead snail.

Interior gauges, switches, controls

2011-05-06T10:33:00.000-07:00

Adding more details. I don't like modern molded vinyl dashes. The best dashes are simply a sheet of aluminum with cut-outs for gauges and switches. I will add labels to the banks of switches and buttons.

-battery toggle

-pre-lube motor run

-ignition toggle

-starter motor run

-electric water pump toggle

-fuel pump, reserve pump

-head, tail lights etc.

-rotary mixture

-boost/wastegate control

-fire suppresion

The controls should be on the center console within the driver's reach, not so much on the dashboard.

Free CryEngine3 SDK coming this summer

2011-04-27T08:36:00.000-07:00

FTA:

“This will be a complete version of our engine, including C++ code access, our content exporters (including our LiveCreate real-time pipeline), shader code, game sample code from Crysis 2, script samples, new improved Flowgraph and a whole host of great asset examples, which will allow teams to build complete games from scratch for PC.”

The SDK and editing tools are incredible. When software is this good, it's hard not to share it.

Yesterday's design

2011-04-25T16:16:00.000-07:00

Still not very distinctive. Air ducts, lights, large canopy all kind of 60's LeMans inspired.

Still messing with lights, but they take a long time to render and even longer to make realistic.

64 Lotus 23C chassis bits

2011-04-25T15:56:00.000-07:00

F100s at auction

2011-04-25T15:48:00.000-07:00

Mind you this truck is almost new, even though it was built in 1976. 1200 miles on the clock.

14-18k estimate. Via http://blog.hemmings.com

Engine fitting

2011-04-11T09:34:00.000-07:00

I'd like to have a general idea of how the EJ-20 engine will fit in the chassis, and how the body will fit on that. I don't have any accurate engine models, so I'll have to create them. Looking at a photo of the engine sitting on a pallet gives a very bad approximation of dimensions, but its what's available. The engine in the renderings below is WAY bigger than the EJ20 or EZ3x engine. I created these mostly to have some fun with the exhaust routing. I have created a more accurately sized EJ-20 4 cylinder with the AWD transaxle in proper proportions, but it's not rendered. The actual frame should be similar to the FFR GTM super car's chassis, but shorter in length. I can't imagine they'd build it much different, because the GTM is a fantastic looking chassis. For the purpose of fitting everything, I'll render the body in a thin glass material. I found that the model below provides no room for driver + passenger, but prefers a more central driving position. That will have to be remedied somehow. I'm guessing from the current entries on the GRM forums (I'm trying to avoid those) that the below style is pretty far off from the rest of the contestants. What I'm seeing there is closer to a Lotus Evora than a 60's LeMans racer.

spherical to Cartesian.. woops

2011-04-06T09:40:00.000-07:00

I think I have the formula inside-out.

more concepts

2011-04-06T09:23:00.000-07:00

This is the original concept, now with more details. It's still feasible I think, but some of the geometry has become difficult to deal with. It takes about an hour to get from an octoad to a nice smoothed shape, but adding in the details after that can take a while.

I do like this one, but it's a bit generic don't you think? It's practical, can be made small enough without looking like a miniature of something. But it looks too much like an R8 or a Lotus or something. The quality and lighting in that render is terrible.

A diffuse render.

Why not? Inspired by the 1960s LeMans racing cars by Ferrari and the Alfa Romeo Stradale. It's probably way too long and low for the proposed frame and driving position, but who cares really...
And who designs the frame first??

body in the white

2011-03-22T08:55:00.001-07:00

Its Early Days Yet

2011-03-21T00:43:00.000-07:00

BECAUSE RACECAR

2011-03-16T15:40:00.000-07:00

Factory Five and Grassroots Motorsports design contest entry.
These are initial designs for a spec racing car design competition. The specs are as follows (as far as I can remember)

square section tube frame
Composite shell
Mid engine, rear drive layout
95" wheelbase
2.5L 4 cylinder boxer engine from a donor Subaru Impreza WRX
1800 lb curb weight
Under $15k for complete kit (donor car not included)

The main constraints are price and weight. Obviously you can't get away with a composite carbon shell for $15k (or can you? China?) So the shell should meet the target weight assuming less expensive materials.
The drive train components and frame currently are estimated at 900lbs.
The remaining components are the responsibility of the designer(s)

Body

Front and rear shell (less than 100lbs each)
doors? (way less than 50lbs each)
side windows (Lexan)
windscreen (Lexan or salvaged from donort)
rear window (Lexan or salvaged from donor)

Interior

Dash panel
gauge cluster
steering wheel
seats (14 lbs each for Recaro Profi)
harness
pedals
misc linkage

Other bits

Driving lights
head and tail lights
signals
rear view mirror(s)
front wing
other wings or aero elements not included in the shell

Since this car is meant to be a 'track special' or spec racer, and cheap, there will be no luxuries built in.

In order to keep the price down, it's a good idea to re-use as much of the donor WRX as possible. The engine is to be a 300+ hp Subaru EJ257 turbo, variable intake valve timing, 16 valve 4 cylinder boxer. The builder has to pull it from a donor car, so it's really up in the air as to what you can do with the engine. The 3L boxer six from the Legacy is only about 20mm longer and could probably handle a pair of intercooled snails and about 600bhp. And water injection..

Design:

I'm using a pretty simple and free vertex subdivision modeler called Wings3D, and will be doing all of the rendering in good old PovRay raytracer. Subdivision modelling is not a new concept, but it is different from NURBS and Bezier based models I'm used to.

All of the models are being kept in GitHub to avoid previous data loss disasters:

https://github.com/toxonix/Because-Racecar

There the models will evolve and any interesting scenes will be stored for rendering.

Here's Wings3D at work on a prototype:

The environment is very basic, with point, line, surface and body modes having contextual menus. I like it so far, especially for an open source non-commercial piece of software. It's written in C and Erlang, and has an Erlang console interface which I have yet to use.

At this stage the prototype is evolving based on my limited experience with subdivision modelling. Free form modelling is primarily done by moving geometric elements (individual or selections of lines, points, faces, objects) in such a way that you end up with a shell of the desired object which can be sub-divided into quadrilaterals that appear smooth. The above model is the result of 2 subdivision passes. Extra geometry is added in the form of bevels to maintain surfaces which I don't want rounded.

See basics of smoothing polygons here:

http://www.holmes3d.net/graphics/subdivision/

The prototype above is a first pass in an iterative process. I don't know if I like it, or it will be light enough, or will even fit on the frame. It actually looks way too large, like a Lancia with a V12 in the back. I do want the front and rear shells be one piece, and open front and rear like a big clamshell (see the Ford GT40 and other 60s race cars). This should make molding and fitting those parts simple, as you don't need separate fenders, hood, valance, etc.

It has some ripples that are the result of my removing the headlight bevels, as they didn't smooth well. I will experiment with different smoothing algorithms, and start over with new models frequently.

I welcome any ideas, input, suggestions. Gullwing doors? No doors at all?

Valves

2011-01-24T14:03:00.000-08:00

This is the cylinder which had lost some compression. The culprit was a worn or improperly installed stem seal on the exhaust valve. Ideally the compression will be restored after resurfacing and lapping the valves and seats. All new valve seals will be installed.

Valves, before and after surfacing. The small diameter valves with the fatter stems are sodium filled exhaust valves. These help move heat from the valve into the head where it can be absorbed and drawn away through the coolant galleys.

Honkin big cylinder head

2011-01-17T23:32:00.000-08:00

This is an M110 Cylinder head, almost clean. It's a very nice casting and machining. It was really mucked up. If necessary a cylinder head can be cleaned by hand.

Ooh hello, what's YOUR name?

2011-01-17T18:41:00.000-08:00

At the junkyard today, and what should I see but a blue Ford with a toploader 4 speed. MMMM, TASTY

W116 Fuel system

2010-10-22T11:07:00.000-07:00

I took the trunk panel out to take a look at the fuel tank. It looked brand new, like much of the inside of the car. I didn't get a good description of the problem from the owner or his mechanic, so I located the leak via the 'Pikey' method, which is pour some gas in, see where it comes out. Underneath there are a few fuel system components interconnected by rubber lines. All of these rubber lines were cracked, some broken. I think the life of these lines is somewhere in the 10 year area, so they all needed replacing. All screens, filters and any other consumables are to be replaced too, while I'm at it. The fuel damper, which is a very simple, but expensive piece, had a few pin holes in it from rust. It's supposed to be zinc coated, but I'm sure all that wore off years ago. A brand new damper costs around $90 USD.

Fuel Damper

The damper's purpose is to even out the fuel pump's surges. It costs as much as a fuel pump, so take good care of it. The accumulator, pump, filter and damper should all probably be replaced, along with all of the fitted hoses. This is not cheap! Its an easy job though, if you have the right tools.

Fuel injection systems generally have a high pressure side (feed to the injector distributor) and a low pressure side (return to the tank). If you are going to remove this system properly, you'll be wanting fuel line nut wrenches. A crow's foot line wrench set is probably the best idea, in 3/8" drive size. You may have to apply a lot of torque and penetrating oil to free the line nuts. I did both, and broke the fuel feed line anyway, so I'm going to replace the feed line entirely. This is what happens when you use vise grips instead of the right tool. Vise grips are a Pikey's tool.

Mercedes are bullet proof. Only rust can destroy them!

Most people who drive old Mercedes say "Oh I love it, it drives like a tank." I've never driven a tank, but I'm sure what they're talking about is the rigidity of the chassis. No cost is spared on the suspension or steering bits. There is only one problem, and that is the problem with all steel, and that is rust. Mercedes in particular have drainage systems that are probably intended for garage keeping and meticulous cleaning and detailing by your driver's assistants. The drains are intended to keep water away from the frame and body, and of course out of the interior. This all works great until the drain tubes become clogged. Just like the leaves that clog your downspouts, these things must be kept clear. If they are not, then water finds its way into places it shouldn't, like the trunk, tops of the wheel wells, lower door areas, etc. I have probably 6 months of welding, grinding and finishing to do on this car due to poor maintenance of drains and bad prior body work. Normally I'd stay away from body work, as it's just never good enough and can't be done right in a rush. That and all body men are miserable, humorless, violent ex-convicts, constantly covered with a toxic miasma of body filler dust, solvents, primer and paint wastes. No matter how good a car looks, once you start chipping at the rust you end up with big areas which need cutting out and replacing.

W116 280SE Project Car

2010-09-27T15:22:00.000-07:00

Friday last, we found a European spec 1978 Mercedes 280SE.
Technical data: W116 E28 chassis
2.8 Litre DOHC Inline 6 cylinder gas engine
182 hp @ 6000 RPM
Bosch K-Jetronic (mechanical) fuel injection
3670 lb unloaded weight.

The Euro spec W116 is faster and lighter than its American counterpart, it has 40 more horsepower and about a hundred pounds less weight. American regulations required large "park bench" bumpers, which, thankfully, were not required on grey market imports. The paint color is called "Milan Brown Metallic" I think, at least that is the closest color I can find in MB's color charts. It's not bad, but I prefer this car in lighter metallic color, as in the 450SEL 6.9's silver metallic with chrome door panels and wheel arches.

The Good:
The doors, rocker panels, and most exterior surfaces are clean and very straight. The doors open and close without any rubbing or signs of a bent frame. This is normal for an S-class tank that hasn't been in any accidents. Unit-body construction this heavy won't tend to sag or pinch the doors, but an accident could be told in doors that rub.
The engine cranks, runs and sounds good. We didn't have enough carburetor cleaner to run it for long, fortunately. I expect we will be going through the engine a bit, although there's not much there that needs doing. Valve timing is provided by duplex chain and dual over head cams, so I expect these to be in good order. A good steam clean and compression check with a tune up will turn up any unexpected top end issues.
The Bad:
A typical problem with Bosch mechanical fuel injection is condensation on the top of the gas tank, as witnessed by our VW Vanagon from the 1980s which very nearly blew Dad up one day.
The owner of this Mercedes said his mechanic told him there was a leak in the gas tank, and not to drive it. Typically what will happen is the gas evaporates through a small hole into the trunk, which will smell strongly of gasoline and perhaps explode if you should open it whilst smoking a pipe. I didn't find any gas smells in the trunk (or a spare tire), but I did find that the gas cap had been run over and completely deformed at some point. This may or may not be the cause of their leak. Pressure testing the gas tank with a new lid might be in order. If that fails, the tank will need to be pulled out, welded or replaced.

The Ugly:
I can't remember driving any Mercedes with a plush/velour interior. I know they exist, but if you're paying that much for a car, why not make it at least Pleather, if not the real stuff. Either way, UV rays have not been kind to the velour, and the inside of this car looks like a Star Trek uniform left to the weather. It has to go to the upholstery shop for a tear down and re-hide.
The only thing you can do about rotting wheel wells is make them entirely out of plastic. I don't know why this isn't done, but it isn't. The wheel wells show the usual rust and will require work and a complete repaint. This is not some cheap Maaco job for $300 either. Getting the real paint from MB, having a professional spray it after perfect preparation is the only way to go. Whether or not we will go that way is to be decided later..

There are many options for this kind of thing. You could go all-black AMG for example. With this look, you have to wear all black (Members Only of course) all the time. And a German stainless steel watch, not Swiss.

OR, you could go all negative on the colors with black on white, more of a tuning car apparel. In this case you would have to wear a white track suit with black piping ALL the time. You will also need a large digital chronograph on a lanyard.

GL1000 nearly complete

2010-09-21T10:48:00.000-07:00

<-- HIDEOUS
I was able to get rid of the Comstar wheels and replaced them with Older, Vintage(er) Wire spoked wheels from a 1977 GL1000 that was parted out in Nevada (thanks, NV guy).
The 'Comstar' wheels were the cheap way of making a 'Mag', ie magnesium rim popular in racing. The Comstars have 5 spokes made of either stainless steel or aluminum in some cases, which are cut and stamped to shape. They are then riveted to an aluminum rim. There are 10 rivets out the rim and another 10 on the hub I think. Just looking at them makes you think "That is unsafe". They are cheap, cheap looking and cheap to make. Honda and others tried to pitch them as better and lighter than spoked wheels, but really they were just cheaper.
The rivets on mine were rotted through, and I was able to pop some of the blades off with a little pressure. Unsafe at any speed. Anyhow they are gone, replaced with much better wire ones, new tires, tubes etc.
Switching back in time to older wheels was not just a straight bolt in deal. The 75-77 front brakes had 2 piece cast rotors rather than the one piece stainless ones on the later bikes. The spacing of the rotors is a few millimeters off, so it was necessary to machine the caliper brackets to line up the braking surfaces.
With a salvaged 5/8" Nissin master cylinder, Speigler stainless/teflon lines, new pads and all of the correct retaining springs in place, bled up, the front brakes feel just right.
The CBR600 5/8" dia. master cylinder on the rear is now linked up to the original caliper and bled. I used the CBR's brake line, as it was in good shape and had the right length. So far it also feels right. That is linked to a Tarozzi rear-set on the right side.

This bike is nearly complete, just needs final touches, new oil and some test riding to make sure everything behaves.
The following is a hint on what the next project might be:
http://www.diagnostic-assistance.co.uk/mech_inj.htm
Not much of a hint, as the Bosch K-Jetronic mechanical injection system was used on pretty much everything.

GL1000 Headers

2010-07-30T23:44:00.000-07:00

Coming along, coming along.. These are just the headers, and fitting the titanium wrap. I'm not sure exactly what it's made of, but it's "titanium colored" material. I think they are actually fiberglass strands. These headers are made of mild steel. They will oxidize rapidly at high temperatures. So I don't know if wrapping them is a good idea, or just another manufacturer's gimmick which has caught on in performance tuning world. Certainly a refractory material INSIDE the headers sounds like a good idea, as it will protect the surface from the oxidizing atmosphere. I'm reluctant to spray ITC-100 down the header pipes though. I'm not running this in 24 hour endurance races. Yet.

GL1000 Carb rebuild

2010-07-26T23:54:00.000-07:00

With debugging the wiring and ignition done, attention turns to getting the fuel in. The carburetors on this bike are pretty sophisticated. It costs $135 in gaskets and o-rings to rebuild the entire thing. It takes about 3-9 hours to do the whole thing right. There are a few people who do the rebuilds and will charge you anywhere from $200 to $800. The turn around time is anywhere from 4 weeks to 3 days. That's an option for some people, but anyone who claims to be an engineer should have no problem performing this rocket surgery. So at the least, figure it costs about $150 and at least a whole day of work. This particular set wasn't completely filthy like some I've seen. Now that they are rebuilt, the engine fires right up and idles nicely.

Rebuild kits:

http://www.randakks.com/ - best parts for honda GLs

One of the float bowl screws had stripped the threads right out of the body, so I tapped it oversized and cut a new screw for it. Fortunately nothing else needed any machining or otherwise modifying. I could have drilled out the jets by a few thousandths to allow for extra airflow, but that isn't in the plans yet.

I found this micro lathe and have it kind of set up for drilling stuff. Its more of a novelty at the moment because the drive system is kind of scary and I'm not sure if the leather belt drive system is usable. The drive motor sounds like a jet engine spooling up, but fits in the palm of your hand. But it is the smallest useful lathe I've ever seen. For $40 at a garage sale, so beat that.

GL work & parts list

2010-07-13T23:25:00.000-07:00

Hey, its still July! Heat and biting insects haven't slowed progress a bit.Things that are done:
-Everything removed, cleaned.
-Tank drained, cleaned, refilled with clean gas and MMO.
-New fuel lines and filters put in. I didn't get any transparent lines. I like them so's that I can see that the fuel is going in the correct direction and isn't full of shite. But the fat black ones will have to do for now.
-Brakes off
-- Rear master cylinder is knackered; could be rebuilt, but why? More about that in a bit.
-- Front master cylinder works, but its just nasty. I want something in the 7/8 bore range that was made within the last decade. So this on will be replaced by a donor from a crashed Honda RC45 race bike with adjustable bits.
-- Lines are all off. They are to be replaced with custom teflon/stainless lines from Spiegler Performance Parts.They are great, good prices, fast service. They will cut and crimp up custom lines with any of their nice anodized fittings. The factory banjo bolts or new titanium ones will go back in.
-- Front calipers are in OK shape, but need boots and the grippy parts. These are off and cleaned. They will need painted or powder coated.I have 2 sets of front 4 and 6 piston calipers from other big sport bikes (crashed) but they won't go on without making adapters. Maybe later, if the single pots don't do the job.
-- Forks off, polished, then back on temporarily. I do not enjoy polishing, and I'll have to do it again, then clear coat tha bastards. Woo. Seals are weepy and look nasty down in there, so new OEM seals are going in. Upper tubes cleaned and polished with bronze wool. No scratches or pitting on them to ruin the new seals.
-- New battery and just going through all the wiring. Its mucked up pretty good, but most of the wires are connected to the things they need to be connected to.
-Ignition bits checked out. They are working as designed, but the spark looks a little weak.
-New condensers (capacitors)
-Electronic ignition from Dyna-S or something. I forget the details there, but I like modern electronic ignitions over mechanical ones. Points are a liability.
-- Starter was not working properly. At some point the nut which retains the starter bolt and all of the insulating bushings was loosened, which caused catastrophic arcing of the main coil lead against the rotating bits. It would turn over if I held the starter lead at the correct angle, jiggled it about a bit. It also smoked a few times, so I'd had enough of that.I pulled the starter motor out, pulled it entirely to pieces. The winding that goes around the permanent magnets (it has a name) was burned off of the bolt which goes through the housing/insulation bits on which you attach the battery's solenoid relay's hot line. So the bolt had to come out, be re-faced and re-soldered to the primary winding, then bolted back in correctly to preserve the insulating nylon bushings which prevent the whole thing from shorting out. This took maybe 20 minutes of sitting in the grass playing with something I'd never seen the inside of, kind of like a monkey getting ants out of a log. Anyhow, that worked out fine; I cleaned and greased the important bits and gears, fit it all back together somehow and put it back in the right hole. It had dumped about a liter of oil when it came out as its all lubricated by the engine oil on its mechanical side. Which I replaced with MMO temporarily until I change the oil, which will happen once it runs long enough to warm up the old sludge.

Eh what else. I had to tend to the seating arrangements, as there were none (see previous post).I found very nice CB750 seat from 1978 that had been preserved in all its vinyl goodness for around 80 USD + shipping. Yes, this stuff is expensive when found. I considered making a seat, but looked into the past, then into the future and realized what an awful job I'd done. So I went back to the present and found a good seat from a good old bike, which not surprisingly looks like it was made for this bike or one very much like it. While it fits perfectly from an aesthetic perspective, it requires some creative adapting to fit mechanically. So I fabricated the necessary bits after much looking at things from different angles. I got away with using one piece of scrap steel and a bit of angle iron. This also led to fitting a ZX14 rear tail+signal assembly by chance. Well you can do pretty much anything with steel, so that worked out fine.

Next is fuel pump check, then carbs need doing. That is a whole complete cluster of madness in itself.

78 GL1000 restore

2010-07-02T11:11:00.000-07:00

About 3 weeks ago I found a mostly dead Honda Goldwing on the south side. It was all kitted out in peeled chrome, dry rotting saddle bags, ape hangers and other stuff that I could do without. So the brothers went down and rolled it into the back of Little Moe and drove it home. It's now in the back yard where its metamorphosing into a 600 lb 1-liter bull dog rat ton up endurance trailer queen street bruiser salt flat fuel burner super bike.The nice thing about Goldwings is the engine. It's the most complicated engine you could want in a bike, but also probably the most durable and reliable. It's a 1-liter boxer engine, so the cylinder heads stick out either side. As most BMW folks will tell you, that makes it so much easier to to top end work! You can change head gaskets while sitting on the side of the road, etc etc. Well if it were air cooled that might be the case, but as is you'd be spilling coolant all over the highway.. anyhow. The cylinder heads (you get two!) are easily accessible to both the mechanic, the riders knees, and weather.The last two bits are not so fantastic. The valve covers are naturally covered in chrome, because this is a big fat bike for fatties who like to have everything electroplated in nickel and chromium to give it that cheap, polished look. Because the real polished look takes time and work, rather than time and chemicals. Anyhow, due to the reactivity of aluminium alloys in relation to PH and the presence of other alloys, the nickel/chromium coating bubbles and peels and reveals the white hydroxide corrosion underneath.Hydroxide corrosion itself is not so difficult to remove and prevent. But in the presence of electroplated nickel + chrome, or copper + chrome, it is a complete pain in the ass.If you want to avoid wasting hours of your time, but want to restore the aluminum parts to some degree, pay someone else to do it. Otherwise you may peel, sand, brush, or try anything to remove both the old nickel/chrome and the hydroxide corrosion without making the old valve covers into a complete mess.If you do get them polished up to a nice brushed aluminum finish, either stop there or have them powder coated. Do not try to paint them. This will end in tears. Paints of any kind are not durable enough for the kinds of things valve covers go through.So, first things first, if the engine don't work right, whats the point? GL engines are interference type with belt driving timing gear. The belts on this bike had seen 54,000+ miles, which is probably 30,000 too many. Anyhow, belts are cheap and easy to change, so rather than risk complete engine disaster, I replace the belts.

2010-06-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

Slime mold Physarum polycephalum found in the yard. It appeared soon after the sun went down. This is a fascinating creature, exhibiting extraordinary intelligence for a single celled creature. It is capable of navigating mazes to locate food sources, taking the shortest path first. It can recognize patterns of events over long periods of time. It's been a hot item for your bio-computing scientists. http://www.es.hokudai.ac.jp/labo/cell/accomplishment_e.html

Koshirae examples

2010-01-12T12:56:00.000-08:00

Kenji Mishima's site. many fine examples of polishing and fitting work.

Tanto, 3 layer construction

2010-01-06T00:52:00.000-08:00

This is in progress, needs polishing. Its constructed of saw blades and other scrap folded into a nice thick shobu zukuri with high shinogi. Quenched on the last day of 2009, just before the temperature dropped to far to do any work outside. I froze my toes and deep fried my gloves that day.

Nice balls

2009-11-13T14:03:00.000-08:00

Bearings, shafts etc in metric, standard.

http://www.vxb.com/

for example

http://www.vxb.com/page/bearings/CTGY/3-4inch

NICE

Doc Ellis & the LSD No-No

2009-11-13T13:23:00.000-08:00

Yeah I don't dig on baseball. Or any major league bullshit. I would, however, if games looked more like this:

M44 scout mounts?

2009-10-21T14:54:00.000-07:00

Rifles with low power, long eye relief scopes are nice for hunting and other short range shooting. I like em, they open up the field of view. Before you can hit a target, you have to locate it. Wide fields of view are nice for this.
Anyhow, I've seen a few M44 scouts at the range and decided to build one or two. Also, I really wanted to put scopes on the pair of K31 Swiss rifles but the top eject port kind of gets in the way.
So I got one of the M44 mount deals, which came with some extra stuff for ~$30 or so. I forget.
And I got one that fits the Swiss in the same manner, which I will now describe.
The M44 replacement base is a Picatinny rail with some leveling screws fore and aft of the single mount point. Punching out the leaf pin in the M44'r rear sight allows you to remove the elevation device and spring underneath. The replacement base sits where the spring was, and is held in place by two small screws which pass through the leaf pin holes and thread into the aluminum base. I had to machine off a bit of the replacement mount to get it to fit. That's not unusual, due to the differences in individual M44s. Once the holes line up, carefully set the screws.
These screws are small. Good thing we're mounting a really tiny piece of optics.
Now there are 3 set screws in the new base. The first one from the front end is pointed and sets on the front of the M44's site base, just a few mm's from the mount point.
Here's the problem: you have to set these screws perfectly, or else you torque the mount. This is not possible in my opinion. They have to be set so that they are all in contact WITHOUT actually putting any pressure on the mount/rifle. Since there is a central mount point, anything you do to these screws is going to bend the ends of the Picatinny rail upwards. See if you can get any kind of rings aligned on this thing. If thats not at all important, and it might not be, then forget about it. Throw a cheap handgun scope on there and go shooting.
Same goes for the K31 mounts. These are meant to solve the problem without the need for drilling & tapping the receiver or otherwise permanently modifying the rifle.

Heat treating 1075, sunobe blades

2009-09-24T09:45:00.000-07:00

I have two large 1075 blades in progress. One has a confused shape, no shinogi and a strange hamon that would not normally be seen on early 13 century blades. It has a short point, only slightly longer than it is tall. It's drawn and forged from 1075 1/4" x 1 1/2". 1/4" thick is not a good starting point for making thick, wide blades with lots of meat. Thin whips or 'willow branch' blades still need a good amount of meat at the machi for strength and balance. Some people will comment that a blade feels heavy even though overall it isn't. This is due to improper balance, caused either by not having enough weight near the machi or a lack of distal taper.
These things need to be thought about before forging and during the creation of the sunobe (blank). You may be able to get a thicker cross section by upsetting along the width, but some of the metal is going to move in the wrong direction eventually. If you take 1 1/4" down to 1", you are not really moving that 1/4" directly into the thickness. Some of it is going into the length.
So anyway, thinking about the proper balance and shape before forging is important.
With this blade I mostly wanted to experiment with mixing my own clay rather than using Satanite.
I believe this came out really really good. I will get into the details of the clay after this post if I have time.
I used about 1/8" of the experimental clay mixture to create the hamon. The 1075 appears to be very sensitive, but has a good balance of hardness and toughness.
There were some problems this time around. I heated to 1450 and let soak for 2 minutes, quenched in cold rain water. Rain water has produced less cracking at this temp for me.
I built a quench tank/rain water collector and lined it with plastic. I didn't use waterproof glue, so without the plastic its going to leak. So while quenching I got the tang hung up on a wire, which means 3/4ths of the blade went in at the right time, but then the rest had to go in after getting it unstuck from the wire about a second later. I don't know if this had much of an effect on the blade though. The hamon jumped out during the initial polish where I look for edge cracks and other defects. So even after making a complete mess of the quench, dropping the blade completely in the water and punching a hole in the tank, it came out pretty close to how I intended. If I fuck up that bad I don't expect it to survive.

(aside)
There are two uses of the word sunobe in terms of Japanese swords. One is the 'blank', or the consolidated and forged shape before the bevels and kissaki are forged in. The second use of the word refers to what we now call mono-steel blades. I think in this case 'sunobe' means that it is constructed from a uniform piece of steel, ie there is no distinction between the core steel and the jacket. It is all one grade so to speak.
Then there are the swords that we make from modern steels. These are not appreciated by anyone studying or collecting Japanese swords. And for good reason. Although we may perfect the shape and create lovely hamon and extremely durable, usable blades that look and feel perfect to us, we did not have any hand in making or refining the steel. This is a large part of the Japanese smith's skill which is to be appreciated.
Anyway, striving for perfection, smiths who wish to carry on this tradition in some way will eventually want to make their own steel! We can become proficient at making orishigane, or get together and try to re-create a proper tatara smelter once in a while.

The other is hopefully more traditional/rational and follows the form of some 14th century or later katana, specifically shinogi zukuri with o-kissaki and notare hamon.
I spent the time to forge this one out more carefully to avoid having to do too much with the file. Refining the shape with the hammer is much more satisfying.

Heat Treating

2009-03-24T22:41:00.000-07:00

I heat treated two blades tonight, a wakizashi and an integral bowie. Tanto is 14 inches, the bowie is now 3 pieces of very hard cementite. I held the bowie in the quench too long. This caused a spectacular crack near the handle. I think both were forged too thin for my liking.
Wakizashi:
14 inches is too big for a tanto. I should keep them down to a usable size. There is nothing too remarkable about the shape of this one. It is hira-zukuri. The spine is not thick enough at the machi for my liking, it is 0.23" I think. Its also flat, there are no ridges on the spine. This is unusual I think, but I'm not sure why. I would expect to see more hira-zukuri with flat spines from times when there were lots of wars. They are just extremely simple, and there is only one surface on each side to polish rather than 3 or more.
The clay pattern was simple with some lateral ashi. I wanted to maybe cross the ashi, but that takes much more time as one layer has to dry before the next is applied. So straight ashi, nothing complicated.
On the bowie I made a very risky and flashy pattern which was almost certain to cause problems with 1095 quenched in water.
Oh well. It would have been nice to see it at least stay in one piece.
It is a rainy, windy night, around 53 F. I let the forge get up to some heat before laying the blades on the floor and letting them come up to heat. This forge is not suitable for heat treating. I've been modifying it to reduce interior volume and increase heat for welding. I think it is the last time I will attempt to heat treat long blades with this one, but it is still good for forging.
There are hot spots around the burner, which makes it difficult or impossible to heat blades evenly. If they come up to heat unevenly, there are definitely going to be problems with warping or cracking. If these problems don't show up right away, I think the structure of the steel will all over the place.
I used tap water to at around 110F to quench.
The bowie went in the water first. I put it straight in edge first, held it until the color was gone, drew it out and went in again still spitting and vibrating. This of course is a bad idea, and so it cracked. All of the factors involved were against this one succeeding. The geometry of the blade was weird, the clay pattern, etc.
So the wakizashi I figured had a little better chance because of the simple clay pattern, and now the water was a few degrees warmer. I held it just until the color was gone, then removed it. If its going to harden, it will harden within the first second or so. I don't see any reason to put it back in the water once the color has gone to black. Actually the best idea would probably be to put it right into a tempering oven for an hour before anything is done to it. 1095 has to be treated carefully. It's not as forgiving as stuff in the .50 to .70 range.

Assorted bits

2009-03-23T13:48:00.000-07:00

Received Shipments:
~100 lbs of wrought iron anchor chain from an unknown warship circa 1800s.
The links of this chain are about 10lbs each. It is very durable and also exhibits a lovely grain. Wrought splits along the grain if forged improperly, so flattening out discs cut from the links is difficult. It is easily worked otherwise, and welds at low temperatures. It is best hot cut or cut with a large toothed saw with light pressure.

~100 lbs of assorted exotic hardwoods, including lots of Snakewood (Piratinera guianensis), Guapinol (Hymenaea courbaril),
Assorted species of Ebony, Desert Ironwood, Bubinga, Koa, various figured Maple boards.
Some of this is first and second quality book matched scales for knife handles, some as handle blanks and many random ends and cuttings.
Included was a cylinder of Ecuadorian Ivory Palm Nuts! (Phytelephas aequatorialis)
These are spectacularly hard, and will require the making of some new tools. Not to mention the breaking of some old ones.
The plan is to create some fittings from these. They are almost fist sized, but the actual fruit part is 1/4 to 3/8" thick.
I'm going to start with a jungle crow, of the kind found in the pacific islands.
I guess an ivory crow wouldn't make much sense, but black ivory..

Then, the Chambered Nautilus. This one should be interesting, maybe even less difficult to carve.

Recent items of interest (to me, not you)

2009-01-15T11:58:00.000-08:00

Some of Conor's work is published in http://www.nytyrant.com/home.html (ny tyrant). I hate NY and people from it, but that has nothing to do with this magazine.
So whaddo we got. I can swallow 1/4 of a chicken in 10 seconds. Humans shouldn't swallow chicken bones. Otherwise I could do it faster.
Some machines in the shop died. Maybe it was the cold, maybe it was just time for them to go, or maybe they're Chinese made cast shit. I'll take China for $100, Alex.
Here's one of the problems: fractional horsepower single phase capacitor start/run AC inverter motors. Capacitors die. Cheap ones last between 1 hour and 3 years. Cheap ones tell you they're dead by exploding in a cloud of green smoke. Exploding is also their way of telling you they're too hot. They have a limited safe operating temperature range. Expensive, military spec capacitors are expected to last 30 or so years under a wide range of conditions without exploding.
You won't find anything like that on a typical inductionm motor. AC induction motors also depend on the freqency of the AC, unlike DC motors, which just spin faster as the current increases. You can't increase/decrease the current on an AC motor and expect anything good to happen.
1/3 hp @ 3450 rpms is too weak and too fast for steel work. Most ~$100 machines use a cheap motor like this to save money. The motor isn't rated for continuous duty. It's also not rated to handle the load typical operations generate.
High torque, lower RPM motors are ideal. Speed control is really nice, but that gets into more expensive electronics. Belt drives with stepped pulleys can provide a few different speeds using one motor. This can be done with much less expensive motors. Motors made for 115v/15 amp operation should be at least 3/4 HP and under 1700 RPM. A 1.5 hp 1700 RPM induction motor is good for most shop machines whether it be a saw, grinder, polisher etc.

Sprayed

2008-07-21T13:27:00.000-07:00

The RRB is sprayed and decal'd. I found campy and super vitus decals in australia for $11. They are very good quality reprints. The frame is black and cream. Most of the components are around somewhere, but still waiting on a few Stronglight A9H 1" headsets and a big old chainring.
Also got another random French frame from Ron that was about 48cm. Painted that all Cream and detailed the lugs with a black stripe. It had a Shimano crank which wanted a polished finish. Nice beg aluminum crank arms should be bared, not dipped in grey paint. It also needs a big ass chainring. I don't reckon this paint will last more than a year. Not much to be done about that. Plain old spray enamel isn't as durable as the linear polyurethane that was originally on there. But it isn't as deadly toxic either.
Ok this post is pretty useless without pics.

RRB restore

2008-06-11T10:07:00.000-07:00

I've just started restoring one of Ron R. Boi's frames. It's not in great shape, as it has been sitting somewhere on his farm for about 10 years. Ron sandblasted rust from the top tube where someone had removed the braze on cable tunnels. There is some minor rust on other areas, which I've mostly removed. The seat lug had been chipped and had a bunch of rust, so I filed that out and thinned it a little.
The bottom bracket shell is massive. It looks like it could be a plumbing fixture! It's contributing probably 40% of the frame's weight.
At least some of the lugs are Bocama of France (BCM) Professionals (short point). BCM happen to be my initials...

The tubes:
Super Vitus 971 tubeset
XC35 steel

I wasn't sure what XC35 was, besides being a carbon steel of some kind, obviously.
From the french AFNOR standards, I'd call it a medium carbon manganese steel.
Good mix of stiffness and durability.
C Si Mn Smax Pmax
TU XC 35 0,30-0,40 0,10-0,45 0,40-0,90 0,04 0,04

read

2008-06-09T12:50:00.001-07:00

this

good read

DWR

2008-04-04T15:34:00.000-07:00

Design Within Reach is a company which I have purchased items from. These items are currently being destroyed by cats, but that is my fault for buying attractive matching wool sofa and chair. Now there are some shitty, overpriced furniture manufacturers out there. There are also some very reasonably priced furniture manufactures out there. But nobody wants that shit.
I've always called DWR 'Design Beyond Reach' because of their consistent and unabashed overpriceage.
Take todays example: $650 for a rather small injection molded polyurethane rainwater collection tank.
Its green and funky looking, and it holds 47 gallons. Which is close to the capacity of a typical green plastic rain barrel. Considering it is designed by an architect from Sydney (no, I've never heard of her either), DWR thinks $650 is reasonable. If you want a wall bracket to mount it vertically, you can buy the specially made mild steel, possibly galvanized, channel bracket and a bolt. These normally $3 hardware store items will cost you $90. In addition, if you don't want leaves and other floaties in the tank, you should purchase a leaf filter screen, which is simply a cup of wire mesh. For $50.
This strikes me as outrageous enough to spend time to post this message into the ether, where it will only serve to remind me later that I spent the time to write it.

Paul Van Dik

2008-02-28T20:13:00.000-08:00

Paul van Dyk wasn’t always a producer. “I had the chance to work in the studio right at the end of ’91,” he says. “I didn’t know much about the whole thing, but I had a very clear idea of how my music should sound. I realized that in order to make my music I really had to learn everything about electronic music production. It doesn’t satisfy me to sit in the back and say, ‘yeah, that sounds good.’ I really wanted to know how things work. I learned a lot from my co-producers and pretty much the second half of my second album (Seven Ways) was when I was really getting into producing my own things.”

Oh where to begin? "Pretty much the second half of my second album was when I started producing my own things"

WOW. So what were you doing before that? Sitting in the back and saying "Yeah that sounds good" and doing blow off a doughy hookers tits? So who actually produces the crap for mr Van Dik's approval? Well not him anyway. It all sucks anyhow, so I still don't see what the big deal is. Oh, I should learn everything about electronic music production!! Maybe slapping my name on records that other people produce isn't going to cut it. No, it isn't you rabbit fucker.

Holocaust of the Peeps

2008-02-11T12:53:00.001-08:00

One of the less enjoyable parts of being a chick sexer is knowing what happens to the male chicks once separated from their more fortunate sisters. Female peeps are whisked off to safe, warm, well-lit places to be looked after and nourished according to individual output maximization schedules. Male peeps, lacking any marketable skills, are promptly macerated, crushed, gassed, electrocuted, drowned, mechanically decapitated, liquefied, buried alive, or thrown into a wood chipper.

Spawn of Iron Maiden

2008-02-05T14:38:00.000-08:00

Steve Harris' has a daughter who, being smokin hot as she aught to be, does a bit of singing.
Thats her. (On the left) Her Da's on the right, galloping away on the bass as he's known for.
Dg digga Dg digga Dg...

Now wait, there's a better photo.

Right? Yeah. Either she failed to inherit any of her dad's songwriting genes, or she's just coming of age and hasn't figured out what to write about yet.
She'd do much better to run around on stage screaming and growling like Angela Gossow for a while, at least until she figures out what makes her dad so awesome.

population density

2007-08-29T11:42:00.000-07:00

Individual humans can't be relied on to participate in a population control program. Corporations (McDonalds, CocaCola corp, PhillipMorris, etc) provide a certain amount of population control by giving people what they want: instant pleasure followed by slow painful death, but this has not been completely effective due to efforts by well-meaning groups to increase awareness of the dangers of smoking and poor diet. Increased operational costs in addition to better informed consumers has impacted the profitability and effectiveness of corporations who provide products aimed at the self-destructive. Currently we are living in a society partially controlled by the profitability of such corporations, to the benefit of the corporations and their investors, at the cost of the consumers, with the side effects of human suffering and population reduction. It can be argued that these companies are not doing a very good job of population reduction, and it is probably in their interest not to. When called to court in some class action lawsuit, these corporations readily admit to neglecting their primary benefit to the world. After all, what good is a dead smoker? The dead don't buy cigarettes. Greed and consumer awareness prevents them from being effective at population control.

People are generally stupid or careless enough that they don't mind paying huge companies to kill them slowly and painfully. For example, I smoke either Camel or Marlborough cigarettes. Neither are very healthy. Both cost me about $7 per pack.
Humans are always screaming about how terrible these companies are for giving people what they want. They are afraid of becoming a race of weak, bloated, gouty, cancerous diabetics. Everywhere you look you see the sweaty-pale-sagging faces of the future: the ultra-consumer. But take their freedom to consume away, and they will scream and riot about that. We allow the corporations to provide people with what they want because that's what freedom is all about. Our great Capitalist Republics exist to provide a place where humans can be free to pursue happiness. Consumerism is meant for everyone; no race or class is exempt. However, the strongest population control measures are aimed at minorities. Exploitation is a major profitability driver; many corporations keep from crossing the line between profit and loss by some form of exploitation.
The above should be obvious. The idea that humans can rule their own destiny as a species goes against the natural order of the Universe. Simple minded optimists believe that eventually, something like democracy will provide a government that lasts forever. After all, the problem right now is that we just don't all have a say, right? Our votes don't really count! If only all our votes counted, We, as a whole, would make the right decisions.
Wrong. This is extremely naive. We may have some incredibly intelligent individuals, but combined we are less intelligent than some of the lowest lifeforms. As a whole, we function similarly to algae. As long as there is the right mix of radiation and nutrients, algae will continue to reproduce until it chokes itself and everything else near it to death.
Computers. Compared to our own brains, computers are primitive. However, they are evolving much faster than our own brains did. Since they are engineered by an intelligent creature, they can skip much of the extremely slow cycles of random mutation and natural selection.
So far we have not engineered anything that actually 'thinks' like higher functioning animals do.
Some people believe that computers could never think for themselves, never have a 'soul', never have desires or love or any kind of what we call 'feelings'. Almost nothing is completely improbable. Regardless, a computer can be considered to be much 'smarter' than the smartest human, even though they may need to be purpose built for specific tasks. No computer (yet) does everything better or faster than a human can.
Anyway, to get to the point: government can't be provided by human intelligence. No human is entirely impartial. No human can decide what is best for the human race. Currently the Earth and the Universe itself are the ultimate government. We exist at the mercy of the planet, which exists at the mercy of the universe. However improbable, some quantum phase shift could completely obliterate time and space as we know it in the next five minutes. Don't panic.
All probabilities aside, what is known is that we are responsible for destroying the surface of the planet on which we depend for our survival. Decisions regarding sustainability of the planet (including humans, birds, bees, fish, kangaroos, trees, flowers and all other things necessary for our survival) as influenced by the actions of humans should be calculated by computers. This includes pretty much everything we currently just kind of DO willy-nilly.
Reproduction:
If you've ever read Orwell or Huxley, the following will be very familiar:
Computers should be responsible for reproduction. Yes, I know, it sounds awful. Only a man would say something like that. I'm not saying All reproduction, just most of human reproduction. There would always be contingency groups of naturally reproducing humans as a fail-safe. All but a few humans would have their reproductive cells extracted at birth, incubated, analyzed and separated and stored. Reproduction would be performed as needed, based on unbiased criteria which computers create and adapt continuously.
This sounds like a nightmare to a lot of people. I realize that most people wouldn't want that kind of thing to happen. Freedom, etc.

Surface Mines in Alberta

2007-08-13T13:29:00.000-07:00

Surface Extraction operation

These are strips of forest that have been mined for oil sands near the Syncrude processing facility in Northern Alberta.

Taskforce

2007-08-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

Taskforce created to fart around for a few years

BP's response to outrage over its dumping permits was to create a Taskforce to explore new technologies for waste water treatment at its refineries. Throw some money at the University and people will STFU, right? Goes to show that politics won't alter big oil's business decisions at all.
They'll keep pumping at this rate until 2012, at which point they may re-evaluate their pollution controls. So in five years they might figure out how to get the waste water down up to 99.95% pure right? But they'll keep dumping it.

BP - Bad Petroleum

2007-08-07T11:54:00.000-07:00

BP has been granted a permit to increase dumping in Lake Michigan at its Whiting oil refinery just south of Chicago.

The new dumping allowance:
Ammonia: 1584 lbs per day (54% increase)
Total Suspended Solids: 4925 lbs per day (35% increase)

The Whiting refinery has been getting upgrades to its equipment to allow refining of sour crude oil into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, asphalt etc. The plant expects the upgraded equipment to be operating at full capacity sometime in 2008. BP is making the upgrades because sour crude oil extracted from tar sands is becoming more abundant, while availability of light sweet crude is falling off.

Bituminous Sands

Bituminous sands (oil sand) are a mixture of water, clay, sand and heavy crude oil. The mix can be around 90% water and mud from which a relatively small amount of low quality heavy crude can be extracted. Conventional oil wells can basically be drilled and tapped. The pressure in the oil fields itself provides the energy to push the oil to the surface for most of the lifetime of the well. Oil sands require much more energy and materials to process. The sands are either extracted by strip mining or processed in place with huge amounts of water and caustic chemicals to separate the hydrocarbons from inorganic wastes. Steam pipes can also be sunk into the oil sand ranges to liquefy the sands for easier pumping and separation, which requires massive steam generators and fresh water. Strip mined sands are loaded by the largest shovels ever made into the largest trucks ever made and moved to separator tanks and mixed with water and sodium hydroxide (lye). Crude oil is skimmed off the top of the separator tanks and the remaining sediments are allowed to settle. This consumes large amounts of energy and water, and produces tons of waste chemicals and sludge. I imagine some of the water and lye is reclaimed and reused in the separator tanks to save costs, but its probably easier and maybe cheaper to dump the wastes and sediments in mixing pools, where they are mixed and diluted with more fresh water and drained back into the water table via wetlands. Only about 80% of the water is currently reused.
Only about 20% of Canada's oil sands can be extracted by strip mining. The rest are too far below the surface and require alternate methods. Cold flow pumping uses progressive cavity pumps (a huge motorized screw in a elliptical cavity) to simply pump the oil up and through sand filters. This only works where the oil is viscous enough to flow through pumps and surrounding sediments. This allows ~5-8% of the oil in deep deposits to be recovered. Removing the sand filters allows the pumps to create 'wormholes' in the sand deposits, which allows slightly better extraction, but disposing of the sand is a problem. The Canadian government allowed oil companies to spread the oily sand on dirt roads for a while, but the road surfaces started getting so thick that this solution stopped being viable. You only have so many rural roads to pave. Various other methods combine pumping with steam injection, with higher recovery rates of around 20%, but eventually producing the amount of steam needed costs more than the oil being recovered. There is actually an ongoing project to use nuclear energy to produce steam for oil recovery in Canada. Ahh.. Er..

Surface Oil Extraction

Canada's oil sands are situated under boreal forests and peat bogs. The companies licensing this land for strip mining are required to implement recovery plans for these forests. Somehow the oil companies got away with the plan to let the boreal forests recover themselves. Their idea was that the forests would repopulate the recovered areas naturally. None of the 33,000 hectares that has been leveled has been certified as reclaimed.

Satellite image of the Syncrude oil sands processing facility in Northern Alberta. Zoom out to see the surrounding surface mining areas:

Syncrude facility, Alberta, Canada

Sour crude contains more carbon dioxide and sulphur/hydrogen compounds (mercaptans). This makes it more difficult to refine into what BP claims is 'cleaner fuel'. Some mercaptans (or thiols, compounds in the sulfhydryl group) are added to natural gas to make it smell bad for detectability. Most of the compounds in this group are waste products of refining crude.

Whiting Refinery

Anyone in any of the south shore refinery cities knows the odor of refinery waste. Driving through the area is pretty bad, but imagine living across the street. Mercaptans smell powerfully like rotten eggs. The vapors will give you headaches, make you dizzy and sometimes cause vomiting. Long term exposure causes liver and kidney damage. Another property of mercaptans is that they like to bind tightly to the element mercury. The term mercaptan comes from the Latin mercurius captans, which means 'laying hold of mercury'. Water removed from crude oil contains hydrogen sulphides and ammonia impurities which need to be steam stripped and cooled before dumping back into the water table. Steam stripping sour water doesn't remove all of the ammonia, hydrogen sulphides or sulfhydryl-mercury compounds. The steam stripped water is mixed with fresh water from Lake Michigan in mixing pools, where it is allowed to cool before being released back into the lake.

In an internal email, BP's chief says that the waste water mixed back into Lake Michigan is 99.9% pure. So, one part per thousand is contaminated. When it comes to water quality, that is a huge amount of contamination. So ~5000 lbs of suspended solids (various mercaptans, etc) and ~1600 lbs of ammonia is 1/1000th of a bit more than half a million pounds, or 80,000 gallons of water per day.

80,000 gallons of warm, ammonia, nitrogen and sulfhydryl rich water per day, 30 million gallons per year. Along with it goes 2lbs of mercury and other heavy metals that can't be filtered out with current technology. Increased nitrogen leads to algae blooms and dead zones, which kills off fish and then birds and other wildlife that depend on clean, clear water. The USGS lists lakes Michigan, Erie, Huron and Ontario in mixed or deteriorating conditions.

BP's Whiting Facility. Located at the top on the shore is the cooling, mixing and waste water pumping station:

BP Petroleum, Whiting IN

whatthefuck

2007-07-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

this is not worth watching unless you believe that you may live forever and don't care if a minute or two are completely lost forever.

2007-07-25T22:39:00.000-07:00

Some chet atkins for yas

w/jerry reed

accountability? wtf that means?

2007-07-25T13:30:00.000-07:00

Ac- count- a- bil- i- ty

n.
The state of being accountable; liability to be called on to render an account; the obligation to bear the consequences for failure to perform as expected; accountableness.
[-Webster 1913 ]

Webster provides one of the oldest modern definitions of the word, although the concept is probably as old as society. (In which we hunted, gathered, and held each other accountable). Things were simpler back in 1913. Nowadays words like 'accountability' take on divergent meanings and convey different ideas to different people.

"Accountability is a concept in ethics with several meanings. It is often used synonymously with such concepts as answerability, enforcement, responsibility, blameworthiness, liability...." (wikipedia)

Words with diverse or various meanings are not such fantastic things to throw around when you are attempting to clearly define and communicate a company vision.

Compared to transparency:

"Accountability differs from transparency in that it only enables negative feedback after a decision or action, while transparency also enables negative feedback before or during a decision or action" (wikipedia)

When everyone is working in integrity, everyone benefits even when mistakes are made. Everyone needs to take responsibility and be actively in integrity in all things all the time, not just at work but in society.
I don't think we should harbor the idea that mistakes are bad and wrong and should be punished in some way. An honest mistake is one that is made in integrity.
A dishonest mistake is an intentional wrongdoing disguised as an honest mistake. Dishonesty is the kind of thing we should be discouraging. Politics, power games, and similar wastes of time all come out of this negative, reactive mentality.

'In another view, accountability is a simple word that, at its root, means: "the willingness to stand up and be counted -- as part of a process, activity or game." In this sense, then, accountability is less something I'm held to, or something done to me; rather, it is a word reflecting personal choice and willingness to contribute to an expressed or implied outcome.' (wikipedia)

That's a very positive interpretation, far from words like liability, blameworthiness, enforcement, etc, which for me bring to mind things like punishment, prison, torture, execution. (Execution is another word that needs some clarification in the corporate context.)

I've been confused lately about the meaning of this word, and now I see why.
Like most words that become a part of corporate dialect, it can be interpreted in a handful of ways. A word with many meanings has no meaning.

Vertical Airships

2007-07-25T08:32:00.000-07:00

http://www.airship.org/

Hmmm! Vertical airships! I like where they are going with that. The big problem with airships is wind. The other one is obstacles. Occasionally bumping into big buildings would not be a too much of a problem. An airframe should be able to withstand a collision at a reasonable speed without failing. A flexible frame that can deform significantly combined with an overpressure relief and recovery system would allow the gas envelope to survive hard landings and mid-air collisions. Semi rigid ships have no gas pressure in the envelope. There is no danger of an envelope popping like a balloon, and most of the time envelope punctures can be repaired in flight.
Airships are like big boats. They need to be able to follow headings that are close to the wind without slipping leeward. Variable envelope geometry provides the ability to change drag and lift properties in flight, and could also act much like a sail while using engine thrust as a kind of air keel. This may be more efficient than just powering directly into the wind, especially at lower altitudes where air density is greater.
I could just ramble on about how this stuff might work all day, but really it needs some testing. Lots of testing. But anyway, vertical ships shaped like sails looks like a good idea if the lift dynamics are correct. I think large horizontal envelopes provide more lifting power though. Like a barge.